Praed, it has always seemed to us, was the cleverest writer in his way that has ever contributed to the English periodicals. His fugitive lyrics and arabesque romances, half sardonic and half sentimental, published with Hookham Frere's "Whistlecraft" and Macaulay's Roundhead Ballads, in _Knight's Quarterly Magazine_, and after the suspension of that work, for the most part in the annual souvenirs, are altogether unequaled in the class of compositions described as _vers de societie_.--Who that has read "School and School Fellows", "Palinodia", "The Vicar", "Josephine", and a score of other pieces in the same vein, does not desire to possess all the author has left us, in a suitable edition? It has been frequently stated in the English journals that such a collection was to be published, under the direction of Praed's widow, but we have yet only the volume prepared by a lover of the poet some years ago for the Langleys, in this city. In the "Memoirs of Eminent Etonians," just printed by Mr. Edward Creasy, we have several waifs of Praed's that we believe will be new to all our readers. Here is a characteristic political rhyme: VERSES ON SEEING THE SPEAKER ASLEEP IN HIS CHAIR IN ONE OF THE DEBATES OF THE FIRST REFORMED PARLIAMENT. Sleep, Mr. Speaker, 'tis surely fair If you mayn't in your bed, that you should in your chair. Louder and longer now they grow, Tory and Radical, Aye and Noe; Talking by night and talking by day. Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may! Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies Light and brief on a Speaker's eyes, Fielden or Finn in a minute or two Some disorderly thing will do; Riot will chase repose away Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may! Sleep, Mr. Speaker. Sweet to men Is the sleep that cometh but now and then, Sweet to the weary, sweet to the ill, Sweet to the children that work in the mill. You have more need of repose than they-- Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may! Sleep, Mr. Speaker, Harvey will soon Move to abolish the sun and the moon; Hume will no doubt be taking the sense Of the House on a question of sixteen pence. Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray-- Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may! Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time, When loyalty was not quite a crime, When Grant was a pupil in Canning's school, And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool. Lord, how principles pass away-- Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may. The following is a spirited version of a dramatic scene in the second book of the Annals of Tacitus: ARMINIUS. Back, Back;--he fears not foaming flood Who fears not steel-clad line:-- No warrior thou of German blood, No brother thou of mine. Go earn Rome's chain to load thy neck, Her gems to deck thy hilt; And blazon honor's hapless wreck With all the gauds of guilt.