It was unpleasant at first:--but I have
toiled long and laboured hard; I have done my duty, and Providence has
blessed my works. If we were discomposed at the sudden change in our
station, I it is who was to blame for having aspired to honours which I
knew were not to last. However the ambition was not dishonourable, nor
did I disgrace the station while I held it; and when I see, as in the
present year, _that_ station filled by a man of education and talent, of
high character and ample fortune, I discover no cause to repent of
having been one of his predecessors. Indeed I ought to apologize for
making public the weakness by which we were all affected; especially as
I have myself already learned to laugh at what we all severely felt at
first--the miseries of a SPLENDID ANNUAL.--_Sharpe's London Magazine_.
* * * * *
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS
* * * * *
A CHAPTER ON HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY
"Ut sunt divorum, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo."
_Latin Grammar_.
Did you ever look
In Mr. Tooke,
For Homer's gods and goddesses?
The males in the air,
So big and so bare,
And the girls without their bodices.
There was Jupiter Zeus,
Who play'd the deuce,
A rampant blade and a tough one;
But Denis bold,
Stole his coat of gold,
And rigg'd him out in a stuff one,
Juno, when old,
Was a bit of a scold,
And rul'd Jove _jure divino_;
When he went gallivaunting,
His steps she kept haunting,[4]
And she play'd, too, the devil with Ino.
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