Star.
London, England, 1830-08-12 00:00:00

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~a...1.

, 711BCOLLECTIONS.

DT MRS. NORTON.

'fix,remeniber all the sunny places.
in Slight days. long past, we play'd together ?
Do you remember alt the home faces,
That gatheed round the hearth in wintry weather ?
Do you remember all the happy meetings,
In rummer evenings, round the open door—
ittnd looks, kind bents, kind words' and tender greetings,
A nd clasping hands, whose pulses beat no more ?
Do you remember them ?

De you renumber all the merry laughter ;
The voices round the swing in our old garden ;
the dog that. when we ran, still follow'd after ;
The teasing (mile, sure of speedy pardon ?
We were but children then, young. happy creatures,
rat hardly knew how much we had to lose—
Bat now the dream-like memory of those features
tnmes bask, and bids my darken'd spirit muse.
Do you remember than ? .

Po you remember when we first departed
Fvo-n all the old companions who were round us ;
-'ow very soon again we grew light-hearted,
And talk'd, with smiles, of all the links which bound us ?
ind after, when our footsteps were returning
wir;th unfelt weariness o'er hill and plain,
How our young hearts kept boiling up, and burning,
To think how soon we'd be at home again ?
Do you remember this ?

Do you remember how the dreams of glory
Kept fading from us like a fairy treasure ;
How we thought less of being famed in story,
And more of those to whom our fame gave pleasure ?
Do you remember in far countries weeping,
When a light breeze, a flower, bath brought to mind
Old happy thoughts, which till that hour were sleeping,
And made us yearn for those we left behind ?
Do you remember this?

Do you remember when ndsound 'woke gladly,
But desolate echoes through our home were ringing,
flow for a while we talked—then paused full sadly.
Because our voices bitter thoughts were bringing ?
Ah me ! those days—those days ! my friend, my brother,
Sit down and let us talk of all our woe,
For we have nothing MI but one another ;
Vet where they went, old playmate, we shall go--
Let us remember this.

LITERARY I.VTELLIGENCE.

Whittaker's Monthly Mogasine,—for so it is best distinguished,
—of the current month, commences with a Memoir of his present
Majesty, in which we observe nothing new. We have, in course of
duty, read so many Memoirs of his Majesty—besides adding to the
number, by writing oneor two—that, although not sick of our King,
we really become a little squeamish on being called to peruse ano-
ther mentuir. We must, however, expect fruit when is season,
aud this has been the season for Royal Memoirs.
The next article which attracted our attention, is the Eve of St.
Simon in Colombia. This is a history which all who propose to
become ntercenaries in foreign warfare, should read with atten-
tion. The scenes he relates are curious, and to us quite new. The
character of Pan, the South American adventurer, we shall, per-
haps, on some future day, extract. The account of a Memoir of
Buonaparte, by Constant, his Valet de Chambre, is replete with
most valuable anecdotes ; and from this paper too, we shall be de-
sirous to make some extracts. The intrigues of the Court of Charles
the Fourth, of Spain, give much curious information not gene-
rally known. We think there has been too much already said about
Mr. Robert Montgomery and his critics, without this long critique.
We never had favor for Mr. Montgomery's style of poetry ; but begin
to think it must have some merit by requiring so much pen and
ink to write it down. _ _ .

