"It's this pretty present for Polly-Cockatoo," said Miss Pole, raising herself up with as much dignity as she could, "that Mary has had sent from Paris for me." Miss Pole was in great spirits now we had got Polly in; I can't say that I was.

Mr. Hoggins began to laugh in his boisterous vulgar way. "For Polly-ha! ha! It's meant for you, Miss Pole ha ha! It's a new invention to hold your gowns outha! ha!"

"Mr. Hoggins! you may be a surgeon, and a very clever one, but nothing-not even your profession - gives you a right to be indecent."

Miss Pole was thoroughly roused, and I trembled in my shoes. But Mr. Hoggins only laughed the more. Polly screamed in concert, but Miss Pole stood in stiff rigid propriety, very red in the face.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Pole, I am sure. But I am pretty certain I am right. It's no indecency that I can see; my wife and Mrs. Fitz Adam take in a Paris fashionbook between 'em, and I can't help seeing the plates of fashions sometimes-ha! ha! ha! Look, Polly has got out of his queer prison-ha! ha! ha!"

Just then Mr. Peter came in; Miss Matty was so curious to know if the expected present had arrived. Mr. Hoggins took him by the arm, and pointed to the poor thing lying on the ground, but could not explain for laughing. Miss Pole said:

"Although I am not accustomed to give an explanation of my conduct to gentlemen, yet, being insulted in my own house by by Mr. Hoggins, I must appeal to the brother of my old friend - my very oldest friend. Is this article a lady's petticoat, or a bird's cage?"

--

She held it up as she made this solemn inquiry. Mr. Hoggins seized the moment to leave the room, in shame, as I supposed, but, in reality, to fetch his wife's fashion-book;

and, before I had completed the narration of the story of my unlucky commission, he returned, and, holding the fashion-plate open by the side of the extended article, demonstrated the identity of the two.

But Mr. Peter had always a smooth way of turning off anger, by either his fun or a compliment. "It is a cage,” said he, bowing to Miss Pole; "but it is a cage for an angel, instead of a bird! Come along, Hoggins, I want to speak to you!"

And, with an apology, he took the offending and victorious surgeon out of Miss Pole's presence. For a good while we said nothing; and we were now rather shy of little Fanny's superior wisdom when she brought up tea. But towards night our spirits revived, and we were quite ourselves again, when Miss Pole proposed that we should cut up the pieces of steel or whalebone — which, to do them justice, were very elastic and make ourselves two good comfortable English calashes out of them with the aid of a piece of dyed silk which Miss Pole had by her.

VERSES ON SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

Br EDMUND SPENSER.

OU knew — who knew not?

YOU

(That I should live to say I knew,

And have not in possession still!)
Things known permit me to renew:
Of him you know his merit such,
I cannot say you hear too much.

Within these woods of Arcady,

He chief delight and pleasure took;

And on the mountain Partheny,

Upon the crystal liquid brook,

The Muses met him every day,

That taught him song to write and say.

When he descended from the mount,
His personage seemed most divine;
A thousand graces one might count
Upon his lovely cheerful eyne.

To hear him speak and sweetly smile,
You were in Paradise the while.

A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks;
Continual comfort in a face,

The lineaments of Gospel books:

I trow that countenance cannot lie,
Whose thoughts are legible in th' eye.

Above all others, this is he,

Which erst approved in his song
'That love and honor might agree,
And that pure love will do no wrong.
Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame
To love a man of virtuous name.

Did never love so sweetly breathe
In any mortal breast before:
Did never Muse inspire beneath
A poet's brain with finer store.

He wrote of love with high conceit.
And beauty rear'd above her height.

PRESCOTT'S INFIRMITY OF SIGHT.

BY GEORGE TICKNOR.

W

HEN the "Ferdinand and Isabella" was published, in the winter of 1837-8, its author was nearly forty-two years old. His character, some of whose traits had been prominent from childhood, while others had been slowly developed, was fully formed. His habits were settled for life. He had a perfectly well-defined individuality, as everybody knew who knew anything about his occupa tions and ways.

Much of what went to constitute this individuality was the result of his infirmity of sight, and of the unceasing struggle he had made to overcome the difficulties it entailed upon him. For, as we shall see hereafter, the thought of this infirmity, and of the embarrassments it brought with it, was ever before him. It colored, and in many respects it controlled, his whole life.

The violent inflammation that resulted from the fierce attack of rheumatism in the early months of 1815 first startled him, I think, with the apprehension that he might pos sibly be deprived of sight altogether, and that thus his future years would be left in "total eclipse, without all hope of day." But from this dreary apprehension, his recovery, slow, and partial as it was, and the buoyant spirits that entered so largely into his constitution, at last relieved him. He even, from time to time, as the disease fluctuated to and fro, had hopes of an entire restoration of his sight.