What lowly meant she didn't know,
For she always avoided "everything low,"
With care the most punctilious;
And, queerer still, the audible sound
Of "super-silly" she never had found
In the adjective supercilious!

The meaning of meek she never knew,
But imagined the phrase had something to do
With "Moses," a peddling German Jew,
Who, like all hawkers, the country through,
Was "a person of no position;"
And it seem'd to her exceedingly plain,
If the word was really known to pertain
To a vulgar German, it wasn't germane
To a lady of high condition!

Even her graces-not her grace-
For that was in the "vocative case”—
Chill'd with the touch of her icy face,

Sat very stiffly upon her!
She never confess'd a favour aloud,
Like one of the simple, common crowd-
But coldly smiled, and faintly bow'd,
As who should say, "You do me proud,
And do yourself an honour!"
And yet the pride of Miss MACBRIDE,
Although it had fifty hobbies to ride,

Had really no foundation;

But like the fabrics that gossips devise-
Those single stories that often arise
And grow till they reach a four-story size-

Was merely a fancy creation!

"Tis a curious fact as ever was known In human nature, but often shown

Alike in castle and cottage,

That pride, like pigs of a certain breed,
Will manage to live and thrive on " feed"

As poor as a pauper's pottage!

That her wit should never have made her vain, Was-like her face-sufficiently plain;

And, as to her musical powers,
Although she sang until she was hoarse,
And issued notes with a banker's force,
They were just such notes as we never endorse
For any acquaintance of ours!

Her birth, indeed, was uncommonly high-
For Miss MAC BRIDE first opened her eye
Through a skylight dim, on the light of the sky;
But pride is a curious passion--

And in talking about her wealth and worth,
She always forgot to mention her birth
To people of rank and fashion!

Of all the notable things on earth,
The queerest one is pride of birth,

Among our " fierce democracie!"
A bridge across a hundred years,
Without a prop to save it from sneers-
Not even a couple of rotten peers—
A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers,
Is American aristocracy!
English and Irish, French and Spanish,
German, Italian, Dutch and Danish,
Crossing their veins until they vanish

In one conglomeration;
So subtle a tangle of blood, indeed,
No heraldry-HARVEY will ever succeed
In finding the circulation!
Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,
Your family thread you can't ascend,
Without good reason to apprehend

You may find it wax'd at the farther end,
By some plebeian vocation;

Or, worse than that, your boasted line
May end in a loup of stronger twine,

That plagued some worthy relation!
But Miss MACBRIDE had something beside
Her lofty birth to nourish her pride-
For rich was the old paternal MACBRIDE,
According to public rumour;

And he lived up town," in a splendid square,
And kept his daughter on dainty fare,
And gave her gems that were rich and rare,
And the finest rings and things to wear,
And feathers enough to plume her.

An honest mechanic was JoHN MACBRIDE,
As ever an honest calling plied,

Or graced an honest ditty;

For JOHN had work'd in his early day,
In "pots and pearls," the legends say—
And kept a shop with a rich array
Of things in the soap and candle way,
In the lower part of the city!
No "rara avis" was honest JOHN-
(That's the Latin for "sable-swan")—

Though in one of his fancy flashes,
A wicked wag, who meant to deride,
Cali'd honest JonN "Old Phoenix MACBRIDE,"
66 Because he rose from his ashes!"
Little by little he grew to be rich,
By saving of candle-ends and "sich,"
Till be reach'd at last an opulent niche—
No very uncommon affair;

For history quite confirms the law
Express'd in the ancient Scottish saw-

A MICKLE may come to be may'r
Alack for many ambitious beaux!
She hung their hopes upon her nose-
(The figure is quite Horatian!)
Until, from habit, the member grew
As very a hook as ever eye knew,
To the commonest observation.

