POEMS.
 
 Only One Hundred Copies printed^ including Twenty 
 Copies on Large Paper.
 
 t (Wkslum*' 18"- 
 
 
 Trcicr/.cKL «ioclCi-r.
 
 POEMS 
 
 BV 
 
 FREDERICK LOCKER. 
 
 
 \Not Published. ] 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN WILSON, 93, GREAT RUSSELL STREET. 
 
 iS68.
 
 CHISWICK PRESS; PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, 
 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 
 
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 TO C. C. L. 
 
 
 PAUSE upon the threshold, Charlotte dear, 
 
 To write thy name; so may my book acquire 
 One golden leaf. For Some yet sojourn here 
 Who come and go in homeliest attire. 
 Unknown, or only by the few who see 
 
 The cross they bear, the good that they have wrought : 
 Of such art thou, and I have found in thee 
 
 The love and truth that He, the Master, taught ; 
 Thou likest thy humble poet, canst thou say 
 With truth, dear Charlotte ? — " And I like his lay." 
 
 CO 
 
 00 
 
 Rome, Alay, 1862. 
 
 42515S
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 fY Mistress's Boots 
 Bramble-Rise 
 The Widow's Mite 
 On an old Muff 
 A Human Skull 
 To my Grandmother 
 O Tempera Mutantur! . 
 Reply to a Letter enclosing a Lock of Hair 
 The old Oak-tree at Hatfield Broadoak . 
 An Invitation to Rome, and the Reply : — 
 
 The Invitation . ... 
 
 The Reply ..... 
 
 Old Letters 
 
 My Neighbour Rose .... 
 
 Piccadilly ...... 
 
 The Pilgrims of Pall Mall . 
 Geraldine ...... 
 
 " Her quiet resting-place is far away"' 
 The Housemaid ..... 
 
 The old Government Clerk 
 
 Page 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 S 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 17 
 21 
 
 24 
 28 
 
 33 
 39 
 43 
 46 
 
 50 
 53 
 56 
 60 
 62 
 66
 
 
 VIU 
 
 Contents 
 
 A Wish 
 
 The Jester's Plea . 
 
 The Old Cradle . 
 
 To my Mistress 
 
 The Rose and the Ring 
 
 To my Old Friend Postumus 
 
 Geraldine Green : — 
 
 I. The Serenade 
 
 II. My Life is a— — 
 Mrs. Smith 
 
 The Bear Pit 
 
 Implora Pace 
 
 Circumstance 
 
 The Crossing-Sweeper . 
 
 Mr. Placid's Flirtation . 
 
 Beggars 
 
 An Aspiration 
 
 Geraldine and I 
 
 St. James's Street . 
 
 Rotten Row . 
 
 A nice Correspondent! . 
 
 On " A Portrait of a Lady" 
 
 The Jester's Moral 
 
 Notes .... 
 
 Page 
 70 
 
 73 
 76 
 
 79 
 8t 
 
 83 
 
 85 
 86 
 
 8S 
 
 9» 
 94- 
 97 
 98 
 
 lOI 
 
 106 
 1 10 
 1 12 
 
 "5 
 
 119 
 
 122 
 125 
 128 
 
 »33
 
 MY MISTRESS'S BOOTS. 
 
 |HEY nearly strike me dumb, 
 And I tremble when they come 
 
 Pit-a-pat : 
 This palpitation means 
 That these Boots are Geraldine's — 
 Think of that ! 
 
 Oh, where did hunter win 
 So delectable a skin 
 
 For her feet ? 
 You lucky little kid. 
 You perish'd, so you did, 
 
 For my sweet ! 
 
 B 
 
 11
 
 My Mistress's Boots. 
 
 The faery stitching gleams 
 On the toes, and in the seams, 
 
 And reveals 
 That the Pixies were the wags 
 Who tipt these funny tags. 
 
 And these heels. 
 
 What soles to charm an elf! 
 Had Crusoe, sick of self, 
 
 Chanced to view 
 One printed near the tide, 
 O, how hard he would have tried 
 
 For the two ! 
 
 For Gerry 's debonair, 
 And innocent, and fair 
 
 As a rose : 
 She 's an angel in a frock. 
 With a fascinating cock 
 
 To her nose. 
 
 Those simpletons who squeeze 
 Their extremities to please 
 
 Mandarins, 
 Would positively flinch 
 From venturing to pinch 
 
 Geraldine's.
 
 My Mistress's Boots. 
 
 Cinderella's lefts and rights 
 To Geraldine's were frights ; 
 
 And, in truth, 
 The damsel, deftly shod, 
 Has dutifully trod 
 
 From her youth. 
 
 Come, Gerry, since it suits 
 Such a busy puss in boots 
 
 To be gone, 
 Set this dainty hand awhile 
 On my shoulder, dear, and I'll 
 
 Put them on. 
 
 Albury, June 29, 1864.
 
 BRAMBLE - RISE. 
 
 HAT changes greet my wistful eyes 
 In quiet little Bramble-Rise, 
 
 Once least of all the shire ! 
 How alter'd is each pleasant nook ; 
 And used the dumpy church to look 
 So dumpy in the spire ? 
 
 This village is no longer mine ; 
 
 And though the Inn has changed its sign, 
 
 The beer may not be stronger : 
 The river, dwindled by degrees, 
 Is now a brook, — the cottages 
 
 Are cottages no longer.
 
 Bramble-Rise. t 
 
 The mud is brick, the thatch is slate, 
 The pound has tumbled out of date, 
 
 And all the trees are stunted : 
 I'm sure these thistles once grew figs, 
 These geese were swans, and once these pigs 
 
 More musically grunted. 
 
 Where boys and girls pursued their sports 
 A locomotive spits and snorts, 
 
 Or shunts, in railway diction ; 
 The turf^the fairies— all are fled ! 
 The ponds have shrunk, and tastes have spread 
 
 For photograph and fiction. 
 
 Ah, there's a face I know again. 
 Fair Patty trotting down the lane 
 
 To fetch a pail of water ; 
 Yes, Patty ! still I much suspect 
 'Tis not the child I recollect, 
 
 But Patty,— Patty's daughter! 
 
 And has she too outlived the spells 
 Of breezy hills and silent dells 
 
 Where childhood loved to ramble ? 
 Then Life was thornless to our ken, 
 And, Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then 
 
 A rise without a bramble.
 
 Bramble-Rise. 
 
 Whence comes the change ? 'Twere easy told 
 That some grow wise, and some grow cold, 
 
 And all feel time and trouble : 
 If Life an empty bubble be, 
 How sad are those who will not see 
 
 A rainbow in the bubble ! 
 
 And senseless too, for mistress Fate 
 Is not the gloomy reprobate 
 
 That mouldy sages thought her ; 
 My heart leaps up, and I rejoice 
 As falls upon my ear thy voice. 
 
 My frisky little daughter. 
 
 Come hither. Pussy, perch on these 
 Thy most unworthy father's knees, 
 
 And tell him all about it ! 
 Are dolls but bran ? Can men be base ? 
 When gazing on thy blessed face 
 
 I 'm quite prepared to doubt it. 
 
 O, mayst thou own, my winsome elf, 
 Some day a pet just like thyself. 
 
 Her sanguine thoughts to borrow ; 
 Content to use her brighter eyes, — 
 Accept her childish ecstasies, — 
 
 If need be, share her sorrow !
 
 Bramhle-Rise. 7 
 
 The wisdom of thy prattle cheers 
 This heart ; and when outworn in years 
 
 And homeward I am starting, 
 My darling, lead me gently down 
 To Life's dim strand : the dark waves frown. 
 
 But weep not for our parting. 
 
 Though Life is call'd a doleful jaunt, 
 In sorrow rife, in sunshine scant. 
 Though earthly joys, the wisest grant, 
 
 Have no enduring basis ; 
 'Tis pleasant in a desert sere, 
 (For her so fresh, for me so drear) 
 To find in Puss, my daughter dear, 
 
 A little cool oasis ! 
 
 April, 1857.
 
 THE WIDOW'S MITE. 
 
 HE Widow had but only one, 
 A puny and decrepit son ; 
 
 Yet, day and night, 
 Though often fretful — weak and 
 small, 
 A loving child, he was her all — 
 The Widow's Mite. 
 
 The Widow's Mite,— ay ! so sustain'd. 
 She battled onward, nor complain'd 
 
 When friends were fewer : 
 And, cheerful at her daily care, 
 A little crutch upon the stair 
 
 Was music to her.
 
 T:'he Widow s Mite. 
 
 I saw her then, — and now I see, 
 Though cheerful and resign'd, still she 
 
 Has sorrow'd much : 
 She has, He gave it tenderly, 
 Much faith — and, carefully laid by, 
 
 A little crutch.
 
 ON AN OLD MUFF. 
 
 ^^IME has a magic wand — 
 
 What is this meets my hand, 
 Moth-eaten, mouldy, and 
 Cover'd with fluff? 
 Faded, and stiff, and scant j 
 Can it be ? no, it can't — 
 Yes, I declare 'tis Aunt 
 Prudence's Muff! 
 
 Years ago— twenty-three — 
 Old Uncle Barnaby 
 Gave it to Aunty P. 
 
 Laughing and teasing — 
 " Pru, of the breezy curls," 
 " Whisper these solemn churls," 
 "• What holds a pretty GirVs 
 Hand without squeezing ? "
 
 On an Old Muff. 1 1 
 
 Uncle was then a lad 
 Gay, but, I grieve to add, 
 Sinful ; if smoking bad 
 
 Baccy 's a vice : 
 Glossy was then this mink 
 Muft", lined with pretty pink 
 Satin, which maidens think 
 
 " Awfully nice ! " 
 
 I see, in retrospect, 
 Aunt, in her best bedeck'd, 
 Gliding, with mien erect. 
 
 Gravely to Meeting : 
 Psalm-book, and kerchief new, 
 Peep'd from the muft" of Pru. 
 Young men, and pious too. 
 
 Giving her greeting. 
 
 Sweetly her Sabbath sped 
 Then — from this Muff", 'tis said, 
 Tracts she distributed ; 
 
 Converts (till Monday !) 
 Lured by the grace they lack'd, 
 FoUow'd her — One, in fact, 
 Ask'd for— and got his tract 
 
 Twice of a Sunday !
 
 12 On an Old Muff. 
 
 Love has a potent spell — 
 Soon this bold Ne'er-do-well, 
 Aunt's too susceptible 
 
 Heart undermining, 
 Slipt, so the scandal runs. 
 Notes in the pretty nun's 
 Muff — triple-corner*d ones — 
 
 Pink as its lining. 
 
 Worse even, soon the jade 
 Fled (to oblige her blade !) 
 Whilst her friends thought that they 'd 
 
 Lock'd her up tightly : 
 After such shocking games 
 Aunt is of wedded dames 
 Gayest, and now her name 's 
 
 Mrs. Golightly. 
 
 In female conduct flaw 
 Sadder I never saw. 
 Still r ve faith in the law 
 
 Of compensation. 
 Once Uncle went astray, 
 Smoked, joked, and swore away, 
 Sworn by, he 's now, by a 
 
 Large congregation.
 
 On an Old Muff. \ 3 
 
 Changed is the child of sin, 
 Now he 's (he once was thin) 
 Grave, with a double chin, — 
 
 Blest be his fat form ! 
 Changed is the garb he wore, 
 Preacher was never more 
 Prized than is uncle for 
 
 Pulpit or platform. 
 
 If all 's as best befits 
 Mortals of slender wits, 
 Then beg this MufF, and its 
 
 Fair Owner pardon : 
 Airs for the best, — indeed 
 Such is my simple creed — 
 Still I must go and weed 
 
 Hard in my garden.
 
 A HUMAN SKULL. 
 
 HUMAN skull ! I bought it passing 
 cheap, — 
 A slight reflection on its first em- 
 ployer ; 
 I thought mortality did well to keep 
 
 Some mute memento of the Old Destroyer. 
 
 Time was, some may have prized its blooming 
 skin, 
 Here lips were woo'd perhaps in transport 
 tender ; 
 Some may have chuck'd what was a dimpled 
 chin, 
 And never had my doubt about its gender !
 
 A Hu7nan Skull. 15 
 
 Did she live yesterday or ages back ? 
 
 What colour were the eyes when bright and 
 waking ? 
 And were your ringlets fair, or brown, or black, 
 Poor little head ! that long has done with 
 aching ? 
 
 It may have held (to shoot some random shots) 
 Thy brains, Eliza Fry, or Baron Byron's, 
 
 The wits of Nelly Gwynn, or Doctor Watts, — 
 Two quoted bards ! two philanthropic sirens ! 
 
 But this I trust is clearly understood, 
 
 If man or woman — and if loved or hated, 
 
 Whoever own'd this Skull was not so good, 
 Nor quite so bad as many may have stated. 
 
 Who love, can need no special type of Death ; 
 
 He bares his awful face too soon, too often ; 
 " Immortelles " bloom in Beauty's bridal wreath, 
 
 And does not yon green elm contain a coffin ? 
 
 O, cara mine, what lines of care are these ? 
 
 The heart still lingers with its golden hours. 
 But fading tints are on the chestnut trees. 
 
 And where is all that lavish wealth of flowers ?
 
 i6 
 
 A Human Skull. 
 
 The end is near. Life yields not what it gave, 
 But Death has promises that call for praises ; 
 
 A very worthless rogue may dig the grave, 
 Yet hands unseen will dress the turf with 
 daisies.
 
 TO MY GRANDMOTHER. 
 
 (suggested by a picture by MR. ROMNEY.) 
 
 HIS relative of mine 
 Was she seventy and nine 
 
 When she died ? 
 By the canvas may be seen 
 How she look'd at seventeen, — 
 As a bride. 
 
 Beneath a summer tree 
 Her maiden reverie 
 
 Has a charm ; 
 Her ringlets are in taste, — 
 What an arm ! and what a waist 
 
 For an arm !
 
 1 8 To ?ny Grandmother. 
 
 With bridal-wreath, bouquet, 
 Lace, farthingale, and gay 
 
 Falbala : — 
 Were Romney's limning true, 
 What a lucky dog were you. 
 
 Grandpapa ! 
 
 « 
 
 Her lips are sweet as love, — 
 They are parting ! Do they move ? 
 
 Are they dumb ? 
 Her eyes are blue, and beam 
 Beseechingly, and seem 
 
 To say, '' Come." 
 
 What funny fancy slips 
 
 From atween these cherry lips ? 
 
 Whisper me, 
 Sweet deity, in paint. 
 What canon says I mayn't 
 
 Marry thee ? 
 
 That good-for-nothing Time 
 Has a confidence sublime ! 
 
 When I first 
 Saw this lady, ih my youth, 
 All her winters had, forsooth, 
 
 Done their worst.
 
 To my Grandmother. ' 1 9 
 
 Her locks — as white as snow — 
 Once shamed the swarthy crow. 
 
 By-and-by, 
 That fowl's avenging sprite, 
 Set his cloven foot for spite 
 
 In her eye. 
 
 Her rounded form was lean, 
 And her silk was bombazine : — 
 
 Well I wot, 
 With her needles would she sit, 
 And for hours would she knit,— 
 
 Would she not ? 
 
 Ah, perishable clay ! 
 
 Her charms had dropt away 
 
 One by one : 
 But if she heaved a sigh 
 With a burthen, it was, " Thy 
 
 Will be done." 
 
 In travail, as in tears. 
 With the fardel of her years 
 
 Overprest, — 
 In mercy she was borne 
 Where the weary ones and worn 
 
 Are at rest.
 
 20 To my Grandmother. 
 
 I'm fain to meet you there, — 
 If as witching as you were, 
 
 Grandmamma ! 
 This nether world agrees 
 That the better it must please 
 
 Grandpapa.
 
