382 A COUPLET ON FRIENDSHIP. 



Torrepampa,* in Peru, earned for him the unenviable title of el Ver- 

 dngo (the executioner.) In well-informed circles, it is reported that 

 Carlos only wants arms to make a hurrah upon Madrid ; and again, 

 that two large Indiamen are fitting out in the river for the service of 

 the queen, to oppose, it is asserted by some, an armament equipping 

 in the ports of Holland by two British officers, for the service of the 

 pretender ; and by others, because the Spanish Navy is said to be 

 tainted with Carlism." 



" Be this as it may," rejoined my Spanish friend, " the affairs of 

 the Peninsula se complequent; and the illness of Don Pedro has cast 

 a shade over the brightness of the Portuguese horizon. It is for- 

 tunate for that country, that the young Donna Maria da Gloria is of 

 age to marry." 



" That she has been some time since. Remember, she is a daughter 

 of the sun. A native of that glowing clime, where, as in the east, 



" ' The maidens are soft as the roses they twine, 

 And, all save the spirit of man, is divine.' 



Before she left the Rio the last time, her little Majesty was an admi- 

 rable connoisseur in all that constitutes a fine figure, and one day ex- 

 patiated on the Herculean proportions of a garde du corps, with a 

 savoir that fairly crimsoned the parchment cheek of the Baroness 

 Strumpfedder, first lady of honour of her imperial mother-in-law." 



" Viva Dios !" exclaimed the Spaniard. Es muy guapa la mu- 

 chacha ; but then, as the poet so happily remarks, 



' Sans un petit bien d'amour, 

 On s'ennuye meme a la cour.' " 



A COUPLET ON FRIENDSHIP. 

 BY S. T. COLERIDGE. 



QThe friend, who has favoured us with the subjoined couplet, 

 states it to have been the result of an application for the autograph of 

 the " Old Man Eloquent." Coleridge's friends were manifold yet 

 the sentiment embodied in the following is no less fine and true on 

 that account. J 



Friends should be weighed, not told; who boast to have won 

 A multitude of friends, has ne'er had one ! 



* On the evacuation of Lima, in 1821, by the royalists, their rear-guard was 

 commanded by Rodil. At Torrepampa, where the army halted for some time, 

 a church was converted into a hospital for the sick and wounded. On receiving 

 orders to evacuate the place, llodil closed up the door of the edifice, and set it 

 on fire, telling the unfortunate wretches it contained, it was better to be burnt 

 alive than to serve in the ranks of the rebels. 



