:-NRLi:., *-^-3^Sj '\>>.^ i)..>^.> )> ^1^ '' 51 T ))3 ^ :» ♦, j)> :^ L>TBJ? ^ >^ ^^> S*)>^ ^ ^>^ ^ >p^ ' ^ w ^ ^ ^ ^-^ S » '^^S^^^^^^l ^HBT^^ELSi^^EC I^ ^5iSV-^^^ "% ~3l1^ ""!Sfc ^^>^ ' • j63^ --' 2&k •^^> ^f ^^ '^JLl^'^'^i^ > '■ ^^' "B -■.." jO^ -^ '"Sfc ^$y}j^ "JTjr ■ ■ -' ■' ^' ^»^-, Tf^ J> "Ti^ ^^XfJf^-:^M> ' ^T» -^m'^^^w ' -^*3^-^»i> S^«^ ^m \^t.- )^SV^5L^^ . 1)^J^^?'M ^^$i l^ v^v^'e^ ;-,;,^vgvy^y'yy#y^yy^y^,W*y^ :w^.^^\i^^ W^y^m^M mmn^M^mii^^ ^^^w^'^^^w^w *ww^\:)^'wi.^^^^^sw>^.e^^^^w:^^^'^ ■vvw^w^uywus^ibb^ '^^''^^mM W^'Vb^.> ^***»SWli ^r:,^:.^,jv •vy-! w^v'^^^ 'u^^' -^""^^/.uW^U-^^ -3^ Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2008 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/addresseOOrejectedsmitricli >? CiyU(rJ^%^ REJECTED ADDRESSES OTHER POEMS JAMES SMITH AND HORACE SMITH, PORTRAITS AND A BIOG-RAPHICAL SKETCH. EDITED BY EPBS SAROENT. NEW YORK: DERBY & J^CIvSOJ^. II D C C C L X . Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856 BY EPES SARGENT, In the Clerk's OfQce of the District Court of the District of MassacljHSettfl. PREFACE. '/• yh/^ The present is the first American edition of the col- lected poems of Horace Smith. Many of them have been printed in our newspapers and magazines, and not a few are favorites familiar to all true lovers of poetry. No one can read them without admitting the just claim of their author to a high place among the sons of song. His humorous pieces, too, are neat and lively versifications of anecdotes that usually carry with them a point if not a moral. While as a poet Horace Smith was incomparably superior to his brother, the latter, in Lis vers de societe, may claim perhaps equal merit. Spencer and Praed were not more felicitous in their poetry of fashion than James Smith. The topics show the man and his associations, and his poems are so many finished daguer- reotypes of London society in the first half of the nineteenth century. In this light they will always be interesting and amusing — and may bo admitted into col- lections of British poetry, from which similar sketches by Swift and Prior, of a grosser period, ought to be excluded. It is no small virtue of the popular writers whoso poems are contained in our present volume, that, though wits and satirists, they are always gentlemen. M554001 IV PREFACE. It is to the Rejected Addresses that these ingenious brothers are mainly indebted for their celebrity ; and this work still retains its popularity undiminished. It is admitted to be in all respects unique, and perfect after its fashion. Indeed, it well deserves the high praise bestowed on it by the most fastidious, if not the most able critic of his day — the critic who had sat in judg- ment on nearly all the authors imitated in this remark- able volume. The literary world had never before witnessed such an exhibition of the peculiar talent, which could be paralleled only by the marvellous execu- tion of the mocking-bird. Our reprint of this work is from the twenty-third London edition, and the notes in- closed in brackets are from the pen, we believe, of Mr. Peter Cunningham. The prefatory memoir is compiled from a variety of sources, and claims no credit beyond that of judicious condensation and arrangement of materials. For so much of it as relates to James Smith we have re- lied generally upon the biographical sketch prefixed to his collected miscellanies. A series of papers in the New Monthly Magazifie have also been freely used without special acknowledgment. They are entitled A Greybeard' s Gossip, and are reminiscences of his lit- erary contemporaries, by Horace Smith. Other sources of information are mentioned in the text. TABLE OF CONTENTS fjanits bn f 0ntte SmitI]. MISCELLANEOUS. PAOB Prefetory Stanzas 3 Hymn to tho Flowers, 7 Address to a Mummy, 9 Address to tho Orange-treo at Versailles, 12 Sicilian Arethusa, 15 Tlie Shriek of Prometheus, 16 The Birth of the Invisible, 22 Tho Sanctuary, 26 The Poppy, 23 The Murderer's Confession, 80 The Contrast, 85 The Bard's Song to his Daughter, 87 The Flower that feels not Spring, 83 Moral Ruins, 40 Moral Alchemy, 43 Moral Cosmetics, 46 The Old Man's Pasan, 47 Answer to an Old Man's Ptean, 50 Invocation, 52 The Mother's Mistake, 54 The Sun's Eclipse, 66 Lachrymose Writers, 53 "Why arc they shut ? 61 The Libelled Benefactor, C3 Dirge for a Living Poet, 65 Campbell's Funeral, 67 The Life and Death : Tho Life, 69 The Death, 71 Hope's Yearnings, 72 To a Log of "Wood upon the Fire, 74 Unpossessed Possessions, 77 To the Furze Bush, 78 The First of March 79 PAGB Invocation to the Cuckoo, 81 Man, 83 Sporting witliout a License, 84 Tlie Quarrel of Faith, Hope, and Charity, 86 Winter, 90 Cholera Morbus, 91 Eecantation, 93 Death, 95 The Poet among the Trees, 93 To the Ladies of England, . 101 Night Song, 102 The Song Vision, 103 The Poet's Winter Song to his Wife, 105 Song to Fanny, 106 Song to Fanny, 106 The Birthday of Spring, lOT An Old Man's Aspiration, 109 Gipsies, 110 Life 112 To a Lady, 113 The Charms of Life, 115 A Hint to Cynics, 116 Music, 116 The Bard's Inscription in his Daughter's Album, 117 Stanzas, US A Hint to Farmers, 119 Disappointment, 121 The Dying Poet's Farewell, 122 Sonnets 124 Morning, 124 To the Setting Sun, 125 On the Statue of a Piping Faun, 125 On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, 126 On a Greenhouse, 12T Written in the Porch of Binstead Church, Isle of Wight, 12T The World, 123 To a Eose, 1-3 On an Ancient Lance, 129 The Kightingale, 129 Sunset, ^30 Charade, 130 Charade, 132 Charade, 133 Address to the Alabaster Sarcophagus, lately deposited in the British Museum, 134 HUM0E0U3. The Culprit and the Judge, 139 Sonnet to my Own Nose, 1^0 The Milkmaid and the Banker, l'*l The Farmer's Wife and the Gascon, 142 The Auctioneer and the Lawyer, 145 The Gouty Merchant and the Stranger, 143 CONTENTS, VU llje Fat Actor and tho Rustic, 149 The Bank Clerk and the Stable Keepers, 151 Piron and the Judge of the Tolice, 154 Tho Fanner and the Counsellor, 157 The Collegian and the Porter, 153 The Mayor of Miroblais, 161 Eabflais and tho Lampreys, 164 The Biter Bit, 165 Tho Parson at fault, 163 Blindmans Buff, 169 The Poet and the Alchemist, 172 The Astronomical Alderman, 175 South Down Mutton, 176 Evening: An Elegy, 179 Patent Brown Stout, 180 York Kidney Potatoes, 182 The Jester condemned to Death, 134 Laus Atramenti, 185 The Two Bracelets, 187 Marshal Saxe and his Physician, 189 Stanzas to Punchinello, 192 The Pleasant Tete-a-tete, 194 An Easy Remedy, 196 Madame Talleyrand and the Traveller, 198 Projects and Companies, 200 Elegy, 203 Pitt's Bon Mot 204 Hobbs and Dobbs, 206 Monsieur Le Brun, 203 St. George's Penitentiary, 211 Diamond Cut Diamond, 214 f nnus Ijg lames .gmitj!. LONDON LYRICS. Christmas out of Town, 221 St. James's Park, 223 The Upas in Marybone lane, 225 Stage "Wedlock, 226 Doctor Gall, 223 Table Talk, 231 The Poet of Fashion 2-37 Next Door Neighbors, 233 The Image Boy 241 The Lees and the Lawsons, 244 MISCELLANEOUS. Country Commissions, 246 The Mammoth, 248 Sonnets In imitation of Shakspearc, 250 VIU CONTENTS. PAGE Phoebe, or my Grandmother West, 251 Time and Love, 252 Proverbs, 253 The Year Twenty-Six, 254 The Tablet of Truth, 257 Club Law, 259 The Swiss Cottage, 262 Five Hundred a Year, 263 Chigwell 266 Chigwell Pvevisited, 269 The Emperor Alexander, 272 The Gretna Green Blacksmith, 274 Matrimonial Duet, 275 Owen of Lanark, 276 The Triton of the Minnows, 278 The Haunch of Venison, 281 Ode to Sentiment, 2S3 Written by I. Loyal Effusion. By W. T. F Horace. 299 II. The Baby's Debut, By W. "W James. 302 III. An Address without a Phoenix. By S. T. P Horace. 306 ( James IV. Cui Bono ? By Lord B •< and 308 ( Horace. V. Hampshire Farmer's Address. By "W. 0. James. 318 VI. The Living Lustres. By T. M Horace. 318 VII. The Rebuilding. Ky P. S James. 321 VIIL Drury's Dirge. By Laura Matilda Horace. 329 IX. A Tale of Drury Lane. By W. S Horace. 332 X. Johnson's Ghost Horace. 339 XI. The Beautiful Incendiary. By the Hon. W. S Horace. 344 Xlt. Fire and Ale. By M. G. L Horace. 348 XIII. Playhouse Musings. By S. T. C Jam^. 351 XIV. Drury Lane Hustings James. 355 XV. Architectural Atoms. By Dr. B Horace. 358 XVI. Theatrical Alarm-Bell. By Editor of M. P Jarms. 365 XVII. The Theatre. By the Pev. G. C J(Xmes. 369 XVIII. Macbeth Travestie. By Momus Medlar Jam^. 375 XIX. Stranger Travestie. By Ditto James. 379 XX. George Barnwell Travestie. By Ditto James. 382 XXI. Punch's Apotheosis. By T. II Horace. 385 NOTES TO KEJECTED ADDEESSES, 899 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOm. The subjects of the following Memoir were the sons of Robert Smith, an eminent legal practitioner of London, who held for many years the office of Solicitor to the Ordnance. James Smith was born on the 10th of February, 1775 ; and Horace Smith on the 31st of December, 1779. The elder son was educated by the Reverend Mr. Burford at Chigwell, in Essex, was articled to his father on leaving school, and finally succeeded to his professional business and his appointment of Solicitor to the Ordnance. Horace received the same education as liis brother, became a member of the Stock Exchange in London, acquired a fortune, and retired with his family to Brighton. For nearly half a cen- tury they were both distinguished in London society for their social accompUshments, and their clever contributions to the literature of the period. Horace Smith entered active life as a clerk in a merchant's counting-house, where he was more attentive to light hterature and the drama than to bills of exchange, invoices, and charter- parties. His first hterary effiart was a short poem lamenting the decay of public taste in theatrical exhibitions, and the encourage- ment given to dumb shows, to the neglect of such sterling pro- ductions as the West-Indian and The Jew; to the author of which comedies he dedicated his effusion, and forwarded it to him by the post, with his own name and address. The communica- tion brought to the counting-house an old gentleman of distin- guished appearance, whose large and profusely powdered head was flanked with cannon curls, and endorsed with a substantial pig-tail ; liis corbeau-colored suit was of antique cut, and he bore a golden-headed cane. This apparition inquired for Mr. Smith. " "We have two of that name," replied the nearest clerk, "which of them do you want ?" " I want Mr. Smith, the poet." The clerk was astounded at such a demand, and the grave master X BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. petulantly exclaimed, " We have no poet here, sir" — and resumed his writing. The poor culprit, unable to deny his identity, jumped from his tail stool, and hurried into the ante-room the unwelcome visitor, who announced himself as Mr. Cumber- land. Such Avas the introduction of Horace Smith to the celebrated dramatist. It led to an acquaintance and intimacy with the two brothers. The first literary work in which the young poets assisted with their veteran friend, was the Pic Nic newspaper, established in 1802 by Colonel GreviUe, for the double purpose of vindicating certain amateur theatricals which he had given in conjunction with M. Texier, and of checking the scandalous per- sonalities with which some of the newspapers were assailing the aristocracy. The other principal contributors were Sir James Bland Burgess, Monsieur Peltier, Mr. Croker, Mr. J. C. Herries, Mr. Bedford, and Mr. Combe; all of them writing gratuitously except the last-named gentleman, who was the editor, and who had long been Uving in the rules of the King's Bench. Of the party thus engaged in the conduct of an obscure and short-lived periodical, several became afterwards eminent. Herries, then a clerk in the Treasury, rose to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Croker, after attaining the important post of Secretary of the Admiralty, was a clever contributor to the Quarterly Review. Peltier was made notorious by his trial for a libel on the First Consul Bonaparte, in which Mackintosh gained his early forensic laurels. Colonel GreviUe was a gay and fasliionable man, a modification of Sir Harry Wildair, and it may well be supposed that the Pic Nic, with gratmtous contributors, and an editor within the rules, struggled with a sickly and precarious existence. So the colonel dismissed the whole corps editorial at one of their weekly meet- ings, with the announcement that he had engaged a young Irish- man of surpassing talent, who would undertake for a sum equal to Combe's honorarium, to get up and edit the whole paper. Saying this, he left the room, and returned with Mr. John Wilson Croker, who, being thus " trotted out," was bent upon showing his paces to the best advantage. His conversational powers were even then of a very high order, and he exliibited them with all the ardor and copiousness of an aspiring Hibernian. Cumberland, buttoning up his coat, preserved a sullen silence BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. XI until he had lefl the room. " Well," said Greville, " what do you think of my new friend ? He talks a good deal, I must confess, but he tallvs well" "5a7/of that is true," replied the dramatist, and departed in dudgeon. The young Irishman did not revive the Pic N'ic, and it was soon merged in the Cabinet, to wliich Rogers and Sir Thomas Lawrence were occasional contributors, with the old corps of the Pic Nic reinstated. But the Cabinet disappeared in 1803, and in 1809 was pubhshed the first number of the London Review, " conducted by Richard Cumberland." In this work the names of the authors were prefixed to their articles, a novelty that did not take with the public. The brothers Smith lent theu- aid to their friend, but his journal survived only to the second number. At the instance of its projector, they also wrote several of the prefaces to a new edition of BelTs British TJieatre, pubhshed about this time under the sanction of Mr. Cumberland's name. The distinguished editor, who honoured both parties with his friendsliip, was pleased in having them for his coadjutors ; and they were naturally flattered hi bemg thought worthy of his pref- erence. Mr. Cumberland died in 1811, and when Horace Smith last saw him he Avas much altered and attenuated, liis white hair hanging over his ears in thin flakes, his figure stooping, his countenance haggard. It was during the early period of his acquaintance with Cumberland that Horace first tried his hand at a romance, producing one, according to the taste of the times, full of monks, monsters, trap-doors, and spectres. This he submitted to his friend, and it was returned with an unfavourable verdict. The author immediately burned it. " You showed talent, my dear boy," said the dramatist, " in writing that work, but you have evinced much more in committing it to the flames." From the year 1807 to 1810, James Smith was a constant con- tributor to the Monthly Mirror, then the property of Thomas Hill, Esq., at whose cottage, at Sydenham, himself and his brother were frequent guests. This was a favourite resort of the poets, wits, artists, and actors of the time ; and their merry-makings brought together many whose names will live long in the litera- ture of England. A symposium at Hill's was quite as memorable an affair as a breakfast at Rogers's, though an entirely diflfereut style of entertainment. Xii BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. At the Sydenham gatherings the brothers Smith used to recite a dialogue written by themselves, a farrago of nonsense, abound- ing in solecisms and absurdities, yet so far approximating to a sensible discourse as to mislead a careless or obtuse listener. As it was gravely deUvered, the interlocutors appeared to be deeply interested, and at times excited; and as "true no-meaning puzzles more than wit," it became difficult to discover that the whole was a piece of solemn Tom-foolery. Hill's habitual g-uests were too sharp-witted to be themselves entrapped, but the hoax was reserved for the embarrassment or amusement of the occa- sional visitors. In the Monthly Mirror originally appeared the poetical imita- tions entitled Horace in London, which were subsequently pub- hshed in a single volume by Mr. MiUer, who purchased half the copyright of the Rejected Addresses. Both brothers contributed to those parodies of the Roman bard ; but the larger portion, dis- tinguished by the letter J., was from the pen of James. Possess- ing but a fugitive interest, though sometimes the Latin text was ingeniously adapted to the characters and occurrences of the passing hour, these papers, in their collected form, had but a limited sale. They were re-published in this country on their original appearance, but the allusions in them have become obscure, and their merit would hardly justify their reproduction with the notes necessary to make them generally understood. Most of the particulars connected with the first appearance of the Rejected Addresses wUl be found in the preface to the eighteenth edition. This Uttle volume appeared on the re-open- ing of the Drury Lane Theatre, in October, 1812, the