The snowdrop, rising to its infant height, Looks like a sickly child upon the spot Of young nativity, regarding not The air’s caress of melody and light Beam’d from the east, and soften’d by the bright Effusive flash of gold:--the willow stoops And muses, like a bride without her love, On her own shade, which lies on waves, and droops Beside the natal trunk, nor looks above:-- The precipice, that torrents cannot move, Leans o’er the sea, and steadfast as a rock, Of dash and cloud unconscious, bears the rude Continuous surge, the sounds and echoes mock: Thus Mental Thought enduring, wears in solitude. 1827. *, *, P. Vol. I.--6. [Illustration: ~The Font of Harrow Church.~] ---------------------- thus saved From guardian-hands which else had more depraved. Some years ago, the fine old font of the ancient parish church of Harrow-on-the-Hill was torn from that edifice, by the “gentlemen of the parish,” and given out to mend the roads with. The feelings of _one_ parishioner (to the honour of the sex, a female) were outraged by this act of parochial Vandalism; and she was allowed to preserve it from destruction, and place it in a walled nook, at the garden front of her house, where it still remains. By her obliging permission, a drawing of it was made the summer before last, and is engraved above. On the exclusion of Harrow font from the church, the parish officers put up the marble wash-hand-basin-stand-looking-thing, which now occupies its place, inscribed with the names of the churchwardens during whose reign venality or stupidity effected the removal of its precessor. If there be any persons in that parish who either venerate antiquity, or desire to see “right things in right places,” it is possible that, by a spirited representation, they may arouse the indifferent, and shame the ignorant to an interchange: and force an expression of public thanks to the lady whose good taste and care enabled it to be effected. The relative situation and misappropriation of each font is a stain on the parish, easily removable, by employing a few men and a few pounds to clap the paltry usurper under the spout of the good lady’s house, and restore the noble original from that degrading destination, to its rightful dignity in the church. * ~Garrick Plays.~ No. III. [From the “Rewards of Virtue,” a Comedy, by John Fountain, printed 1661.] _Success in Battle not always attributable to the General._