The Review of Literature contains many good articles, and,
the whole, the number is a good one, although we have seen m
Apo riling from the same brim. As in these times we like to en-
liven our readers as much as possible, we shall abridge for him the
Dimwit of a person, who, if he does not know, he must know many
life. NVe mean
SINGULAR SMITH—Is an individual of the genus Smith, a
cognomen of so multitudinous an import, so wide-embracing an
universality, as would render it no easy task to point out the Smith
intended, were it not for the distinguishing epithet, Singular. Hah !
I perceive, gentle reader, by the puszled expression on your brows,
and the effort you are making, as you run through the catalogue of
five hundred and fifty persons of that name whom you know inti-
mately well, to fix upon "one bright particular" Smith, that you
Jo not know my John Smith. Give him up at once, fin he is a rid-
dle you cannot solve, a conundrum you cannot guess. If you knew
him, you would be in no dolderum as to which is he • you would
have picked him out at once, as a shepherd selects a particular sheep
from a flock of five hundred. The Smith I shall here illustrate
stands out, from the vast majority of Smiths, a truly remarkable
Smith ; and you know him not, but shall, or there is no painting
'by the pen.
John Smith was born in the humble walks of life, in Leather.
lane, from whence the greatest geniuses have generally sprung. His
father maintained a very large family of little Smiths, by bringing
together unconnected pieces of thick and thin cordovan, in which the
lieges of Leather-lane and its liberties contrived to amble. His mo-
ther was the "sole daughter of the house and heart" of Mrs. Selina
Shred, the respectable widow of Mr. Samuel Shred, piece-broker, of
Hatton Wall. Mr. Samuel Shred, born like his grandson, under
the influence of Saturn, had a natural predilection for the elegiac
muse, and was, if rumour is to be believed, the immortal author now
no more of those true and touching lines, which have since taken
root and loutish in every church-yard throughout England,—
' " Afflictions sore
Long time 1 bore,
Physicians were in vain," &c.
It is, therefore, very reasonably to be inferred that our hero derived
his tendencies and talents, as well as birth and being, by the mother's
side ; his ancestors by the father's having been remarkable for no-
shing remarkable. The existence of the subject of this memoir was
consequently essential to the glory of the Smiths ; and this desira-
ble consummation of all their wishes was brought about in Septem-
• bee, 1790, at three in the morning and 33, Leather-lane. The wet-
and-dry and pap.and.panada period of his puppyage passed with
,great credit to himself and satisfaction to Smiths in general. He
was pronouced, ono yore, to be a sweet child, and a darling of the
most dulcet dispositions.
His childhood exhibited no extraordinary phenomena: the germ
of his genius was yet in the ground ; but it shot out at last. The
first manifestation of his versatile powers displayed itself in his
'thirteenth year, in an epitaph on a hopeful schoofellow, untimely
choked in bolting the largest half of a hot-roll, which he lied pirated
from a entailer boy. It is touching : and worth recording :
" Here I lie dumb,
Choked by a crum
Which wouldn't go down, and wouldn't up come."
The " needless Alexandrine" and the daring inversion " up come"
did not escape the malicious eyes of the critics ; but after they
had deducted as much as they could front the fame which this first
attempt necessarily brought him, he had still enough to live upon
handsomely ; and Holborn, wide as it is, became hardly wide enough
for his spreading reputation.
In his thirty.second year, the divine madness of the Muse carat
upon him once more; and two sonnets, one to the Moon, the other
to the Nightingale (original subjects, which; hibited the wealth of
his invention in an exalted light), appeared he Gentleman's 31a.
panne.
Several years he passed in what he termed fattening his mind ;
during which process lam afraid it arrived at the scene of most
other prize-fed perfectima—too much fat, and too little lean.
llr .fohn Smith is now a bachelor, on the young side of forty.
• He is in the prime of that happy period, ere the freedom of single
blessedness has deteriorated into formality, that "last infirmity of
noble bachelors." Caps have been, and are now, set at him ; but he
is too shy a bird to be caught in nets of muslin, or imprisoned by
the fragile meshes of Mechlin lace. Widows wonder that he does
sot marry ; wives think be should; and several disinterested maiden
ladies advise him to think seriously of something of the sort; and
be, always open to conviction, promises that he will do some-
thing of that kind. In fact, he has gone so far as to confess that it
is melancholy, when he sneezes in the night, to have no one, night-
Capped and nigh, to say, " Ocin bless§ you!" If the roguish leer
of his eye, in these moments of cornpunction, means anything, I am
rather more than half inclined to doubt his sincerity. Ono ergo.
mitt which he urges against committing matrimony is certainly un-
deniable—that there are Smiths enough in the world, without his
aiding and abetting their increase and multiplication he says he
shall wait till the words of Samuel, " Now there was no smith
found *milieus all Israel," are almost applicable throughout all
Ragland and then he may, perhaps, marry. "Smiths," as he
says, "are as plentiful is Madtbaria. Throw a cat out of every
MUM ' window from one end to the other of this metropolis, and it
'would fall ow the head Smith. Rush suddenly round a corner,
and knock dome the eau
ow you OW, he is a Smith ! be peer