idea having been casually started by ^Mr. Ward, secretary to the theatre, exactly six weeks before the first night of performance. Eagerly adopting the suggestion, James and his brother lost not a moment in carrying it into execution. It was arranged what authors they should respectively imitate. Horace left London ou a visit to Cheltenham, executed his portion of the task, and returned to town a few days before the opening, when each sub- mitted his papers to the other, for any omissions or improvements that might appear requisite. These, however, seldom exceeded verbal alterations, or the addition of a few lines. James furnished the imitations of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Crabbe, Cobbett, and numbers 14, 16, 18, 19, and 20. He supplied also the first BIOORAPniCAL JIEMOIR. xiu Stanza to No. 4, Cui Bono? By Lord B. Of all the rest of the original work Horace was the author. Of the eighteenth edition (Murray's) James wrote the notes, and liis brother the preface. The copyright, which had been originally offered to Mr. Murray for twenty pounds, was purchased by that gentleman, in 1819 after the sixteenth edition, for £131. Several editions have been since published in England and the United States. Its success has induced numerous imitations on both sides of the water — which only serve to show the great difficulty of the work of the brothers Smith, and the rareness of the pecuhar talent to its accomplishment. Soon after the appearance of the Rejected Addresses, the authors were invited to meet a large dinner-party at the house of Sir Humphrey and Lady Davy. During a momentary silence, a deaf old lady who had not caught the names, or did not recog- nize the Smiths among their numerous family, called out to the hostess from the further end of the table, " Lady Davy! I'm told the writers of the Rejected Addresses have brought out a new work called Horace in London, which is uncommonly stupid." The company immediately began to talk very loudly and mer- rily to drown this ill-timed sally, while the hostess leaned for- ward to James Smith, and exclaimed, " Poor old lady ! I hope you'll excuse her. I have no doubt she was told that the work in question was uncommonly clever, not stupid. But her ears arc always playing at cross purposes." " Yes, yes, I understand it all," was the reply. " She hears upon the same principle as the Irish echo, wliich, if you shout ' How d'ye do, Pat ?' replies ' Indeed, I'm mighty bad.' And so is our Horace in London, — mighty bad indeed. Tour friend's informant was quite oorrect in saying it is uncommonly stupid ; but there's nothing new in the remark, for we ourselves have always maintained the same opinion, and I'm glad to find we have got the public with us." "When Anstey, author of the Neio Bath Guide, was presented to Bishop AVarburton, the veteran said, " Young man, I will give you a piece of advice: you have written a highly successful work ; — never put pen to paper again." James Smith used to cite this authority for the resolution to which he inflexibly adliered, not to compromise the reputation he had acquired by any future, less successful undertaking. He wrote anonymously, as an amusement and relief — and Xiv BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. scattered about his vers de societe in manuscript and in the mag- azifles, but having won a welcome wlierever he went, and a desirable position in society as a man of talent and wit, he wanted all motive for more serious exertion. James Smith's contributions to Mr. Mathews's Entertainments ■were thrown off with marvellous facility. " Smith is the only man," Mathews used to say, " who can write clever nonsense," — and of all humourists of liis time Mathews was the best calcu- lated to give full effect to it ; though liis powers, when the occasion required it, could take a much higher range. They have received a worthy tribute in the beautiful poem by wliich Horace Smith has honoured the memory of his friend. The combined humour of Mathews and James Smith was first displayed in the Country Cousins, which appeared in 1820, at the Enghsh Opera, and for many nights convulsed the town with laughter. In the two succeeding years, and with the same prosperous result, tlie Trip to France, and the Trip to America, were pro- duced. For these latter works Mr, Mathews paid liim a thousand pounds — a sum to which the receiver seldom made allusion with- out shrugging his shoulders, and ejaculating, "A thousand pounds for nonsense!" At other times he would contrast this large amount with the miserable fifteen pounds given to Milton for his Paradise Lost; reconciling himself, however, to the disproportion by quoting from the well-known couplet, that the real value of a thing "is as much money as 'twill bring;" — and adding, that liis scrimble-scramble stuff always filled the theatre, and replen- ished the treasury. At a later period he was stUl better paid for a more trifling exertion of his muse ; for having met at a dinner-party the late Mr. Strahan, the King's printer, then suffering from gout and old age, though his intellectual faculties remained unimpaired, he sent liim next morning the following jeu d' esp7'it : — "Your lower limbs seem'd far from stout, When last I saw you walk ; The cause I presently found out, When you began to talk. " The power that props the body's length In due proportion spread. In you mounts upwards, and the strength All settles in the head." BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. XV This compliment proved so highly acceptable to the old gentle- man, that he made an immediate codicil to his will, by which he bequeathed to the writer the sum of three hundred pounds I As one of his earhest recollections, James Smith would relate that he had once been patted on the head by Lord Mansfield, as he stopped for a minute to converse with the narrator's father in Ilighgate church-yard. The imposition of this judicial hand, however, did not inspire him with any ardent love of the profes- sion for wliicli he was destined. The passion, which in liim mas- tered all others, was a fervent devotion to the drama. For many years he was never absent from either of the principal theatres on the first performance of a new piece ; and during the greater portion of liis hfe his favourite lounge was in the boxes or the green-room, where, above aU places, his appearance, manners, and wit, secured him a welcome and flattering reception. Though James Smith only amused himself with letters, and threw off his " copies of verses" with great facility, for his lady friends, the Lyrics and ^Miscellaneous Poems that he permitted to be printed, almost merit the praise bestowed on them by a naturally partial critic. "His poetry," says his brother Horace, " in wliich the sportive sallies of his fancy and the corruscations of his wit seem to find a more congenial element for their display, is ever terse, buoyant, racy, and dehghtful. Modulated by a fine, almost a fastidious ear, you seldom meet an inharmonious line, a forced inversion, or an inaccurate rhyme ; a merit the more difficult of attainment, because his proneness to antithesis, brevity, and epigram, led him to sharpen almost every stanza into a point. '• In double rhymes, the paucity of which in our language pre- sents an almost insurmountable barrier to their extensive use, he took such especial delight, that it may be questioned whether any writer can compete with him in the frequency and the happiness of their introduction. His facUity, however, did not betray him into slovenhness; his ' easy writing' was never 'hard reading;' and if— because his works are not more bulky — he is finally to be enrolled amongJ;he ' mob of gentlemen,' who gleam " 'Like twinkling stars the miscellanies o'er,' he will undoubtedly shine with no inferior or unconspicuous light in that poetical galaxy." XVI BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. But James Smith owed his social position to other than his literary claims. He possessed fine colloquial powers, was always genial and good-natured, set off his great personal attractions by scrupulous attention to dress, and was in all respects a thorough gentleman. "It was difficult," wrote one who was intimately acquainted with him in his latter years, " to pass an evening in liis company without feehng in better humour with the world ; such was the influence of his inexhaustible fund of amusement and information, his lightness, hveliness, and good sense. No man ever excelled him in starting a pleasant topic of conversa- tion, and sustaining it ; nor was it well possible for a party of moderate dimensions, when he was of it, to be dull. The droll anecdote, the apt illustration, the slirewd remark, a trait of humour from Fielding, a scrap of a song from the Beggar's Opera, a knock-down retort of Johnson's, a couplet from Pope or Dry- den, — all seemed to come as they were wanted ; and as he was always just as ready to hsten as to talk, they acted, each in turn, as a sort of challenge to the company to bring forth tlieir budgets, and contribute towards the feast. As he disliked argument, and never lost liis temper, or willingly gave offence, it would have been no easy matter for others to lose theirs, or to offend him." In the wide cii-cle of his London acquaintance, one of the houses at which he most delighted to visit was that of Lady Blessington, whose conversational powers he highly admired, and to whose Booh of Beauty he became a contributor. To this lady he was in the habit of sending occasional epigrams, and complimentary or punning notes. When not otherwise engaged, he would take his plain dinner at the Athenaeum, the Union, or the Garrick Club, always re- stricting himself to a half-pint of sherry, from the fear of liis old enemy the gout. The late Sir William Aylett, a grumbling member of the Union, and a two-bottle man, observing him to be thus frugally furnished, eyed his cruet with contempt, and ex- claimed, "So, I see you have got one of these cm-sed life-pre- servers." Although few persons had been more constantly exposed to the temptation of convivial parties, James Smith, at every period, was a strictly temperate man ; an abstemiousness which could not, however, ward off the attacks of gout. These began to assail Mm in middle life, increasing in their frequency and BIOQRAPIIICAL MEMOIR. XVll severity, until, gradually losing the use and very form of his limbs, he sank at times into a state of utter and helpless decrep- itude, which he bore -with an undeviating and iinexampled patience. His last iUness was not of long continuance nor was it attended with suflering, either mental or corporeal. To death itself he had ever expressed a perfect indifference, though he was anxious to be spared a painful or protracted exit ; a wish in which he was fortunately gratified. He died in his house in Craven-street, on the 24th December, 1839, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and was buried under the vaults of St. Martin's church. Allusion has been made in this memoir to Tom HiU's cottage at Sydenliam, and the guests who visited there. It is famous in the kind report of many men of note. It was much frequented by Campbell during his residence at Sydenham, and it was there that the Smiths habitually met Mathews and some- times his fellow-comedian Liston ; Tlieodore Hook ; Edward Dubois, afterwards author of My Pocket Booh, a jeic d'esprit, written in ridicule of Sir John Carr's Traveh ; Leigh Hunt and his brother John ; John Taylor, editor of the Sun newspaper ; Horace Twiss ; Barron Field ; and T. Barnes, who was after- wards distinguished as the " thunderer" of the Times. To this circle, Mathews with his mimicry, his rich flow of anecdote, and his irresistible comic songs, was a constant source of amusement ; but Hook is said to have been its more genuine and natural Momus. Horace Smith, in the early part of Hook's career, expressed a total disbelief in his alleged improvisation. One of his good-natured friends repeated the remark. " Oh, the unbeliev- ing dog!" exclaimed the vocalist, "tell him if I am called upon again, he himself shall dictate the subject and the tune, which of course involves the metre ; but it must be some common popular air." All this took place, and Hook produced one of lais most brilliant songs. " I made a very humble palinode for my mis- trust!" — said the doubter long afterwards, — "and expressed the astonishment and delight with which his truly wonderful per- formance had electrified me. Not without difficulty, however, had I been enabled to beUeve my own ears, and several days elapsed before I had completely recovered from my bewilderment, for, as an occasional rhymester, I could well appreciate the diffi- culty of the achievement." Hook repaid the hospitality of his XVm BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. Sydenham Amphitryon by depicting him as the HuU of Gilbert Ourney. HlU also sat for Paul Pry, and was familiarly pointed out in London as its original. He Uved to an advanced age, and, though he met with pecuniary reverses, retained his freshness of appearance, and cheerfulness of disposition, to the last. In the year 1813 Horace Smith wrote a comedy in five acts, enti- tled First Impressions, or, Trade in the West ; the authorship of which he had concealed from aU but his friend Barron Field, at whose chamber, in the Temple, he had agreed to dine on the night of the first representation, that they might proceed to the theatre together. Mr. LangsdorfF, an attache of some German embassy, was present, and joined the party for Drury Lane, where they took their places in the pit. AU went on smoothly until the dehvery of a speech by one of the actors, to the effect that the money raised in England for a single charity often exceeded the revenue of a whole German principality. "Votisdat?" whis- pered LangsdorfF to the incog, author ; " does he lafi" at de Jairmans ? den I shall damn liis blay." Thereupon he set up a low hiss, which he renewed with increased vigour on every re- appearance of a certain character, tiU he succeeded in estabUshing a decided opposition. As the clamour waxed louder the author joined in it, loudly vociferating, " off ! off ! ! " A fortunate change, however, took place in the humour of the audience, and they finally put down the playwright and his German friend, and the piece was successful, being acted subsequently twenty nights. A farce of liis, entitled The Absent Apothecary, was less fortunate, and was incontinently damned on its first night. With Horace Smith, literature and his city business went hand in hand. Before he relinquished his counting room a friend met him posting westward one day about three o'clock. " Where are you going so fast. Smith ?" " Who would not go fast to Paradise (Paradise row, Fulham) ? I am going to sin like our first parents." " How ? there are no apples to pluck at Fulham, yet." "No; but there is ink to spill, though — a worse sin, perhaps. I have promised L something, I cannot teU what. Who the deuce can hit upon any thing new, when half the world is racking its brains to do the same ?" " This," adds the reminiscent, who wrote a few months after the death of Horace, — " this is thirty years ago, and now the utterer of that remark is within the precincts of the tomb ; while the BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. XIX intervening time saw no diminution of his regard for intellectual pleasures, nor, with much to flatter liis talents in the way of his Uterary labours, any decrease of that modest feeling in regard to his own writings, wliich is one of the strongest attestations of merit. In this respect he differed from liis brother, who had, or always impressed the minds of others that he had, a full sense of the merit of his own compositions." The success of Horace Smith in the Rejected Addresses attached him to a life of letters, and as soon as he had acquired a compe- tency he abandoned the vocation of a money-changer. In spite of the reproaches of his city friends he seized the moment for retiring while independence was within his grasp. " The hope of future gain" — he remarked — " might lead him to risk what he had secured." This was about the year 1820. When the crash of 1825 occurred, he was able to turn the tables on those who had reproached him. " Where are those now who called me a fool for retiring, when I had the independence that satisfied my wishes ? Who was right ? I pity them !" During a residence in France that followed his retirement from active business, in conjunction with one or two friends, he pro- jected the establishment of an English newspaper in Paris. They could never procure the consent of the French government, however, nor its refusal, to the undertaking, and it was abandoned. During his residence abroad, and on his return to England, he was a constant contributor to the New Monthly Magazine, then edited by his friend, the poet Campbell. He sometimes wrote also for the London Magazine, conducted by John Scott, a man of uncommon ability in liis