A thriving tailor begg'd her hand,
But she gave "the fellow" to understand
By a violent manual action,
She perfectly scorn'd the best of his clan,
And reckon'd the ninth of any man

An exceedingly vulgar fraction!
Another, whose sign was a golden boot,
Was mortified with a bootless suit,

In a way that was quite appalling; For, though a regular sutor by trade, He wasn't a suitor to suit the maid,

Are they whose sires, by pounding their knees, Or coiling their legs, or trades like theseContrived to win their children ease

From poverty's galling manacles.)

A rich tobacconist comes and sues,
And, thinking the lady would scarce refuse
A man of his wealth and liberal views,
Began, at once, with "If you choose-

And could you really love him-”
But the lady spoil'd his speech in a huff,
With an answer rough and ready enough,
To let him know she was up to snuff,
And altogether above him!

A young attorney, of winning grace,
Was scarce allow'd to "open his face,"
Ere Miss MACBRIDE had closed his case

With true judicial celerity;

For the lawyer was poor, and "seedy" to boot, And to say the lady discarded his suit,

Is merely a double verity!

The last of those who came to court,
Was a lively beau, of the dapper sort,
Without any visible means of support,"
A crime by no means flagrant

66

In one who wears an elegant coat,
But the very point on which they vote
A ragged fellow "a vagrant!"

A courtly fellow was dapper JIM,
Sleek and supple, and tall and trim,
And smooth of tongue as neat of limb;

And maugre his meagre pocket.
You'd say from the glittering tales he told,
That JIM had slept in a cradle of gold,
With FORTUNATUS to rock it!

Now dapper JIM his courtship plied
(I wish the fact could be denied)

With an eye to the purse of the old MACBRIDE,

And really "nothing shorter!"

For he said to himself, in his greedy lust,
"Whenever he dies-as die he must-
And yields to Heaven his vital trust,
He's very sure to come down with his dust,'
In behalf of his only daughter."

And the very magnificent Miss MACBRIDE,
Half in love, and half in pride,

Quite graciously relented;

And, tossing her head, and turning her back,
No token of proper pride to lack-
To be a Bride, without the "Mac,"

With much disdain, consented!

Alas! that people who've got their box
Of cash beneath the best of locks,
Secure from all financial shocks,
Should stock their fancy with fancy stocks,
And madly rush upon Wall-street rocks,
Without the least apology!

Alas! that people whose money-affairs
Are sound, beyond all need of repairs,
Should ever tempt the bulls and bears
Of Mammon's fierce zoology!

O'd JOHN MACBRIDE, one fatal day,
Became the unresisting prey

Of Fortune's undertakers;
And staking all on a single die,
His founder'd bark went high and dry

Among the brokers and breakers!
At his trade again, in the very shop
Where, years before, he let it drop,

He follows his ancient calling-
Cheerily, too, in poverty's spite,
And sleeping quite as sound at night,
As when, at fortune's giddy height,
He used to wake with a dizzy fright

From a dismal dream of falling.

But alas for the haughty Miss MACBRIDE, 'T was such a shock to her precious pride! She couldn't recover, although she tried Her jaded spirits to rally;

'Twas a dreadful change in human affairs,
From a Place" up town," to a nook "up stairs,"
From an avenue down to an alley!-

"Twas little condolence she had, Gon wot—
From her "troops of friends," who had n't forgot
The airs she used to borrow;
They had civil phrases enough, but yet
T was plain to see that their "deepest regret"!
Was a different thing from sorrow!
They own'd it couldn't have well been worse
To go from a full to an empty purse:
To expect a "reversion," and get a reverse,

Was truly a dismal feature;

But it wasn't strange-they whisper'd-at all!
That the summer of pride should have its fall
Was quite according to Nature!

And one of those chaps who make a pun,
As if it were quite legitimate fun
To be blazing away at every one
With a regular, double-loaded gun-

Remark'd that moral transgression
Always brings retributive stings
To candle-makers as well as kings:
For "making light of cereous things"
Was a very wick-ed profession!
And vulgar people-the saucy churls-
Inquired about "the price of pearls,"

And now the unhappy Miss MACBRIDE-The merest ghost of her early pride

Bewails her lonely position; Cramp'd in the very narrowest niche, Above the poor, and below the richWas ever a worse condition?

