THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 it 
 
 
 I 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES HIED. 
 
 ILonlian : 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. 
 
 iSratjforb : 
 
 T. BREAR (late H. B. Byles), KIRKGATE. 
 
 1866. 
 
 [ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL,] 
 
 .^-
 
 DEWSBURY : 
 ,). WARD, PRINTER, CAXTON SQUARE. 
 
 %•
 
 ?^ 
 
 The Author^ 
 
 DEDICATES THIS VOLUME, 
 —Z\)t effovt of Jjis fmaturcr icars— 
 
 TO 
 
 THE WOEKING MEN OF BOWLING AND 
 BEADFOED, 
 
 CONFIDENT THAT THEY, AT LEAST, 
 %S"ILL APPRECIATE THE FEELING IN WHICH IT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ; 
 
 THE MORE SO, PERHAPS, 
 
 M'HEN THEY KNOW THAT THE AUTHOR WAS COMPELLED TO TOIL 
 
 FOR HIS BREAD IN A FACTORY, FROM HIS SIXTH YEAR, 
 
 AT A TIME WHEN THE WORKING HOURS WERE 
 
 FAR MORE NUMEROUS THAN NOW ; 
 
 AND 
 
 WHEN THEY KNOW THAT THE WRONGS AND SUFFERINGS DEPICTED 
 
 IN MANY OF THE FOLLOWING LINES, ARE BUT THE 
 
 REFLEX OF ACTUAL EXPERIENCE AND 
 
 OBSERVATION. 
 
 ^C^bK 

 
 f° 
 
 N T E N T S . 
 
 Page 
 The Wish 9 
 
 The Contrast 11 
 
 Lines on the Marriage of the Prince of "Wales . .18 
 
 On the Deity 20 
 
 The Lost One 22 
 
 The Little Child and its Mother .... 23 
 
 Lines on "Chance" 26 
 
 The Late Canon Fawcett 28 
 
 The Falls of Niagara 30 
 
 To a Young Lady 32 
 
 Fairford: Past and Present 34 
 
 On the New Year, 1866 43 
 
 To the Memory of Robert Bums 46 
 
 A Midnight Vision 48
 
 VI. CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 On the Birthday of one of the Author's Children . 52 
 
 On Meeting with a numher of Old Friends . . 54 
 
 A Glorious Truth 55 
 
 War 66 
 
 Futurity 57 
 
 Kindness 58 
 
 Tyranny 60 
 
 The Poor 62 
 
 A Vision of Heaven . . . . • . .63 
 
 Who knoweth what a day may bring forth ? . .64 
 
 Spring 66 
 
 Benevolence 68 
 
 Oppression . . . • 70 
 
 Earth and Heaven 72 
 
 To a Bereaved Friend 73 
 
 Little Annie Gay 74 
 
 Solitude 80 
 
 Friendship 81 
 
 The Queen 82 
 
 The Old Man and his Granddaughter ... 84 
 
 In Memoriam 87 
 
 Woman 88
 
 CONTENTS. Vll. • 
 
 Pag^e 
 
 Thoughts on the Death of an Infant . . . .90 
 
 Onward 92 
 
 Earth and Heaven Contrasted 94 
 
 The Hypocrite 96 
 
 Time . . . 98 
 
 The Adulteress 99 
 
 The Poor Man 100 
 
 Lines Kecited at a Christening . . . . 102 
 
 The Christian Indeed 103 
 
 On the Death of the Eev. G. S. BuU . . .104 
 
 Duty 106 
 
 Generosity 108 
 
 To Mr. T^,,^ 109 
 
 The Tongue 110 
 
 The Righteous Ill 
 
 David and Goliah 112 
 
 Pride 113 
 
 To an Unknown Friend . . . . . .114 
 
 On the Death of an Infant 116 
 
 Lust 117 
 
 Childhood 118 
 
 The Troubles of Life 126
 
 VIU. CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 A Remonstrance 121 
 
 Fate 126 
 
 On Viewing a Portrait . . . . . .127 
 
 A Vision 128 
 
 Finale 129 
 
 Charity 133 
 
 The Press 143 
 
 Notes 149
 
 A Voice fi\om the Muses. 
 
