You'll meet all your Beauties;--the Lily, And the Fairy of Willowbrook Farm, And Lucy, who made me so silly At Dawlish, by taking your arm-- Miss Manners, who always abused you, For talking so much about Hock-- And her sister who often amused you, By raving of rebels and Rock; And something which surely would answer, A heiress, quite fresh from Bengal-- So, though you were seldom a dancer, You'll dance, just for once, at our Ball. But out on the world!--from the flowers It shuts out the sunshine of truth; It blights the green leaves in the bowers, It makes an old age of our youth: And the flow of our feeling, once in it, Like a streamlet beginning to freeze, Though it cannot turn ice in a minute, Grows harder by sullen degrees-- Time treads o'er the grave of Affection; Sweet honey is turned into gall. Perhaps you have no recollection That ever you danced at our Ball. You once could be pleased with our ballads-- To-day you have critical ears: You once could be charmed with our salads-- Alas! you've been dining with Peers-- You trifled and flirted with many--- You've forgotten the when and the how-- There was _one_ you liked better than any-- Perhaps you've forgotten _her_ now. But of those you remember most newly, Of those who delight or enthrall, None love you a quarter so truly As some you will find at our Ball. They tell me you've many who flatter, Because of your wit and your song-- They tell me (and what does it matter?) You like to be praised by the throng-- They tell me you're shadowed with laurel, They tell me you're loved by a Blue-- They tell me you're sadly immoral, Dear Clarence, _that_ cannot be true! But to me you are still what I found you Before you grew clever and tall-- And you'll think of the spell that once bound you-- And you'll come--_won't_ you come?--to our Ball! _London Magazine._ * * * * * PARTY. Two dogs cannot worry one another in the streets without instantly forming each his party among the crowd; much more then does the principle apply to higher contests. * * * * * THE ANECDOTE GALLERY. * * * * * MOLIERE. At the town of Pezénas they still show an elbow-chair of Molière's (as at Montpelier they show the gown of Rabelais,) in which the poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village politicians, who, in those days, before coffee-houses were introduced into France, used to congregate in this place of resort. The fruits of this study may be easily discerned in those original draughts of character from the middling and lower classes with which his pieces everywhere abound.