"Come tell me, Vagrant, in a breath, Alcides' birth, his life, his death, Recount his dozen labours: Homer thou know'st--but of the woes Of Troy, thou'rt ignorant as those Dark Orange-boys, thy neighbours." 'Twas thus, erect, I deign'd to pour My shower of lordly pity o'er The poor Italian wittol, As men are apt to do, to show Their 'vantage-ground o'er those who know Just less than their own little. When lo, methought Prometheus' flame Waved o'er a bust of deathless fame, And woke to life Childe Harold: The Bard aroused me from my dream Of pity, alias self-esteem, And thus indignant caroll'd:-- "O thou, who thus in numbers pert And petulant, presum'st to flirt With Memory's Nine Daughters: Whose verse the next trade-winds that blow Down narrow Paternoster-row Shall 'whelm in Lethe's waters: "Slight is the difference I see Between yon Paduan youth and thee: He moulds, of Pans plaster, An urn by classic Chantrey's laws,-- And thou a literary vase Of would-be alabaster. "Were I to arbitrate betwixt His terra cotta, plain or mix'd, And thy earth-gender'd sonnet; Small cause has he th' award to dread:-- Thy Images are in the head, And his, poor boy, are on it!" _New Monthly Magazine._ * * * * * PUNCH. Punch was first made by the English at Nemle, near Goa, where they have the _Nepa die Goa_, commonly called arrack. This fascinating liquor got the name of _punch_, from its being composed of _five_ articles--that word, in the Hindostanee language, signifying five. The legitimate punch-makers, however, consider it a compound of _four_ articles only; and some learned physicians have, therefore, named it _Diapente_ (from Diatesseron,) and have given it according to the following prescription-- Rum, miscetur aqua--dulci miscetur acetum, fiet et ex tali foedere--nobile Punch. and our worthy grand-fathers used to take a dose of it every night in their lives, before going to bed, till doctor Cheyne alarmed them by the information, that they were pouring liquid fire down their throats. "Punch," said he, "is like opium, both in its nature and manner of operation, and nearest arsenic in its deleterious and poisonous qualities; and, so," added he, "I leave it to them, who, knowing this, will yet drink on and die." Who, that has drunk this agreeable accompaniment to calapash, at the City of London Tavern, ever found themselves the worse for it? They may have felt their genius inspired, or their nobler passions animated--but _fire_ and _inflammation_ there was none. The old song says-- It is the very best of physic.