 O TEMPORA MUTANTUR! 
 
 |ES, here, once more, a traveller, 
 I find the Angel Inn, 
 Where landlord, maids, and serving- 
 men 
 
 Receive me with a grin : 
 They surely can't remember me^ 
 My hair is gray and scanter ; 
 I'm changed, so changed since I u^as here — 
 " O tempora mutantur ! " 
 
 The Angel's not much alter'd since 
 That sunny month of June, 
 
 Which brought me here with Pamela 
 To spend our honeymoon.
 
 2 2 O Tempora mutantur. 
 
 I recollect it down to e'en 
 
 The shape of this decanter, — 
 
 We've since been both much put about — 
 " O tempora mutantur ! " 
 
 Ay, there's the clock, and looking-glass 
 
 Reflecting me again ; 
 She vow'd her Love vi^as very fair, 
 
 I see I'm very plain. 
 And there's that daub of Prince Leeboo : 
 
 'Twas Pamela's fond banter 
 To fancy it resembled me — 
 
 " O tempora mutantur ! " 
 
 The curtains have been dyed ; but there. 
 
 Unbroken, is the same, 
 The very same crack'd pane of glass 
 
 On which I scratch'd her name. 
 Yes, there's her tiny flourish still. 
 
 It used to so enchant her 
 To link two happy names in one — 
 
 *' O tempora mutantur !" 
 
 The Pilgrim sees an empty chair 
 Where Pamela once sat ;
 
 O Tempora mutantur. 
 
 It may be she is past all care, 
 It might be worse than that ! 
 
 Some die, and then some best of men 
 Have met with a supplanter ; — 
 
 I wish that I could like this cry, 
 " O tempora mutantur." 
 
 23
 
 REPLY TO A LETTER ENCLOSING 
 
 A LOCK OF HAIR. 
 
 " My darling wants to see you soon," — 
 I bless the little maid, and thank her j 
 To do her bidding, night and noon 
 
 I draw on Hope — Love's kindest banker ! 
 
 Old MSS. 
 
 ,F you were false, and if I'm free, 
 I still would be the slave of yore. 
 Then join'd our years were thirty- 
 three. 
 
 And now, — yes now, I'm thirty-four ! 
 And though you were not learned — well, 
 I was not anxious you should grow so ; 
 I trembled once beneath her spell 
 Whose spelling was extremely so-so.
 
 Reply to a Letter. 25 
 
 Bright season ! why will xMemory 
 
 Still haunt the path our rambles took ? 
 The sparrow's nest that made you cry, 
 
 The lilies captured in the brook. 
 I'd lifted you from side to side, 
 
 You seem'd as light as that poor sparrow ; 
 I know who wish'd it twice as wide, 
 
 I think you thought it rather narrow. 
 
 Time was, indeed, a little while ! 
 
 My pony could your heart compel ; 
 And once, beside the meadow-stile, 
 
 I thought you loved me just as well ; 
 I'd kiss'd your cheek ; in sweet surprise 
 
 Your troubled gaze said plainly, " Should he ?" 
 But doubt soon fled those daisy eyes, — 
 
 " He could not wish to vex me, could he ?" 
 
 The brightest eyes at times must greet. 
 
 But your fair cheek, so lightly sway'd, 
 Could ripple into dimples meet. 
 
 For O, my stars, what mirth we made ! 
 The brightest tears are soonest dried, 
 
 But your young love and dole were stable. 
 You wept when dear old Rover died. 
 
 You wept — and drest your dolls in sable.
 
 26 Reply to a Letter. 
 
 As year succeeds to year, the more 
 
 Imperfect life's fruition seems, 
 Our dreams, as baseless as of yore. 
 
 Are not the same enchanting dreams. 
 The girls I love now vote me slow — 
 
 How dull the boys who once seem'd witty ! 
 Perhaps I'm getting old — I know 
 
 I'm still romantic — more's the pity. 
 
 Ah, vain regret ! to few, perchance, 
 
 Unknown, and profitless to all : 
 The wisely-gay, as years advance, 
 
 Are gaily-wise. Whate'er befall 
 We'll laugh at folly, whether seen 
 
 Beneath a chimney or a steeple. 
 At yours, at mine — our own, I mean, 
 
 As well as that of other people. 
 
 I'm fond of fun, the mental dew 
 
 Where truth, and wit, and ruth are blent, "j 
 And yet I've known a prig or two 
 
 Who wanting all were all content. 
 To say I hate such dismal men 
 
 A4ight be esteem'd a strong assertion ; 
 If I've blue devils, now and then, 
 
 I make them dance for my diversion.
 
 Reply to a Letter. 27 
 
 And here's your letter debonna'tre — 
 
 *' My friend^ my dear old friend of yore ^^ — 
 And is this curl your daughter's hair ? 
 
 I've seen the Titian tint before. 
 Are we that pair who used to pass 
 
 Long days beneath the chesnut shady ? 
 You then were such a pretty lass ! 
 
 I'm told you're now as fair a lady. 
 
 I've laugh'd to hide the tear I shed, 
 
 As when the jester's bosom swells, 
 And mournfully he shakes his head. 
 
 We hear the jingle of his bells. 
 A jesting vein your poet vex'd, 
 
 And this poor rhyme, the Fates determine, 
 Without a parson, or a text. 
 
 Has proved a somewhat prosy sermon.
 
 THE OLD OAK-TREE AT HATFIELD 
 
 BROADOAK. 
 
 I MIGHTY growth ! The county 
 side 
 Lamented when the Giant died, 
 For England loves her trees : 
 What misty legends round him cling ! 
 How lavishly he once would fling 
 His acorns to the breeze ! 
 
 Who struck a thousand roots in fame, 
 Who gave the district half its name, 
 
 Will not be soon forgotten : 
 Last spring he show'd but one green bough, — 
 The red leaves hang there still, and now 
 
 His very props are rotten !
 
 The Old Oak-Tree. 29 
 
 Elate, the thunderbolt he braved, 
 Long centuries his branches waved 
 
 A welcome to the blast ; 
 From reign to reign he bore a spell — 
 No forester had dared to fell 
 
 What Time has fell'd at last. 
 
 The monarch wore a leafy crown, 
 
 And wolves, ere wolves were hunted down, 
 
 Found safety in his gloom ; 
 Unnumber'd squirrels gamboH'd free. 
 Glad music fiU'd the gallant tree 
 
 From stem to topmost bloom. 
 
 Thrice hard it were to fix the tale 
 Of when he first peer'd forth a frail 
 
 Petitioner for dew ; 
 No Saxon spade disturb'd his root, 
 The rabbit spared the tender shoot, 
 
 And valiantly he grew, 
 
 And show'd some inches from the ground 
 When Saint Augustine came and found 
 
 Us very proper Vandals : 
 When nymphs own'd bluer eyes than hose, 
 VVhen England measured men by blows, 
 
 And measured time by candles.
 
 30 The Old Oak-Tree at 
 
 Worn pilgrims blest his grateful shade 
 Ere Richard led the first crusade, 
 
 And maidens led the dance 
 Where, boy and man, in summer-time, 
 Our Chaucer ponder'd o'er his rhyme ; 
 
 And Robin Hood, perchance, 
 
 Stole hither to maid Marian, 
 (And if they did not come, one can 
 
 At any rate suppose it) ; 
 They met beneath the mistletoe, — 
 We did the same, and ought to know 
 
 The reason why they chose it. 
 
 This branch was call'd the traitor's branch, 
 Stern Warwick hung six veomen stanch 
 
 Along its mighty fork ; 
 Uncivil wars for them ! The fair 
 Red rose and white still bloom, — but where 
 
 Are Lancaster and York? 
 
 Right mournfully his leaves he shed 
 To shroud the graves of England's dead. 
 
 By English falchion slain ; 
 And cheerfully, for England's sake. 
 He sent his kin to sea with Drake, 
 
 When Tudor humbled Spain.
 
 Hatfield Broadoak. 3 i 
 
 While Blake was fighting with the Dutch 
 They gave his poor old arms a crutch : 
 
 And thrice four maids and men ate 
 A meal within his rugged bark, 
 When Coventry bewitch'd the park, 
 
 And Chatham sway'd the senate. 
 
 His few remaining boughs were green. 
 And dappled sunbeams danced between, 
 
 Upon the dappled deer, 
 When, clad in black, a pair were met 
 To read the Waterloo Gazette, — 
 
 They mourn'd their darling here. 
 
 They join'd their boy. The tree at last 
 Lies prone — discoursing of the past, — 
 
 Some fancy-dreams awaking ; 
 Resign'd, though headlong changes come, 
 Though nations arm to tuck of drum, 
 
 And dynasties are quaking. 
 
 Romantic spot ! By honest pride 
 Of old tradition sanctified; 
 
 My pensive vigil keeping, 
 I feel thy beauty like a spell, 
 And thoughts, and tender thoughts, upwell, 
 
 That fill my heart to weeping. 
 
 * *
 
 32 i:he Old Oak-Tree. 
 
 The Squire affirms, with gravest look, 
 His oak goes up to Domesday Book ! 
 
 And some say even higher ! 
 We rode last week to see the ruin, 
 We love the fair domain it grew in, 
 
 And well we love the Squire. 
 
 A nature loyally controll'd. 
 
 And fashion'd in that righteous mould 
 
 Of English gentleman ; 
 My child may some day read these rhymes,- 
 She loved her " godpapa " betimes, — 
 
 The little Christian ! 
 
 I love the Past, its ripe pleasance, 
 Its lusty thought, and dim romance. 
 
 And heart-compelling ditties ; 
 But more, these ties, in mercy sent. 
 With faith and true affection blent. 
 And, wanting them, I were content 
 
 To murmur '■^ Nunc dirnittis." 
 
 Hallingbury, Jfril, 1859.
 
 AN INVITATION TO ROME, AND 
 THE REPLY. 
 
 THE INVITATION. 
 
 COME to Rome, it is a pleasant 
 place, 
 Your London sun is here seen 
 shining brightly : 
 The Briton too puts on a cheery face, 
 
 And Mrs. Bull is suave and even sprightly. 
 The Romans are a kind and cordial race, 
 The women charming, if one takes them 
 rightly ; 
 I see them at their doors, as day is closing, 
 More proud than duchesses — and more imposing. 
 
 A far niente life promotes the graces ; 
 
 They pass from dreamy bliss to wakeful glee, 
 
 D
 
 34 -^^ Invitation to Rome, 
 
 And in their bearing, and their speech, one traces 
 A breadth of grace and depth of courtesy 
 
 That are not found in more inclement places ; 
 Their clime and tongue seem much in har- 
 mony j 
 
 The Cockney met in Middlesex, or Surrey, 
 
 Is often cold — and always in a hurry. 
 
 Though y^r niente is their passion, they 
 
 Seem here most eloquent in things most slight ; 
 
 No matter what it is they have to say, 
 The manner always sets the matter right. 
 
 And when they' ve plagued or pleased you all the 
 day 
 They sweetly wish you " a most happy night." 
 
 Then, if they fib, and if their stories tease you, 
 
 'Tis always something that they 've wish'd to 
 please you ! 
 
 O, come to Rome, nor be content to read 
 Alone of stately palaces and streets 
 
 Whose fountains ever run with joyous speed, 
 And never-ceasing murmur. Here one meets 
 
 Great Memnon's monoliths, or, gay with weed, 
 Rich capitals, as corner stones, or seats,
 
 And the Keply. 35 
 
 The sites of vanish'd temples, where now moulder 
 Old ruins, hiding ruin even older. 
 
 Ay, come, and see the pictures, statues, churches. 
 Although the last are commonplace, or florid. 
 
 Some say 'tis here that superstition perches, 
 Myself I'm glad the marbles have been quar- 
 ried. 
 
 The sombre streets are worthy your researches : 
 The ways are foul, the lava pavement 's horrid. 
 
 But pleasant sights, which squeamishness dis- 
 parages, 
 
 Are miss'd by all who roll about in carriages. 
 
 About one fane I deprecate all sneering. 
 
 For during Christmas-time I went there daily. 
 
 Amused, or editied — or both —by hearing 
 The little preachers of the Ara Cceli. 
 
 Conceive a four-year-old bambina rearing 
 
 Her small form on a rostrum, trick'd out gaily, 
 
 And lisping, what for doctrine may be frightful. 
 
 With action quite dramatic and delightful. 
 
 O come ! We '11 charter such a pair of nags ! 
 The country 's better seen when one is riding :
 
 36 An Invitation to Rome^ 
 
 We '11 roam where yellow Tiber speeds or lags 
 At will. The aqueducts are yet bestriding 
 
 With giant march (now whole, now broken crags 
 With flowers plumed) the swelling and sub- 
 siding 
 
 Campagna, girt by purple hills, afar — 
 
 That melt in light beneath the evening star. 
 
 A drive to Palestrina will be pleasant — 
 
 The wild fig grows where erst her turrets 
 stood ; 
 
 There oft, in goat-skins clad, a sun-burnt peasant 
 Like Pan comes frisking from his ilex wood. 
 
 And seems to wake the past time in the present. 
 Fair contadina^ mark his mirthful mood. 
 
 No antique satyr he. The nimble fellow 
 
 Can join with jollity your Saltarello. 
 
 Old sylvan peace and liberty ! The breath 
 
 Of life to unsophisticated man. 
 Here Mirth may pipe, here Love may weave his 
 wreath, 
 
 ** Per dar^ al mio bene." When you can, 
 Come share their leafy solitudes. Grim Death 
 
 And Time are grudging of our little span :
 
 And the Reply. 37 
 
 Wan Time speeds lightly o'er the waving corn, 
 Death grins from yonder cynical old thorn. 
 
 I dare not speak of Michael Angelo — 
 
 Such theme were all too splendid for my pen. 
 
 And if I breathe the name of Sanzio 
 (The brightest of Italian gentlemen), 
 
 It is that love casts out my fear, and so 
 
 I claim with him a kindredship. Ah ! when 
 
 We love, the name is on our hearts engraven, 
 
 As is thy name, my own dear Bard of Avon ! 
 
 Nor is the Coliseum theme of mine, 
 'Twas built for poet of a larger daring ; 
 
 The world goes there with torches — I decline 
 Thus to aftVont the moonbeams with their 
 flaring. 
 
 Some time in May our forces we *11 combine 
 (Just you and I) and try a midnight airing, 
 
 And then I '11 quote this rhyme to you— and then 
 
 You '11 muse upon the vanity of men. 
 
 O come — I send a leaf of tender fern, 
 
 'Twas pluck'd where Beauty lingers round 
 decay : 
 
 425153
 
 38 An Invitation to Rome^ 
 
 The ashes buried in a sculptured urn 
 
 Are not more dead than Rome — so dead to- 
 day ! 
 
 That better time, for which the patriots yearn, 
 Enchants the gaze, again to fade away. 
 
 They wait and pine for what is long denied. 
 
 And thus I wait till thou art by my side. 
 
 Thou 'rt far away ! Yet, while I write, I still 
 Seem gently, Sweet, to press thy hand in mine ; 
 
 I cannot bring myself to drop the quill, 
 I cannot yet thy little hand resign ! 
 
 The plain is fading into darkness chill. 
 
 The Sabine peaks are flush'd with light divine, 
 
 I watch alone, my fond thought wings to thee, 
 
 O come to Rome — O come, O come to me !
 
 And the Reply. 39 
 
 THE REPLY. 
 
 I EAR Exile, I was pleased to get 
 Your rhymes, I 've laid them up 
 in cotton ; 
 You know that you are all to " Pet," 
 I fear'd that I was quite forgotten : 
 Mamma, who scolds me when I mope, 
 
 Insists, and she is wise as gentle. 
 That I am still in love — I hope 
 That you are rather sentimental. 
 
 Perhaps you think a child should not 
 
 Be gay unless her slave is with her j — 
 Of course you love old Rome, and, what 
 
 Is more, would like to coax me thither : 
 What ! quit this dear delightful maze 
 
 Of calls and balls, to be intensely 
 Discomfited in fifty ways — 
 
 I like your confidence immensely !
 
