, often atoning for a transgression by a
tender and elevated sentiment. The following from the "Tales of a Hoy,"
supposed to be told on a voyage from Margate gives a good specimen of
his style--

_Captain Noah._ Oh, I recollect her. Poor Corinna![14] I could cry
for her, Mistress Bliss--a sweet creature! So kind! so lovely! and
so good-natured! She would not hurt a fly! Lord! Lord! tried to
make every body happy. Gone! Ha! Mistress Bliss, gone! poor soul.
Oh! she is in Heaven, depend on it--nothing can hinder it. Oh,
Lord, no, nothing--an angel!--an angel by this time--for it must
give God very little trouble to make _her_ an angel--she was so
charming! Such terrible figures as my Lord C. and my Lady Mary, to
be sure, it would take at least a month to make such ones anything
like angels--but poor Corinna wanted very few repairs. Perhaps the
sweet little soul is now seeing what is going on in our cabin--who
knows? Charming little Corinna! Lord! how funny it was, for all the
world like a rabbit or a squirrel or a kitten at play. Gone! as you
say, Gone! Well now for her epitaph.

CORINNA'S EPITAPH.

"Here sleeps what was innocence once, but its snows
Were sullied and trod with disdain;
Here lies what was beauty, but plucked was its rose
And flung like a weed to the plain.

"O pilgrim! look down on her grave with a sigh
Who fell the sad victim of art,
Even cruelty's self must bid her hard eye
A pearl of compassion impart.

"Ah! think not ye prudes that a sigh or a tear
Can offend of all nature the God!
Lo! Virtue already has mourned at her bier
And the lily will bloom on her sod."

He wrote some pretty "new-old" ballads--purporting to have been written
by Queen Elizabeth, Sir T. Wyatt, &c., on light and generally amorous
subjects. Much of his satire was political, and necessarily fleeting.

In "Orson and Ellen" he gives a good description of the landlord of a
village inn and his daughter,

"The landlord had a red round face
Which some folks said in fun
Resembled the Red Lion's phiz,
And some, the rising Sun.

"Large slices from his cheeks and chin
Like beef-steaks one might cut;
And then his paunch, for goodly size
Beat any brewer's butt.

"The landlord was a boozer stout
A snufftaker and smoker;
And 'twixt his eyes a nose did shine