MORAL.

Because you flourish in worldly affairs,
Don't be haughty, and put on airs,

With insolent pride of station!
Don't be proud, and turn up your nose
At poorer people in plainer clo'es,

But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose,
That wealth's a bubble that comes-and goes!
And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows,
Is subject to irritation!

EXTRACTS FROM "PROGRESS."

FASHION.

WHAT impious mockery, when with soulless art
Fashion, intrusive, seeks to rule the heart;
Directs how grief may tastefully be borne;
Instructs Bereavement just how long to mourn;
Shows Sorrow how by nice degrees to fade,
And marks its measure in a riband's shade!
More impious still, when through her wanton laws
She desecrates Religion's sacred cause;
Shows how "the narrow road" is easiest trod,
And how genteelest, worms may worship GoD;
How sacred rites may bear a worldly grace,
And self-abasement wear a haughty face;
How sinners, long in Folly's mazes whirl'd,
With pomp and splendour may "renounce the
world;"

How "with all saints hereafter to appear,"
Yet quite escape the vulgar portion here!

"THE PRESS."

O MIGHT the muse prolong her flowing rhyme,
(Too closely cramp'd by unrelenting Time,
Whose dreadful scythe swings heedlessly along,
And, missing speeches, clips the thread of song),
How would she strive in fitting verse to sing
The wondrous progress of the printing king!
Bibles and novels, treatises and songs,
Lectures on "rights," and strictures upon wrongs;
Verse in all metres, travels in all climes,

Rhymes without reason, sonnets without rhymes;
"Translations from the French," so vilely done,
The wheat escaping, leaves the chaff alone;
Memoirs, where dunces sturdily essay
To cheat Oblivion of her certain prey;
Critiques, where pedants vauntingly expose
Unlicensed verses in unlawful prose;
Lampoons, whose authors strive in vain to throw
Their headless arrows from a nerveless bow;
Poems by youths, who, crossing Nature's will,
Harangue the landscape they were born to till;
Huge tomes of law, that lead by rugged routes
Through ancient dogmas down to modern doubts,
Where judges oft, with well-affected ease,
Give learned reasons for absurd decrees,

Or, more ingenious still, contrive to found
Some just decision on fallacious ground-
Or blink the point, and haply, in its place,
Moot and decide some hypothetic case;
Smart epigrams, all sadly out of joint,
And pointless, save the "exclamation point,"
Which stands in state, with vacant wonder fraught,
The pompous tombstone of some pauper thought;
Ingenious systems based on doubtful facts,
"Tracts for the times," and most untimely tracts;
Polemic pamphlets, literary toys,

And "easy lessons" for uneasy boys;
Hebdomadal gazettes and daily news,
Gay magazines and quarterly reviews:
Small portion these of all the vast array
Of darken'd leaves that cloud each passing day,
And pour their tide unceasingly along,
A gathering, swelling, overwhelming throng!

"ASSOCIATION."

HAIL, Social progress! each new moon is rife With some new theory of social life, Some matchless scheme ingeniously design'd From half their miseries to free mankind; On human wrongs triumphant war to wage, And bring anew the glorious golden age.

Association" is the magic word

From many a social "priest and prophet" heard;
"Attractive labour" is the angel given,
To render earth a sublunary heaven!
"Attractive labour" ring the changes round,
And labour grows attractive in the sound;
And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk
Unwelcome fancies at the name of "work,"
Sees pleasant pastime in its longing view
Of "toil made easy" and "attractive" too-
And, fancy-rapt, with joyful ardour, turns
Delightful grindstones and seductive churns!.
Inventive France! what wonder-working schemes
Astound the world whene'er a Frenchman dreams!
What fine-spun theories-ingenious, new,
Sublime, stupendous, everything but true!
One little favour, O “imperial France:"
Still teach the world to cook, to dress, to dance;
Let, if thou wilt, thy boots and barbers roam,
But keep thy morals and thy creeds at home!