 40 An Invitation to Rome^ 
 
 Some girls who love to ride and race, 
 
 And live for dancing — like the Bruens, 
 Confess that Rome 's a charming place, 
 
 In spite of all the stupid ruins : 
 I think it might be sw^eet to pitch 
 
 One's tent beside those banks of Tiber, 
 And all that sort of thing, of v^^hich 
 
 Dear Hawthorne 's " quite " the best describer. 
 
 To see stone pines, and marble gods. 
 
 In garden alleys, red with roses, 
 The Perch where Pio Nono nods ; 
 
 The Church where Raphael reposes. 
 Make pleasant giros — when we may ; 
 
 Jump stagionate — where they 're easy ; 
 And play croquet — the Bruens say 
 
 There 's turf behind the Ludovisi. 
 
 I '11 bring my books, though Mrs. Mee 
 
 Says packing books is such a worry ; 
 I'll bring my " Golden Treasury," 
 
 Manzoni, and, of course, a " Murray ;" 
 A Tupper, whom you men despise ; 
 
 A Dante — Auntie owns a quarto — 
 I '11 try and buy a smaller size, 
 
 And read him on the muro torto.
 
 And the Reply. 41 
 
 But can I go ? La Aladre thinks 
 
 It would be such an undertaking : 
 I wish we could consult a sphynx ; 
 
 The thought alone has left her quaking. 
 Papa — we do not mind Papa — 
 
 Has got some " notice " of some " motion/' 
 And could not stay ; but, why not, — Ah, 
 
 I ve not the very slightest notion. 
 
 The Browns have come to stay a week, 
 
 They 've brought the boys, I haven't thankd 
 
 'em, 
 
 For Baby Grand., and Baby Pic, 
 
 Are playing cricket in my sanctum : 
 
 Your Rover too ajft'ects my den, 
 
 And when I pat the dear old whelp, it . . 
 
 It makes me think of you, and then . . 
 And then I cry — I cannot help it. 
 
 This strain is sad : yet, O, believe 
 
 Your words have made my spirit better 
 For though perhaps at times I grieve, 
 
 I meant to write a cheery letter ; 
 But skies were dull, Rome sounded hot, 
 
 I fancied I could live without it : 
 1 thought I d go, I thought I 'd not, 
 
 And then I thought I 'd think about it.
 
 42 Invitation to Rome and Reply. 
 
 The sun now glances o'er the park, 
 
 If tears are on my cheek, they glitter ; 
 I think I 've kiss'd your rhymes, for hark ! 
 
 My " buUey " gives a saucy twitter. 
 Your blessed words extinguish doubt, 
 
 A sudden breeze is gaily blowing, 
 And, hark ! The minster bells ring out — 
 
 " She ought to go ! Of course she 's going."
 
 OLD LETTERS. 
 
 • LD letters ! wipe away the tear 
 
 For vows and hopes all vainly 
 worded ; 
 A pilgrim finds his journal here 
 Since first his youthful loins were girded. 
 
 Yes, here are wails from Clapham Grove,- 
 How could philosophy expect us 
 
 To live with Dr. Wise, and love 
 
 Rice pudding and the Greek Delectus : 
 
 How strange to parley with the dead ! 
 
 Dead joys— dead loves! Wan leaves, how many 
 From Friendship's tree untimely shed ! 
 
 And here is one, ah ' sad as any ;
 
 44 C)/^ Letters. 
 
 A ghastly bill ! " I disapprove :" 
 And yet She help'd me to defray it — 
 
 What tokens of a mother's love ! 
 
 O, bitter thought ! I can't repay it. 
 
 And here 's the offer that I wrote 
 
 In '33 to Lucy Diver ; 
 And here John Wylie's begging note,— 
 
 He never paid me back a stiver. 
 
 And here my feud with Major Spike, 
 Our bet about the French Invasion ; 
 
 I must confess I acted like 
 A donkey upon that occasion. 
 
 Here 's news from Paternoster Row ; 
 
 How mad I was when first I learnt it : 
 They would not take my Book, and now 
 
 I 'd give a trifle to have burnt it. 
 
 And here a score of notes, at last. 
 
 With " love," and "dove," and "sever," 
 
 "never,"- 
 
 Though hope, though passion may be past. 
 Their perfume is as sweet as ever.
 
 Old Letters. 
 
 A human heart should beat for two, 
 Despite the scoft's of single scorners ; 
 
 And all the hearths I ever knew 
 Had got a pair of chimney corners. 
 
 See here a double violet — 
 
 Two locks of hair — a deal of scandal j 
 I '11 burn what only brings regret — 
 
 Go, Betty, fetch a lighted candle. 
 
 45
 
 MY NEIGHBOUR ROSE. 
 
 ^^^ HOUGH slender walls our hearths 
 divide, 
 No word has pass'd from either 
 side, 
 Your days, red-letter'd all, must glide 
 
 Unvex'd by labour : 
 I 've seen you weep, and could have wept ; 
 I 've heard you sing, and may have slept ; 
 Sometimes I hear your chimney swept, 
 My charming neighbour ! 
 
 Your pets are mine. Pray what may ail 
 The pup, once eloquent of tail ? 
 I wonder why your nightingale 
 Is mute at sunset !
 
 My Neighbour Rose. 47 
 
 Your puss, demure and pensive, seems 
 Too fat to mouse. She much esteems 
 Yon sunny wall — and sleeps and dreams 
 Of mice she once ate. 
 
 Our tastes agree. I dote upon 
 
 Frail jars, turquoise and celadon, 
 
 The " Wedding March " of Mendelssohn, 
 
 And Penseroso. 
 When sorely tempted to purloin 
 Your pieta of Marc Antoine, 
 Fair Virtue doth fair play enjoin, 
 
 Fair Virtuoso ! 
 
 At times an Ariel, cruel-kind, 
 
 Will kiss my lips, and stir your blind. 
 
 And whisper low, " She hides behind; 
 
 Thou art not lonely." 
 The tricksy sprite did erst assist 
 At hush'd Verona's moonlight tryst ; 
 Sweet Capulet ! thou wert not kiss'd 
 
 By light winds only. 
 
 I miss the simple days of yore, 
 When two long braids of hair you wore. 
 And chat botte was wonder'd o'er. 
 In corner cosy.
 
 48 My Neighbour Rose. 
 
 But gaze not back for tales like those : 
 'Tis all in order, I suppose, 
 The Bud is now a blooming Rose, — 
 A rosy posy ! 
 
 Indeed, farewell to bygone years ; 
 How wonderful the change appears. 
 For curates now and cavaliers 
 
 In turn perplex you : 
 The last are birds of feather gay, 
 Who swear the first are birds of prey ; 
 I 'd scare them all had I my way. 
 
 But that might vex you. 
 
 At times I 've envied, it is true, 
 That joyous hero, twenty-two. 
 Who sent bouquets and billets-doux^ 
 
 And wore a sabre. 
 The rogue ! how tenderly he wound 
 His arm round one who never frown'd. 
 He loves you well. Now, is he bound 
 
 To love my neighbour ? 
 
 The bells are ringing. As is meet. 
 White favours fascinate the street. 
 Sweet faces greet me, rueful-sweet 
 'Twixt tears and laughter :
 
 My Neighbour Rose. 49 
 
 They crowd the door to see her go — 
 The bliss of one brings many woe — 
 O ! kiss the bride, and I will throw 
 The old shoe after. 
 
 What change in one short afternoon, — 
 My Charming Neighbour gone, — so soon ! 
 Is yon pale orb her honey-moon 
 
 Slow rising hither ? 
 O lady, wan and marvellous, 
 How often have we communed thus ; 
 Sweet memories shall dwell with us, 
 
 And joy go with her !
 
 PICCADILLY. 
 
 ICCADILLY !— Shops, palaces, 
 bustle, and breeze ; 
 The whirring of wheels, and the 
 murmur of trees ; 
 By daylight, or nightlight, or noisy, or stilly, 
 Whatever my mood is — I love Piccadilly. 
 
 Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is 
 
 streaming. 
 And young Love is watching, and old Love is 
 
 dreaming. 
 And Beauty is whirl'd off to conquest, where 
 
 shrilly 
 Cremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly !
 
 Piccadilly. 51 
 
 Bright days, when we leisurely pace to and fro, 
 And we meet all the people we do or don't know ; 
 Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter 
 
 Lillie \ 
 — No wonder, young pilgrim, you like Piccadilly ! 
 
 See yonder pair riding, how fondly they saunter ! 
 She smiles on her poet, whose heart 's in a canter : 
 Some envy her spouse, and some covet her filly, 
 He envies them both, — he 's an ass, Piccadilly ! 
 
 Now were I that gay bride, with a slave at my 
 
 feet, 
 I would choose me a house in my favourite street ; 
 Yes or no — I would carry my point, willy-nilly, 
 If"no," — pick a quarrel ; if " yes," — Piccadilly ! 
 
 From Primrose balcony, long ages ago, 
 
 " Sad Old Q " sat at gaze, — who now passes 
 
 below ? 
 A frolicsome statesman, the Man of the Day; 
 A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay ; 
 No hero of story more manfully trod. 
 Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his 
 
 nod :
 
 52 Piccadilly. 
 
 Heu^ anni fugaces ! The wise and the silly. 
 Old P or old Q, — we must quit Piccadilly. 
 
 Life is chequer'd ; a patchwork of smiles and of 
 
 frowns j 
 Let us value its ups, let us muse on its downs; 
 There 's a side that is bright, it will then turn us 
 
 t' other. 
 One turn, if a good one, deserves such another. 
 These downs are delightful, these ups are not 
 
 hilly,— 
 Let us turn one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly.
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF PALL MALL. 
 
 |Y little friend, so small and neat, 
 Whom years ago I used to meet 
 
 In Pall Mall daily ; 
 How cheerily you tript away 
 To work, it might have been to play, 
 You tript so gaily. 
 
 And Time trips too. This moral means 
 You then were midway in the teens 
 
 That I was crowning ; 
 We never spoke, but when I smiled 
 At morn or eve, I know, dear Child, 
 
 You were not frowning.
 
 54 T^he Pilgrims of Fall Mali, 
 
 Each morning when we met, I think 
 Some sentiment did us two link, 
 
 Nor joy, nor sorrow ; 
 And then at eve, experience-taught, 
 Our hearts return'd upon the thought, — 
 
 We meet to-morrow ! 
 
 And you were poor ; and how ? — and why ? 
 How kind to come, it was for my 
 
 Especial grace meant ! 
 Had you a chamber near the stars, 
 A bird, — some treasured plants in jars. 
 
 About your casement ? 
 
 I often wander up and down. 
 
 When morning bathes the silent town 
 
 In golden glory : 
 Perhaps, unwittingly, I 've heard 
 Your thrilling-toned canary-bird 
 
 From some third story. 
 
 r ve seen great changes since we met j 
 A patient little seamstress yet. 
 
 With small means striving, 
 Have you a Lilliputian spouse ? 
 And do you dwell in some doll's house ? 
 
 — Is baby thriving ?
 
 T^he Pilgrims of Pall Mall. ^^ 
 
 My heart grows chill — can bloom like thine 
 Have past from this dear world of mine 
 
 To one far meeter ? 
 To one whose promised joys are worth 
 The best, and more, of Mother Earth, 
 
 — And is it sweeter ? 
 
 Sometimes I to Pall Mall repair. 
 And see the damsels passing there ; 
 
 But if I try to 
 Obtain one glance, they look discreet. 
 As though they 'd some one else to meet ; — 
 
 As have not / too ? 
 
 Yet still I often think upon 
 
 Our many meetings, come and gone ! 
 
 July — December ! 
 Now let us make a tryst, and when, 
 Dear little soul, we meet again, — 
 The mansion is preparing — then 
 
 Thy friend remember ! 
 
 ') 
 
 '*-.i^i. 
 f
 
 GERALDINE. 
 
 SIMPLE child has claims 
 
 On your sentiment, her name 's 
 
 Geraldine. 
 Be tender — but beware, 
 For she 's frolicsome as fair, 
 And fifteen. 
 
 She has gifts that have not cloy'd. 
 For each gift she has employ'd, 
 
 And improved : 
 She has bliss that lives and leans 
 Upon loving, and that means — 
 
 She is loved.
 
 Geraldine. ^y 
 
 She has grace. A grace refined 
 By sweet harmony of mind : 
 
 And the art, 
 And the blessed nature, too, 
 Of a tender, and a true 
 
 Little heart. 
 
 And yet I must not vault 
 Over any foolish fault 
 
 That she ovv^ns : 
 Or some others might rebel, 
 And might enviously swell 
 
 In their zones. 
 
 She is tricksy as the fays, 
 Or her pussy when it plays 
 
 With a string : 
 She 's a goose about her cat. 
 And her ribbons — and all that 
 
 Sort of thing. 
 
 These foibles are a blot, 
 Still she never can do what 
 
 Is not nice. 
 Such as quarrel, and give slaps — 
 As 1 've known her get, perhaps, 
 
 Once or twice.
 
 58 Geraldine. 
 
 The spells that move her soul 
 Are subtle — sad or droll. 
 
 She can show 
 That virtuoso whim 
 Which consecrates our dim 
 
 Long-ago. 
 
 A love that is not sham 
 
 For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb ; 
 
 And I 've known 
 Cordelia's sad eyes 
 Cause angel-tears to rise 
 
 In her own. 
 
 Her gentle spirit yearns 
 When she reads of Robin Burns- 
 Luckless Bard ! 
 Had she blossom'd in thy time, 
 O, how rare had been the rhyme 
 — And reward ! 
 
 Thrice happy then is he 
 Who, planting such a Tree, 
 
 Sees it bloom 
 To shelter him — indeed 
 We have sorrow as we speed 
 
 To our doom !
 
 Geraldine. 59 
 
 I am happy having grown 
 Such a Sapling of my own ; 
 
 And I crave 
 No garland for my brows, 
 But peace beneath its boughs 
 To the grave.
 
 ER quiet resting-place is far away, 
 None dwelling there can tell you 
 her sad story : 
 The stones are mute. The stones 
 could only say, 
 *' A humble spirit pass'd away to glory." 
 
 She loved the murmur of this mighty town, 
 The lark rejoiced her from its lattice prison ; 
 
 A streamlet soothes her now, — the bird has 
 flown, — 
 Some dust is waiting there — a soul has risen. 
 
 No city smoke to stain the heather bells, — 
 Sigh, gentle winds, around my lone love 
 sleeping, —
 
 6i 
 
 She bore her burthen here, but now she dwells 
 Where scorner never came, and none are 
 weeping. 
 
 My name was falter'd with her parting breath — 
 These arms were round my darling at the 
 latest : 
 
 All scenes of death are woe — but painful death 
 In those we dearly love is surely greatest ! 
 
 I could not die. He will'd it otherwise ; 
 
 My lot is here, and sorrow, wearing older, 
 Weighs down the heart, yet does not fill the eyes. 
 
 And even friends may think that I am colder. 
 
 I might have been more kind, more tender ; now 
 Repining wrings my bosom. I am grateful 
 
 No eye can see this mark upon my brow ; 
 All, all my old companionship is hateful. 
 
 But when at times I steal away from these. 
 To find her grave, to pray to be forgiven. 
 
 And when I watch beside her on my knees, 
 I think I am a little nearer heaven.
 
 THE HOUSEMAID. 
 
 Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide," 
 
 I LONE she sits, with air resign'd 
 She watches by the window-blind : 
 
 Poor girl ! No doubt 
 The pilgrims here despise thy lot : 
 Thou canst not stir — because 'tis not 
 Thy Sunday out. 
 
 To play a game of hide and seek 
 With dust and cobwebs all the week, 
 
 Is sorry fun : 
 O dear, how nice it is to drop 
 One's pen and ink, one's pail and mop — 
 
 For breeze and sun !
 
 The Housemaid. 63 
 
 Poor bodies few such pleasures know ; 
 They seldom come. How soon they go ! 
 
