METRICAL SKETCHES,

BY M. L.B.

THE COUSIN.

An Epistle from Thomas ***, Esq. to Charles ***, Esq., in Answer to one from him on the same subject.

Yes!-once I'd a cousin indeed, Charles,
For such, I've been blest with in plenty;
-To pun's a faux-pas, we've agreed, Charles,
But she was a cousin of twenty:

To a sister, unlike—as you've told, Charles,—
As diff'rent as Whig is from Tory;

But your frankness to me, makes me bold, Charles,
To trust you with my mournful story.

You tell me, there's that in a cousin's lip,
When with your own you've allied it,
Which makes you forget all relationship,--

Oh, Charles! that I could but have tried it!-
But oft, as I strove to steal a kind kiss,
(Alas! with the awkwardest grace),
My proffer'd salute, quite taken amiss,
Met the bonnet, instead of the face!

You say that there cannot be harm, Charles,
Sometimes with a cousin to talk:

I also should think there's a charm, Charles,
In "a quiet, cousinly walk;"

But when to my cousin I whisper'd, she spoke
Like a colonel to troops on parade;

And the spell of our walks, she contriv'd should be broke
By the pacing behind of her maid,

How happy are you to have known, Charles,

Intelligent hands and fingers,

Whose eloquence, though lacking tone, Charles,
Like music, on memory lingers?

My cousin (did tormentor like her ever live?)
Against taking my arm made a stand;

And I,-asking her heart,-could not get her to give
E'en a cousinly shake of the hand.

She was, what are most girls, or wish to be, Charles,
Accomplished,-a sort of a blue;

But talents, she never employed for me, Charles,
Save to write to me once, entre-nous;
The style of that billet I leave you to guess
After this, but 'twas icy in vain ;

I swallow'd the wafer, kiss'd up the address,
And still wear the bits that remain !

But I cannot tell half that I did, Charles,
'Twas folly and madness I know;

And my suff'rings were- Heaven forbid, Charles,
That others should e'er suffer so !-
And yet were the time, now very long past,
To come over with me once again,
In spite of experience, I'm certain at last,
Having seized, I should die in my chain.

But hold! there's one thing I've to tell, Charles,
My sad tale's saddest conclusion;

How a sick heart was left to get well, Charles,
The iron to cool, then in fusion;
My cousin proposed once, a sociable stroll,
At midnight,- -au clair de la Lune;

I arriv'd at the trystring,-all fervour, all soul,-
She went off with a gallant dragoon.

TERENCE O'REILLY.

BY MRS. HOFLAND.

"Plase yer reverence, I made bould to call jist to forbid the bans of Terence O'Reilly, if so be as how it is true they were asked yesterday by your reverence."

"And why do you forbid them, good woman?"

"Oh! for no reason on earth, but jist that he has got a wife in Ireland; an being my own brother, I am not the woman to stand by and see him make sich a fool of himself barrin the sin, yer reverence.

"You are right, but you must bring me proofs of this marriage in Ireland; come again to-morrow.'

"

The curate to whom this was addressed officiated in one of the busiest parishes of busy London; he, however, passed on, for the dead were waiting for him-the living claiming him. The appearance of the woman who had arrested him at the threshold of his house, for a purpose very uncommon, was prepossessing, and she had been less circumlocutory than usual; but yet it struck him that she had either not spoken the truth, or the whole truth, and he determined, as in duty bound, to examine the affair thoroughly, at his earliest leisure.

The woman did not return, and the matter (amidst the multiplied engagements demanded by the sick who sought for consolation, the young who wanted instruction, the poor who wanted every thing, and the regular routine of sacred offices) had slipped from his memory, when on the Saturday following a young and pretty girl, evidently dressed for the occasion, made her appearance in his parlour, and bobbed a courtesy, in silence before him.

"You are come to be examined previous to confirmation?" Oh! no, your reverence, that's not the matter I'm about at all, at all. If ye please, I'm jist Nelly Allen, as Terence O'Reilly was axed with last Sunday."

"But your bans are forbidden."

Nelly had, in the first place, spoken with great difficulty, cast down her eyes, and blushed like a country maiden, albeit her unpastoral dwelling was on Saffron Hill, but having once heard the sound of her own voice she gained courage; and on this information (of which she had been already aware) she broke out into an oration alike voluble and eloquent against all who would oppoose her marriage, more especially by the utterance of "a base falsehood, which of all things on earth was her aversion." The curate, either moved by her entreaties, or astounded by her pleaded "reasons," promised in half an hour to visit her abode and examine into the affair.

