Lines on Fortune.

1831.

"By the advice of Dr. Ebenezer Clarkson, Sir Walter consulted a skilful mechanist, by name Fortune, about a contrivance for the support of the lame limb, which had of late given him much pain, as well as inconvenience. Mr. Fortune produced a clever piece of handiwork, and Sir Walter felt at first great relief from the use of it: insomuch that his spirits rose to quite the old pitch, and his letter to me upon the occasion overflows with merry applications of sundry maxims and verses about Fortune. "Fortes Fortuna adjuvat"-he says " never more sing 1

FORTUNE, my Foe, why dost thou frown on me?
And will my Fortune never better be?
Wilt thou, I say, for ever breed my pain?
And wilt thou ne'er return my joys again? 3
No-let my ditty be henceforth-

Fortune, my Friend, how well thou favourest me!
A kinder Fortune man did never see!
Thou propp'st my thigh, thou ridd'st my knee of
pain,

I'll walk, I'll mount-I'll be a man again.—
Life, vol. x., p. 38.

From

Count Robert of Paris.

1831.

MOTTOES.

(1.)-CHAP. II.

This superb successor

Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest, Stands 'midst these ages as, on the wide ocean, The last spared fragment of a spacious land,

died there the 9th June, 1830. This epitaph appears on his tomb in the chancel there.

3" I believe this is the only verse of the old song (often alluded to by Shakspeare and his contemporaries) that has as yet been recovered."-LOCKHART, Life, vol. x., p. 38.