 But souls can roam : 
 And, lapt in visions airy-sweet, 
 May be she sees in this dull street 
 
 Her own loved home ! 
 
 The road is now no road. She pranks 
 A brawling stream with thymy banks ; 
 
 In Fancy's realm 
 This post supports no lamp — aloof 
 It spreads above her parents' roof, 
 
 A gracious elm. 
 
 How often has she valued there 
 A father's aid — a mother's care : — 
 
 She now has neither : 
 And yet, may be, she sits and dreams, 
 And fondly smiles on one who seems 
 
 More dear than either. 
 
 The poor can love through want and pain, 
 Although their homely speech is fain 
 To halt in fetters :
 
 64 T^he Housemaid. 
 
 They feel as much, and do far more 
 Than those, at times of meaner ore, 
 Miscaird their betters. 
 
 Sometimes, on summer afternoons 
 Of sundry sunny Mays and Junes, 
 
 Meet Sunday weather, 
 I pass her window by design, 
 And wish her Sunday out and mine 
 
 Might fall together. 
 
 For sweet it were my lot to dower 
 
 With one brief joy, one white-robed flower j 
 
 And prude, or preacher. 
 Could hardly deem it much amiss 
 To lay one on the path of this 
 
 Forlorn young creature- 
 Yet if her thought on wooing runs, 
 And if her swain and she are ones 
 
 Who fancy strolling. 
 She 'd like my nonsense less than his. 
 And so it 's better as it is — 
 
 And that 's consoling.
 
 The Housemaid. 65 
 
 Her dwelling is unknown to fame — 
 Perhaps she 's fair, perhaps her name 
 
 Is Ctfr, or Kitty ,• 
 She may be Jane — she might be plain — 
 For need the object of my strain 
 
 Be always pretty ?
 
 THE OLD GOVERNMENT CLERK. 
 
 E knew an old scribe, it was " once 
 on a time/' — 
 An era to set sober datists de- 
 spairing ; 
 
 Then let them despair ! Darby sat in a chair 
 Near the Cross that gave name to the village 
 of Charing. 
 
 Though silent and lean, Darby was not malign, 
 What hair he had left was more silver than 
 sable ; 
 
 He had also contracted a curve in his spine — 
 From bending too constantly over a table. 
 
 His pay and expenditure, quite in accord, 
 
 Were indeed on the strictest economy founded ;
 
 The Old Government Clerk. 67 
 
 His masters were known as the Sealing-wax 
 Board, 
 And they ruled where red tape and snug places 
 abounded. 
 
 In his heart he look'd down on this dignified knot ; 
 For why ? — The forefather of one of these 
 senators, — 
 A rascal concern'd in the Gunpowder Plot, — 
 Had been barber-surgeon to Darby's progeni- 
 tors. 
 
 Poor fool ! Life is all a vagary of luck, 
 
 Still, for thirty long years — of genteel destitu- 
 tion — 
 He 'd been writing State Papers, which means he 
 had stuck 
 A few heads and some tails to much circumlo- 
 cution. 
 
 This sounds rather weary and dreary ; but, no ! 
 Though strictly inglorious, his days were 
 quiescent. 
 His red-tape was tied in a true-lover's bow 
 Every night when returning to Rosemary 
 Crescent.
 
 68 The Old Government Clerk. 
 
 There Joan meets him smiling, the young ones are 
 there ;— 
 His coming is bliss to the half-dozen wee 
 things ; 
 The dog and the cat have a greeting to spare, 
 And Phyllis, neat-handed, is laying the tea- 
 things. 
 
 East wind, sob eerily ! — Sing, kettle, cheerily ! 
 
 Baby's abed, but its father will rock it ; 
 Ye little ones boast your permission to toast 
 
 The nice cake that good fellow brings home 
 in his pocket. 
 
 This greeting the silent old Clerk understands, 
 Now his friends he can love, had he foes, he 
 could mock them ; 
 So met, so surrounded, his bosom expands, — 
 Some tongues have more need of such scenes 
 to unlock them. 
 
 And Darby, at least, is resign'd to his lot ; 
 And Joan, rather proud of the sphere he's 
 adorning. 
 Has well-nigh forgotten that Gunpowder Plot, — 
 And he won't recall it till ten the next 
 morning.
 
 The Old Government Clerk. 69 
 
 A kindly good man, quite a stranger to fame, — 
 His heart still is green, though his head shows 
 a hoar lock ; 
 
 Perhaps his particular star is to blame, — 
 
 It may be, he never took Time by the forelock. 
 
 A day must arrive when, in pitiful case. 
 
 He will drop from his Branch, like a fruit 
 more than mellow ; 
 
 Is he yet to be found in his usual place ? 
 Or is he already forgotten, poor fellow ? 
 
 If still at his duty he soon will arrive ; 
 
 He passes this turning because it is shorter ; 
 If not within sight as the clock's striking five. 
 
 We shall see him before it is chiming the 
 quarter.
 
 A WISH. 
 
 ^^ O the south of the church, and be- 
 ^^ neath yonder yew, 
 
 I have watch'd two child-lovers, un- 
 seen ; 
 
 More than once were they there, and the years 
 of the two, 
 When united, might number thirteen. 
 
 They sat by a grave, they were weaving a 
 wreath ; 
 That grave had no stone to determine 
 The name of the dead,— Life was visiting 
 Death ! 
 A notable text for a sermon.
 
 A Wish. 
 
 71 
 
 They tenderly prattled ; what was it they said r 
 The turf on that hillock was new ; — 
 
 Dear little ones, did ye know aught of the Dead r 
 Or could he be heedful of you ? 
 
 I wish to believe, and believe it I must. 
 That her father beneath them was laid : 
 
 I wish to believe, I will take it on trust. 
 That her father knew all that they said. 
 
 My own, you are five, very nearly the age 
 Of that poor little fatherless child, 
 
 Ay, and some day a true-love your heart will 
 engage, 
 When on earth I my last may have smiled. 
 
 Then visit my tomb, like a brave little lass, 
 Wheresoe'er it may happen to be ; 
 
 And if any daisies should peer through the grass, 
 O, be sure they are kisses from me. 
 
 And place not a stone to distinguish my name, 
 For the stranger to see and discuss ; 
 
 But come with your lover, as these lo\ crs 
 came — 
 And talk to him sweetly of us.
 
 72 
 
 A Wish. 
 
 And while you are smiling, your father will 
 smile 
 To have such a dear child, and so brave : 
 But mind, O yes, mind you are happy the 
 while— 
 / wish you to visit my grave.
 
 THE JESTER'S PLEA. 
 
 These verses were published in 1862, in a volume of 
 Poems (by several hands), entitled " An Offering to 
 Lancashire." 
 
 ^^*^g ^HE World's a sorry wench, akin 
 
 To all that 's frail and frightful : 
 The world 's as ugly, ay, as sin, 
 And almost as delightful ! 
 The World 's a merry world {pro tern.) 
 
 And some are gay, and therefore 
 
 It pleases them, but some condemn 
 
 The World they do not care for. 
 
 The World 's an ugly world. Oftcnd 
 (jood people — how they wrangle ! 
 
 The manners that they never mend, 
 The characters they mangle !
 
 74 '^h^ yesters Plea. 
 
 They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod. 
 And go to church on Sunday ; 
 
 And many are afraid of God — 
 And more of Mrs. Grundy. 
 
 The time for Pen and Sword was when 
 
 " My ladye fayre," for pity 
 Could tend her wounded knight, and then 
 
 Grow tender at his ditty. 
 Some ladies now make pretty songs. 
 
 And some make pretty nurses : 
 Some men are good for righting wrongs, — 
 
 And some for reading verses. 
 
 I wish we better understood 
 
 This tax that poets levy ! 
 I know the Muse is very good, 
 
 I think she 's rather heavy : 
 She now compounds for winning ways 
 
 By morals of the sternest, 
 Methinks the lays of now-a-days 
 
 Are painfully in earnest. 
 
 When wisdom halts, I humbly try 
 
 To make the most of folly : 
 If Pallas be unwilling, I 
 
 Prefer to flirt with Polly ;
 
 'The "Jester s Plea. 75 
 
 To quit the goddess for the maid 
 
 Seems low in lofty musers ; 
 But Pallas is a lofty jade — 
 
 And beggars can't be choosers. 
 
 I do not wish to see the slaves 
 
 Of party, stirring passion, 
 Or psalms quite superseding staves. 
 
 Or piety " the fashion." 
 I bless the Hearts where pity glows, 
 
 Who, here together banded, 
 Are holding out a hand to those 
 
 That wait so empty-handed ! 
 
 A righteous Work ! — My masters, may 
 
 A Jester by confession, 
 Scarce noticed join, half sad, half gay, 
 
 The close of your procession .'' 
 The motley here seems out of place 
 
 With graver robes to mingle. 
 Hut if one tear bedews his face, 
 
 Forgive the bells their jingle.
 
 THE OLD CRADLE. 
 
 |ND this was your Cradle? why, 
 surely, my Jenny, 
 Such slender dimensions go clearly 
 to show 
 
 That you were a delightfully small pic-a-ninny 
 Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. 
 
 Your baby-days flow'd in a much-troubled 
 channel ; 
 I see you as then in your impotent strife, — 
 A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel, 
 
 Perplex'd with that newly-found fardel call'd 
 Life. 
 
 To hint at an infantine frailty 's a scandal j 
 Let bygones be bygones — and somebody 
 knows
 
 The Old Cradle. jj 
 
 It was bliss such a Baby to dance and to dandle, 
 Your cheeks were so velvet, so rosy your toes. 
 
 Ay, here is your Cradle ; and Hope, at times 
 lonely ! 
 
 With Love now is watching beside it, I know. 
 They guard the small nest you inherited only 
 
 Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago. 
 
 It is Hope decks the future, Love welcomes it 
 smiling ; 
 Thus wags this old world, therefore stay not 
 to ask — 
 " My future bids fair, is my future beguiling.'"' 
 If mask'd, still it pleases — then raise not the 
 mask. 
 
 Is Life a poor coil some would gladly be doffing ? 
 
 He is riding post-haste who their wrongs will 
 adjust ; 
 For at most 'tis a footstep from cradle to coffin — 
 
 P'rom a spoonful of pap to a mouthful of dust. 
 
 Then smile as your future is smiling, my Jenny ! 
 Though blossoms of promise are lost in the 
 rose.
 
 78 The Old Cradle. 
 
 I can still see the face of my small pic-a-ninny 
 Unchanged, for these cheeks are as blooming 
 as those. 
 
 Ay, here is your Cradle ! much, much to my 
 liking, 
 Though nineteen or twenty long winters have 
 sped ; 
 But, hark ! as I 'm talking there 's six o'clock 
 striking, — 
 It is time Jenny's baby should be in its bed.
 
 TO MY MISTRESS. 
 
 COUNTESS, each succeeding year 
 Reveals that Time is wasting here : 
 He soon will do his worst by you, 
 And garner all your roses too. 
 
 It pleases Time to fold his wings 
 Around our best and brightest things ; 
 He'll mar your damask cheek, as now 
 He stamps his mark upon my brow. 
 
 The same mute planets rise and shine 
 To rule your days and nights as mine : 
 I once was young as you, — and see ! . . 
 What I am now you soon will be. 
 
 And yet I bear a certain charm 
 That shields me from your worst alarm ; 
 And bids me gaze, with front sublime. 
 On all these ravages of Time.
 
 8o To my Mistress. 
 
 You boast a charm that all men prize : 
 This gift of mine, which you despise, 
 May, like enough, be still my own 
 When all your vaunt has paled and gone. 
 
 My charm may long embalm the lures 
 Of eyes, ah, sweet to me as yours : 
 And ages hence the great and good 
 Will judge you as I choose they should. 
 
 In days to come the count or clown, 
 With whom I still shall win renown. 
 Will only know that you were fair 
 Because I chanced to say you were. 
 
 Fair Countess ! youthful beauty mocks 
 At aged heads and silver locks ; 
 But should you hold your head so high. 
 And scorn a poet such as I ? 
 
 Kenwood, 'July 21, 1864. 
 
 &5»j
 
 THE ROSE AND THE RING. 
 
 (Christmas 1854, and Christinas 1863.) 
 
 I HE smiles, but her heart is in sable, 
 Ay, sad as her Christmas is chill : 
 She reads, and her book is the fable 
 Hepenn'd for her while she was ill. 
 It is nine years ago since he wrought it, 
 
 Where reedy old Tiber is king, — 
 And chapter by chapter he brought it. 
 And read her the Rose and the Ring. 
 
 And when it was printed — and gaining 
 Renown with all lovers of glee — 
 
 He sent her this copy containing 
 His comical little croquis ;
 
 82 The Rose and the Ring. 
 
 A sketch of a rather droll couple, 
 
 She 's pretty, he 's quite t'other thing ! 
 
 He begs (with a spine vastly supple) 
 She will study the Rose and the Ring. 
 
 It pleased the kind Wizard to send her 
 
 The last and the best of his toys ; 
 His heart had a sentiment tender 
 
 For innocent women and boys : 
 And though he was great as a scorner. 
 
 The guileless were safe from his sting : 
 O, how sad is past mirth to the mourner ! 
 
 A tear on the Rose and the Ring ! 
 
 She reads, I may vainly endeavour 
 
 Her mirth-chequer'd grief to pursue. 
 For she hears she has lost, and for ever, 
 
 A Heart that was known by so few ; 
 But I wish on the shrine of his glory 
 
 One fair little blossom to fling ; 
 And you see there 's a nice little story 
 
 Attach'd to the Rose and the Ring !
 
 TO MY OLD FRIEND POSTUMUS. 
 
 (J- G.) 
 
 Y Friend, our few remaining years 
 Are hasting to an end, 
 They glide away, and lines are here 
 That time will never mend ; 
 Thy blameless life avails thee not, — 
 Alas, my dear old Friend ! 
 
 From mother earth's green orchard trees 
 
 The fairest fruit is blown, 
 The lad was gay who slumbers near. 
 
 The lass he loved is gone ; 
 Death lifts the burthen from the poor. 
 
 And will not spare the throne.
 
 84 T^o tny Old Friend Postumus. 
 
 And vainly are we fenced about 
 
 From peril, day and night, 
 The awful rapids must be shot, 
 
 Our shallop is but slight ; 
 So pray, when parting, we descry 
 
 A cheering beacon-light. 
 
 O pleasant earth ! This happy home ! 
 
 The darling at my knee ! 
 My own dear wife ' Thyself, old Friend ! 
 
 And must it come to me 
 That any face shall fill my place 
 
 Unknown to them and thee ?
 
 GERALDINE GREEN. 
 
 1. 
 
 THE SERENADE. 
 
 IGHT slumber is quitting 
 The eyelids it press'd ; 
 The fairies are flitting, 
 Who charm'd thee to rest 
 Where night-dews were falling 
 Now feeds the wild bee ; 
 The starling is calling, 
 My darling, for thee. 
 
 The wavelets are crisper 
 That sway the shy fern ; 
 
 The leaves fondly whisper, 
 *' We wait thy return."
 
 86 
 
 Geraldine Green. 
 
 Arise then, and hazy 
 Distrust from thee fling, 
 
 For the sorrows that crazy 
 To-morrows may bring. 
 
 A vague yearning smote us, 
 But wake not to weep ; 
 
 My bark. Love, shall float us 
 Across the still deep ; 
 
 To isles where the lotos 
 Erst lull'd thee to sleep. 
 
 II. 
 
 MY LIFE IS A 
 
 T Worthing an exile from Geral- 
 dine G , 
 
 Ah, how aimless, how wretched an 
 exile is he ! 
 
 Promenades are not even prunella and leather 
 To lovers, if lovers can't foot them together.
 
