_Abbess._ Oh! I think I comprehend you: But take care what you're about; Though 'tis easy to get _in_ here, 'Tan't so easy to get _out_: You'll for beads resign your jewels, And your robes for garments plain; Ere you cut the world, remember 'Tis not cut and come again! _Duchess._ I am willing in a cloister That my days and nights should pass; --(This is very nice indeed, ma'am; If you please, another glass)-- As for courtiers, I'll hereafter Lay the odious topic by; Oh! their crooked ways enough are For to turn a nun awry! _Abbess._ Very proper: to the sisters 'Twould be wrong to chatter thus; Now and then, when snug and cosey, 'Twill do very well for _us_. It is strange how tittle-tattle All about the convent spreads, When the barber from the village Comes to shave the sisters' heads. _Duchess._ Do you really mean to tell me I must lose my raven locks? Then I'll tie 'em up with ribbon, And I'll keep 'em in my box: Oh! how Louis used to praise 'em! Hem!--I think I'll go to bed.-- Not another drop, I thank you,-- It would get into my head. _Abbess._ Benedicite! my daughter, You'll be soon used to the place; Though at meals our only duchess, _You_ will have to say your grace: And when none can interrupt us, You of courtly scenes shall tell, When I bring a drop of comfort From my cellar to my cell! EDWARD SAVILLE. A TRANSCRIPT. BY CHARLES WHITEHEAD. The doctor tells me I must take no wine. Pshaw! It is not that which mounts into my brain; and sometimes--but I must not wander--wine is the best corrector of these fancies. One bottle more of sober claret, and I shall be able to finish before midnight the brief sketch of my life which I promised Travers long ago. It were worse than useless to set down any particulars of my boyhood. An only son is usually a spoiled one, and that which is so easy and delightful a task to most parents was by no means difficult or unpleasant to mine; and yet, to do myself justice, I believe I was not more conceited, insolent, selfish, and rapacious than others are during those days of innocence, as they are called,--those days of innocence which form the germ of that noble and disinterested creature, man. At the age of three-and-twenty I succeeded to my father's estate. It was to divert a sense of loneliness which beset me, that I plunged into--as they term it, but the phrase is a wrong one--that I ventured upon the course of folly and dissipation into which so many young men of fortune like myself hurry themselves, or are led, or are driven. But why recount these scenes of pleasure--so called, or miscalled--whose reaction is utter weariness, satiety, and disgust?