profession, who fell in a duel that fol- lowed his indignant and bitter invectives against Lockhart, and his associates in Blackwood's Magazine. He had been previously connected with Scott in editing the Champion newspaper, to which Tohn Hamilton Reynolds and T. Barnes, afterwards of the Times, were also contributors. About the year 1825, however, he gave up writing for periodicals, and commenced his career as a novel writer by the publication of Bramhletye House, his first and best historical novel. This was followed by Tor Hill, Reuben Apsley, Jane Lomax, The New Forest, Walter Colyton, The Moneyed Man, Adam, Brown, and Arthur Arundel ; all of which were published, we believe, by Mr. Colburn. Horace Smith was the author of more than fifty volumes. XX BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. besides tliose which he edited. Many of these were published anonymously, and perhaps have never been acknowledged. They exhibit not only great industry, but also great tact and versatihty in the writer. "It was about 1826," says a writer in the New Monthly Magazine, " that he published his first novel. He had some time before taken up his abode at Tunbridge Wells, quitting London and his lodgings at 142 Regent-street, of which he declared liim- self heartily sick. Even at tliis distance of time, we remember a dinner he gave there before he started — the last, it is probable, that he ever gave in London — and the hilarity of the guests, among whom were some of the celebrated wits of the time, most of whom are now no more. At Tunbridge Wells we soon paid him a visit, while residing in Mount Edgecombe Cottage. He was, as usual, kind, entertaining, and hospitable. We think of that time with melancholy pleasure. His qualities were the most amiable, the most gentle, in those days, that can be con- ceived. Surely, if integrity, sincerity, and real friendliness de- serve happiness, they must be Ms. There we met an old friend of his whom we have not seen for years — a clever and ingenious man; the author of a novel not enough known." A pilgrim- age to Penshurst, the old seat of the Sidneys, suggested on this occasion, was the origin of Brambletye House. Smith remarked that such buildings were the best foundation scenes for novels ; and it was no wonder that they had been so often chosen. It was about this time that some one recommended the female name of Zillah as one pecuharly pleasing. "To me," said Horace, " it would of course be doubly interesting. She was a lady of the very earliest descent; the mother of Tubal Cain, the fi.rst of the Smiths, and of course the founder of my family." " Both brothers," continues the writer we have last quoted, " were clever men and piquant writers, but Horace Smith was something beyond tliis. He possessed talents of a wider scope than James; his views were more extended; he was more intellectually accompUshed ; had seen much more of the world, and thought deeper. James was a wit, an agreeable companion, possessed of a fine vein of humour, but circumscribed in the extent of his information, and, as a natural consequence, more concen- trated in himself. James selected his subjects, for the most part, within the circle in which he moved, and continued to move BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. xxi through life. A happy point, -well made, it was his delight to repeat at the dinner-table or in the evening party. His jokes — and excellent they were — thrown off among convivial friends — in short, society, cheerfulness, and its accompaniments — consti- tuted the summum of his Ufe's pleasures. His frame was not active ; his bachelor habits and dinings-out rendered him a sul^- ject for the gout, to which disorder he ultimately fell a victim. From his office in Austin Friars to his residence in the Strand constituted the major part of liis journeyings. Horace, on the con- trary, was of an active make. A year or two after we first knew him, he visited Italy ; and returning, for some time made France liis residence. We first saw James at his office in Austin Friars, nearly thirty years ago. He looked as serious as the parchment and papers surrounding him. He seemed in tliis situation as little of a wit as can well be imagined. A joke took place on this visit often subsequently repeated. There were two Smiths on the same side of the court, and we had very naturally knocked at the door of the first we came to. On entering his office, we mentioned our mistake. ' Ay,' said James Smith, 'I am James the first; he must abdicate.' " It is difficult to say which of the two was the most witty in the social hour. Both brothers may be characterized rather as possessors of a high talent for humour, than of that sparkhng wit which characterized Hook. Sometimes, with all his wonderful readiness, it was hit or miss with Hook, who aimed at notoriety no matter how acquired. The Smiths were both graver men, and would have thought to run a joke too near to a failure was akin to one. We have known Horace Smith indignant at Hook's jesting, not only ill, but out of place, in liis wild manner. " James Smith wanted the cordial spirit of his brother ; there was, we fancied, httle warmth of heart about him. He seemed to mingle somewhat of his professional character in social inter- course. On this accoimt we surmise that James will be much sooner forgotten by Ins friends than Horace. Both brothers were delightful companions. Many an hour of mental depression have we felt reheved by their society. The humour and gladiatorial displays of wit that occurred in their company, were always gentlemanly, generous in temper, unimpeachably moral, and never the splenetic outpouring of ill-feeUng. Horace, or Horatio, as he always subscribed himself, was not only the most accom- XXll BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. plished, but the most genial spirit of the two. He was as much attracted to the society of Uterary men who made no pretension to be wits, and to sohd and serious reading as to the gay and Hght." Leigh Hunt, in liis expressive use of odd epithets, says that Horace Smith was " dehcious." He never met with a finer nature in man, except in the single instance of Shelley, who himself entertained the highest regard for Horace Smith, as may be seen by the following verses, the initials in wliich the reader may fiU up with his name : — " Wit and sense. Virtue and human knowledge, all that might Make this dull world a business of delight. Are all combined in H. S." SheUey once said to Leigh Hunt — "I know not what Horace Smith must take me for sometimes : I am afraid he must think me a strange fellow : but is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stock-broker ! and he writes poetry too" — continued Shelley, his voice rising in a fervour of astonishment ; " he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is stUl generous." The pastoral drama alluded to was probably Tlie Kympholept, pubUshed anonymously in 1821. Whatever may have been its merit, its circulation was Umited, and it is no longer remembered. " I beUeve," said Shelley on another occasion, " that I have only to say to Horace Smith that I want a hundred pounds or two, and he would send it to me without any eye to its being returned ; such faith has he that I have sometliing within me beyond what the world supposes, and that I could only ask his money for a good purpose." What SheUey says that Smith would have done for him, he was known more than once to have done for others with a dehcacy that enhanced the generosity of the act. Horace Smith took leave of the pubUc in the preface to Love and Mesmerism, pubUshed in 1845, announced as his last work of fiction. He kept Ms resolution in tliis regard, but his pen could not remain idle. He subsequently wrote a series of entertaining papers for the New Monthly Magazine. He died at Tunbridge WeUs, on the 12th of July, 1849, in his seventieth year. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. XXllI The novels of Horace Smith were well received at the time of their appearance, and several of them are still republished. We find the names of three, not generally esteemed the best, still reprinted in the United States, in the select hbrary of novels of the Brothers Harper. As a poet, his productions were usually suggested by the events passing around him, and were printed in the monthly magazines of his friends, Campbell and John Scott. From these journals they were transferred to newspapers, readers, and class-books, till they became familiar to the public before their appearance in a collected form. They deserve their popu- larity. They are written in a philosopliic, no less than a poetical spirit. They exhibit no ordinary grace of expression, and the versification is always harmonious and skillful. There is nothing of the obscure or spasmodic about them, but they are simple and eflective. The lines on the Funeral of Campbell are worthy of the great poet whom they commemorate. The stanzas on Southey and Scott are full of solemnity and pathos. The Address to the Mummy is picturesque and animated ; and the Sicilian Arethiisa not only seems a veritable fragment of ancient Hterature, but is as musical and melodious as any verse in the language. The personal appearance of Horace Smith, according to Leigh Hunt, was highly indicative of his character. His figure was good and manly, inchning to the robust ; and his countenance extremely frank and cordial; sweet without weakness. His character is succinctly and beautifully described, in the paragraph in which the London Examiner announced his decease, and paid a tribute to liis memory. " He was a man of correct taste and the most generous sympathies, a delightful writer both in prose and verse, a cheerful and wise companion and a fast friend. No man had a wider range of admirable and genial qualities ; and far beyond that private circle of which he was the great charm and ornament, his loss will be deeply felt." If it would be diffi- cult to find words to convey more graceful and emphatic praise, it would be equally so to find a man who, from all report, more fully deserves it than Horace Smith. PREFATORY STANZAS. Talk not to me of Necromantic wights, And dread magicians, Who, by their potent spells, could conjure sprites, Ghosts, apparitions. And raise the dead from the forgotten past. Each in the perfect mould of pre-existence cast. I, though no conjuror, have far outdone Such Archimages, For, as I culled and pondered, one bj one, These scattered pages. From the dark past, and memory's eclipse, Up rose in vision clear my life's Apocalypse. 4 PREFATORY STANZAS. Mutely each re-creative lay outpoured Its own revealings ; Youth, manhood, age, -were momently restored, With all their feelings. Friends long deceased were summoned from the tomb ; Forgotten scenes regained their vividness and bloom. Again did I rechne in copses green, Gazing from under Some oak's thwart boughs upon the slcy serene. In reverent wonder ; Or starting from the sward with ear acute, To hear the cuckoo sound its soft two-noted flute. Association ! thy transcendant power What art can rival ? Muse-haunted strolls by river, field, or bower, At thy revival. Return once more, and in their second birth Bring back each former scent and sound of air and earth. In social joys where song and music's zest Made beauty fairer. In festive scenes with all their mirth and jest, Once more a sharer, I see the smiles, and hear the laughter loud, Of many a fi'iend, alas ! now mouldering in his shroud. PREFATORY STANZAS. 5 So, when the hands are dust that now entwine These prompting pages, Some future reader, as a jest or line His thought engages, Feeling old memories from their grave arise, May thus, in pensive mood, perchance soliloquise : " I knew the bardling; 'twas his nature's bent, His creed's chief feature, To hold that a benign Creator meant To bless the creature. And giving man a boon denied to brute, Loved him to exercise his laughing attribute. " He felt that cheerfulness, when unalloyed With aught immoral. Was piety, on earth, in heaven enjoyed ; And wished his laurel To be a Misletoc, whose grace should make The mirth-devoted year one hallowed Christmas wake. " In mystic transcendental clouds to soar Was not his mission, Yet could he mould at times the solid ore Of admonition ; Offenceless, grave or gay, at least that praise May grace his name, and speed his unpretending lays." 6 PREFATORY STAITZAS. If such thy welcome, little Book ! discard Fears of thine ordeal ; Go forth, and tell thy readers that the Bard, With fervent, cordial Feelings of gratitude and hope comhined, Bids them all hail, and wafts them every feeling kind. HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. Day-staks ! that ope your frownless eyes to t-n'inklo From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation, And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle As a libation. Ye matin worshippers ! who bending lowly Before the uprisen Sun, God's lidless eye. Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy Incense on high. Ye bright Mosaics ! that with storied beauty, The floor of Nature's temple tesselate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create ! 'Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air. Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand. But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned; HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. To that cathedral, boundless as our -wonder, Whose quenchless lam-ps the sun and moon supply ; Its choir the -winds and waves — its organ thunder — Its dome the skj. There, as in solitude and shade I -wander Through the green aisles, or stretched upon the sod, A-wed by the silence, reverently ponder The -ways of God, Your voiceless lips, Flo-wers ! are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook. Floral Apostles ! that in dev{j splendour " Weep -without ^\oe, and blush -without a crime," may I deeply learn, and ne'er surrender Your lore sublime ! " Thou -wert not, Solomon ! in all thy glory, Arrayed," the lilies cry — " in robes like ours; Ho-w vain your grandeur ! ah, how transitory Are human flowers !" In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist ! With which thou paintest nature's wide-spread hall, What a delightful lesson thou impartest Of love to all ! Not useless are ye, Flowers ! though made for pleasure: Blooming o'er field and wave, by day and night. From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight. ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. 9 Ephemeral sages ! ^Yhat instructors lioarj For such a world of thouglit could furnish scope ? Each fading caljx a memento mori, Yet fount of hope. . Posthumous glories ! angel-likc collection ! Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, Ye arc to me a type of resurrection, And second birth. "Were I in churchless solitudes remaining, Far from all voice of teachers and divines, Mj soul ^Y0uld find, in flowers of God's ordaining. Priests^ sermons, shrines ! ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!) In Thebes' s streets three thousand years ago, When the Memnonium was in all its glory, And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins arc tremendous. Speak ! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy. Thou hast a tongue — come — let us hear its tune ; Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above-ground, Mummy ! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon, Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features. 10 ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. Tell us — for doubtless thou canst recollect, To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect Of either pyramid that bears his name? Is Pompej's Pillar really a misnomer ? Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade — Then say what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue which at sunrise played ? Perhaps thou wert a Priest — if so, my struggles Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles. Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat, Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass ; Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat. Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass ; Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, A torch at the great Temple's dedication. I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed. Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled, For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed, Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled : Antiquity appears to have begun Long after thy primeval race was run. Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, How the world looked when it was fresh and young, And the great Deluge still had left it green — Or was it then so old that History's pages Contained no record of its early ages ? ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. ll Still silent ! incommunicative elf ! Art sworn to secrecy ? then keep thy vows ; But pry thee tell us something of thyself — Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house ; Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen — what strange adventures numbered? Since first thy form was in this box extended, "We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations. The Roman empire has begun and ended, New worlds have risen — we have lost old nations, And countless Kings have into dust been humbled, While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head, When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread, O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis, And shook the Pyramids with fear and Avonder, When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ? If th3 tomb's sesrets may not be confessed, The nature of thy private life unfold : A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast, And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled : — Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face ? What was thy name and station, age and race ? Statue of flesh — Immortal of the dead ! Imperishable type of evanescence ! Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed, And standest undecayed within our presence. Thou Avilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning, When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning. 12 ADDRESS TO Why should this Avorthless tegument endure. If its undying guest be lost for ever ? Oh ! let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue, that Avhen both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom I ADDRESS TO THE ORANGE-TREE AT VERSAILLES, CALLED THE GREAT BOTIBBON, WHICH 18 ABOVE FOCU nUNDEED YEAK8 OLIX. When France with civil wars was torn, And heads, as well as crowns were shorn From royal shoulders, One Bourbon, in unaltered plight. Hath still maintained its legal right, And held its court — a goodly sight To all beholders. Thou, leafy monarch, thou alone, Hast sat uninjured on thy throne, Seeing the war range ; And when the great Nassaus were sent Crownless away (a sad event !) Thou didst uphold and represent The House of Orange. ' To tell what changes thou hast seen. Each grand monarque, and king and queen, Of French extraction. Might puzzle those who don't conceive French history, so I believe Comparing thee with ours will give More satisfaction. THE ORANGE-TREE AT VERSAILLES. 13 Westminster Hall,* whose oaken roof The pipers say (but thafs no proof), Is nearly rotten, Existed but in stones and trees, ■\Vben thou wert waving in the breeze. And blossoms (what a treat for bees !) By scores hadst gotten. Chaucer, so old a bard that time Has antiquated every chime, And from his tomb outworn each rhyme "Within the Abbey ; ■ And Gower, an older poet whom The Borough Cliurch enshrines (his tomb, Though once restored, has lost its bloom, And got quite shabby), Lived in thy time — the first perchance ^Yas beating monksf when thou in Franca By monks wert beaten, "VVho shook beneath this very tree Their reverend beards, with glutton glee, As each down-falling luxury Was caught and eaten. Perchance when Henry gained the fight Of Agincourt, some Gaulish knight (His bleeding steed in woful plight, With smoking haunches), Laid down his helmet at thy root. And, as he plucked the grateful fruit. Suffered his poor exhausted brute To crop thy branches. * Rebuilt 1309. •)- There is a tradition (though not authenticated) that Chaucer was fined for beating a monk in Fleet-street. 14 THE ORANGE-TREE AT VERSAILLES. Thou Avert of portly size and look, When first the Turks besieged and took Constantinople ; And eagles in thy boughs might perch, When, leaving Bullen in the lurch. Another Henrj changed his church, And used the Pope ill. What numerous namesakes hast thou seen Lounging beneath thy shady green, With monks as lazy ; Louis Quatorze has pressed that ground, With his six mistresses around — A sample of the old and sound Legitimacy. And when despotic freaks and vices Brought on the inevitable crisis Of revolution. Thou heard'st the mob's infuriate shriek, Who came their victim Queen to seek, On guiltless heads the wrath to wreak Of retribution. Oh ! of what follies, vice, and crime, Hast thou, in thine eventful time, Been made beholder ! What wars, what feuds— the thoughts appal! Each against each, and all with all. Till races upon races fall. In earth to moulder. Whilst thou, serene, unaltered, calm (Such are the constant gifts and balm Bestowed by Nature I) SICILIAN ARETHUSA. 15 Hast year by year renewed thy flo-wcrs, And periumed the surrounding bowers, And poured down grateful fruit by showers. And proflered shade in summer hours To man and creature. Thou green and venerable tree ! Whate'er the future doom may be, By fortune given, Remember that a rhymester brought From foreign shores thine umbrage sought, Recalled the blessings thou hadst wrought, And, as he thanked thee, raised his thought To heaven ! SICILIAN ARETHUSA. Sicilian' Arethusa ! thou, whose arms Of azure round the Thymbrian meadows wind, Still are thy margins lined With the same flowers Proserpina was weaving In Enua's field, beside Pergusa's lake, When swarthy Dis, upheaving. Saw her, and, stung to madness by her charms, Down snatched her, shrieking, to his Stygian couch. Thy waves, Sicilian Arethusa, flow In cadence to the shepherd's flageolet As tunefully as Avhen they wont to crouch Beneath the banks to catch the pipings low Of old Theocritus, and hear him trill Bucolic songs, and Amoebsean lays. And still, Sicilian Arethusa, still, 16 THE SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS. Though Etna dry thee up, or frosts enchain, Thy music shall be heard, for poets high Have dipped their wreaths in thee, and bj their prais' Made thee immortal as themselves. Thy flowers, Transplanted, an eternal bloom retain. Rooted in words that cannot fade or die. Thy liquid gush and gurgling melody Have left undying echoes in the bowers Of tuneful poesy. Thy very name, Sicilian Arethusa, had been drowned In deep oblivion, but that the buoyant breath Of bards uplifted. it, and bade it swim Adown the eternal lapse, assured of fame, Till all things shall be swallowed up in death. Where, Immortality ! where canst thou found Thy throne unperishing, but in the hymn Of the true bard, whose breath encrusts his theme Like to a petrifaction, which the stream Of time will only make more durable ? THE SHRIEK OF PRO:\IETHEUS. B'jaGESTEr) BY A PAGS.VGE IN TII3 SECOND liOOZl OF APOLLONnjS UrtODrUS. Fresh was the breeze and the rowers plied Their oars with simultaneous motion, "When the Argo sailed in her stately prido By the laurelled shores of the Pontic Ocean. The island of Mars with its palmy coves, The Sacred Mount, and Aretia's strands, And Philyra's Isle with its linden groves, And Ophir's flood with its slielly sands, TIIB SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS. 17 Swiftly they passed — till, stretching far, On their right Bechiria's coast appears. Where painted Sapirians, fierce in war, Bristle the beach with bows and spears. At distance they saw the sunbeams quiver Where the long-sought towers of Colchis stood, And marked the foam of the Phasis river. As it flung from it3 rosky mouth the flood. The Argonauts gaze with hungry eyes On the land enriched by the Golden Fleece, Already in fancy they grasp the prize, And hear the shouts of applauding Greece. Jason looked out with a proud delight, Castor and Pollux stood hand in hand, Showing each other the welcome sight ; While fierce Meleager unsheathed his brand. Liocaon bade the rowers check Their oars, as the sun to the water slanted. For Orpheus sate with his harp on the deck. And sweetly the hymn of evening chanted, While the heroes around, at each pause of sound, Stretched their right hands to the god of day, And fervently joined in the choral lay. THE HYMN OF ORPHEUS. Twin-born with Dian in the Delos isle, Which after the Ogygian deluge thou Didst first illume with renovating smile, Apollo ! deign to hear our evening vow. 18 THE SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS. CHORUS. When thou'rt dim, our harp and hymn Thy downward course shall follow : . Hail to thee ! — hail to thee I Hail to thee, Apollo ! God of the art that heals the shattered frame, And poetry that soothes the wounded mind. Ten thousand temples, honoured with thy name, Attest thy ceaseless blessings to mankmd. CHORUS. When thou'rt dim, our harp and hymn Thy downward course shall follow : Hail to thee ! — hail to thee ! Hail to thee, Apollo ! . Thy golden bow emits a gushing strain Of music when the Pythian serpent dies : His eyes flash fire — his writhings plough the plain : Hissing he leaps aloft — then lifeless lies. CHORUS. When thou'rt dim, our harp and hymn Thy downward course shall follow: Hail to thee ! — hail to thee ! Hail to thee, Apollo ! Pan of his pipe and rural science proud, Dreamt that his music might with thine aspire ; The mountain Tmolus was the judge— and bowed His noddmg woods in homage to thy lyre. THE SURIEK OF PROMETHEUS. 19 CHORUS. When tbou'rt dim, with harp and hjnin Thj downward course we follow : Hail to thee ! — hail to thee ! Hail to thee, Apollo ! From bowers of Daphne on Parnassus' Mount, While Delphic girls their lo Paeans sing, The gifted Muses bj Castalia's Fount With choral symphonies salute their king. CHORUS. When tbou'rt dim, witb harp and hymn Thy downward course we follow : Hail to thee ! — hail to thee ! Hail to thee Apollo ! God of the golden lyre and laurel wreath, To thee each poet turns with yearning heart And thoughtful eyes, invoking thee to breathe Thine inspiration With a start The minstrel ceased — for over all the bark A baleful shadow on a sudden spread ! The Argonauts looked up, and saw a dark And monstrous eagle hovering o'er their head ; So vast and fearful, that transfixed and pale They stood, with wild amaze o'ertaken : — The vessel trembles, and the shivering sail Flaps as if with terror shaken. Entranced they gazed — and silent till Philas, the son of Bacchus, seized his bow, And would have aimed it at the feathered foe, But Mopsus, gifted with an augur's skill, 20 THE SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS. Gentlj held back his arm, and bade him Trait This dread portent — pronounce no word, Nor dare to challenge Jove's own bird. The minister of unrelenting fate. Extending now his oar-like wings, Twice round the ship the monster swings, As if prepared to pounce upon his prej; His ejes from forth his sable shroud Shot fire, like lightning from a cloud ; But with a sudden dart he rushed away, And clove the northward distance, where The heights of Caucasus their barrier throw, Where crag on crag, chaotic giants bare Their granite foreheads to the sky, and sit In desolate state beneath their crowns of snow. Within these topmost peaks, there is a pit — A dizzy, gaunt, precipitous ravine, Upon whose rocky floor environed round With walls of ice — by every eye unseen. With adamantine chains Prometheus lies bound. Thither the ravenous wonder winged his flight — They saw him clear the intervening height, And sink behind it : — evei-y eye Is fixed upon the spot, and every heart Throbs with expectant agony. — But naught is seen — no sounds impart The secret of that dread abyss : — Still do they gaze half-willing to dismiss Their fears and hopes, for over plain and hill, And smiling ocean — all is hushed and still Gracious God, what a shriek ! The monster with his beak THE SURIEK OF PROMETHEUS. 21 Is tearing out bis victim's heart ! Lo ! as that desolating crj Echoes tVoui the mountains high, And throws its fear afar, a start Of horror seems to darken nature's face, — Athwart the quaking deep, Revolting shudders creep, Earth trembles to her very base — Air seems to swoon — the sky to frown — The sun with ghastly glare sinks faster down. — Hark ! what a furious clash of chains ! Victim ! thou never canst unlock The brazen bolts that root ihce to the rock ; Vain are thy struggles and convulsive strains. Ah me ! what dreadful groans arc those "Wrung from the very depths of agonies ; — Now weaker moiinings rise, till, worn with woes, The fainting wretch exhausted lies, And all again is grim repose. But still with throbbing breasts and steadfast eyes The heroes gazed upon the mountain's peak, Till gorged with gore they saw the iLonster rise With blood-stained claws, and breast, and beak : And as above them he resumed his flight, The arrested vessel shakes. The flapping main-sail quakes, And all seemed turned to statues at the sight, All but the son of Bacchus, who With flashing eyes and visage red, Again upreared his bow and drew His longest arrow to the head — When from the eagle's beak a drop of gore, (The heart's blood of Prometheus) fell 22 THE BIRTH OP THE INVISIBLE. Warm on his hand ! upon tho vessel's floor DoAvn falls his bow ; — with shuddering yell, And haggard eyes still staring on the drop, He staggers back, clasping the mast to prop His fainting limbs. Upon the pilot's forehead The dews of terror stood, And all in awe-struck mood Pondered in silence on that omen horrid. The sun went down, and far into the gloom The monster shot away — but none Of the bewildei'ed Argonauts resume The vessel's guidance as her way she won. — None spake — none moved — all sate in blank dismay, Revolving in their minds this dread portent ; And thus, abandoned to the sway Of the blind wind and Avatery element. Through the whole night the Argo bore Those throbbin\IiNii!iK. " Mj voice can be heard and mj arguments weighed : Which explains why such numerous converts of late Are under my love-breathing standard arrayed, Who once, beneath yours, were excited to hate. " Superstition must throw off Religion's disguise ; For men, now enlightened, not darkling like owls, While they reverence priests who are holy and wise, Will no longer he hoodwinked by cassocks or cowls. "If, Sisters ! forgetting your primitive troth. You would still part the world into tyrants and slaves, What wonder that sages should look on you both As the virtues of dupes, for the profit of knaves ? " You would separate? Do so — I give you full scope ; But reflect, you are both of you naught when we part ; While I, 'tis well known, can supply Faith and Hope, When I choose for my temple an innocent heart." WINTER. The mill-wheel 's frozen in the stream. The church is decked with holly, Misletoe hangs from the kitchen beam, To fright away melancholj^ ; Icicles clink in the milkmaid's pail, Younkers skate on the pool below, Blackbirds perch on the garden rail, And hark, how the cold winds blow ! THE CHOLERA MORBUS. 91 There goes the squire to shoot at snipe, Here runs Dick to fetch a log ; You'd swear his breath Avas the smoke of a pipe In the frosty morning fog. Hodge is breaking the ice for the kine, Old and young cough as they go, The round red sun forgets to shine, And hark, how the cold winds blow 1 TIIE CHOLERA MORBUS. [ox UEAKIXQ IT SAID TnAT TOIS DISEASE OXLT ATTACKED THE POOE.] It comes ! it comes ! from England's trembling tongue One low and universal murmur stealeth : — By dawn of day, each journal is o'erhung "With startling eyes, to read what it revealeth. And all aghast, ejaculate one word — The Cholera — no other sound is heard ! Had Death upon his ghastly horse revealed, Fi'om his throat-rattling trump a summons sounded, Not more appallingly its blast had pealed Upon the nation's ear ; — awe-struck, astounded. Men strive in vain their secret fears to smother, And gaze in blank dismay on one another. Now are all cares absorbed in that of health ; Hushed is the song, the dance, the voice of gladness, While thousands in the selfishness of wealth. With looks of confidence, but hearts of sadness, Dream they can purchase safety for their lives By nostrums, drugs, and quack preventitives. 92 THE CHOLERA MORBUS. The wretch -who might have died in squalid want, Unseen, unmounied by our hard-hearted hhndness, "Wringing from fear what pity would not grant, Becomes the sudden object of our kindness, Now that his betters he may implicate, And spread infection to the rich and great. Yet still will wealth presumptuously cry, " What though the hand of death be thus outstretched? It will not reach the lordly and the high, But only strike the lowly and the wretched. Tush ! what have ive to quail at ? Let us fold Our arms, and trust to luxury and gold." They do belie thee, honest Pestilence ! Thou 'rt brave, magnanimous, not mean and dastard Thou 'It not assert thy dread omnipotence In mastering those already overmastered By want and woe — trampling the trampled crowd, To spare the unsparing, and preserve the proud. Usurpers of the people's rights ! prepare For death by quick atonement. — Stony-hearted Oppressors of the poor ! — in time beware ! When the destroying angel's shaft is darted, 'Twill smite the star on titled bosoms set. The mitre pierce, transfix the coronet. Take moral physic, Pomp ! not drugs and oil, And learn, to broad philanthropy a stranger, That every son of poverty and toil, With whom thou sharest now an equal danger, Should as a brother share, in happier hours, The blessings which our common Father showers. THE RECANTATION. 