PREFACE.

WHEN a DRAWING-ROOM TABLE BOOK is mentioned, an idea of taste, elegance, and beauty in art, united to the prose and poetry of imagination, immediately suggests itself. To realise such a conception has been the aim of those who have, each in their several departments, assisted in producing the present volume; which, it is hoped, will be found fully to meet the most extravagant expectations which may have been formed of it. In so far as respects the Engravings, it may with candour be said, that whilst they exhibit a great variety of subjects, they have, at the same time, been, in most instances, conceived with much poetical truth and feeling. In their execution, the greatest skill and care have been exercised, that the original expression might be preserved, and rendered with the utmost fidelity. As a whole, they, perhaps, present as choice and varied a selection as were ever brought together within the compass of a single volume of the same size; whilst it is believed that even Public Opinion will acknowledge that they amply sustain the general idea of what a ROYAL DRAWING-ROOM TABLE BOOK ought to be.

Respecting the literary portion, it is not necessary that much should be said. It is hoped, however, that it will be found sufficiently diversified and interesting to make a leisure hour pass away under the influence of an agreeable excitement. Of course, the aim, throughout, has been to please; but the pleasure has been desired to be given with as little apparent effort as possible, in order that the sentiments of the writer may seem to glide into the mind of the

reader with a smoothness similar to that which is seen in a gently flowing stream gliding over a channel of sand, in which there are no rocks or asperities to break the continuity of its course, or interruptions of any kind to disturb the placidity of its surface. In the poetry, different styles of composition have been attempted, with the view of obviating, as far as possible, the insipidity which is the usual concomitant of monotony; certainly not from any desire of display, or from the belief that a complete mastery is to be shown by any person, and least of all by the writer, over every species of poetical composition. In no production of human art or ingenuity is perfection attainable; neither, perhaps, is it desirable, from the knowledge which the experience of every day teaches-that Fortune is an envious goddess, and, consequently, one of the foremost to provoke dislike or detraction. In some of the effusions simplicity has been the object; in others, a more exalted strain has been adopted; and, in all, purity of sentiment constantly kept in view. The effect of this may possibly be, that every taste will find something suitable to its peculiarity: but whether this may or may not be the case, it is hoped that the most fastidious delicacy will discover nothing but what has a tendency to please, improve, instruct, or elevate; for each or all of these, in one form or another, ought to be the end of every description of writing designed to meet the public eye.

London.

JOHN SHERER.

GIPSIES.

CHAPTER I.

"Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blaz'd
The gipsy's fagot. There we stood, and gazed-
Gaz'd on her sun-burnt face with silent awe,
Her tatter'd mantle, and her hood of straw,
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore-
Imps, in the barn with nursing owlet bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed ;

Whose dark eyes flash'd through locks of blackest shade,
When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bay'd,

And heroes fled the Sibyl's mutter'd call,
Whose elfin prowess scal'd the orchard wall."

PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

THE description which Mr. Rogers, in his beautiful poem, has given of some of the practices of gipsies in the above quotation, together with the well-authenticated history of the predatory habits of that singular people, throws a halo of interest around them, of which both poets and romancists in general have not failed to take advantage, by introducing them into some of the scenes in their imaginative effusions. We fear, however, that very frequently fiction, rather than truth, has given to the deeds of these nomades a colouring by far too strong for reality; and has, in some instances, invested them with a character so vile, dishonest, false, and repulsive, that although their features are impressed with the likeness of humanity, they have very little of its moral semblance. How far this may be the case, it is not our intention here to inquire; but simply to trace their origin and history, which will be sufficient to show that, from the period of their coming into Europe, they have been a proscribed race, living an unsettled and wandering life, with their hands, like those of the children of Ishmael, uplifted against every man, and every man's hand uplifted against them.

It would appear that this singular people came originally from Hindostan, and not Egypt, as has, by many, been supposed; and it is suggested that they were the lowest class of Indians, whom we denominate Parias, and the Hindoos, Suders. It is said that they migrated about the

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