Time forcibly reminds me that all things which have a limit must be brought to a conclusion. Let me, ere that conclusion arrives, recall to your recollection, that the pillars which rise on either side of me, blooming in virid antiquity, like two massy evergreens, had yet slumbered in their native quarry but for the ardent exertions of the individual who called them into life: to his never-slumbering talents you are indebted for whatever pleasure this haunt of the Muses is calculated to afford. If, in defiance of chaotic malevolence, the destroyer of the temple of Diana yet survives in the name of Erostratus, surely we may confidently predict that the rebuilder of the temple of Apollo will stand recorded to distant posterity in that of—SAMUEL WHITBREAD. XI. THE BEAUTIFUL INCENDIARY. {56a} BY THE HON. W. S. [THE HONOURABLE WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.] [Mr. Spencer died at Paris in October, 1834, aged 65.] * * * * * Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas.—VIRGIL. * * * * * _Scene draws_, _and discovers a Lady asleep on a couch_. _Enter_ PHILANDER. PHILANDER. I. SOBRIETY, cease to be sober, {56b} Cease, Labour, to dig and to delve; All hail to this tenth of October, One thousand eight hundred and twelve! {57} Ha! whom do my peepers remark? ’Tis Hebe with Jupiter’s jug; O no, ’tis the pride of the Park, Fair Lady Elizabeth Mugg. II. Why, beautiful nymph, do you close The curtain that fringes your eye? Why veil in the clouds of repose The sun that should brighten our sky? Perhaps jealous Venus has oiled Your hair with some opiate drug, Not choosing her charms should be foiled By Lady Elizabeth Mugg. III. But ah! why awaken the blaze Those bright burning-glasses contain, Whose lens with concentrated rays Proved fatal to old Drury Lane? ’Twas all accidental, they cry,— Away with the flimsy humbug! ’Twas fired by a flash from the eye Of Lady Elizabeth Mugg. IV. Thy glance can in us raise a flame, Then why should old Drury be free? Our doom and its doom are the same, Both subject to beauty’s decree. No candles the workmen consumed When deep in the ruins they dug; Thy flash still their progress illumed, Sweet Lady Elizabeth Mugg. V.