 Geraldine Green. 87 
 
 He flies the parade, sad by ocean he stands ; 
 He traces a " Geraldine G." on the sands; 
 Only " G !" though her loved patronymic is 
 
 " Green,"— 
 I will not betray thee, my own Geraldine. 
 
 The fortunes of men have a time and a tide, 
 And the Fates, the old Furies, will not be 
 
 denied ; 
 That name was, of course, soon wiped out by 
 
 the sea, — 
 She jilted the exile, did Geraldine G. 
 
 They meet, but they never have spoken since 
 
 that, — 
 He hopes she is happy — he knows she is fat ; 
 She woo'd on the shore, now is wed in the 
 
 Strand, — 
 And / — it was I wrote her name on the sand.
 
 MRS. SMITH. 
 
 AST year I trod these fields with Di, 
 And that 's the simple reason why 
 
 They now seem arid : 
 Then Di was fair and single — how 
 Unfair it seems on me — for now 
 Di's fair, and married. 
 
 In bliss we roved. I scorn'd the song 
 Which says that though young Love is strong 
 
 The Fates are stronger : 
 Then breezes blew a boon to men, 
 The buttercups were bright — and then 
 
 This grass was longer. 
 
 That day I saw, and much esteem'd 
 Di's ankles — which the clover seem'd 
 Inclined to smother :
 
 Mrs. Smith. 89 
 
 It twitcht, and soon untied (for fun) 
 The ribbons of her shoes, first one, 
 And then the other. 
 
 'Tis said that virgins augur some 
 Misfortune if their shoestrings come 
 
 To grief on Friday : 
 And so did Di, and so her pride 
 Decreed that shoestrings so untied, 
 
 Are " so untidy !" 
 
 Of course I knelt — with fingers deft 
 I tied the right, and then the left : 
 
 Says Di — " The stubble 
 Is very stupid — as I live 
 1 'm shock'd, I 'm quite ashamed to give 
 
 You so much trouble." 
 
 For answer I was fain to sink 
 
 To what most swains would say and think 
 
 Were Beauty present : 
 *' Don't mention such a simple act, 
 A trouble ? not the least. In fact 
 
 It 's rather pleasant."
 
 90 Mrs. Smith. 
 
 I trust that Love will never tease 
 Poor little Di, or prove that he 's 
 
 A graceless rover. 
 She 's happy now as Mrs. Smith — 
 And less polite when walking with 
 
 Her chosen lover ! 
 
 Heigh-ho ! Although no moral clings 
 To Di's soft eyes, and sandal strings, 
 
 We 've had our quarrels ! 
 I think that Smith is thought an ass, 
 I know that when they walk in grass 
 
 She wears balmorah.
 
 THE BEAR PIT. 
 
 AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
 
 [E liked the bear's serio-comical face, 
 As he loll'd with a lazy, a lumbering 
 
 grace ; 
 Said Slyboots to me (just as if she 
 had none), 
 " Papa, let 's give Bruin a bit of your bun." 
 
 Says I, " A plum bun might please wistful old 
 
 Bruin, 
 He can't eat the stone that the cruel boy threw 
 
 in; 
 Stick yours on the point of mama's parasol, 
 And perhaps he will climb to the top of the pole.
 
 92 The Bear Pit. 
 
 " Some bears have got two legs, some bears have 
 
 got more, 
 Be good to old bears if they 've no legs or four : 
 Of duty to age you should never be careless, 
 My dear, I am bald, and I soon shall be hairless ! 
 
 " The gravest aversion exists amongst bears 
 
 From such rude forward persons who give them- 
 selves airs, 
 
 We know how some graceless young people 
 were maul'd 
 
 Just for plaguing a prophet, and calling him bald. 
 
 " Strange ursine devotion ! Their dancing-days 
 ended, 
 
 Bears die to ' remove ' what, in life, they de- 
 fended : 
 
 They succour'd the prophet, and since that 
 affair 
 
 The bald have a painful regard for the bear." 
 
 My moral — Small People may read it, and run, 
 (The child has my moral, the bear has my bun) ;
 
 The Bear Pit, 
 
 93 
 
 Forbear to give pain, if it 's only in jest, — 
 And care to think pleasure a phantom at best. 
 A paradox too — none can hope to attach it, 
 Yet if you pursue it you '11 certainly catch it.
 
 IMPLORA PACE. 
 
 (one hundred years hence.) 
 
 NE hundred years ! a long, long 
 scroll 
 Of dust to dust, and woe ; 
 How soon my passing knell will 
 toll !— 
 Is Death a friend or foe ? 
 My days are often sad, and vain 
 Is much that tempts me to remain 
 
 — And yet I 'm loth to go. 
 Oh, must I tread yon silent shore — 
 Go hence, and then be seen no more ? 
 
 I love to think that those I loved 
 May gather round the bier
 
 Impkra Pace. g^ 
 
 Of him, who, whilst he erring proved, 
 
 Still held them more than dear. 
 My friends grow fewer day by day, 
 Yes, one by one, they drop away, 
 
 And if I shed no tear. 
 Dear parted shades, whilst life endures, 
 This poor heart yearns for love — and yours. 
 
 Will some who knew me, when I die. 
 Shed tears behind the hearse ? 
 
 Will any one survivor cry, 
 
 " I could have spared a worse — 
 
 We never spoke ; we never met ; 
 
 I never heard his voice ; and yet 
 I loved him for his verse f"' 
 
 Such love would make the flowers wave 
 
 In rapture on their poet's grave. 
 
 One hundred years, like one short week, 
 
 Will pass, and leave behind 
 A stone mossgrown, that none will seek. 
 
 And none would care to Hnd.
 
 96 Implora Pace. 
 
 Then I shall sleep, and find release 
 In perfect rest — the perfect peace 
 For which my soul has pined ; 
 And men will love, and weary men 
 Will sue for quiet slumber then.
 
 CIRCUMSTANCE. 
 
 THE ORANGE. 
 
 T ripen'd by the river banks, 
 
 Where, mask and moonlight 
 aiding, 
 Dons Bias' and Juans play sad 
 pranks, 
 Dark Donnas serenading. 
 
 By Moorish maiden it was pluck'd, 
 
 Who broke some hearts, they say, then 
 
 By Saxon sweetheart it was suck'd, — 
 Who flung the peel away then. 
 
 He could not know in Pimlico, 
 
 As little she in Seville, 
 That / should reel upon that peel. 
 
 And wish them at the devil ! 
 
 H
 
 THE CROSSING-SWEEPER. 
 
 THE SUTTEE. 
 
 CROSSING-SWEEPER, black 
 
 and tan. 
 Tells how he came from Hindostan, 
 And why he wears a hat, and shunned 
 The Ryals of the Pugree Bund. 
 
 My wife was fair, she worshipp'd me, 
 
 Her father was a Caradee, 
 
 His deity was aquatile, 
 
 A rough and tough old Crocodile. 
 
 To gratify this monster's maw 
 
 He sacrificed his sons-in-law j 
 
 We married, tho' the neighbours said, he 
 
 Had lost five sons-in-law already.
 
 The Crossing-Sweeper . 99 
 
 Her father, when he play'd these pranks, 
 Proposed *' a turn" on Jumna's banks ; 
 He spoke so kind, she seem'd so glum, 
 I knew at once that mine had come. 
 
 1 fled before his artful ruse 
 To cook my too-confiding goose. 
 And now I sweep, in chill despair, 
 A crossing in St. James's Square ; 
 
 Some old J^l-hy^ some rural flat 
 May drop a sixpence in my hatj 
 Yet still I mourn the mango-tree 
 Where Azla first grew fond of me. 
 
 These rogues, who swear my skin is tawny, 
 Would pawn their own for brandy-pawnee ; 
 What matters it if theirs are snowy, 
 As Chloe fair ! They're drunk as Chloe ! 
 
 Your town is vile. In Thames's stream 
 The crocodiles get up the steam ! 
 Your juggernauts their victims bump 
 From Camberwell to Aldgate pump !
 
 loo The Crossing-Sweeper. 
 
 A year ago, come Candlemas, 
 I woo'd a plump Feringhee lass ; 
 United at her idol fane, 
 I furnish'd rooms in Idol Lane. 
 
 A moon had waned when virtuous Emma 
 Involved me in a new dilemma : 
 The Brahma faith, that Emma scorns, 
 Impaled me tight on both its horns : 
 
 She vow'd to BURN if she survived me ; 
 Of this sweet fancy she deprived me, 
 She ran from all her obligations, 
 And went to stay with her relations. 
 
 My Azla weeps by Jumna's deeps, 
 
 But Emma mocks my trials. 
 She pokes her jokes in Seven Oaks, 
 
 At me in Seven Dials, — 
 I'm dash'd if these Feringhee folks 
 
 Ain't rather worse than Ryals.
 
 MR. PLACID'S FLIRTATION. 
 
 " Jemima was cross, and I lost my umbrella 
 That day at the tomb of Cecilia Metella." 
 
 Letters from Rome. 
 
 |ISS TRISTRAM'S poulet ended 
 thus : " Nota bene, 
 We meet for croquet in the Aldo- 
 brandini." 
 Says my wife, " Then I'll drive, and you'll ride 
 
 with Selina," 
 (The fair spouse of Jones, of the Via Sistina). 
 
 We started : I'll own that my family deem 
 That I'm soft, but I'm not quite so soft as I 
 
 seem ; 
 As we cross'd the stones gently a nursemaid 
 
 said " La — 
 There goes Mrs. Jones with Miss Placid's 
 
 papa ! "
 
 I02 Mr. Placid' s Flirtation. 
 
 Our friends, one or two may be mention'd 
 
 anon, 
 Had arranged rendezvous at the Gate of St. 
 
 John: 
 That pass'd, oft" we spun over turf that's not 
 
 green there. 
 And soon were all met at the villa. You've 
 
 been there ? 
 
 I will try and describe, or I won't, if you please, 
 
 The good cheer that was set for us under the 
 trees : 
 
 You have read the menu, may you read it 
 again ; 
 
 Champagne, perigord, galantine, and — cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 Suffice it to say I got seated between 
 
 Mrs. Jones and old Brown — to the latter's 
 
 chagrin. 
 Poor Brown, who believes in himself, and — 
 
 another thing — 
 Whose talk is so bald, but whose cheeks are so 
 
 — t' other thing.
 
 Mr. Placid' s Flirtation. 103 
 
 She sang, her sweet voice fill'd the gay garden 
 
 alleys ; 
 I jested, but Brown would not smile at my 
 
 sallies ; 
 Selina remark'd that a swell met at Rome, 
 Is not always a swell when one meets him at 
 
 home. 
 
 The luncheon despatch'd, we adjourn'd to 
 
 croquet, 
 A dainty, but difficult sport, in its way. 
 Thus I counsel the sage, who to play at it 
 
 stoops, — 
 Belabour thy neighbour, and spoon through thy 
 
 hoops. 
 
 Then we stroll'd, and discourse found its kindest 
 
 of tones : 
 " O how charming were solitude and -Mrs. 
 
 ones. 
 " Indeed, Mr. Placid, I dote on these sheeny 
 And shadowy paths of the Aldobrandini." 
 
 A girl came with violet posies, and two 
 Gentle eyes, like her violets, laden with dew ;
 
 I04 M?-. PI acid's Flirtation. 
 
 And a kind of an indolent, fine-lady air, — 
 As if she by accident found herself there. 
 
 I bought one. Selina was pleased to accept it ; 
 She gave me a rosebud to keep — and I've 
 
 kept it. 
 Thus the moments flevv^ by, and I think, in my 
 
 heart. 
 When one vow'd one must go, two were loth 
 
 to depart. 
 
 The twilight is near, we no longer can stay ; 
 The steeds are remounted, and wheels roll away. 
 The ladies condetnn Mrs. Jones, as the phrase is. 
 But vie with each other in chanting my praises. 
 
 C( 
 
 He has so much to say," cries the fair Mrs. 
 
 Legge, 
 " How amusing he was about missing the 
 
 peg!" 
 " Wh:it a beautiful smile !" says the plainest 
 
 Miss Gunn. 
 All echo, " He 's charming ! Delightful ! What 
 
 fun'"
 
 Mr. Placid' s Flirtation. 105 
 
 This sounds rather nice, and 'tis perfectly 
 
 clear it 
 Had sounded more nice had I happen'd to 
 
 hear it ; 
 The men were less civil, and gave me a rub, 
 So I happen'd to hear when I went to the Club. 
 
 Says Brown, " I shall drop Mr. Placid's 
 
 society ;" 
 (Brown is a prig of improper propriety.) 
 " Hang him," says Smith (who from cant's not 
 
 exempt), 
 " Why, he '11 bring immorality into contempt." 
 
 Says I (to myself), when I found me alone, 
 *' My dear wife has my heart, is it wholly her 
 
 own?" 
 And further, says I (to myself), " I'll be shot 
 If I know if Selina adores me or not." 
 
 Says Jones, " I've just come from the scavi, at 
 
 Veii,— 
 I've bought some remarkably fine scarabaei !" 
 
 \
 
 BEGGARS. 
 
 AM pacing Pall Mall in a wrapt 
 
 reverie, 
 I am thinking if Sophy is thinking 
 of me, 
 
 When up creeps a ragged and shivering wretch, 
 Who appears to be well on his way to Jack 
 Ketch. 
 
 He has got a bad face, and a shocking bad hat ; 
 A comb in his fist, and he sees I'm a flat, 
 For he says, " Buy a comb, it's a fine un to wear; 
 Only try it, my Lord, through your whiskers and 
 
 'air." 
 
 He eyes my gold chain, as if anxious to crib it; 
 He looks just as if he'd been blown from a gib'iet.
 
 Beggars. 107 
 
 I pause . . . and pass on, and beside the club fire 
 I settle that Sophy is all I desire. 
 
 As I walk from the club, and am deep in a 
 
 strophe, 
 Which rolls upon all that 's delicious in Sophy, 
 I half tumble over an " object" unnerving— 
 So frightful a hag must be " highly deserving." 
 
 She begs, my heart's moved, but I've much 
 
 circumspection ; 
 I stifle remorse with the soothing reflection — 
 That cases of vice are by no means a rarity — 
 The worst vice of all 's indiscriminate charity. 
 
 Am 1 right? How i wish that our clerical 
 
 guides 
 Would just settle this question — and others 
 
 besides ! 
 For always to harden one's fiddlestrings thus, 
 If it's wholesome for beggar?, it's hurtful for us. 
 
 A few minutes later, how pleas.int for me ! 
 I am seated bv Sophv at five-o'clock tea:
 
 io8 Beggars. 
 
 Her table is loaded, for when a girl marries, 
 What cartloads of rubbish they send her from 
 Barry's ! 
 
 " There's a present for you!" Yes, my dear 
 
 Sophy's thrift 
 Has enabled the darling to buy me a gift. 
 And she slips in my hand — the delightfully sly 
 
 thing ! 
 A paper-weight form'd of a bronze lizard 
 
 writhing. 
 
 " What a charming cadeau ! and," says I, " so 
 
 well made. 
 But pray are you aware, you extravagant jade. 
 That in casting this metal a live, harmless lizard 
 Was cruelly tortured in ghost and in gizzard ?" 
 
 *' Pooh, pooh," says my lady (I ought to defend 
 
 her. 
 Her head is too giddy, her heart's much too 
 
 tender\ 
 " Hopgarten protests they've no feeling, and so 
 It could only be muscular movement, you know.'
 
 Beggars. 
 
 109 
 
 Thinks I, when I've said au revoir^ and depart, 
 (A Comb in my pocket, a Weight at my heart). 
 And when wretched mendicants writhe, we've a 
 
 notion 
 That begging is only a muscular motion.
 
 AN ASPIRATION. 
 
 Written for two Woodcuts in " A Round of Days." 
 Christmas, 1865. 
 
 ASK'D Miss Di, who loves her 
 
 sheep, 
 Fo look at this delightful peep 
 
 Of April leafage, pure and 
 beamy : 
 A pair of girls in hoops and nets 
 Caress a pair of woolly pets — 
 
 And all is young, and nice, and dreamy. 
 
