Joseph Higgin,

12 Hastings.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS.

With slower pen, men used to write,
Of old, when "letters were "polite ";
In Anna's, or in George's days,
They could afford to turn a phrase,
Or trim a straggling theme aright.

They knew not steam; electric light
Not yet had dazed their calmer sight; -

They meted out both blame and praise
With slower pen.

More swiftly now the hours take flight!
What's read at morn is dead at night;

Scant space have we for Art's delays,
Whose breathless thought so briefly stays,
We may not work- ah! would we might,
With slower pen!