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is singularly interesting, and indeed uniqué; it is elegant and erudite, and comprehends many of the more secret doctrines of philosophy and of the antient religion of Egypt; a learned and copious description of certain sacerdotal ceremonies, and of the initiation into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris.

By patient research and diligent investigation, many facts respecting the mysteries, now buried in unopened volumes, might be brought to light the enquiry, as well as the results, would afford no common pleasure; whether leisure and opportunity for these pursuits will always be wanting, for the present, at least, it is impossible to determine.

There are barbarisms, there is bad taste, there is false eloquence in the Golden Ass; there are all these faults and many more but nevertheless let him who has read it read it again; let him who has never read it, all other business being omitted, suddenly read it; and, if he cannot procure a copy on easier terms, let him, Apuleius-like, sell his coat and buy one.

All that now remains, is to call the attention of the learned world to the conclusion of the Apology, in which the author warns all men against marrying a widow, for this plain reason, "because she can have nothing inposcibile about her:" the passage is as follows:

"Virgo formosa, etsi sit oppidò pauper, tamen abundè dotata est. Adfert quippe ad maritum novum animi indolem, pulchritudinis gratiam, floris rudimentum. Ipsa virginitatis commendatio jure meritòque omnibus maritis acceptissima est. Nam quodcumque aliud in dotem acceperis, potes cum libuit, ne sis beneficio obstrictus, omne ut acceperis retribuere; pecuniam renumerare, mancipia restituere, domo demigrare, prædiis cedere. Sola virginitas, cum semel accepta est, reddi nequitur; sola apud maritum

ex rebus dotalibus remanet. Vidua autem qualis nuptiis venit, talis divortio digreditur; nihil adfert inposcibile.":

The authority is weighty, and the Philosopher did not speak without experience: but if any one, notwithstanding, shall have the hardihood to despise this caution, let him accept, as a nuptial benediction, the phrase in which.Photis used to say "Good night!"

QUOD BONUM FELIX ET FAUSTUM.

MINOR PIECES.

TO A SPIDER RUNNING ACROSS A ROOM.

THOU poisonous rascal, running at this rate
O'er the perplexing desart of a mat,

Scrambling and scuttling on thy scratchy legs,
Like a scared miser with his money-bags;

Thou thief-thou scamp-thou hideous much in little,
Bearing away the plunder of a spital,-

Caitiff of corners,-doer of dark deeds,

Mere lump of poison lifted on starv'd threads,

That while they run, go shuddering here and there,
As if abhorring what they're forc'd to bear,
Like an old bloated tyrant, whom his slaves
Bear from the gaping of a thousand graves,
And take to some vile corner of a court,
Where felons of his filthy race resort,—

I have thee now;-I have thee here, full blown,
Thou lost old wretch, benighted by the noon!

What dost thou say? What dost thou think? Dost see

Providence hanging o'er thee, to wit, me?

Dost fear? Dost shrink with all thine eyes to view

The shadowing threat of mine avenging shoe?
Now, now it comes;-one pang,-—and thou wilt lie
Flat as the sole that treads thy gorg'd impurity.

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Yet hold-why should I do it? Why should I,
Who in my infidel fidelity,

Believer in the love, though not the wrath,
Have spared so many crawlers o'er my path,-
Why should I trample here, and like a beast,
Settle this humblest of them all and least?
The vagrant never injured me or mine,
Wrote no critiques, stabb'd at no heart divine,
And as to flies, Collyer himself must dine.

Flies may be kill'd as speedily as mutton,

And your black spider's not your blackest glutton.
The vermin's a frank vermin, after all;
Makes no pretence to a benignant call;
Does not hold up a hideous white hand,
To tickle grandams to his promised land;

Nor pulls white handkerchiefs from out his blackness,
To wipe the tears,-that give a surfeit slackness.
He's not the Laureat, not my turn'd old Bob;
Not Bull the brute, nor Gazetteer the grub:
He does not " profess Poetry," like Mill;
Music, like Buzby; nor, what's higher still,
"Moral Philosophy," like wicked Will.
He swells, I grant, and 'tis with poison too;
But not, toad-eating Muddyford, like you:
He plunders, and runs off; but not like Theod.,
To make amends by slandering for King Ehud :
He skulks; but 'tis not as " dear Ally" does,
To pry and pounce on females, and keep close
At fingers only that can pull a nose.

Honest the rogue is, in his way, hey, Groly?—
And does not call his snares and slaughters " Holy;"
Nor like the Russian that insulted Spain,

Cry "Manners," and affect the gentleman.

He holds to what he is, like her that bore him,
A spider, as his father was before him.

'Twas Cowl, not he, that by old Gizzard's fire,
Born of a man, turn'd reptile and mere liar,

And chang'd his shape with his own fright, as mothers,
Their tender burthen incomplete, change others.
And have I spared the very worst of these

A thousand times, and all for their own ease,→→→
Let them crawl on, and wink'd at Gizzard's self,
To tread out thee, poor emblematic elf?
Thee, whose worst vice is, that thy hang-dog looks
Remind us of his face, not of his books,

For all the poison, clubb'd from all thy race,
Could not do that: you're safe from that disgrace.
Have I, these five years, spared the dog a stick,
Cut for his special use, and reasonably thick,
Now, because prose had fell'd him just before;
Then, to oblige the very heart he tore;

Then, from conniving to suppose him human,
Two-legg'd, and one that had a serving-woman;
Then, because some one saw him in a shiver,
Which shewed, if not a heart, he had a liver;
And then, because they said the dog was dying,
His very symptoms being given to lying?

Have I done this? Have I endur'd e'en Murrain,
Whom even his own face finds past enduring,

Trying to slip aside from him, and cut him,
When honest men ask questions that don't suit him?
Have I let strut, behind their dunghill screens,
All the brisk crowers in Scotch magazines,
Who take for day their crackling Northern Lights,
And scream, and scratch, and keep it up o' nights,
Braggarts with beaten plumes, and sensual hypocrites?
Him too who feeds them, and in whom there run

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