 Miss Di has kindly eyes for all 
 That's pretty, quaint and pastoral : 
 
 Says she, these ladies sentimental 
 Are lucky in this world of shams, 
 To find a pair of luckless lambs 
 
 So white, and so extremely gentle.
 
 An Aspiration. i 1 1 
 
 I heard her with surprise and doubt, 
 For though I don't much care about 
 
 The World she spoke with such disdain of, 
 And though the lamb I mostly see 
 Is overdone, it seem'd to me 
 
 That these had little to complain of. 
 
 When beings of the fairer sex 
 
 Arrange their white arms round our necks, 
 
 We are, and ought to be enraptured — 
 I wish I were your lamb. Miss Di, 
 Or even that poor butterfly, 
 
 With some small hope of being captured.
 
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 GERALDINE AND I. 
 
 Di te, Damasippe, deaeque 
 Verum ob consilium donent tonsore. 
 
 HAVE talk'd with her often in 
 noon-day heat, 
 We have walk'd under wintry 
 skies, 
 Her voice is the dearest voice, and sweet 
 
 Is the light in her gentle eyes ; 
 It is bliss in the silent woods, among 
 
 Gay crowds, or in any place, 
 To mould her mind, to gaze in her young 
 Confiding face. 
 
 For ever may roses divinely blow. 
 
 And wine-dark pansies charm 
 By that prim box path where I felt the glow 
 
 Of her dimpled, trusting arm.
 
 Geraldine and I. 113 
 
 And the sweep of her silk as she turn'd and 
 smiled 
 A smile of coral and pearls ; 
 The breeze was in love with the darling child, 
 And coax'd her curls. 
 
 She show'd me her ferns and woodbine sprays, 
 
 Foxglove and jasmine stars, 
 A mist of blue in the beds, a blaze 
 
 Of red in the celadon jars : 
 And velvety bees in convolvulus bells. 
 
 And roses of bountiful Spring. 
 But I said — ** Though roses and bees have 
 spells, 
 They have thorn and sting." 
 
 She show'd me ripe peaches behind a net 
 
 As fine as her veil, and fat 
 Gold fish a-gape, who lazily met 
 
 For her crumbs — I grudged them that ! 
 Some squirrels, and rabbits with long lop ears, 
 
 And guinea-pigs, tortoise-shell, wee — 
 And I told her that eloquent truth inheres 
 In all we see.
 
 114 
 
 Geraldine and I. 
 
 I lifted her doe by its lops, said I, 
 " Even here deep meaning lies, — 
 
 Why have squirrels these ample tails, and why 
 Have rabbits these prominent eyes?" 
 
 She smiled and said, as she twirl'd her veil, 
 " For some nice little cause, no doubt — 
 
 If you lift a guinea-pig up by the tail 
 His eyes drop out ! "
 
 ST. JAMES'S-STREET. 
 
 ^T. James's-street, of classic fame ! 
 The finest people throng it ! — 
 St. James's-street ? I know the 
 name ? 
 
 I think I've pass'd along it ? 
 Why, that's where Sacharissa sigh'd 
 
 When Waller read his ditty ; 
 Where Byron lived, and Gibbon died, 
 And Alvanley was witty. 
 
 A famous street. It skirts the Park 
 Where Rogers took his pastime ; 
 
 Come, gaze on fifty men of mark, 
 And then call up the fast time !
 
 1 1 6 St. ^James's Street. 
 
 The plats at White's, the play at Crock's — 
 The bumpers to Miss Gunning j 
 
 The bonhomie of Charlie Fox, 
 And Selwyn's ghastly funning. 
 
 The dear old street of clubs and cribs. 
 
 As north and south it stretches, 
 Still smacks of Williams' pungent squibs. 
 
 And Gillray's fiercer sketches ; 
 The quaint old dress, the grand old style. 
 
 The mots., the racy stories ; — 
 The wine, the dice — the wit, the bile, 
 
 The hate of Whigs and Tories, 
 
 At dusk, when I am strolling there. 
 
 Dim forms will rise around me ; 
 Old Pepys creeps past me in his chair, 
 
 And Congreve's airs astound me ! 
 And once Nell Gwynne, a frail young sprite, 
 
 Look'd kindly when I met her ; 
 I shook my head, perhaps, — but quite 
 
 Forgot to quite forget her. 
 
 The street is still a lively tomb 
 
 For rich, and gay, and clever ; 
 The crops of dandies bud, and bloom. 
 
 And die as fast as ever.
 
 St. 'James's Street. 1 17 
 
 Now gilded youth loves cutty-pipes, 
 
 And slang that's rather rancid, — 
 It can't approach its prototypes 
 
 In tone — or so I 've fancied. 
 
 In Brummell's day of buckle shoes, 
 
 Starch cravats, and roll collars, 
 They'd fight, and w^oo, and bet — and lose 
 
 Like gentlemen and scholars : 
 I like young men to go the pace, 
 
 I half forgive old Rapid ; — 
 These louts disgrace their name and race — 
 
 So vicious and so vapid ! 
 
 Worse times may come. Bon ton^ alas, 
 
 Will then be quite forgotten. 
 And all we much revere will pass 
 
 From ripe to worse than rotten j 
 Rank weeds will sprout between yon stones. 
 
 And owls will roost at Boodle's, 
 And Echo will hurl back the tones 
 
 Of screaming Yankee Doodles. 
 
 I like the haunts, and many such. 
 
 Where wit and wealth are squander'd, 
 
 The garden'd mansions, just as much, 
 Where grace and rank have wander'd —
 
 ii8 
 
 St. James's Street, 
 
 The spots where ladies fair and leal 
 First ventured to adore me ! — 
 
 And something of the like I feel 
 For this old street before me.
 
 ROTTEN ROW. 
 
 HOPE I'm fond of much that's 
 
 good, 
 As well as much that's gay ; 
 I 'd like the country if I could, 
 I like the park in May : 
 And when I ride in Rotten Row, 
 I wonder why they call'd it so. 
 
 A lively scene on turf and road, 
 
 The crowd is smartly drest : 
 The Ladies' Mile has overflow'd. 
 
 The chairs are in request : 
 The nimble air, so soft and clear, 
 Can hardly stir a ringlet here.
 
 1 20 Rotten Row. 
 
 I '11 halt beneath these pleasant trees 
 
 And drop my bridle rein, 
 And, quite alone, indulge at ease 
 
 The philosophic vein : 
 I'll moralize on all I see — 
 I think it all was made for me ! 
 
 Forsooth, and on a nicer spot 
 The sunbeam never shines ; 
 
 Young ladies here can talk and trot 
 With statesmen and divines : 
 
 Could I have chosen, I 'd have been 
 
 A Duke, a Beauty, or a Dean ! 
 
 What grooms ! what gallant gentlemen ! 
 
 What well-appointed hacks ! 
 What glory in their pace — and then 
 
 What Beauties on their backs ! 
 My Pegasus would never flag 
 If weighted as my lady's nag. 
 
 But where is now that courtly troop 
 Who once rode laughing by ? 
 
 I miss the curls of Cantilupe, 
 The smile of Lady Di : 
 
 They all could laugh from night to morn. 
 
 And Time has laugh'd them all to scorn.
 
 Rotten Row. 1 2 1 
 
 I then could frolic in the van 
 
 With dukes and dandy earls ; 
 I then was thought a nice young man 
 
 By rather nice young girls : 
 I 've half a mind to join Miss Browne, 
 And try one canter up and down. 
 
 Ah, no ! I'll linger here awhile. 
 
 And dream of days of yore ; 
 For me bright eyes have lost the smile, 
 
 The sunny smile they wore : — 
 Perhaps they say, what I'll allow. 
 That I'm not quite so handsome now.
 
 A NICE CORRESPONDENT! 
 
 } HE glow and the glory are plighted 
 
 To darkness, for evening is come ; 
 % The lamp in Glebe Cottage is 
 lighted, 
 
 The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb. 
 I'm alone at my casement, for pappy 
 
 Is summon'd to dinner to Kew : 
 I'm alone, my dear Fred, but I'm happy — 
 I'm thinking of you. 
 
 I wish you were here. Were I duller 
 Than dull, you'd be dearer than dear; 
 
 I am drest in your favourite colour — 
 Dear Fred, how I wish you were here '
 
 A Nice Correspondent ! 123 
 
 I am wearing my lazuli necklace, 
 
 The necklace you fasten'd askew : 
 Was there ever so rude or so reckless 
 A darling as you ? 
 
 I want you to come and pass sentence 
 On two or three books with a plot ; 
 
 Of course you know *' Janet's Repentance," 
 I'm reading Sir Waverley Scott, 
 
 The Story of Edgar and Lucy, 
 
 How thrilling, romantic, and true ; 
 
 The Master (his bride was a goosey !) 
 Reminds me of you. 
 
 To-day, in my ride, I've been crowning 
 The beacon, whose magic still lures. 
 
 For up there you discoursed about Browning, 
 That stupid old Browning of yours. 
 
 His vogue and his verve are alarming, 
 I'm anxious to give him his due ; 
 
 But, Fred, he's not nearly so charming 
 A poet as you. 
 
 1 heard how you shot at the Beeches, 
 I saw how you rode Chanticleer, 
 
 I have read the reports of your speeches. 
 And echd'd the echoing cheer.
 
 124 ^ Nice Correspondent I 
 
 There's a whisper of hearts you are breaking, 
 
 I envy their owners, I do ; 
 Small marvel that Fortune is making 
 Her idol of you. 
 
 Alas for the world, and its dearly 
 Bought triumph, and fugitive bliss ; 
 
 Sometimes I half wish I were merely 
 A plain or a penniless miss ; 
 
 But, perhaps, one is best with a measure 
 Of pelf, and I 'm not sorry, too, 
 
 That I'm pretty, because it's a pleasure. 
 My dearest, to you. 
 
 Your whim is for frolic and fashion, 
 Your taste is for letters and art. 
 
 This rhyme is the commonplace passion 
 That glows in a fond woman's heart. 
 
 Lay it by in a dainty deposit 
 For relics, we all have a few ! 
 
 Some day, Love, they'll print it, because it 
 Was written to you.
 
 ON " A PORTRAIT OF 
 A LADY." 
 
 Vide Royal Academy Catalogue. 
 
 BY THE PAINTFR. 
 
 ,HE is good, tor she must have a 
 guileless mind 
 With that noble, trusting air ; 
 \ rose with a passionate heart is 
 twined 
 In her crown of golden hair. 
 Some envy the cross that caressingly dips 
 
 In her bosom, and some had died 
 For the promise of bliss on her ripe red lips, 
 And her thousand charms beside. 
 
 She is lovely and good ; she has peerless eyes, 
 
 A haunting shape. She stands 
 In a blossoming croft, under kindling skies, 
 
 I'he weirdest of faery lands :
 
 126 On *' A Portrait of a Lady." 
 
 There are sapphire hills by the far-ofFseas, 
 
 Grave cedars, and tender limes ; 
 They tremble and glow in the morning breeze 
 
 — My Beauty is up betimes ! 
 
 A bevy of idlers crowd around, 
 
 To wonder, and wish, and loll ; 
 "■ Now who is the painter, and where has he found 
 
 A woman we all extol ? 
 With her rosebud mouth and her candid brow 
 
 And the bloom of bygone days." 
 How natural sounds their worship, how 
 
 Impertinent seems their praise ! 
 
 I stand aloof; I can well afford 
 
 To pardon the babble and crush 
 As they praise a work (do I need reward ?) 
 
 That has grown beneath my brush. 
 My thoughts are away to that happy day, 
 
 A few short weeks agone. 
 When we left the games, and the dance, to stray 
 
 Through the dewy flowers, alone. 
 
 My feet are again among flowers divine. 
 
 Away from the noise and glare. 
 Where I kiss'd her mouth, and her lips press'd 
 mine. 
 
 And 1 fasten'd that rose in her hair.
 
 On " A Portrait of a Lady^ 127 
 
 I gather'd it wet for my own sweet pet 
 As we whisper'd and walk'd apart ; 
 
 She gave me that rose, it is fragrant yet, 
 And its home is near my heart.
 
 THE JESTER'S MORAL. 
 
 " I wish that I could run away 
 From House, and Court, and Levee : 
 Where bearded men appear to-day. 
 Just Eton boys grown heavy." 
 
 W, M. Praed, 
 
 S human life a pleasant game 
 That gives the palm to all ? 
 A fight for fortune, or for fame, 
 A struggle, and a fall f 
 Who views the past, and all he prized. 
 
 With tranquil exultation ? 
 And u^ho can say, I've realised 
 My fondest aspiration ? 
 
 Alas, not one ! for rest assured 
 
 That all are prone to quarrel 
 With Fate, when worms destroy their gourd, 
 
 Or mildew spoils their laurel :
 
 l^he 'Jester s Moral. 129 
 
 The prize may come to cheer our lot. 
 
 But all too late, and granted 
 'Tis even better, still 'tis not 
 
 Exactly what we wanted. 
 
 My school-boy time : I wish to praise 
 
 That bud of brief existence, 
 The vision of my youthful days 
 
 Now trembles in the distance. 
 An envious vapour lingers here. 
 
 And there I find a chasm ; 
 But much remains, distinct and clear, 
 
 To sink enthusiasm. 
 
 Such thoughts just now disturb my soul 
 
 With reason good, for lately 
 I took the train to Marley-knoU, 
 
 And cross'd the fields to Mately. 
 I found old Wheeler at his gate, 
 
 Who used rare sport to show me : 
 My Mentor once on snares and bait — 
 
 But Wheeler did not know me. 
 
 " Goodlord ! " at last cxclaim'd the churl, 
 
 " Are you the little chap, sir, 
 What used to train his hair in curl, 
 
 And wore a scarlet cap, sir r" 
 
 K
 
 I 30 The yesters Moral. 
 
 And then he took to fill in blanks, 
 
 And conjure up old faces ; 
 And talk of well-remember'd pranks, 
 
 In half forgotten places. 
 
 It pleased the man to tell his brief 
 
 And somewhat mournful story, 
 Old Bliss's school had come to grief, 
 
 And Bliss had " gone to glory." 
 His trees were fell'd, his house was razed. 
 
 And what less keenly pain'd me, 
 A venerable donkey grazed 
 
 Exactly where he caned me. 
 
 And where have all my playmates sped, 
 
 Whose ranks were once so serried ? 
 Why some are wed, and some are dead, 
 
 And some are only buried ; 
 Frank Petre, erst so full of fun, 
 
 Is now St. Blaise's Prior, 
 And Travers, the attorney's son, 
 
 Is member for the shire. 
 
 Dull maskers we ! Life's festival 
 Enchants the blithe new-comer j 
 
 But seasons change, then where are all 
 These friendships of our summer ?
 
 The Jester s Moral. i 3 1 
 
 Wan pilgrims flit athwart our track, 
 Cold looks attend the meeting, 
 
 We only greet them, glancing back, 
 Or pass without a greeting ! 
 
 I owe old Bliss some rubs, but pride 
 
 Constrains me to postpone 'em, 
 He taught me something, ere he died, 
 
 About nil nisi bonum. 
 I've met with wiser, better men, 
 
 But I forgive him wholly ; 
 Perhaps his jokes were sad — but then 
 
 He used to storm so droUy. 
 
 I still can laugh, is still my boast. 
 
 But mirth has sounded gayer ; 
 And which provokes my laughter most — 
 
 The preacher, or the player ? 
 Alack, I cannot laugh at what 
 
 Once made us laugh so freely. 
 For Nestroy and Grassot are not — 
 
 And where is Mr. Keeley ? 
 
 O, shall I run away from hence. 
 And dress and shave like Crusoe ? 
 
 Or join St. Blaise ? No, Common Sense, 
 Forbid that I should do so.
 