9d thou reforming Cholera ! thou'rt sent Not as a scourge alone, but as a teacher — That thejr who shall survive to mark the event Of thy dread summons thou death-dealing preacher ! By piety and love of kind may best Requite the love that snatched them from the Pest. THE RECANTATION. Young, saucy, shallow in my views, The world before me — free to choose My calling or profession, I canvassed, one by one, the list, And thus, a tyro satirist, Condemned them in succession : The Law ? — its sons cause half our ills, By plucking clients in their bills, As sparrowhawks do sparrows ; Shrinking the mind it whets, their trade Acts as the grindstone on the blade, Which, while it sharpens, narrows. What makes the Pleader twist and tear Statutes to wrong the rightful heir, And bring the widow sorrow ? A fee ! — What makes him change his tack. Eat his own words, and swear white's black ?- Another fee to-morrow. A Curate ? — chained to some dull spot, Even at church he mourns his lot, Repining with thanksgiving. 94 THE RECANTATION'. 'Mid stupid clodpoles and their wives, The Scholar 's buried while he lives, And dies without a living. And what are Bishops ? — hypocrites "Who preach against the world's delights In purple and fine linen ; Who brand as crime, in humbler elves, All vanities, while they themselves Have palaces to sin in. A Soldier ? — ^What ! a bravo paid To make man-butcher j a trade — A Jack-a- dandy varlet. Who sells his liberty — perchance His very soul's inheritance — For feathers, lace, and scarlet ! A Sailor ? — worse ! — he 's doomed to trace With treadmill drudgery the space From foremast to the mizzen ; A slave to the tyrannic main, Till some kind bullet comes to brain The brainless in his prison. Physic ? — a freak of times and modes. Which yearly old mistakes explodes For new ones still absurder : All slay their victims — disappear, And only leave this doctrine clear, That " killing is no murder." A Poet? — To describe aright His lofty hopes and abject plight, The quickest tongue would lack words ! THE RECANTATION. 95 Still like a ropcmakcr, he twines From morn to even lines on lines, And still keeps going backwards. Older and wiser grown, my strain "Was changed, and thus did I arraign My crude and cynic sallies : Railer ! — like most satiric scribes, Your world-condemning diatribes Smack less of truth than malice. Abuse condemns not use — all good Perverted or misunderstood, May generate all badness, Reason itself — that gift divine, To folly may be turned by wine. By long excess to madness. From the professions thus portray'd, As prone to stain, corrupt, degrade, Have sprung, for many ages, All that the w^orld with pride regards, Our statesmen, patriots, heroes, bards. Philanthropists and sages. Not from our callings do we take Our characters : — men's actions make Or mar their reputations. The good, the bad, the false, the true. Would still be such, though all their crew Should interchange vocations. 06 DEATH. Whate'er the compass-box's hue, Substance, or form — the needle's true, Alike in calms or surges : Even thus the virtuous heart, -whate'er Its owner's plight or calling — ne'er From honour's pole diverges. DEATH. Fate ! fortune ! chance ! whose blindness, Hostility or kindness. Plays such strange freaks with human destinies, Contrasting poor and wealthy, The life-diseased and healthy. The blessed, the cursed, the witless, and the wise, Ye have a master — one Vfho mars what ye have done, Levelling all that move beneath the sun — Death ! Take courage ye that languish Beneath the withering anguish Of open wrong, or tyrannous deceit. There comes a swift redresser. To punish your oppressor. And lay him prostrate — helpless at your feet. champion strong ! Righter of wrong. Justice — equality to thee belong — Death ! Where conquest crowns his quarrel, And the victor, wreathed with laurel, DEATH. 97 While trembling nations bow beneath his rod, On his guarded throne reposes, In living apotheosis, The Lord's anointed, and earth's demigod, What form of fear Croaks in his ear, " The victor's car is but a funeral bier." — Death ! Who — spite of guards and yeomen, Steel phalanx and cross-bowmen, Leaps at a bound the shuddering castle's moat, The tyrant's crown down dashes, His brandished sceptre smashes, With rattling fingers grasps him by the throat, His breath out-wrings, And his corpse down flings To the dark pit where grave- worms feed on kings ? — Death ! When the murderer 's undetected. When the robber 's unsuspected, And night has veiled his crime from every eye ; When nothing living daunts him, And no fear of justice haunts him, Who wakes his conscience-stricken agony ? Who makes him start With his withering dart, And wrings the secret from his bursting heart ? Death ! To those who pme in sorrow, Whose wretchedness can borrow No moment's ease from any human act, To the widow comfort-spurning, To the slave for freedom yearning, 98 THE POET AMONG THE TREES. To the diseased with cureless anguish rack'd, Who brings release And whispers peace, And points to realms where pain and sorrow cease ?- Death ! THE POET AMONG THE TREES. Oak is the noblest tree that grows, Its leaves are freedom 's type and herald, If we may put our faith in those Of Literary-Fund Fitzgerald. Willow's a sentimental wood, And many sonneteers, to quicken 'em, A relic keep of that which stood Before Pope's Tusculum at Twickenham. The Birch-tree, with its pendent curves, Exciting many a sad reflection, Not only present praise deserves, But our posterior recollection. The Banyan, though unknown to us, Is sacred to the Eastern Magi ; Some like the taste of Tityrus, "Recubans sub tegmine fagi." Some like the Juniper — in gin ; Some fancy that its berries droop, as Knowing a poison lurks within, More rank than that distilled from th' Upa&. THE POET AMONG THE TREES. 99 But he who wants a useful word, To tag a line or point a moral, Will find there "s none to be preferred To that inspiring tree — the Laurel. The hero-butchers of the sword, In Rome and Greece, and many a far land, Like Bravos, murdered for reward, The settled price — a laurel-garland. On bust or coin we mark the wreath, Forgetful of its bloody story. How many myriads writhed in death. That one might bear this type of glory. Caesar first wore the badge, 'tis said, 'Cause his bald sconce had nothing on it, Knocking some millions on the head, To get his own a leafy bonnet. Luckily for the Laurel's name, Profaned to purposes so frightful, 'Twas worn by nobler heirs of fame. All innocent, and some delightful. "With its green leaves were victors crowned In the Olympic games for running, Who wrestled best, or galloped round The Circus with most speed and cunning. Apollo, crowuied with Bays, gives laws To the Parnassian Empyrean ; And every schoolboy knows the cause, Who ever dipped in Tooke's Pantheon. 100 THE POET AMONG THE TREES. Daphne, like many another fair, To whom connubial ties are horrid. Fled from his arms, but left a rare Memento sprouting on his forehead. For Bays did ancient bards compete, Gathered on Pindus or Parnassus, They bj the leaf were paid, not sheet, And that 's the reason thej surpass us. One wreath thus twines the heads about, Whose brains have brightened all our sconces, And those w^ho others' brains knocked out, 'Cause they themselves were rojal dunces. Men fight in these degenerate days, For crowns of gold, not laurel fillets ; And bards Avho borrow fire from bays, Must have them in the grate for billets. Laureats we have (for cash and sack) Of all calibres and diameters, But 'stead of poetry, alack ! They give us lachrymose Hexameters. And that illustrious leaf for which Folks wrote and wrestled, sang and bluster 'd, Is now boiled down to give a rich And dainty flavour to our custard ! TO THE LADIES OF ENGLAND. 101 TO THE LiVDDES OF ENGLAND. Beauties ! — (for, dressed with so much taste, All may with such a term be graced,) — Attend the friendly stanza. Which deprecates the threatened change Of English modes for ilishions strange, And French extravaganza. What! when her sons renown have won In arts and arms, and proudly shone A pattern to the nations, Shall England 's recreant daughters kneel At Gallic shrines, and stop to steal Fantastic innovations? Domestic — simple — chaste — sedate — Your fashions now assimilate Your virtues and your duties : — With all the dignity of Rome, The Grecian Graces find a home In England's classic Beauties. When we behold so fit a shrine. We deem its inmate all divine. And thoughts licentious bridle ; But if the case be tasteless, rude, Grotesque, and glaring — we conclude It holds some worthless idol. Let Gallia's nymphs of ardent mind. To every wild extreme inclined, In folly be consistent: 102 NIGHT-SONG. Their failings let their modes express, From simpleness of soul and dress, For ever equi-distant. True to your staid and even port, Let mad extremes of every sort With steady scorn be treated; Nor by art's modish follies mar The sweetest, loveliest work by far That nature has completed : — For oh ! if in the world's wide round One peerless object may be found, A something more than human ; The faultless paragon confessed in one line be all expressed — A WELL-DRESSED ENGLISH WOMAN. NIGHT-SONG. ■WEITTEN AT SEA. 'Tis night — my Bark is on the Ocean, No sound I hear, no sight I see, Not even the darkened waves whose motion Still bears me, Fanny, far from thee ! But from the misty skies are gleaming Two smiling stars that look, my love ! As if thine eyes, though veiled, were beaming Benignly on me from above. Good night and bless thee, Fanny dearest ! Nor let the sound disturb thy sleep. If, when the midnight wind thou hearest. Thy thoughts are on the distant deep : — THE tSONG-VISION. 103 Thy Lover there is safe and fearless, For Heaven still guards and guides mj track; Nor can my dreaming heart be cheerless, For still to thee 'tis -vvafted back. 'Tis sweet on the benighted billow, To trust in Him whom all adore ; 'Tis sweet to think that from her pillow Her prayers for me shall Fanny pour. The winds, self-lullabied, are dozing, The winking stars withdraAV their light. Fanny ! methinks thine eyes are closing — Bless thee, my love ! good night, good night I THE SOXG-VISIO^. Oh, warble not that fearful air ! For sweet and sprightly though it be, It wakes in me a deep despair By its unhallowed gaiety. It was the last my Fanny sung, The last enchanting playful strain. That breathed from that melodious tongue. Which none shall over hear again. From Memory's fount what pleasures past At that one vocal summons flow; Bliss which I vainly tiiought would last — Bliss which but deepens present woe ! 104 THE SONG-VISIO:^. Where art thou, Fanny ! can the tomb Have chilled that heart so fond and warm- Have turned to dust that cheek of bloom — Those eyes of light — that angel form? Ah no ! the grave resigns its prey : See, see ! my Fanny 's sitting there ; While on the harp her fingers play A prelude to my favourite air. There is the smile which ever blessed The gaze of mine enamoured eye — The lips that I so oft have pressed In tribute for that melody. She moves them now to sing ! — hark, hark I But ah ! no voice delights mine ears : And now she fades in shadows dark ; — Or am I blinded by my tears ? Stay yet awhile, my Fanny, stay, Nor from these outstretched arms depart ;- 'Tis gone ! the vision's snatched away ! I feel it by my breaking heart. Lady, forgive this burst of pain, That seeks a sad and short relief, In coining from a 'wildered brain A solace for impassioned grief But sing no more that fearful air. For sweet and sprightly though it be, It wakes in me a deep despair, By its unhallowed gaiety. THE poet's song to his wife. 105 THE POET'S WINTER SONG TO HIS WIFE. The birds that sang so sweet in the summer skies are fled, And we trample 'neath our feet leaves that fluttered o'er our head ; The verdant fields of June wear a winding-sheet of white, The stream has lost its tune, and the glancing waves their light. We too, my faithful wife, feel our winter coming on. And our dreams of early life like the summer birds are gone ; My head is silvered o'er, while thine eyes their fire have lost, And thy voice, so sweet of yore, is enchained by age's frost. But the founts that live and shoot through the bosom of the earth, Still prepare each seed and root to give future flowers their birth ; And we, my dearest Jane, spite of age's wintry blight, In our bosoms will retain Spring's florescence and de- light. The seeds of love and lore that we planted in our youth. Shall develop more and more their attractiveness and truth ; The springs beneath shall run, though the snows be on our head, For Love's declming sun shall with Friendship's rays be fed. 5* 106 SONGS TO FANNY. Thus as happy as when young shall we both grow old, my wife, On one bough united hung of the fruitful Tree of Life ; May we never disengage through each change of wind and weather, Till in ripeness of old age we both drop to earth together ! SONG TO FANNY. Nature ! thy fair and smiling face Has now a double power to bless, For 'tis the glass in which I trace My absent Fanny's loveliness. Her heavenly eyes above me shine, The rose reflects her modest blush, She breathes in every eglantine. She sings in every warbling thrush. That her dear form alone I see Need not excite surprise in any, For Fanny 's all the world to me, And all the world to me is Fanny. SONG TO FANNY. Thy bloom is soft, thine eyes are bright, And rose-buds are thy lips, my Fanny, Thy glossy hair is rich with light, Thy form unparagoned by any ; THE BIRTHDAY OF SPRING. 107 But tbino is not the brief array Of cbarms ■\^•bicb time is sure to borrow, Which accident may blight to-day, Or sickness undermine to-morrow. No — thine is that immortal grace Which ne'er shall pass from thy possession, That moral beauty of the face Which constitutes its sweet expression ; This shall preserve thee what thou art, When age thy blooming tints has shaded, For while thy looks reflect thy heart, How can their charms be ever faded? Nor, Fanny, can a love like mine With time decay, in sickness falter; 'Tis like thy beauty — half divine. Born of the soul, and cannot alter : For when the body's mortal doom Our earthly pilgrimage shall sever, Our spirits shall their loves resume, United in the skies for ever. THE BIRTHDAY OF SPRING. Cry Holiday ! Holiday ! let us be gay, And share in the rapture of heaven and earth ; For see ! what a sunshiny joy they display, To welcome the Spring on the day of her birth ; While the elements, gladly outpouring their voice. Nature's Psean proclaim, and in chorus rejoice 1 108 THE BIRTHDAY OF SPRING. Loud carols each rill as it leaps in its bed ; The wind brings us music and balm from the south, And Earth m delight calls on Echo to spread The tidings of joy with her manj-tongued mouth; O'er sea, and o'er shore, over mountain and plain, Far, far does she trumpet the jubilee strain. Hark ! hark to the cuckoo ! its magical call Awakens the flowerets that slept in the dells ; The snow-drop, the primrose, the hyacinth, all Attune at this summons then- silvery bells. Hush! ting-a-ring-ting ! don't you hear how they sing! They are pealing a fairy-like welcome to Spring. The love-thrilling hedge-birds are wild with delight ; Like arrows loud whistling the swallows flit by ; The rapturous lark, as he soars out of sight, Sends us sun-lighted melody down from the sky. In the air that they quafi", all the feathery throng Taste the spirit of Spring that out-bursts in a song. To me do the same vernal whisperings breathe In all that I scent, that I hear, that I meet, Without and within me, above and beneath, Every sense is imbued with a prophecy sweet, Of the pomp and the pleasantness Earth shall assume When adorned, like a bride, in her flowery bloom. In this transport of nature each feeling takes part ; I am thrilling with gratitude, reverence, joy ; A new spring of youth seems to gush from my heart, And the man 's metamorphosed again to a boy, Oh ! let me run wild, as in earlier years ; If my joy be suppressed, I ?hall burst into tears. AN OLD man's ASl'IRATION. 109 AN OLD MAN'S ASPIRATION. GLORIOUS Sun ! -whose car sublime Unerring since the birth of time, In glad magnificence hath run its race ; day's delight — God-painted skj, moon and stars, whose galaxy Illuminates the night thro' all the realms of space. poetry of forms and hues, Resplendent Earth ! whose varied views In such harmonious beauty are combined ; — And thou, palpitating Sea, "Who boldest this fair mystery In the wide circle of thy thrilling arms enshrined — Hear me, hear while I impart The deep conviction of my heart, That such a theatre august and grand, Whose author, actors, awful play, Are God, mankind, a judgment day. Was for some higher aim, some holier purpose plann'd 1 will not, nay I cannot, deem This fair creation's moral scheme, That seems so crude, mysterious, misapplied, Meant to conclude as it began, Unworthy the material plan With whose perfections rare its failures are allied. As in our individual fate. Our manhood and maturer date. Correct the faults and follies of our youth, no So will the world, I fondly hope, With added years give fuller scope To the display and love of wisdom, justice, truth. 