BEREAVEMENT.

NAY, weep not, dearest, though the child be dead, He lives again in heaven's unclouded life, With other angels that have early fled

From these dark scenes of sorrow, sin, and strife; Nay, weep not, dearest, though thy yearning love Would fondly keep for earth its fairest flowers, And e'en deny to brighter realms above

The few that deck this dreary world of ours: Though much it seems a wonder and a wo

That one so loved should be so early lostAnd hallow'd tears may unforbidden flow, To mourn the blossom that we cherish'd mostYet all is well: GoD's good design I see, That where our treasure is, our hearts may be!

of his profession, the study of his favorite authors, and the occasional enjoyment of the sports of the rod and the gun, until his death, which occurred, after a short illness, on the 20th of January, 1850.

Mr. COOKE is known as a poet, chiefly by a volume entitled "Froissart Ballads," published in 1847, but the larger portion of his works may be found in the Southern Literary Messenger, for which he was a frequent writer. His pieces have remarkable grace and refinement.

EMILY:

PROEM TO THE "FROISSART BALLADS."

YOUNG Emily has temples fair, Caress'd by locks of dark brown hair.

A thousand sweet humanities Speak wisely from her hazel eyes.

Her speech is ignorant of command, And yet can lead you like a hand.

Her white teeth sparkle, when the eclipse Is laughter-moved, of her red lips.

She moves, all grace, with gliding limbs
As a white-breasted cygnet swims.
In her sweet childhood, Emily
Was wild with natural gayety,
A little creature, full of laughter,
Who cast no thought before or after,
And knew not custom or its chains.
The dappled fawns upon the plains,
The birds that love the upper sky,
Lived not in lovelier liberty.

But with this natural merriment,
Mind, and the ripening years have blent
A thoughtfulness-not melancholy-
Which wins her life away from folly;
Checking somewhat the natural gladness,
But saved, by that it checks, from sadness-
Like clouds athwart a May-morn sailing,
Which take the golden light they are veiling.
She loves her kind, and shuns no duty,

Her virtues sanctify her beauty,
And all who know her say that she
Was born for man's felicity-

I know that she was born for mine.

Dearer than any joy of wine,

Or pomp, or gold, or man's loud praise,
Or purple power, art thou to me—
Kind cheerer of my clouded ways—
Young vine upon a rugged tree.

Maidens who love are full of hope,
And crowds hedge in its golden scope;
Wherefore they love green solitudes
And silence for their better moods.
I know some wilds, where tulip trees,
Full of the singing toil of bees,
Depend their loving branches over
Great rocks, which honeysuckles cover
In rich and liberal overflow.

In the dear time of long ago
When I had woo'd young Emily,
And she had told her love to me,
I often found her in these bowers,
Quite rapt away in meditation,
Or giving earnest contemplation
To leaf, or bird, or wild wood flowers;
And once I heard the maiden singing,
Until the very woods were ringing-
Singing an old song to the Hours!

I well remember that rare song,

It charged the Hours with cruel wrong-
Wrong to the verdure of the boughs-
Wrong to the lustre of fair brows,
Its music had a wondrous sound,
And made the greenwood haunted ground.
But I delay: one jocund morn-
A morn of that blithe time of spring,
When milky blossoms load the thorn,
And birds so prate, and soar, and sing,
That melody is everywhere,

On the glad earth, and in the air,-
On such a morn I went to seek

In our wild haunts for Emily.