 132 The y ester' s MoraL 
 
 I'd sooner dress your Little Miss 
 As Paulet shaves his poodles ! 
 
 As soon propose for Betsy Bliss — 
 Or get proposed for Boodle's. 
 
 We prate of Life's illusive dyes, 
 
 Yet still fond hope enchants us ; 
 We all believe we near the prize, 
 
 Till some fresh dupe supplants us ! 
 A bright reward, forsooth ! And though 
 
 No mortal has attain'd it, 
 I still can hope, for well I know 
 
 That Love has so ordain'd it. 
 
 Paris, November y 1864..
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note to " A Human Skull." 
 
 )N our last month's Magazine you may 
 remember there were some verses about a 
 portion of a skeleton. Did you remark 
 how the poet and present proprietor of the 
 human skull at once settled the sex of it, and determined 
 off-hand that it must have belonged to a woman ? Such 
 skulls are locked up in many gentlemen's hearts and 
 memories. Bluebeard, you know, had a whole museum of 
 them — as that imprudent little last wife of his found out to 
 her cost. And, on the other hand, a lady, we suppose, 
 would select hers of the sort which had carried beards when 
 in the flesh." — The Adventures of Philip on his Way through 
 the World. Cornhill Magazine, January, 1861. 
 
 Note to " The Rose and the Ring." 
 
 Mr. Thackeray spent a portion of the winter of 1854 
 in Rome, and while there he wrote his little Christmas
 
 1 34 Notes, 
 
 story called '* The Rose and the Ring." He was a great 
 friend of the distinguished American sculptor, Mr. Story, 
 and was a frequent visitor at his house. I have heard 
 Mr. Story speak with emotion of the kindness of Mr. 
 Thackeray to his little daughter, then recovering from a 
 severe illness, and he told me that Mr. Thackeray used to 
 come nearly every day to read to Miss Story, often bringing 
 portions of his manuscript with him. 
 
 Five or six years afterwards Miss Story showed me a 
 very pretty copy of" The Rose and the Ring," which Mr. 
 Thackeray had sent her, with a facetious sketch of himself 
 in the act of presenting her with the work. 
 
 THE END.
 
 PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
 
 XOTVER^TY of CALIFORNIA: 
 
 AT
 
 THE TIMES. 
 
 Jnuc 6, 1865. 
 
 Moxotis Miniature Poets is the odd name under which 
 some admiraljle selections from our recent ]Joelry are now 
 oflered to the world. We have a selection irora the works 
 of Tennyson ; a selection of the best things in Browning; 
 and now a selection from the writings of one who is not so 
 well known, hut who — since he appears in such companion- 
 ship — must be greatly esteemed where he is known — Mr. 
 Frederick Locker. It is to this last-mentioned sele<tion 
 that we pro[)Ose now in particular to call the attention of 
 our readers ; but we may begin with a few words on the 
 series as a whole. It has been much wanted, and has been 
 much run after. Our foremost poets have become volu- 
 minous and fill ordinary readers with despair. We (an 
 now carry about with us the best pieces of Tennyson and 
 ]>rowning in a small pocket volume. The publishers, how-
 
 ever, have not been content to rest the claims of this 
 miniature edition of the poets on the merits of good selec- 
 tion ; they have mingled original poems with the selections, 
 so as to give the nev>' edition an independent value. Thus, 
 in the miniature edition of Tennyson there is a new poem 
 called "The Captain, a Legend of the Navy," and three 
 new sonnets addressed to a coquette ; but the volume is 
 especially curious as containing a version of one of the 
 poet's finest songs which will be a surprise to all his readers. 
 ^Mio has not by heart this wonderful song in The Princess / 
 
 " Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums," &c., &c. 
 
 Nothing can be finer. Every word is the right word in the 
 right place. Mr. Tennyson now presents us with a new 
 version of this absolutely perfect song — a new version that 
 will hereafter be (quoted as one of the curiosities of lite- 
 rature : — • 
 
 " Lady, kt the roUint;- drums," &c., &c. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of the two songs proceeding 
 from the same brain ; very difficult to imagine how a poet 
 of such taste as Mr. Tennyson, who rarely makes a cor- 
 rection which is not an improvement, should give us this 
 other version after the first. Such a freak of a really great 
 poet gives to the new edition of the Laureate's works a 
 curiosity of interest in addition to the value which it other- 
 wise possesses as a admirable selection. 
 
 Mr. Frederick Locker, who now follows in the wake of 
 the Laureate and of Mr. Browning, has a genuine poetical 
 gift, but he belongs to a peculiar class. In him is main- 
 tained the succession of that line of poets, from Suckling to 
 Praed and Thackeray, whose effusions may perhaps best be
 
 described as masked poetry. The true feeling of the poet 
 is masked with laughter. It is the poetry of men who 
 belong to society ; who have a keen .sympathy with the 
 lightsome tone and airy jesting of fashion ; who are not dis- 
 turbed by the flippancies of small talk, but, on the contrary, 
 can see the gracefulness of which it is capable ; and who. 
 nevertheless, amid all this froth of society, feel that there 
 are depths in our nature which even in the gaiety of draw- 
 ing-rooms cannot be forgotten. Theirs is the poetry of bitter 
 sweet — of sentiment that breaks into humour, and of solemn 
 thought that lest it should be too solemn, plunges into 
 laughter. It is, in an especial sense, the verse of society. 
 When society ceases te be simple it becomes sceptical. 
 Nor are we utterly to condemn this sceptical temper as a 
 sign of corruption. It is assumed in self-defence, and be- 
 comes a necessity of rapid conversation. When society is 
 refined it begins to dread the exhibition of strong feeling, 
 no matter whether real or simulated. If real, it disturbs the 
 level of conversation and of manners, if simulated so much 
 the worse. In such an atmosphere emotion takes refuge in 
 jest, and passion hides itself in scepticism of passion. We 
 are not going to wear our hearts upon our sleeves ; rather 
 than that, we shall pretend to have no heart at all ; and if, 
 perchance, a bit of it should peep out, we shall hide it again 
 as quickly as possible, and laugh at the exposure as a good 
 joke. It a lady in a ballroom finds that her back hair has 
 escaped from the ligaments with which it is wonderfully and 
 fearfully held together, the best she can do is to laugh : we 
 may laugh at ourselves also when wc give way to feeling, 
 and pass it off as a momentary weakness. In the poets who 
 represent this social mood there is a delicious piquancy,
 
 and the way they play bo-peep with their feeUngs makes 
 them a class by themselves. 
 
 In this class Mr. Frederick Locker holds a good rank. 
 He writes gracefully, and amid the mockeries with which 
 like the rest of his kind he amuses us, he shows just so 
 much of his deeper nature as will establish between us a 
 genuine sympathy, while we are stimulated and tantalized 
 by the sauciness with which when we are in full expectation 
 of seeing emotion rise to its height, he breaks into a smile, 
 and seems to say that he was only jesting. This was the 
 sort of temperament to which Mr. Thackeray had a strong 
 leaning. He showed it in his own writing, and he showed 
 it in his appreciation of Mr. Locker, one of the best of 
 whose poems he inserted in one of the early numbers of 
 the Conihill Magazine. These are the verses on a skull 
 which proceed in the following strain : — 
 
 " A human skull ! I bought it passing cheap," etc. 
 
 It is eight years since the first edition of " London Lyrics" 
 v/as published, and we can trace a continual progress in the 
 author's style since then ; but he has much yet to do before 
 his poems can be accepted as finished works. And we 
 insist upon this point, because in the particular kind of 
 poetry which Mr. Locker has attempted as most congenial 
 to his tastes, style counts for much more than in any other 
 kind. In other forms of poetry the fulness of the heart may 
 excuse some roughness of expression. In this the thing to 
 be expressed is, so to speak, a jumble, a confusion of laughter 
 and tears, sentiment mangled by scepticism. It is the busi- 
 ness of the poet to make this mutilated sentiment endurable, 
 therefore to smooth over the sense of mutilation by the
 
 finish of style, to reconcile the contradiction of passion and 
 scoffing by the utmost delicacy of treatment, that avoids 
 alike roughness on the one hand and commonplace on the 
 other. The deadliest sin of all in such a style is common- 
 place. A poet pursuing a different style may lapse into 
 commonplace in the intervals of great passion ; but when he 
 makes a jest of feeling — pretends to make light of it, nothing 
 can justify him, nothing can save him from our reproaches, 
 but the sense that he has given us a delicate substitute which 
 is beyond the intermeddling of the commonplace. 
 
 In the copy of this work, which has been sent to us, we 
 have evidence of the author's carefulness. There is a pretty 
 little poem called " The Orange," the last line of which 
 reads rather flat : — 
 
 " That / should reel upon that peel, 
 And find fny proper level." 
 
 In the copy of Mr. Locker's which has reached us this 
 la.st verse has a manuscript correction for which we must 
 suppose the author to be responsible. It is a great improve- 
 ment, and wortliy of Sir John Suckling, who ends one of 
 his finest poems with that beautiful exclamation, " The devil 
 take her." We refer of course to the charming song — 
 
 " Why so pale and wan, fond lover, 
 I'rithce why so pale ?" 
 
 The new reader of Mr. Locker's poem in the last verse will 
 make it out as follows : — 
 
 " That I should reel upon that peel, 
 And wish thon at the de^'il '/"
 
 In these poems the most touching piece we have found is 
 a poem entitled 
 
 " THE widow's mite. 
 " The widow had but only one," etc. 
 ***** 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that Mr. Locker writes in 
 Hood's style. The mistake is made because we see in 
 Hood's mind a mixture of grave and gay. Hood could be 
 very tragic and he could be very comical, but he never pro- 
 perly fused the two in his poems. He kept comedy and , 
 tragedy apart. There is no fun in " Eugene Aram ;" there 
 is no emotion in " Ben the Boatswain." We have not the 
 persistent battling in every page of the heart that feels, with 
 the spirit that mocks, which characterizes writers of the 
 school of Mr. Locker. 
 
 The essence of the style is irony — dissimulation as op- 
 posed to simulation. If, in the art of simulation, we pre- 
 tend to be what we are not, in that of dissimulation we 
 pretend not to be what we are. In the masked poetry of 
 society, the singer pretends not to have a heart, which 
 nevertheless continually peeps out. Now with this secret 
 refined dissimulation, which it is very difficult to handle, it 
 will not do to mingle the obvious and vulgar dissimulation 
 of punning. The dissimulatien of feeling cannot co-exist 
 with the dissimulation of words. The sense of dissimula- 
 tion should be kept down, and that is not easy amid all the 
 double-dealing of numerous puns. 
 
 Mr. Locker's dissimulation is that he is only a jester. 
 His philosophy is summed up in three of his own lines : — 
 
 " If life an empty bubble be, 
 How sad are those who will not see 
 A rainbow in the bubble."
 
 And in another poem, which he has entitled " The Jester's 
 Plea," he leads oft' in this fashion : — 
 
 " The world, was jester ever in," etc. 
 
 But that he can do more than jest we prove by the graceful 
 poem entitled "To My Grandmother." It is the most 
 finished piece in the volume, and, concluding our notice of 
 Mr. Locker's poems with this extract, we doubt not that we 
 leave a favourable impression of his powers on the minds 
 of all its readers : — 
 
 "This relative of mine," etc. 
 
 PALL MALL GAZETTE. 
 Jimp. 15, 1865. 
 
 There has of late arisen an unjust fashion of ignoring the 
 value and the influence of our humorous poets, as if the 
 deeper thoughts and more melodious rhythm of Tennyson 
 and Browning had in the eyes of many (juenched the light 
 of the poets who differ from them only in magnitude. It 
 has even been said that the day for quaint humours and 
 light vers de societe has passed away, and that the school of 
 which Goldsmith was a forefather has at last declined and 
 fallen. It would, indeed, be a thousand pities if this were 
 true or near the truth. \Vhat a gap would be open in the 
 region of humour if no one cared to follow the (juaint 
 princesses of Praed's Arcadia, to study the clear-cut lines of 
 Clough, the wit of Hood, and the madcap fun of Barham —
 
 8 
 
 all of them capable of a thousand turns from laughter to 
 moralizing, from wit to pathos. If this were not so, the 
 humourists would be mere jesters, and would deserve to be 
 forgotten. As it is, they represent the feelings of the greater 
 portion of oiu- civilized society. 
 
 It is not so long ago that the greatest of our humourists, 
 or (to use his own phrase) of the " week-day preachers," 
 ceased to be a living exponent of the popularity of social 
 poet's ; now that he is gone, the volume of his ballads will 
 serve long enough to illustrate the theme. Mr. Locker, the 
 author of the charming book of poems before us, is imbued 
 in no mean degree with the spirit of Mr. Thackeray. His 
 songs are harmonious, and shot with a very various wit ; in 
 some there is a natural undertone of sadness without any 
 striving after cynical effects, or any disposition to indulge in 
 " a lucrative habit of weeping ; " and in almost all there is 
 an easiness of rhythm and a delicate gaiety which will make 
 them widely popular. 
 
 The " Song of Piccadilly " is the model of a " London 
 Lyric," and deserves (had we space) to be quoted entire, 
 from the sketch in the first stanza of 
 
 " Shops, palaces, bustle and breeze, 
 The whirring of wheels and the murmur of trees," 
 
 of old Q. in his balcony, and the " Frolicsome Statesman, 
 the Man of the Day," to the little moral warning at the 
 end — 
 
 " Heu ! anni fugaces — the wise and the silly, 
 Old P. or Old ()., we must quit Piccadilly." 
 
 "The Rose and the Ring," an anecdote of Mr. Thackeray,
 
 told in his own style, and illustrated with a spirited sketch 
 by Mr. Doyle, will be a favourite with all who see the book. 
 When MLss Story was ill in Rome some years ago, her dull- 
 ness was enlivened by the manuscript of the most amusing 
 of children's books — 
 
 " It pleased the kind Wizard to send her," etc., etc. 
 
 "The Plea of the Jester" is in another key, and might 
 have been written by Clough in one of his half-cynical 
 moods of (luarrelling with a world " where many are afraid 
 of Ood, and more of Mrs. Grundy ; " yet the song ends 
 kindlily enough. So does another on the subject of giving 
 to beggars, which from a slight similarity of form reminds its 
 readers of Owen Meredith's Regent-street song, where the 
 wandering thief is presented with a "sermon by Mr. Bel- 
 lew." I'he latter poem is only a satirical sketch, but Mr. 
 Locker throws a good deal of thought into his parable. We 
 all seem in his eyes to act on the notion 
 
 " That begging is only a muscular motion ;" 
 
 and yet he cannot suggest a remedy. He feels quite sure 
 that the constant hardening of our hearts — 
 
 " If it's wholesome for beggars, is hurtful to us ;" 
 
 and there we may leave the unsolved difficulty. His epi- 
 grams are keen and bright, and the jokes good ; we will 
 not spoil any of them by removal from their appropriate 
 setting.
 
 lO 
 
 THE SPECTATOR. 
 
 July 1, 1865. 
 
