, you're telling me a lie";
"It was your mother, as I say--"
And in the twinkling of an eye,
"Come, come!" cried one; and, without more ado,
Off to some other play they both together flew.' I. 79.

'Alice Fell' is a performance of the same order. The poet, driving into
Durham in a postchaise, hears a sort of scream; and, calling to the
post-boy to stop, finds a little girl crying on the back of the vehicle.

"My cloak!" the word was last and first,
And loud and bitterly she wept,
As if her very heart would burst;
And down from off the chaise she leapt.

"What ails you, child?" she sobb'd, "Look here!"
I saw it in the wheel entangled,
A weather beaten rag as e'er
From any garden scarecrow dangled.' I. 85, 86.

They then extricate the torn garment, and the good-natured bard takes
the child into the carriage along with him. The narrative proceeds--

"My child, in Durham do you dwell?"
She check'd herself in her distress,
And said, "My name is Alice Fell;
I'm fatherless and motherless.

And I to Durham, Sir, belong."
And then, as if the thought would choke
Her very heart, her grief grew strong;
And all was for her tatter'd cloak.

The chaise drove on; our journey's end
Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she'd lost her only friend
She wept, nor would be pacified.

Up to the tavern-door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old.

"And let it be of duffil grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell!"
Proud creature was she the next day,
The little orphan, Alice Fell!' I. p. 87, 88.

If the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the
public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted.

After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume,
under the title of 'Resolution and Independence.' The poet, roving about
on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of
the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich.

'We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.' I. p. 92.

In the midst of his meditations--

'I saw a man before me unawares;
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

----------

Motionless as a cloud the old man stood;
That heareth not the lou