Their purpose just fit to consume Rickman's store, The usage for which was intended such lore: Amen dicas, Asine, Amen, amen itera; Aspernare vetera. Say Amen, O! gentle Ass! now sated with grass. Repeat, O! repeat Amen! and now despise old forms. So terminates this curious composition in praise of the Jack Ass tribe; the Latinity of which is peculiarly well adapted to illustrate the ceremony it was intended to commemorate. (j) If any man be desirous of a surfeit of laughing, let him but purchase the poems of Clio Rickman, and, upon perusal, I will venture my life to a farthing that he allows the dose to be infallible. His lucubrations, indeed, most powerfully bring to my recollection the flights of a writing-master bitten with the divine cacoëthes, who, during my boyish days, composed a prologue to Cato, which was to be performed on the breaking up of the seminary for the holidays, four lines of which I perfectly call to mind, viz. In purple streams I ardently confess Sweet is the lore that comes with wil-ling-ness. And again, Since Fame from her breech such a blast never blew, As when Clio's trash met publicity's view; Don't say a word 'tis pleasure to relate This self-dubbed companion of the Nine was some years. back a most determined advocate for the doctrines of Tom Paine; and such continues to be his reverence for that departed reformer of morality and religion, that he still keeps, as an invaluable relic, the table whereon were written the never-to-be-forgotten Age of Reason and Rights of Man; which fact the visitant is given to understand from a long inscription upon a brass plate, which now adorns this inestimable treasure; and, as extraordinary freaks are ever the concomitants of eccentric characters, Mr. Clio, to answer some momentous purpose, was no less enamoured of two-penny loaves, samples of which, both French and English, he was in the habit of procuring, in order, as it was conjectured, to contemplate the respective sizes of these staves of life; whence he drew a comparison between the prosperity of Gaul and his own native country. Such pursuits are well calculated to immortalize a man of Mr. Rickman's comprehensive and exhaustless genius, Whose stricture shall close with this adage, quite clear, Silk purse never yet was produc'd from sow's ear. and it would be well for innumerable poetasters, who strut in his stilts, were they to adopt similar vagaries, in order to leave to posterity an indelible stamp of their boundless mental capacities. I should have felt extremely happy in obeying Sir Noodle by tacking the names of Clio's brethren to the present note, but as I fear the list might extend ad infinitum, I shall content myself with what has been already advanced upon the score of this gentleman's perceptions, leaving the reader to annex such signatures as may have appeared worthy the distinguished honour of being inscribed with that of the present celebrated character. After having written the above, I perchance stumbled on a couplet, which I will here insert for the benefit of Mr. Rickman, who may doubtless be enabled to turn the same to good ac count. The following lines were made by a Mr. Canfield, who was employed in rendering the Highlands of Scotland passable, by means of the finest military roads which ever were made in so |