'Tis this that makes my feelings glow, My bosom thrill, my tears o'erflow, A.t any deed magnanimous — sublime ; 'Tis this that re-assures mj soul, When nations shun the forward goal. And retrograde awhile in ignorance and crime. Mine is no hopeless dream of some Impeccable Millennium, When saints and angels shall inhabit earth ; But a conviction deep, intense, That man was meant by Providence Progressively to reach a higher moral worth. On this dear faith' s sustaining truth Hath my soul brooded from its youth, As heaven's best gift, and earth's most cheering dower. ! may I still in life's decline, Hold unimpaired this creed benign, And mine old age attest its meliorating power ! GIPSIES. Whether from India's burning plains, Or wild Bohemia's domains, Your steps were first directed ; Or whether ye be Egypt's sons. Whose stream, like Nile's, for ever runs With sources undetected : GIPSIES. Ill Arabs of Europe ! Gipsy race ! Your Eastern manners, garb, and face, Appear a strange cliimsera ; None, none but you can now be styled Romantic, picturesque, and wild, In this prosaic asra. Ye sole freebooters of the wood. Since Adam Bell and Robin Hood : Kept everywhere asunder From other tribes — King, Church, and State Spurning, and only dedicate To freedom, sloth, and plunder ; Your forest-camp — the forms one sees Banditti-like amid the trees, The ragged donkeys grazing. The Sybil's eye prophetic, bright With flashes of the fitful light Beneath the caldron blazing, — O'er my young mind strange terrors threw : Thy History gave me, Moore Carew ! A more exalted notion Of Gipsy life ; nor can I yet Gaze on your tents, and quite forget My former deep emotion. For " auld lang syne" I'll not maltreat Yon pseudo-tinker, though the cheat, As sly as thievish Reynard, Instead of mending kettles, prowls, To make foul havoc of my fowls, And decimate ray hen-yard. 112 LIFE. Come thou, too, black-eyed lass, and try That potent skill in palmistry, Which sixpences can wheedle ; Mine is a friendly cottage — here No snarling mastiff need you fear, No Constable or Beadle. 'Tis yours, I know, to draw at will Upon futurity a bill, And Plutus to importune ; — Discount the bill — take half yourself, Give me the balance of the pelf, And both may laugh at fortune. LIFE. There are who think this scene of life A frightful gladiatorial strife, A struggle for existence, Where class contends with class, and each Must plunder all within his reach, To earn his own subsistence. Shocked at the internecine air Of this Arena, they forswear Its passions and its quarrels ; They will not sacrifice, to live, All that to life its charms can give, Nor sell for bread their morals. Enthusiasts ! check your reveries, Ye cannot always pluck at ease From Pleasure's cornucopia; TO A LADY. 113 Ye cannot alter Nature's plan, Change to a perfect being Man, Nor England to Utopia. Plunge in the busy current — stem The tide of errors ye condemn, And fill life's active uses ; Begin reform yourselv'es, and live To prove that Honesty may thrive Unaided by abuses. TO A LADY. [on givinq the w-ritek a little DRON'ZE CUTID FEOM POMPEIL] Thanks for thy little God of Love, Dug from Pompeii — whose fate 'tis Henceforth to be installed above My household Lares and Penates. Oh ! could its lips of bronze unclose. How sad a tale might they recall ! How thrill us with the appalling woes Of the doomed City's burial ! Perchance, on that benighted day This tiny imp the table graced Of one whose mansion might display The choicest stores of classic taste. Of some one whose convivial board With all embellishments was deck'd, While her rich cabinets outpoured A constant feast of Intellect. 114 TO A LADY. Of one who, tho' she ne'er declined In social chat to bear a part', Loved more to fill her house and mind With lettered lore, and varied art. Of one who thus could give delight To guests of every mental hue, Whether unlearned or erudite — Of one, in short, resembling You ! To the dark tomb, thou Pagan Sprite ! For many centuries consigned. Thrice welcome to this world of light. Where worshippers thou still wilt find. Methinks thy new abode is one Thou wilt not, Cupid ! disapprove, For all my married life has run A lengthened course of constant love. Prompt me, thou type of higher hope ! To spread that love from me and mine, Until, in its ascending scope, It soar to social and divine. So, little Elf! shalt thou be With doubled favour by thine owner, Both as a tutelary guide, And a memorial of thy donor. THE CHARMS OF LIFE. 115 THE CHAKMS OF LIFE. What hath life to charm us ? Flowers AVhose sweet lips have ever sung Carols from the fields and bowers, In perfume's universal tongue. Choral fairies bright and merry ! Hark ! I hear your silver bells, Chiming from the tufted dells A ]May-day welcome — hey down derry 1 Hark again ! those jocund calls Are Echo's voice, who loves to mock The laughter of the waterfalls That leap for joy from rock to rock. And now the winds their organ ply, Tuned to the music of the birds, And rustling leaves and lowing herds, ! what a thrilling harmony ! Joys there are of wider scope, — Our social and domestic ties, Faith, love, charity, and hope. With all their mingled ecstacies. And mental bliss that never cloys, But charms the head and thrills the heart ; Life ! how grand a boon thou art ! Life ! how sumless arc thy joys ! 116 A HINT TO CYNICS. MUSIC. A HIXT TO CYNICS. Youth, beauty, love, delight, All blessings bright and dear, Like shooting stars by night, Flash, fall, and disappear. Let Cynics doubt their worth. Because they 're born to die. The wiser sons of earth Will snatch them ere they fly. Tho' mingled with alloy, We throw not gold away ; Then why reject the joy That 's blended with decay ? MUSIC. Peace to the tenants of the tomb Whom oft we met in hall and bower. Peace to the buried friends with whom We shared the charm of Music's hour ; Tho' dead, they are not mute, for still Does memory wake some favoured strain That makes our yearning bosoms thrill As if they lived and sang again. Health to the friends we still possess ; ! long and often may we meet, Our yet remaining ygars to bless With Music's pleasures pure and sweet; THE bard's inscription. 117 And praises to the po^ver divine That gave to man the precious boon, Which make's life's social evening shine As brightly as its morn and noon. THE BARD'S INSCRIPTION IN HIS DAUGHTER'S ALBUM. The thoughtful reader here may see A little world's epitome In turning each successive folio ; — Names, drawings, music, poems, prose, From kindred and from friends compose This Album's multifarious olio. Its owner, from her circle wide Of friends, may here survey with pride A cherished tributary Cento ; And when they 're absent — altered — dead — Each contribution will be read With double zest as a memento. Here with a smile will she recall The walk, the concert, or the ball. Shared with the young and merry-hearted ; — And here, perchance, while brooding o'er The song of one who sings no more, A tear may drop for the departed. Yet — daughter dear ! my heart foretells That thou wilt quit all other spells. Of friends, however loved — and rather Hang o'er the page that thus records. With feelings ill-expressed by words. The fervent blessing of a Father ! 118 A^"TI-COPvN-LAW BAZAAE, STANZAS. STANZAS ■WEITTEIf FOE THE BAZAAE OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-C03JN LA^W LEAGTTE, COVENT GABDEX THEAT3E, lS-15. Why with its ring has the connecting sea Married the Hemispheres and joined their hands, Why has the jSIagnet's guiding ministry ]\Iade paths athwart the deep to distant lands ? Why are the winds to our control resigned ? Why does resistless steam our will obey, Why are all arts, all elements, combined To speed us o'er the ocean- world's highway ? That from wide earth, and from the watery waste, Creation's sacred flag may be unfurled. Whereon the finger of the Lord hath traced Creation's law — " Free trade with all the World !" Thus nature — her maternal hands untied, Shall scatter fresh supplies of wealth and food. And from each varied soil and clime provide Some separate blessing for the common good. So shall the severed races of mankind, Bidding all barriers and restrictions cease, By constant intercourse become combined In one vast family of love and peace. Let no man part whom God would thus unite ! They who would speed this high and holy aatn, Leagued in the cause of universal right. All factious ends, all party views disclaim. A HINT TO THE FARMERS. 119 Their -vveapons, Faith, and Charity, and Hope, Justice and Trutii the champions of their cause, Firmly but peaceably they seek to cope "With selfish interests and mistaken laws. Yc who love man's advancement — peace — free trade, Ye who would blessings win from every land. Oh ! give the liberating League your aid, And speed its course with zealous heart and hand ! A HINT TO THE FARMERS. Farmers, whose income, day by day, Slides on the Sliding Scale away, "Whatever its direction ; When favoured most still most forlorn, Starved by monopoly of Corn, And ruined by protection ; — Farmers ! who dying, seldom see One penny left for Charon's fee. When o'er the Styx ye're ferried, But in your landlord's pocket trace (Like Mecca to the Turks) the place Wherein your profit 's buried — Farmers ! who find in Cobden's breath, And Bright's harangues, a menaced death For all of yeoman station, And most appropriately brand The Corn-law Leaguers as a band Prone to ass — ass — i nation : — 120 A HINT TO THE FARMERS. When landlords crj, " We must be fed, Go — grind your bones to make our bread, From Earth more harvests ravish ; Study Liebig, ye clodpole elves ! Buy Guano — Soda — stint yourselves, That we may still be lavish :" — Farmers ! ye ought to patronise Whate'er improvements may arise To lessen your expenses, So hear my tale — there's little in 't, 'Tis merely meant to give a hint For making cheap field fences. Queen Bess — I mean Elizabeth, Favoured, as the historian saith. The handsome Earl of Leicester, To whom she made large grants of land. For which he doubtless kissed her hand, And duly thanked and blessed her. These lands were commons, on whose turf, Many a cottager and serf Had fed his goose or donkey ; And being dispossessed, the crowd Began to murmur in a loud, I need n't add a wrong key. "What cared his lordship ! down he came, With carpenters to fence the same. And shut out clowns and cattle ; Riding each morn the men to watch, So that no moment they might snatch For drink or tittle-tattle. DISAPPOINTMENT. 121 One day, a peasant by bis side Bowed bis gray bead and bumbly cried, " I ax your lorsbip's pardon. I've got a notion in my nob, Wbereby tbis bcre expensive job Need bardly cost a farden." " Not cost a fiirtbing, doting clown !" Exclaimed bis lordsbip witb a frown. Half angry and balf comic ; — " Braggart most vain and over free, Tbink'st tbou tbat I can learn from tbee A plan more economic ?' ' "Yes," quotb tbe rustic — "yes, my lord, You need n't buy anotber board, Or oaken plank or paling. Think not my words are brags and boasts, For if your lordsbip finds tbe posts, Tbe public will find railing P'' DISAPPOINTMENT. Jot ! joy ! my lover's bark returns, I know ber by ber bearing brave : How gallantly tbe foam sbe spurns, And bounds in triunipb o'er tbe wave ! Wby dost tbou veil tbe glorious sigbt, In lurid rain, tbou summer cloud ? See ! see ! tbe ligbtning flasbes brigbt ! Hark ! to the thunder long and loud ! * The storm is past — the skies arc fair, But where's the bark? — there Avas but one : — Ha ! she is yonder, shattered — bare — She reels — she — sinks — Heaven ! she's gone 6 122 THE DYIXG poet's FAREWELL. THE DYING POET'S FAREWELL. Animiila vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis Qu8e nunc abibis in loca ? AUKIAS^. THOU woiiclrotis arch of azure, Sun, and starry plains immense! Glories that astound the gazer, By their dread magnificence ! thou ocean, whose commotion Awes the proudest to devotion ! Must I — must I from ye fly, Bid ye all adieu — and die ? ye keen and gusty mountains, On whose top I braved the sky ! ye music-poui-ing fountains. On whose marge I loved to lie ! ye posies — lilies, roses, All the charms that earth discloses I Must I— must I from ye fly. Bid ye all adieu — and die ? ye birds whose matin chorus Taught me to rejoice and bless ! And ye herds, whose voice sonorous Swelled the hymn of thankfulness ! Learned leisure, and the pleasure Of the ]\Iuse, my dearest treasure ; Must I — must I from ye fly, Bid ye all adieu — and die ? domestic ties endearing, Which still chain my soul to earth ! THE DYING POET'S FAREWELL. 123 ye friends ^Yhosc converse cheering, Winged the hours with social mirth ! Songs of gladness, chasing sadness, AVine's delight, Avithout its madness j [Must I, must I from ye fly, Bid ye all adieu — and die ? Yes — I now fulfil the fiction Of the swan that sings in death ; — Earth, receive my benediction. Air, inhale my parting breath ; Hills and valleys, forest alleys. Prompters of my muse's sallies, Fields of green and skies of blue, Take, ! take my last adieu. Yet perhaps when all is ended. And the grave dissolves my frame. The elements from which 'twas blended May their several parts reclaim ; "Waters flowing, breezes blowing, Earth, and all upon it growing. Still may have my altered essence, Ever floating in their presence ; While my disembodied spirit May to fields Elysian soar. And some lowest scat inherit Near the mighty bards of yore ; Never, never to dissever. But to dwell in bliss for ever. Tuning an enthusiast lyre To that high and laurelled quire. SONNETS, Eternal and Omnipotent Unseen ! Who badest the world, with all its lives complete, Start from the void and thrill beneath tlij feet, Thee I adore with reverence serene ; Here, in the fields, thine own cathedral meet. Built hj thyself, star-roofed, and hung with green, Wherein all breathing things in concord sweet, Organed by winds, perpetual hymns repeat : Here hast thou spread that book to every eye, Whose tongue and truth all, all may read and prove, On whose three blessed leaves — Earth, Ocean, Sky, Thine own right hand hath stamped might, justice, love; Grand Trinity, which binds in due degree, God, man, and brute, in social unity. MORXING. Beautiful Earth ! how can I refrain From falling down to worship thee ? Behold, Over the misty mountains springs amain The glorious Sun ; his flaming locks unfold Their gorgeous clusters, pouring o'er the plain Torrents of light. Hark ! Chanticleer has tolled His matin bell, and the lark's choral train Warble on hio-h hosannas uncontrolled. SONNETS. 125 All nature worships thco, thou now-born tlaj ! Blade, llowor, and leaf, their tlewy oifcrings pay Upon the shrine of incense-breathing earth ; ]>inLs, flocks, and insects, chaunt their morning lay; Let me, too, join in the thanksgiving mirth. And praise, through thee, the God that gave thee birth. TO THE SETTING SUN. Thou central Eye of God, whose lidless ball Is vision all around, dispensing heat. And light and life, and regulating all With its pervading glance — how calm and SAveet Is thine unclouded setting ! Thou dost greet. With parting smiles, the earth ; night's shadows fall, But long where thou hast sunk shall splendours meet, And, hngering there, thy glories past recall. Oh ! may my heart, like thee, unspotted, clear, Be as a sun to all within its sphere ; And when beneath the earth I seek my doom, May I with smiling calmness disappear, And friendship's twihght, hovering o'er my tomb, Still bid my memory survive and bloom. OX THE STATUE OF A PIPING FAUN. Hark ! hearest thou not the pipe of Faunus, sweeping, In dulcet glee, through Thessaly's domain ? Dost thou not see embowered wood-nymphs peeping To watch the graces that around him reign ; 126 SONNETS. While distant vintagers, and peasants reaping, Stand in mute transport, listening to the strain ; And Pan himself, beneath a pine-tree sleeping. Looks round, and smiles, and drops to sleep again? happy Greece ! while thy blest sons were rovers Through all the loveliness this earth discovers. They in their minds a brighter region founded, Haunted by gods and sylvans, nymphs and lovers, Where forms of grace through sunny landscapes bounded, By music and enchantment all surrounded. OX A STUPENDOUS LEG OF GRANITE, DISCOVEEED STANDING BY ITSELF IN THE DEBEET8 OP EGYTT, WITH THE INSCEIPTION INBEETED liELOW. In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows. " I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone, " The King of kings ; this mighty city shows The wonders of my hand." The city "s gone ! Naught but the leg remaining to disclose The site of that forgotten Babylon. We wonder, and some hunter may express Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness Where London stood^ holding the wolf in chase, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What wonderful, but unrecorded, race Once dwelt in that annihilated place. SONNETS. 