How true is the saying, that "one half of the world little thinks how the other half lives." The young clergyman was intimately familiar with the abodes of poverty; nevertheless, he was a little startled on entering that of our lovesick damsel, to find himself in the the midst of sixteen or eighteen persons, composed of the "finest pisintry under

heaven," but in the present sample unquestionably the dirtiest; and exhibiting in various countenances every shade of the shrewd, the vivacious, the ferocious, the reckless, or the humourous, characteristics of their country. On one hand stood a beldame classically disarrayed, seeing that her only garment was fastened by a string over her left shoulder, after the manner of the Graces when they stoop to drapery; on the other, a group of urchins were fighting for the possession of a few smoking pratiee-the dark mass of men were huddied near the fire-place being relieved by the trim figure of poor Nelly, who had not yet been disrobed of her holiday gear, and appeared with all the advantage of contrast.

Advancing, with many thanks, to his reverence for the visit, she informed him that neither her "enemy nor the husband of her, were in, but that on the other side he would catch Terence, for she had watched him."

To the other side of the street passed the mediator, and on inquiry for said Terence was answered by a strapping youth, whose handsome features and good-humoured countenance did credit to the Emerald Isle, “that it was maybe himself his reverence was a wanting."

The business was soon explained, and the question pressed as to “whether he had already committed matrimony?”

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Not at all, your honour, becase sich a thing never entered my head any how."

"Then your sister, Mrs. Sullivan, is guilty of a falsehood, as she forbids your bans on this plea."

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Why at to that, yer reverence, she's parfaitly the best cratur in the world, an if she tould a bit of a lie 'twas jist to be the saving of me; for she says to me, says she,' there's no marrying without money, and there's no money without work, and that's what you've not got,' says she."

"There is a great deal of truth in that, certainly; but you ought to have thought of it before you spoke to the young woman. Have you nothing beforehand?"

"Jist the clothes I'm standing in, yer reverence, and I needn't till ye their character."

Terence cast a look of whimsical ruefulness from knee to knee, and elbow to elbow, as he spoke, at the same time taking up what in times past had been a hat; and by his motion showed a willingness to follow his interrogater not

less than to adopt his advice-in another moment both stood in the presence of the afflicted and offended Nelly, who now was quite sure his reverence had come to the bottom of the matter, and must see that forbidding the bans was the most wickedest thing on earth."

"I nevertheless think," said the curate, "that you had better delay your marriage until Terence has obtained work, and you had got a little before hand. You are both very young, (and very poor it seems,) and there can be no harm and may be much good, in delaying it a few months; the bans shall nevertheless go on if you desire it."

There was a portentous pause, though the audience had evidently increased, when Nelly burst into tears, which she yet controlled, as she cried, "An there you stand, Terence, fumbling the thing of a hat round, wid yer eyes on the floor, and nivir a word is it that you spake to his reverence, though many's the words ye could say to me, as ye know in yer heart; and yer sister that's turned against me now, many's the time she said, Ah, Nelly, my good girl, when Terence comes over he'll be the boy for you;' so that I was clane gone, in a manner, afore I'd sin the face of ye; and now ye can't say a word-no not a word for me.',

"But I can, and I will, or my name isn't Jack Sullivan," exclaimed one of the newly entered, " for a better an a claner gil, nor a more industrious, can't be found no where. What ails my wife (God bless her! for a better no man has,) I don't know, yer honour; but this I'll say, any how, when we were married five years past, we were worse off than even they, (for Nelly's in good work,) and though we're poor enough now, neither of us ever repinted. We do somehow; and the three bit chi'der, why we keeps 'em, and love's 'em, and that's all I can say.'

Terence during this time had looked up, and it may be presumed that the language of his large dark eyes was powerful, notwithstanding the failure of his tongue, for Nelly wiped away her tears, declared that "if the bans went on she was willing to stay other proceedings," and " to be sure a trifle of money was a mighty desirable thing, seeing she believed that even if all the frinds around them would help, 'twould hardly make up the wedding fees."

The great matter is, to procure Terence work," said the