all start in wild surprise,
To hear a note so like their own!

They appeared in a paper of limited circulation and would now possess to
most readers the charm of novelty. The English of these lines seems to
the writer of this to fall upon the ear with hardly less mellifluence
than the fine latinity of Wranghams's.

Your humble servant,
A FRIEND TO YOUR WORK.

_Boston, March 1810._

ANECDOTES OF MACKLIN.

One night sitting at the back of the front boxes with a gentleman of his
acquaintance, (before the alterations at Covent Garden theatre took
place) one of the under-bred box-lobby loungers, so like some of this
city of the present day, stood up immediately before him, and his person
being rather large, covered the sight of the stage from him. Macklin
took fire at this; but managing himself with more temper than usual,
patted him gently on the shoulder with his cane, and with much seeming
civility, requested of him, "when he saw or heard anything that was
entertaining on the stage, to let him and the gentleman with him know of
it: for you see, my dear sir," added the veteran, "that at present we
must totally depend on your kindness." This had the desired effect, and
the lounger walked off.

Talking of the caution necessary to be used in conversation among a
mixed company, Macklin observed, Sir, I have experienced to my cost,
that a man in any situation should never be off his guard--a Scotchman
never is; he never lives a moment _extempore_, and that is one great
reason of their success in life.

A COMPARISON BETWEEN MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE.

Among the compositions of our own country, Comus certainly stands
unrivalled for its affluence in poetic imagery and diction; and, as an
effort of the creative power, it can be paralleled only by the Muse of
Shakspeare, by whom, in this respect, it is possibly exceeded.

With Shakspeare, the whole, with exception to some rude outlines or
suggestions of the story, is the immediate emanation of his own mind:
but Milton's erudition prohibited him from this extreme originality, and
was perpetually supplying him with thoughts which would sometimes obtain
the preference from his judgment, and would sometimes be mistaken for
her own property by his invention. Original, however, he is; and of all
the sons of song inferior, in this requisite of genius, only to
Shakspeare. Neither of these wonderful men was so far privileged above
his species as to possess other