Those compositions, which in the beginning, perhaps, celebrate the irresistible fascination of a mild blue eye, the more than ambrosial sweetness of a ruby lip, or the extacy beyond description, of a stolen kiss, are folded with a tremulous hand, and dispatched in an envelope to a magazine or newspaper, with a humble note, purporting, that “the Author of this specimen, if it shall be approved, will be happy to become a regular and frequent correspondent.” What an awful interval between the first birth of a juvenile composition, and its last solemn reception or rejection! Who can tell but he who has experienced similar emotions, the anxious expectancy, when sentence is to be pronounced? The delight of reading, the favour of “Juvenis” is received, and will be inserted: we shall be glad of this correspondent’s communications in future.” Delight! only to be exceeded by the mortification and abasement of perusing words of the following import:—“We would advise our correspondent, who signs himself Oxon, to read, and not to write at present.” At this place, our Sexagenarian candidly relates the following anecdote of himself:—When as yet almost _imberbis_, he had translated into Latin hexameters and pentameters, the celebrated ballad from the Spanish, thus rendered by Garrick. For me my fair a wreath had wove, Where rival flowers in union meet, Oft as she kiss’d the gift of love, Her breath gave sweetness to the sweet. A bee beneath a damask rose Had crept, the liquid dew to sip, But lesser sweets the thief foregoes, And fixes on Louisa’s lip. Then tasting all the bloom of spring, Waked by the ripening breath of May, Th’ ungrateful spoiler left his sting, And with the honey flew away. He had taken sufficient pains to satisfy himself, and with some particles of vanity, showed them to two or three of his friends, who praised the composition, and recommended him to send it to the editor of a popular publication. This was accordingly done, and long and irksome did the interval appear, till the solemn period of his fate arrived. It came at length, and with no ordinary exultation he beheld himself in print. His ambition from this moment began to soar; in imagination he already saw poetic crowns soliciting his acceptance, and the wondering crowds pointing and exclaiming—That is he! Alas! the most exalted of human enjoyments are subject to diminution from envy or from malice. In the very next magazine which succeeded, was a pert and saucy letter signed Aristarchus, purporting, that in the Latin translation of Garrick’s version from the Spanish, which appeared last month, there were two false quantities, for which a boy in the fourth form, either at Eton or Westminster, would deservedly have been flogged.