127 ON A GREEN-HOUSE. IlErxE, from earth's dreclal heights and dingles lowly, Tlic representatives of Nature meet ; Not like a Congress, or Alliance Holj Of Kings, to rivet chains, but with their sweet Blossomj mouths to preach the love complete, That with pearled misletoe, and beaded holly, Clothed them in green unchangeable, to greet Winter Avith smiles, and banish melancholy. I envy not the Emathian madman's fame. Who won the world, and built immortal shame On tears and blood ; but if some flower, new found, In its embalming cup might shroud my name, IMine wer.* a tomb more Avorthily renowned Than Cheops' pile, or Artemisia's mound. WEITTEN IN THE PORCH OF BINSTEAD CHURCH, ISLE OF WIGHT. Farewell, sweet Binstead ! take a fond farewell From one unused to sight of woods and seas, Amid the strife of cities doomed to dwell, Yet roused to ecstacy by scenes like these, Who could for ever sit beneath thy trees, Inhaling fragrance from the flowery dell ; Or listening to the murmur of the breeze, Gaze Avith delight on Ocean's awful swell. Again farewell ! nor deem that I profme Thy sacred porch ; for while the Sabbath strain May fail to turn the sinner from his ways, These are impressions none can feel in vain — These are the wonders that perforce must raiso The soul to God, in reverential praise. 128 SONNETS. THE AVORLD. On, Avhat a palace rare liast thou created, Almighty Architect, for man's delight ! With sun, and moon, and stars illuminated ; Whose azure dome with pictured clouds is bright, Each painted by thy hand — a glorious sight ! Whose halls are countless landscapes, variegated, All carpeted with flowers ; while all invite Each sense of man to be with pleasure sated. Fruits hang around us ; music fills each beak ; The fields are perfumed ; and to eyes that seek For Nature's charms, what tears of joy will start. So let me thank thee, God, not Avith the reek Of sacrifice, but breathings poured apart. And the blood-offering of a grateful heart. TO A ROSE. Thou new-born Rose, emerging from the dew. Like Aphrodite, Avhen the lovely bather Blushed from the sea, how fair thou art to view. And fragrant to the smell ! The Almighty Father Implanted thee, that men of every hue, Even a momentary joy might gather ; And shall he save one people, and pursue Others to endless agony ? rather Let me believe in thee thou holy Rose, Who dost alike thy lips of love unclose. Be thy abode by saint or savage trod. Thou art the priest whose sermons soothe our woes, Preaching, with nature's tongue from every sod, Love to mankind, and confidence in God. SONNETS. 120 ON AN ANCIENT LANCE, HANGING IN AN ARMOTJRY. OxcE in the l)rcczj coppice didst thou dance, And nightingales amid thy foliage sang ; Formed by man's cruel art into a lance, Oft hast thou pierced, (the while the welkin rang With trump and drum, shoutings and battle clang,) Some foeman's heart. Pride, pomp, and circumstance. Have left thee, now, and tliou dost silent hang, From age to age, in deep and dusty trance. What is thy change to ours ? These gazing eyes, To earth reverting, may again arise In dust to settle on the self-same space ; Dust, which some offspring, yet unborn, who tries To poise thy weight, may Avith his hand efface, And with his mouldered eyes again replace. THE NTCaiTIXGALE. Lone warbler ! thy love-melting heart supplies The liquid music-fall, that from thy bill Gushes in such ecstatic rhapsodies. Drowning night's ear. Yet thine is but the skill Of loftier love, that hung up in the skies Those everlasting lamps, man's guide, until Morning return, and bade fresh flowers arise, Blooming by night, new fragrance to distil. . Why are these blessings lavished from above On man, when his unconscious sense and sight Are closed in sleep ; but that the few who rove, From want or woe, or travels urge by night. May still have perfumes, music, flowers, and light ; So kind and watchful is celestial love ! 130 SONNET. CHARADE. SUNSET. 'Tis sweet to sit beneath these ■vyahiut-trees. And pore upon the sun in splendour sinking, And think upon the wond'rous mysteries Of this so lovely world, until, with thinking, Thought is bewildered, and the spirit, shrinkmg Into itself no outward object sees, Still, from its inward fount, new visions drinking, Till the sense swims in dreamy reveries. Awaking from this trance, with gentle start, 'Tis sweeter still to feel the o'erflowing heart Shoot its glad gushes to the thrilling cheek ; To feel as if the yearning soul would dart Upwards to God, and by its flutters speak Homao-e for Avhicli all lang;uao;e is too weak. CHARADE. Sordid and narrow and mean is my First, Where in tenements rank with tobacco and gm. Dwells the toiling mechanic with poverty cursed, 'INIid the breakers of law and the victims of sin. 'Tis gone! — a hall uprises — view Yon clamorous prize-fighting crew, Wrano-linni;, iandino;, sense entang-ling, Law new-fangling, justice mangling — 'Tis not Bedlam, but as bad, For money-mania makes them mad. Hey presto pass ! a graced saloon behold Where to a brighter star bright stars repair, And beauty decked in jewelry and gold, (liirtsey to grace and beauty still more rare. CHARADE. 131 From each and all of these, at times, Prisoned within my second's bound, The sick— the sad — the doomed for crimes, Tlje idle and the gay are found, Swiftly their wingless flight is flown, Their guide a lady"s plaything, beckoned By hand unseen from spot unknown : — What urges thee so fast my second ? What hurts the eye, yet mocks the sight, Feels not, yet sighs and makes lament ; — As any floating feather light, And yet at times omnipotent. Guarded, my Second, thus, thy might Would seem to challenge fate and death. Yet doom and danger track thy flight. Threatening around — above — beneath. See, see. the lightning's angry flash ; Hark ! what an elemental roar ? A shuddering cry— a thunder crash — My Second 's gone — 'tis seen no more ! Let none but pleasant sights appear, Naught but the turtle-dove be heard, Where Passion-flowers, to lovers dear, Enwreathe an arbour for my Third. — There the heart vents in tender sighs The feeling that no words can reach, Or makes the love-revealing eyes :More fond and eloquent than speech. Fulfilled be all the hopes ye raise. Enamoured inmates of the bower. And oh ! may all your future days Be blissful as the present hour ! [Courtship.] 132 CHARADE. CHARADE. Gin-palace Circe ! quit the niche Or den that constitutes my First, Nor from below, thou fair foul witch ! Call spirits baleful and accursed. She 's gone ! — Beware ! your pouch to pick, Yon crew throws dust into your eyes : Distrust their flowers of rhetoric, They garland whom they victimize. Now to our dearest hopes opposed, My changeful First ! thou 'rt all we dread ; And now, in solid gold disclosed, How eagerly thou 'rt coveted ! But ah ! most fatal art thou when Thou 'rt formed beneath the 'whelming wave, Of women fair and gallant men. The Sacrificcr and the grave ! The friend, the lover, are on thee, My Second ! source of many a tear, When their vexed souls they cannot free From dark suspense, and jealous fear. On thee, within this prison lone. The doomed assassin or the thief. Vents, in his agony, the groan, Or prays for death as a relief. I see thee speeding overhead. As if thou hadst h,n eagle's wing, I see thee in the cattle shed, A lifeless and unmoving thing. CHARADE. 133 My Third is flishioncd to enfold Strange implements of war. — Behold Those frames Avith human features. By time and artificial means They 're manufactured to machines For killing human creatures. Obedient moves — east, west, north, south, Up to the breach, or cannon's mouth : Each automatic figure — 'Gamst friend or foe, whate'er the cause, With equal nonchalance he draws His death-dispensing trigger. Enslaved alike in frame and mind, Life's object for its means resigned. What gains the unlucky varlet ? Dying, he sleeps on honour's couch. And living, flaunts with empty pouch, In outward gold and scarlet. Never were muscles, bones, and will, By such self-sacrificing skill. Made neuter, passive, active. Machine! thou'rt mechanism's pride, But never was its art applied To purpose less attractive ! [Barrack.] CILVRADE. On ! what a glorious city ! — behold Its obelisks, pyramids, sphinx-guarded fanes. You gaze on Bubastis in Egypt of old, And hark ! to those sacred melodious strains ! 134 CHARADE. The dulcimer, harp, sha\ym, and tabret combine With the choral rejoicings and anthems that burst From yon temple's august and magnificent shrine, Where prostrated crowds are adoring my First. How strange the conflicting caprices and Avhims Of blind superstition ! some ages are fled, And the object which living was worshipped with hymns, And graced with an apotheosis when dead, In Europe is marked for proscription and ban, As leagued with the foul and unsanctified crew Who ply the black art that 's forbidden to man. And with spirits of darkness dark courses pursue. And where is my changeable Second displayed ? In the belle and the bird, in the damsel and crone, In the foul and the fair, in the matron and maid, In the dabbler in mud, in the queen on her throne. Who can reckon its changes of form and abode ? Arched and square, low and dirty, distorted and strait, It is seen in the ditch, on the dunghill, the road. In the huts of the poor, in the halls of the great. It is pure flesh and blood, when from Nature's own hand: INIade by man, its diversified substance is found In the fish of the deep, in the beasts of the land. In the trees of the field, in the ore under ground. If sometimes 'tis worn unembellished and plain. By the wives or the daughters of niggardly churls, At others 'tis decked with a glittering train Of diamonds and amethysts, rubies and pearls. In my populous Third what a withering change From the bushy Bubastis my first gave to sight : No sunbeam, no moon gilds its desolate range ; All is silence profound and perpetual night. THE ALABASTER vSARCOPIIAGUS. 135 It has numberless houses and each one contains A single inhabitant ever asleep, No footfall is heard in its streets and its lanes, In the midst of a crowd there is solitude deep. Here lovers whose union has long been denied, Often meet, but no love-breathing whisper is heard ; Here bitterest foemen are placed side by side, But the warfare is over : there's peace in my Third ! [Catacomb.] ADDRESS TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS, LATELY DEPOSITED IN THE EEITISH MUSEUM. Tiiou alabaster relic ! while I hold My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown. Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold, Mightst thou relate the changes thou hast known, For thou wert primitive in thy formation. Launched from th' Almighty's hand at the Creation. Yes — Thou wert present when the stars and skies And worlds unnumbered rolled into their places; ^Yhen God from Chaos bade the spheres arise. And fixed the blazing sun upon its basis. And with his finger on the bounds of space INIarked out each planet's everlasting race. How many thousand ages from thy birth Thou sleptst in darkness, it were vain to ask, Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth, And year by year pursued their patient task ; Till thou wert carved and decorated thus, Worthy to be a King's Sarcophagus. 136 ADDRESS TO What time Elijah to the skies ascended, Or David reigned in holy Palestine, Some ancient Theban monarch was extended Beneath the lid of this emblazoned shrine, And to that subterranean palace borne Which toiling ages in the rock had -svorn. Thebes from her hundred portals filled the plain To see the car on which thou wert upheld : — What funeral pomps extended in thy train. What banners waved, what mighty music swelled. As armies, priests, and crowds, bewailed in chorus Their King — their God— their Serapis — their Grus ! Thus to thy second quarry did they trust Thee and the Lorcl of all the nations round. Grim King of Silence ! Monarch of the dust ! Embalmed — anointed— jeweled— sceptered — crowned, Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark, A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark. Thus ages rolled — but their dissolving breath Could only blacken that imprisoned thing Which wore a ghastly royalty in death. As if it struggled still to be a King ; And each revolving century, like the last. Just dropped its dust upon thy lid — and passed. The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt poured His devastating host — a motley crew ; The steel-clad horsemen — the barbarian horde — Music and men of every sound and hue — Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines and brutes — Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers, and lutes. THE ALAB.ASTER SARCOPUAGUS. 137 Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away The ponderous rock that sealed the sacred tomb ; Then did the slowly penetrating ray Redeem thee fVoui long centuries of gloom, And lowered torches Haslied against thy side As Asia's king thy blazoned trophies eyed. Plucked from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt. The features of the royal corpse they scanned : — Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt, They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand, And on those fields, where once his will Avas law, Left him for winds to waste and beasts to gnaw. Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past. Unclosed the sepulchre w^ith cunning skill. And nature, aiding their devotion, cast Over its entrance a concealing rill. Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep Twenty-three centuries in silence deep. But he from whom nor pyramid nor sphinx Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni, came ; From the tomb's mouth unloosed the granite links, Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame. And brought thee from the sands and desert forth To charm the pallid children of the North. Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new, Was, what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste, Where savage beasts more savage men pursue — A scene by nature cursed — ^by man disgraced. Now — 'tis the world's metropohs— the high Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury. 138 THE ALABASTER SAECOPHAGUS. Here, where I hold my hand, "tis strange to think What other hands perchance preceded mine ; Others have also stood beside thy brink, And vainly conned the moralizing line. KinIarch ? And what is Brutus, but a croaking owl ? And what is Rolla ? Cupid steeped in starch, Orlando's helmet in Augustin's cowl. Shakespeare, how true thine adage, " fair is foul!" To him whose soul is with fruition fraught, The song of Braham is an Irish howl. Thinking is but an idle waste of thought. And nought is everything, and everything is nought. IX. Sons of Parnassus ! whom I view above, Not laurel-crown'd, but clad in rusty black ; Not spurring Pegasus through Tempi's grove, But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack; GUI BONO? 811 "What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack, Ye mar to make again ! for sure, ere long, Condemn'd to tread the bard's timc-sanction'd track, Ye all sliall join the bailiff-haunted throng. And reproduce, in rags, the rags ye blot in song, X. So fares the follower in the Muses' train ; He toils to starve, and only lives in death ; AVe slight him, till our patronage is vain. Then round his skeleton a garland Avreathe, And o'er his bones an empty requiem breathe — Oh ! Avith what tragic horror would he start, (Could he be conjured from the grave beneath) To find the stage again a Thespian cart, And elephants and colts down trampling Shakespeare's art. Hence, pedant Nature ! with thy Grecian rules ! Centaurs (not fabulous) those rules efface ; Back, sister Muses, to your native schools ; Here booted grooms usurp Apollo's place, Hoofs shame the boards that Garrick used to grace The play of limbs succeeds the play of wit, Man yields the drama to the Hou'yn'm race, His prompter spurs, his licenser the bit. The stage a stable-yard, a jockey-club the pit. Is it for these ye rear this proud abode ? Is it for these your superstition seeks To build a temple worthy of a god, To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks ! 312 REJECTED ADDRESSES. Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks, A motley chaos, jumbling age and ranks, Where Punch, the lignum-vitSB Roscius, squeaks. And Wisdom weeps, and Folly plays his pranks. And moody Madness laughs and hugs the chain he clanks. V. THE SECRETARY OF THE MANAG-ING COMMITTEE OF DRURY-LAXE PLAYHOUSE. Sir, To tbe gewgaw fetters of rhyme (invented by tlie monks to enslave the people) I have a rooted objec- tion. I have therefore written an address for your Theatre in plain, homespun, yeoman's pilose; in the doing whereof I hope I am swayed by nothing but an independent wish to open the eyes of this gulled people, to prevent a repetition of the dramatic hamhoozling they have hitherto laboured under. If you like what I have done, and mean to make use of it, I do n't want any such aristocratic . reward as a piece of plate with two griffins sprawling upon it, or a dofj and a jackass fighting for a ha p' worth of gilt gingerbread, or any such Bartholomew-fair nonsense. All I ask is that the door-keepers of your playhouse may take all the sets of my Register' now on hand, and force every body Avho enters your doors to buy one, giving afterwards a debtor and creditor account of what they have received, post- paid, and in due course remitting me the money and unsold Registers, carriage-paid. I am, &c. W. C. 14 314 REJECTED ADDRESSES. IK THE CHARACTER OF A HAMPSHIRE FARMER. -" Habida qui concitus irii Implevit pariter temis latratibus auras, Et sparsit virides spumis albentibus agros." — Ottd. Most thinking People, When persons address an audience from the stage, it is usual, either in words or gesture, to saj, " Ladies and Gentlemen, your servant." If I were base enough, mean enough, paltry enough, and bi^iite beast enough, to follow that fashion, I should tell two lies in a breath. In the first place, you are not Ladies and Gentlemen, but I hope something better, that is to say, honest men and women ; and in the next place, if you were ever so much ladies, and ever so much gentlemen, I am not, no?^ ever will 5e, your humble servant. You see me here, onost thinking people^ by mere chance. I have not been within the doors of a playhouse before for these ten years; nor, till that abominable custom of taking money at the doors is discontinued, will I ever sanction a theatre with my presence. The stage-door is the only gate of freedom in the whole edifice, and through that I made my way from Bagshaw's' in Brydges Street, to accost you. Look about you. Are you not all comfortable ? Nay, never slink, mun ; speak out, if you arc dissatisfied, and tell me so before I leave town. You are noAV, (thanks to BIr. Whitbread), got into a large, comfortable house. Not into a f/i7n- crack palace ; not into a Solomon^ s temple ; not into a frost-work of Brobdignag filigree; but into a plain, HAMPSHIRE farmer's ADDRESS. 315 honest, homely, industrious, wholesome, brown brick plaijhoiLse. You have been struggUng for indepen- dence and elbow-room these three years : and who gave it you? Who helped you out of Lilliput? Who routed you from a rat-hole, five inches by four, to perch you in a palace? Again and again I answer, Mr. Whitbrcad. You might have sweltered in that place with the Greek name^ till doomsday, and neither Lord Castlereaijh, Mr. Canning, no, nor the Marquess Welleslei/, would have turned a trowel to help you out ! Remember that. Never forget that. Read it to your children, and to your children's children! And now, most thinking ■people, cast your eyes over my head to what the builder, (I beg his pardon, the architect,) calls the prosceniujn. No motto, no slang, no popish Latin, to keep the people in the dark. No velnti in speculum. Nothing in the dead languages, properly so called, for they ought to die, ay and be damned to boot ! The Covent Garden manager tried that, and a pretty business he made of it ! When a man says veliiti in spcciduin, he is called a man of letters. Very well, and is not a man who cries 0. P. a man of letters too? Y'ou ran your 0. P. against his velnti in speculum, and pray which beat? I prophesied that, though I never told any body. I take it for granted, that every intelligent man, woman, and child, to whom I address myself, has stood severally and respectively in Little Russell Street, and cast their, his, her, and its eyes on the outside of this building before they paid their money to view the inside. Look at the brick- work, English Audience ! Look at the brick- work ! All plain and smooth like a quakers' meeting. None of your Egyptian pyramids, to entomb subscribers' capitals. No overgrown colonnades of stone,'' like an alderman's gouty legs in white cotton 316 REJECTED ADDRESSES. stockings, fit only to use as rammers for paving Totten- ham Court Road. This house is neither after the model of a temple in Athens, no, nor a temple in Moorftelds, but it is built to act English plays in ; and, provided you have good scenery, dresses, and decorations, I daresay you -wouldn't break your hearts if the outside was as plain as the pikestaff I used to carry when I was a ser- geant. Apropos, as the French valets say, who cut their masters' throats^ — apropos, a word about dresses. You must, many of you, have seen what I have read a description of, Kemble and ]\Irs. Siddons in ISIacbeth, with more gold and silver plastered on their doublets than would have kept an honest family in butcher's meat and flannel from year's end to year's end ! I am informed, (now mind, I do not vouch for the fact), but I am informed that all such extravagant idleness is to be done away with here. Lady Macbeth is to have a plain quilted petticoat, a cotton gown, and a mob cap (as the court parasites call it ; — it will be well for them, if, one of these days, they do n't wear a mob cap — I mean a lahite cap, with a 7nob to look at them) ; and INIacbeth is to appear in an honest yeoman's drab coat, and a pair of black calamanco breeches. Not *S'a/amanca ; no, nor TaJavera neither, my most Noble INIarquess ; but plain, honest, black calamanco stuff breeches. This is right ; this is as it should be. Most thinking people, I have heard you much abused. There is not a compound in the language but is strung fifty in a rope, like onions, by the Morning Post, and hurled in your teeth. You are called the mob, and when they have made you out to be the mob, you are called the scum of the people, and the dregs of the people. I should like to know how you can be both. Take a basin of broth — not cheap soup, Mr. Wilberforce—mi soup for the poor. HAMPSHIRE farmer's ADDRESS. 317 at a penny a quart, as your mixture of horses' legs, brick-dust, and old shoes, Avas denominated — but plain, ■wholesome, patriotic beef or mutton broth ; take this, examine it, and you will find — mind, I don't vouch for the fact, but I am told— you will find the dregs at the bottom, and the scum at the top. I will endeavour to explain this to you : England is a large earthenware pipkin ; John Bull is the beef thrown into it ; taxes are the hot water he boils in ; rotten boroughs are the fuel that blazes under this same pipkin ; parliament is the ladle that stirs the hodge-podge, and sometimes . But, hold ! I do n't wish to pay 3Ir. Newman^ a second visit. I leave you better ofl" than you have been this many a day : you have a good house over your head; you have beat the French in Spain; the harvest has turned out well ; the comet keeps its dis- tance ;' and red slippers are hawked about Constan- tinople for next to nothing ; and for all this, again and again I tell you, you are indebted to Mr. Whit- bread ! ! ! VI. THE LIVING LUSTRES. BY T. M. "Jam te juvaverit Viros relinquere, Doctseque conjugis Sinu quiescere." Sir T. Moke. I. WHY should our dull retrospective addresses Fall damp as wet blankets on Drury Lane fire ? Away with blue devils, away with distresses, And give the gay spirit to sparkling desire ! II. Let artists decide on the beauties of Drury, The richest to me is Avhen woman is there ; The question of houses I leave to the jury ; The fairest to me is the house of the fair. III. When woman's soft smile all our senses bewilders, And gilds, while it carves, her dear form on the heart, What need has New Drury of carvers and gilders ? With Nature so bounteous, why call upon Art? IV. How well would our actors attend to their duties, Our house save in oil, and our authors in wit. In lieu of yon lamps, if a row of young beauties Glanced light from their eyes between us and the pit ! THE LTVINa LUSTRES. 319 The apples that grew on the fruit-tree of knowledge By woman were pluck'd, and she still wears the prize, To tempt us in theatre, senate, or college — I mean the love-apples that bloom in the eyes. VI. There too is the lash which, all statutes controlling, Still governs the slaves that are made by the fair; For man is the pupil, who, while her eye's rolling. Is lifted to rapture, or sunk in despair. VII. Bloom, Theatre, bloom, in the roseate blushes Of beauty illumed by a love-breathing smile ! And flourish, ye pillars,' as green as the rushes That pillow the nymphs of the Emerald Isle ! VIII. For dear is the Emerald Isle of the ocean, Whose daughters are fair as the foam of the wave, Whose sons, unaccustomed to rebel commotion, Tho' joyous, are sober — tho' peaceful, are brave. IX. The shamrock their olive, sworn foe to a quarrel, Protects from the thunder and lightning of rows; Their sprig of shillelagh is nothing but laurel, Which flourishes rapidly over their brows. X. ! soon shall they burst the tyrannical shackles Which each panting bosom indignantly names, Until not one goose at the capital cackles Against the grand question of Catholic claims. 320 REJECTED ADDRESSES. XI. And then shall each Paddy, who once on the Liffy Perchance held the helm of some mackerel-hoy, Hold the helm of the state, and dispense in a jifiy More fishes than ever he caught when a boy. XII. And those who now quit their hods, shovels, and barrows, In crowds to the bar of some ale-house to flock. When bred to our bar shall be Gibbses and Garrows, Assume the silk gown, and discard the smock-frock. XIII. For Erin surpasses the daughters of Neptune, As Dian outshines each encircling star ; And the spheres of the heavens could never have kept tune Till set to the music of Erin-go-bragh ! VII. THE REBUILDING. BY R. S. " Per audaccs nova dithyrambos Verba devolvit, numerisque fertur Lege solutis." IIoeat. [Spokeji by a Olendoveer.'] I AM a blessed Glendoveer } 'Tis mine to speak, and yours to hear. Midnight, yet not a nose From Tower-hill to Piccadilly snored ! Midnight, yet not a nose From Indra drew the essence of repose ! See with what crimson fury, By Indra fann'd, the god of fire ascends the walls of Drury ! Tops of houses, blue with lead, Bend beneath the landlord's tread. Master and 'prentice, serving-man and lord, Nailor and tailor. Grazier and brazier, Through streets and alleys pour'd — All, all abroad to gaze, And wonder at the blaze. Thick calf, fat foot, and slim knee, Mounted on roof and chimney,^ The mighty roast, the mighty stew 14* 322 REJECTED ADDRESSES. To sec ; As if the dismal view Were but to them a Brentford jubilee. Vainly, all-radiant Surya, sire of Phaeton (By Greeks calfd Apollo) Hollow Sounds from thy harp proceed; Combustible as reed. The tongue of Vulcan licks thy wooden legs: From Drury's top, dissever'd from thy pegs, Thou tumblest, Humblest, Where late thy bright effulgence shone on high ; While, by thy somerset, excited, fly Ten million Billion Sparks from the pit, to gem the sable sky. Now come the men of fire to quench the fires : To Russell Street see Globe and Atlas run, Hope gallops first, and second Sun ; On flying heel, See Hand-in-Hand O'ertake the band ! View with what glowing wheel He nicks Phoenix ! While Albion scampers from Bridge Street, Black. friars — Drury Lane ! Drury Lane ! Drury Lane ! Drury Lane ! They shout and they bellow again and again. All, all in vain ! THE REBUILDING. 6Z6 Water turns steam ; Each blazing beam Hisses defiance to the eddying spout ; It seems but too plain that nothing can put it out ! Drury Lane ! Drury Lane See, Drury Lane expires. Pent in by smoke-dried beams, twelve moons or more, Shorn of his ray, Surya in durance lay : The workmen heard him shout, But thought it would not pay, To dig him out. When lo ! terrific Yamen, lord of hell. Solemn as lead. Judge of the dead, Sworn foe to witticism, By men call'd criticism, Came passing by that way : Rise ! cried the fiend, behold a sight of gladness ! Behold the rival theatre ! I 've set 0. P. at her,-* Who, like a bull-dog bold, Growls and fastens on his hold. The many-headed rabble roar in madness ; Thy rival staggers : come and spy her Deep in the mud as thou art in the mire. So saying, in his arms he caught the beaming one, And crossing Russell Street, He placed him on his feet 'Neath Covent Garden dome. Sudden a sound. As of the bricklayers of Babel, rose : Horns, rattles, drums, tin trumpets, sheets of copper, Punches and slaps, thwacks of all sorts and sizes. 324 REJECTED ADDRESSES. From the knobb'd bludgeon to the taper switch,^ Ran echoing round the walls ; paper placards Blotted the lamps, boots brown with mud the benches : A sea of heads rolld roaring in the pit; On paper wings 0. P.'s Reclin'd in lettered ease ; While shout and scofiF, Ya! ya! off! off! Like thunderbolt on Surja's ear-drum fell, And seemed to paint The savage oddities of Saint Bartholomew in hell. Tears dimm'd the god of light — '' Bear me back, Yamen, from this hideous sight; Bear me back, Yamen, I grow sick, Oh ! bury me again in brick ; Shall I on New Drurj tremble, To be 0. P.'dlike Kemble? No, Better remain hj rubbish guarded, Than thus hubbubish groan placarded ; Bear me back, Yamen, bear me quick, And bury me again in brick." Obedient Yamen Answered " Amen," And did As he was bid. There lay the buried god, and Time Seemed to decree eternity of lime ; But pity, like a dew-drop, gently prest Alniighty Veeshnoo's'' adamantine breast : THE REBUILDING. 325 He, the preserver, ardent still To do whate'er he says he Avill, From South-hill wing'd his Avay, To raise the drooping lord of day. All earthly spells the busy one o'erpower'd ; He treats with men of all conditions. Poets and playei^s, tradesmen, and musicians ; Nay, even ventures To attack the renters, Old and new : A list he gets Of claims and debts, And deems nought done, while aught remains to do. Yamen beheld, and withcr"d at the sight ; Long had he aim'd the sunbeam to control, For light was hateful to his soul : " Go on !" cried the hellish one, yellow with spite ; " Go on !" cried the hellish one, yellow with spleen, "Thy toils of the morning, like Ithaca's queen, 111 toil to undo every night." Ye sons of song, rejoice ! Veeshnoo has stilled the jarring elements, The spheres hymn music ; Again the god of day Peeps forth with trembling ray, Wakes, from their humid caves, the sleeping Nine, And pours at intervals a strain divine. '' I have an iron yet in the fire," cried Yamen; " The vollied flame rides in my breath, My blast is elemental death ; This hand shall tear your paper bonds to pieces ; Ingress your deeds, assignments, leases, 326 REJECTED ADDRESSES. My breath shall every line erase Soon as I blow the blaze." The lawyers arc met at the Crown and Anchor, And Yamen"s visage grows blanker and blanker; The lawyers are met at the Anchor and Crown, And Yamen's cheek is a russety brown : Veeshnoo, now thy work proceeds ; The solicitor reads. And, merit of merit ! Eed wax and green ferret Are fixed at the foot of the deeds ! Yamen beheld and shiver' d; His finger and thumb were cramp'd ; His ear by the flea in 't was bitten, When he saw by the lawyer's clerk written, Sealed and delivered, Being first duly stamped. " NoAV for my turn !" the demon cries, and blows A blast of sulphur from his mouth and nose. Ah ! bootless aim ! the critic fiend, Sagacious Yamen, judge of hell. Is judged in his turn ; Parchment won't burn ! His schemes of vengeance are dissolved in air, Parchment won't tear ! ! Is it not written in the Himakoot book, (That mighty Baly from Kehama took) "Who blows on pounce Must the Swerga renounce?" It is ! it is ! Yamen, thine hour is nigh ; THE REBUILDING. 327 Like as an eagle claws an asp, Veeshnoo has caught him in his mighty grasp, And huvld him, in spite of his shrieks and his squalls. Whizzing aloft, like the Temple fountain, Three times as high as ]\Icru mountain, Which is Ninety-nine times as high as St. Paul's. Descending, he twisted like Levy the Jew, Who a durable grave meant To dig in the pavement Of Monument-yard : To earth by the laws of attraction he flew, And he fell, and he fell To the regions of hell ; Nine centuries bounced he from cavei'n to rock. And his head, as he tumbled, went nickety-nock. Like a pebble in Carisbrook well. Now Veeshnoo turn'd round to a capering varlet, Array'd in blue and white and scarlet, And cried, " Oh ! brown of slipper as of hat ! Lend me, Harlequin, thy bat!"' He seized the wooden sword, and smote the earth ; When lo ! upstarting into birth A fabric, gorgeous to behold, Outshone in elegance the old. And Veeshnoo saw, and cried, "Hail, playhouse mine !" Then, bending his head, to Surya he said : '• Soon as thy maiden sister Di Caps with her copper lid the dark 1)1 ue sky, And through the fissures of her clouded fan Peeps at the naughty monster man. 328 REJECTED ADDRESSES. Go mount yon edifice, And show thy steady face In renovated pride, More bright, more glorious than before!" But ah ! coy Surya still felt a twinge, Still smarted from his former singe ; And to Veeshnoo replied. In a tone rather gruff, " No, thank you ! one tumble 's enough!'* VIII. DRURY'S DIRGE. BY LAURA MATILDA.' "You praise our sires: but though they wrote with force Their rhymes were vicious, an ^-g-^^*; ^? ^t recce m^ srcccc ^ ^cSc^:^