I found her where a flowering tree

Gave odours and cool shade. Her cheek
A little rested on her hand;

Her rustic skill had made a band
Of rare device which garlanded
The beauty of her bending head;

Some maiden thoughts most kind and wise
Were dimly burning in her eyes.
When I beheld her-form and face
So lithe, so fair-the spirit race,
Of whom the better poets dream'd,
Came to my thought, and I half deem'd
My earth-born mistress, pure and good,
Was some such lady of the wood,
As she who work'd at spell, and snare,
With Huon of the dusky hair,
And fled, in likeness of a doe,
Before the fleet youth Angelo.
But these infirm imaginings
Flew quite away on instant wings.
I call'd her name. A swift surprise
Came whitely to her face, but soon
It fled before some daintier dyes,
And, laughing like a brook in June,
With sweet accost she welcomed me,
And I sat there with Emily.
The gods were very good to bless
My life with so much happiness.
The maiden on that lowly seat-
I sitting at her little feet!
Two happier lovers never met,
In dear and talk-charm'd privacy.
It was a golden day to me,
And its great bliss is with me yet,
Warming like wine my inmost heart-
For memories of happy hours

Are like the cordials press'd from flowers,
And madden sweetly. I impart
Naught of the love-talk I remember,
For May's young pleasures are best hid
From the cold prudence of December,
Which clips and chills all vernal wings;
And Love's own sanctities forbid,
Now as of old, such gossipings
In Hall, of what befalls in Bower,
But other matters of the hour,
Of which it breaks no faith to tell,
My homely rhyme shall chronicle.

As silently we sat alone-
Our love-talk spent-two mated birds
Began to prate in loving tone;
Quoth Emily, "They sure have words!
Didst hear, them sayMy sweet,'My dear' ?"
And as they chirp'd we laugh'd to he

Soon after this a southern wind
Came sobbing like a hunted hind
Into the quiet of the glen:
The maiden mused awhile, and then
Worded her thought right playfully.
"The winds," she said, "of land and sea,
My friend, are surely living things
That come and go on unseen wings.
The teeming air and prodigal,
Which droops its azure over all,
Is full of immortalities

That look on us with unseen eyes.
This sudden wind that hath come here,
With its hard sobs of pain or fear,
It may be, is a spirit kind,
That loves the bruised flowers to bind,
Whose task it is to shake the dew

From the sad violet's eye of blue,
Or chase the honey-making thieves
From off the rose, and shut its leaves
Against the cold of April eves.
Perhaps its dainty, pink-tipt hands
Have plied such tasks in far off lands
And now, perchance, some grim foe follows
The little wight to these green hollows."
Such gentle words had Emily

For the south wind in the tulip tree.
A runnel, hidden by the trees,
Gave out some natural melodies.
She said, "The brook, among the stones,
Is solemn in its undertones;

How like a hymn! the singing creature
Is worshipping the God of nature."
But I replied, "My dear-not so;
Thy solemn eyes, thy brow of snow,
And, more than these, thy maiden merit
Have won Undine, that gentle spirit,
To sing her songs of love to thee."
Swift answer'd merry. Emily-
"Undine is but a girl, you know,
And would not pine for love of me;
She has been peering from the brook,
And glimpsed at you." She said and shook
With a rare fit of silvery laughter.

I was more circumspect thereafter,
And dealt in homelier talk. A man
May call a white-brow'd girl " Dian,"
But likes not to be turn'd upon,
And nick-named "Young Endymion."

My Emily loved very well,
At times, those ancient lays which tell
Rude natural tales; she had no lore
Of trouvere, or of troubadour,
Nor knew what difference there might be
Between the tongues of oe and oui;
But hearing old tales, loved them all
If truth but made them natural.
In our good talks, we oft went o'er
The little horde of my quaint lore,
Cull'd out of old melodious fable.
She little cared for Arthur's table,
For tales of doughty Launcelot,
Or Tristram, or of him who smote
The giant, Angoulafre hight,
And moan'd for love by day and night.
She little cared for such as these,
But if I cross'd the Pyrenees,
With the great peers of Charlemagne,
Descending toward the Spanish plain,
Her eye would lighten at the strain;
And it would moisten with a tear
The sad end of that tale to hear-
How all aweary, worn and white,
And urging his failing steed amain,
A courier from the south, one night,
Reach'd the great city of the Seine;
And how at that same time and hour,
The bride of Roland lay in Bower
Wakeful, and quick of ear to win
Some rumour of her Paladin—
And how it came in sudden cries,
That shook the earth and rent the skies;