 A very pretty edition of very pleasant rhymes. Mr. 
 Locker's verses have the same sort of playfulness, punful- 
 ness, and point, as Praed's. Rhyme is perhaps more easily 
 adapted to the task of sharpening the edge of humorous 
 antithesis than to that of enhancing harmony and rounding 
 off the beauty of poetic analogies. Mr. Locker's rhymes are 
 almost always selected for the purpose of emphasizing con- 
 trasts rather than expressing concords. The law of his 
 verse leads you to expect a real opposition secreted in every 
 similarity of sound, almost as certainly as an observer igno- 
 rant of the particular figure, but versed in the principle, of 
 a dance, would look for the advance of the vis-a-vis in a 
 quadrille, either simultaneously with, or directly after, the 
 advance of any member of the group. When Mr. Locker 
 has succeeded in bringing out strongly a touch of social 
 colour, you feel as sure that the mere chime of the thought 
 in his head will almost oblige him to bring out a corres- 
 ponding touch of cymplimentary colour in the corresponding 
 part of the verse, as you do that in a double rainbow you 
 will have the prismatic colours repeated in the reverse order. 
 In graver poetry the thought controls the rhyme, but in these 
 vers dc sociite the rhyme not improperly controls the thought. 
 This predominance of the rhyme over the thought repre- 
 sents, as it were, the predominance of the conventional 
 necessities of society over the individual lot, and conveys 
 the effect of those mannerisms of conception to which 
 "society" in the narrower sense is subject. Take any sub- 
 ject of conversation into a given society, and we know
 
 II 
 
 almost as well the line of remark to which it will be subjected, 
 the points that will be raised, the centres wliere little eddies 
 of bandinage may be expected, the allusions which will be 
 inevitably suggested, and the way in which the ball after it 
 has been rolled about long enough will be driven into a 
 pocket to make room for another, as the weaver knows the 
 method in which his cotton yarn is to be woven into calico, 
 or the turner how he will change his ugly scjuare of wood 
 into a carved cup for the ornamentation of the chimney- 
 piece. Mr. Locker's verse has incorporated this sort of 
 social mannerism into its own law. It plays with an ider, 
 tossing it up and turning it over exactly as a cultivated man 
 and woman would play with it at a dinner table, but of 
 course drawing the warp and the woof into a closer fabric 
 than the laws of ordinary conversation will allow. For 
 instance, there is a little poem to a child's pair of boots, 
 which embodies just the kind of playful remark (sublimated 
 into epigram) to which Geraldine's boots, if produced in an 
 actual drawing-room, would give rise between friends. 
 
 Mr. Locker's pathos is of the same kind as his humour, 
 just the ripple of pathos which is permissible and permitted 
 in a general company, — an undertone of sadness introduced 
 as it were by accident, and smiled away before the end. A 
 very pretty specimen of his poems of this kind is the one on 
 Mr. Thackeray's story of "The Rose and the Ring" (to 
 which, by the way, an admirable illustration by Mr. Doyle, 
 representing Mr. Thackeray reading the tale to a little girl, 
 with St. Peter's in the distance is attached). It seems that 
 in the winter of 1854 Mr. Thackeray wrote this story in 
 Rome, and brought it chapter by chapter to read to the 
 daughter of Mr. Story (the sculptor), who was then recovering
 
 12 
 
 from a severe illness. When it was published Mr. Thackeray 
 sent the child a copy of the book, with one of his own cari- 
 catures of himself in the act of presenting her with the work. 
 On this Mr. Locker has written as follows : — 
 
 " She smiles — but her heart is in sable," etc., etc. 
 
 THE PRESS. 
 
 July 8, 1865. 
 
 Mr. Locker's poems have often received in these columns 
 the praise they deserve. They have a dainty and delicate 
 flavour. Their writer does not belong to that Promethean 
 company 
 
 " Who learn in suffering what they teach in song." 
 
 He is especially the poet of society. He sings of Piccadilly 
 — " shops, palaces, bustle and breeze." He sings also of 
 the great oak tree at Hatfield Broadoak — but there is the 
 manor house in the distance, and doubtless there is croquet 
 on the lawn. He is not passionate or dramatic, but he has 
 that vein of tender melancholy — the very pathos of setting 
 suns — whose cause is the feeling that all enjoyment is tran- 
 sitory. Plere is the very essence of it, in the last stanza 
 " To my old friend Postumus :" — 
 
 " O pleasant Earth ! This happy home !" etc., etc. 
 
 But the feeling is seldom so pronounced as this. It is gene- 
 rally vague and incidental, adding a delicate and tender 
 beauty to poems whose main tendency is humorous.
 
 13 
 
 This volume differs from its predecessors in Messrs. 
 Moxon's series in being freely illustrated. Millais contri- 
 butes a life-like portrait of the author. I'he other .sketches 
 are by Doyle, and are in his best style. That which exhibits 
 a group of fairies admiring " My Mistress's Boots " is full 
 of poetic fantasy. 
 
 " Oh, where did hunter win," etc., etc. 
 
 The artist has also caught the spirit of "Piccadilly " — where, 
 however, he might, not unwarrantably, have introduced Lord 
 Palmerston. IJut the gem of the book is a portrait of 
 Thackeray reading "The Rose and the King" to a little 
 girl who lies on a sofa by an open window through which is 
 seen .St. Peter's miraculous dome. In the winter of 1854 
 Thackeray wrote his fairy tale in Rome, and used to read 
 portions of it to Mr. Story's little daughter, then recovering 
 from a severe illness. Afterwards he sent her the book, 
 with a facetious sketch of himself in the act of presenting it 
 to her. Mr. Doyle depicts this episode ; Mr. Locker cele- 
 brates it in the following felicitous verses : — 
 
 "She smiles — but her heart is in sable," etc., etc. 
 
 WELDON'S REGISTER. 
 For June, 1863. 
 
 We come now to a volume of very graceful vers de societe, 
 with which we remember whiling away agreeably more than 
 one dull hour in the year 1858. As we hope, on some 
 future occasion, to deal specifically with the subject of modern
 
 14 
 
 7'ers d'occasioji and vers de societe, in doing which we shall 
 unquestionably have much to say of Mr. Locker — who pos- 
 sesses a combination of qualifications for this description of 
 writing which has not, so far as we are aware, recently pre- 
 sented itself elsewhere — we must confine ourselves, on the 
 present occasion, to drawing the attention of our readers, 
 more especially those of the male sex, by whom this gentle- 
 man's experiences will perhaps be most readily appreciated, 
 to such a selection of them as will afford a general idea of 
 the writer's characteristics, deferring our critical remarks 
 until a future occasion. 
 
 Here is an experience which may not be without parallel 
 in the lives of some of the wisest of us : — 
 
 "O TEMPORA MUTANTER ! 
 
 " Yes, here once more a traveller," etc., etc. 
 And here is another, not dissimilar or less common : 
 
 "V/E VICTIS. 
 "Aly Kate, at the Waterloo Column," etc., etc. 
 
 These, from a poem on " An Old Skull," are original and 
 characteristic, and possess the quaint drollery of Yorick : 
 
 "a human skull. 
 "A human bkuU ! I bought it passing cheap," etc., etc. 
 
 " Bramble-Rise " has in it much of the humorous gravity 
 of Hood ; indeed, the conceit in the last two lines is quite 
 Hood-like : — 
 
 "And Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then 
 A rise without a bramble." 
 
 The little episode in London life detailed in the following
 
 '5 
 
 lines is yen- prettily expressed, and has in it somewhat of the 
 spirit of Bcranger : — 
 
 " THE PILGRIMS* OF PALL-MAI.L. 
 " My little friend, so small and neat," etc, etc. 
 
 "The Old Cradle " works out a pretty idea, to which the 
 writer is jjartial ; and here again, with the drollery, the spirit 
 also of Yorick peeps out. 
 
 " Is Life a poor coil some would gladly be doffing ?" etc. 
 
 A sad stor)' is delicately told, and the writer of calembour 
 rises into the moralist in 
 
 " Her quiet resting-place is far away," etc., etc. 
 
 It would seem ungracious, after having derived from Mr. 
 Locker's volume so much amusement as the verses we have 
 quoted will, we are persuaded, have afforded our readers, to 
 remit wholly to a future occasion, as we had originally pro- 
 posed to do, some critical remarks upon it. In those of his 
 verses which we have quoted from Miss Craig's collection, 
 he claims for himself the position and rank of a jester, and 
 occasionally in the poems before us he seems to profess, and 
 we see no reason to doubt with sincerity, to desire no higher 
 role. We think he has justly estimated his faculties and 
 poetical metier, — that he is a jester, not in the sense of the 
 mere Merry Andrew and bufibon, the mere parodist of the 
 great thoughts of nobler minds, the mere caricaturist and 
 manufacturer of humorous quiddities, for his genius is of a 
 far higher order than is ever possessed by such jesters as 
 these, but a jester as Yorick and Touchstone were jesters, 
 and as was Wamba, the son of Witless, — a player, halting in 
 apparent uncertainty between tragedy and comedy, a mo- 
 ralist as well as a mimic, such as of old time jested skeleton
 
 i6 
 
 jests, and wreathed them with flowers, the emblem of mor- 
 tahty, to catch the consciences of kings. There is in his 
 writing much of the mingled humour and pathos which would 
 be derived by a kindred spirit from a loving perusal of the 
 writings of Sterne and Hood, that giant among jesters ; 
 something of the crispness and freshness of Beranger, and 
 much of the refined elegance of Praed. The book is full of 
 genuine humour and bonhomfnie, and is a prophecy, we 
 think, of better books and deeper philosophy from the writer 
 hereafter. 
 
 THE ECONOMIST. 
 
 December 27, 1862. 
 
 * **-*** 
 
 Several of these poems were inserted by Mr. Thackeray 
 in the pages of the " Cornhill Magazine," and we do not 
 wonder that the accomplished satirist recognised in them 
 some of those plaintive tones — half-pathos, half-irony — 
 M'hich distinguish many of his own ballads. There is indeed 
 less of the laughter /^d'/i///^ the tears than characterises Mr. 
 Thackeray's irony. The pathos is less complex, and the 
 ridicule has seldom, if ever, the barb of mockery which gives 
 a tip of fire to Mr. Thackeray's humour. But at times Mr. 
 Locker seems to approach, if only distantly, the light gaiety 
 of Beranger, and oftener still to rival the genial laughter of 
 Hood. Mr. Locker has been reproached with his puns, but 
 puns are not necessarily mere plays upon words. Too often, 
 no doubt, both with Hood and with the present writer, they 
 are so ; but the sort of pun which has gained real popularity
 
 I? 
 
 for Hood's finer efforts is one which seems to link or con- 
 trast the thoughts more closely by the very similarity of the 
 names — either to make you see a sort of unity in the thought 
 as well as the sound, or to make you feel more keenly tiie 
 contradiction of tlie thoughts by the resemblance of the 
 sounds. This surely is no mean intellectual gift, and we see 
 it in its best light in the beautiful pathos of the following 
 verses. The pun in the second verse has a depth of mean- 
 ing in it which defies criticism ; it seems to bring out the 
 hidden connection between poverty and true riches in away 
 that might fairly claim to be an illustration of a more sacred 
 text :— 
 
 " THE widow's mite. 
 
 " The widow had but only one," etc. 
 But we are wandering from the ground of our apology (or 
 shall we call it our excuse ?) for reviewing these elegant little 
 poems in these columns at all. No one who reads them 
 can avoid seeing that they are really and closely connected 
 with the life of London. It is not merely that one poem is 
 called the " Old Government Clerk," another, " St. George's, 
 Hanover Square," a third, "A Sketch from Seven Dials," 
 and so forth ; but that the mighty sea of human life which 
 we never feel around and beneath us in any other spot of 
 the globe as we feel it in London, seems to sway the writer's 
 mind gently hither and thither as a buoy dances on the 
 wavs. We do not mean exactly that these poems betray a 
 very great consciousness of the power of London. The writer 
 is too much one of its natural inhabitants, too much accus- 
 tomed to float with its currents and oscillate with its tides 
 to know the intrinsic grandeur of the power which rocks him 
 to and fro. But he has caught various fragments of its many
 
 i8 
 
 voices, and though he knows best that hght ripple of conver- 
 sation which — constituted half of audacity and half of reserve 
 — forms the main charm of intellectual repartee — those re- 
 connaissances into another's individuality limited by the neces- 
 sity of retreat to defend one's own — he has at least observed^ 
 if not so closely participated in, a dozen other phases of 
 London life. The poems are all slight, intrinsically fragile, but 
 almost all graceful, and some, like the one we have quoted, 
 much more than graceful. If mere verbal tricks abound too 
 frequently, they are frequently interspersed with a lambent 
 humour which brightens without burning. We may fairly 
 say that INIr. Locker's poems are likely enough to be depo- 
 sited at a good interest among the literary savings of his 
 readers, and to fructify in the fancies of cultivated men and 
 women. 
 
 THE PRESS. 
 
 November 22, 1862. 
 
 '^ 
 
 Poetry is multiform. Tennyson's magic music need not 
 monopolise our attention — nor Browning's daring concep- 
 tion — nor the amours of Owen Meredith, and the spasms of 
 Alexander Smith. There is room for poetry whose charm 
 lies in delicate humour, felicity of expression, ease and 
 grace of movement. Such is Mr. Locker's. His poems, 
 first published in 1857, are now re-issued and amplified; 
 and among the many additional pieces there are one or 
 two which take rank with the best of their kind. Such is 
 " A Human Skull," first printed in the Cornhill Magazine, 
 the opening stanza of which we extract : —
 
 19 
 
 "A human skull I I bought it passing cicap,'' clc. 
 
 "Time was, some may have prized its blooming skin ; 
 Here lips were woo'd perchance in transport tender ; 
 Some may have chuck'd what was a dimpled chin, 
 And never had my doubt about its gender !" 
 
 This last verse is a perfect epigram in itself. Passing on 
 through the volume, we encounter a great favourite of ours, 
 " The Old Cradle." 
 
 The " Reply to a Letter enclosing a Lock of Hair" is 
 worthy of Praed. Excellent, too, is " My Xeighbour Rose.'" 
 a half-humorous, half-doleful jjoem on the marriage of a 
 pretty girl r.ext door. 
 
 The little volume abounds in these delightful caprices. 
 Most excellent of all, we think, are the lines '" To My Grand- 
 motlier," suggested by a portrait. In these days of si)a.smo 
 die, erotic, unintelligible balderdash, it is a real treat to 
 encounter a poet as easy and graceful as Sir John .Suckling, 
 as humorous and fanciful ixa Praed. 
 
 THE MORNING POST. 
 
 Decaiibir 25, 1858. 
 
 Mirth is the main ingredient in these " London L}rics," 
 but in verification of the well-known Horatian maxim, that 
 fun and philosophy are not incompatible, the author mingles 
 wisdom with his drollery, and continually introduces some 
 solemn and j^athetic thought amitl his quaint cone cits and 
 grotescjue jokes. The charm of these effusions ap[)cars to 
 U.S to consi.st in their perfect ease and naturalness. What- 
 ever the emotion may be, whether of joy or of sorrow, it is 
 genuine, or at least has the air of being so. It seems to
 
 20 
 
 come from the heart, and it is invariably expressed in simple 
 and unaftected language, intelligible at a glance. This 
 is no mean merit in these days of artificial verse ; for 
 it is certain diat the element in which poetry dwells is 
 truth, and when imagination divorces itself from that rela- 
 tion, it declines into the neighbourhood of empty fictions or 
 the dreams of lunacy. The following verses on •' A Cradle" 
 are very lively and imaginative, yet they have a dash of 
 tender sentiment which awakens a thoughtful spirit in the 
 reader : — 
 
 " Aye, here is your cradle ! Why surely, my Jenny," etc. 
 
 The same happy propensity to " turn to prettiness," as 
 Shakspere has it, the most familiar subjects, and to extract 
 matter for thought from the most trivial incidents, may 
 be discerned in many of the author's " Lyrics," and more 
 particularly in that melodious little poem called " The 
 Pilgrims of Pall-Mali." He tells us how, when he was just 
 " crowning his teens," he used to meet daily in Pall-Mali a 
 litde sempstress of some 15 or 16 summers, who tripped 
 gaily along on her way to work, and never failed to smile as 
 she passed him. But they never spoke. Years have elapsed 
 since then, and now he speculates on her possible destiny. 
 What can have become of her ? He hazards half-a-dozen 
 ludicrous conjectures, but suddenly he thinks of death, and, 
 blending mirth and melancholy after his customary fashion, 
 brings his poem to a close as follows : — 
 
 " Can bloom like thine — my heart grows chill," etc. 
 
 This parting admonition to the little sempstress to recognise 
 him when they meet in some happier world has the grace of 
 
 true feeling and is unaffectedly pathetic.
 
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