 ^sdi 
 
 i|i «k|. 
 
 " There is a pleasm-e in poetic pains, 
 Which only poets know." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 CARE not for the rich man's gold, 
 I care not for the warrior's name ; 
 Nor do I care to be enrolled 
 
 With him upon the scroll of Fame. 
 
 If there be aught for which I crave — 
 Aught in this world that I desire, 
 
 Besides a blest and peaceful grave. 
 It is a spark of Milton's fire :
 
 10 THE WISH. 
 
 It is to be renowned in song, 
 
 Such as shall draw the silent tear; 
 
 Such as shall haunt the memory long, 
 And echo sweetly on the ear. 
 
 'Tis an immortal wreath of flowers 
 Upon my children to bestow, 
 
 Pluck'd from Parnassus' sweetest bowers, 
 To blossom in this world below.
 
 THE CONTRAST. 1 I 
 
 :y Cimi:r«i 
 
 " Ah. me ! what is there in earth's various range, 
 Which time and absence may not greatlj' change?" 
 
 c. R. Sands. 
 
 ULL thirty years and five have pass'd away 
 Since that, to me, most memorable day 
 When first I left the place that gave me birth, 
 One of the loveliest that adorns the earth. 
 Still I remember where the hawthorn grew, 
 And the old oak its giant-arms out-threw, — 
 Where that most welcome visitant of Spring, 
 The Cuckoo, would her eai'liest pcean sing. 
 But oh ! how changed — how altered is the scene ! 
 On that well-known, that oft-frequented green. 
 Where stood the humble, yet the happy cot, — 
 The last of all earth's sights to be forgot, — 
 A princely fabric rears its lofty side, 
 The boast of commerce, and our country's pride ;
 
 12 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 Where thousands upon thousands daily meet, 
 
 Not with reluctant, but with willing feet. 
 
 Content to labour for their daily bread, 
 
 To earn the golden sheaf by which they're fed ; 
 
 Well pleased to see (stamp'd by the hand of Fame), 
 
 In shining letters, their employer's name : 
 
 Not that he's swept the cottage from the green, 
 
 And reared the noblest structure ever seen ; 
 
 Not that he has his tens of thousands made, 
 
 Won princely honours at the Board of Trade ; — 
 
 No — 'tis his noble philanthropic heart, 
 
 That which alone can lasting fame impart ; 
 
 'Tis that he ne'er forgets the poor man's health, 
 
 The very fountain of the rich man's wealth ; 
 
 Nor ceases for his country's weal to care. 
 
 Nor taints with fetid breath the vital air,^ 
 
 Nor blasts the beauteous rosebud in its bloom, 
 
 Nor prematurely gluts the silent tomb ;
 
 THE CONTRAST. 1 3 
 
 Pollutes no streamlet as it murmurs by, 
 
 Bright as the fount of bliss beyond the sky ; 
 
 Forgets no servant in the hour of need, 
 
 But bleeds himself to see another bleed ; 
 
 O'erburdens no man for the love of gold, 
 
 Knowing he cannot long his coffers hold. 
 
 Go, and his far-famed premises explore, 
 
 Go, and survey his manufactory o'er ; 
 
 No poisonous sink, no stagnant pool you'll find, 
 
 Sending disease and death upon the wind ; 
 
 No clouds of smoke o'erspreading all around. 
 
 Blackening the heavens, and laying waste the ground, 
 
 Driving the feathered choirs of heaven away. 
 
 To shun the darkness of meridian day ! 
 
 There all that art and science can invent, 
 
 Disease, and death, and danger to prevent. 
 
 Is carried out, and finished with a zeal 
 
 The time Philanthropist alone can feel.
 
 14 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 Oh ! how unlike is yonder sordid soul, 
 Scorning alike both earth and Heaven's control ; 
 Caring but little or for young or old, 
 While grinding down their sinews into gold ; 
 Who, could he but repeal the Ten Hours Bill, 
 Would bind the poor man's child in fetters still. 
 Or else his heart-strings with oppression break — 
 For who can willing slaves of Britons make ? 
 And yet, as if th' Omnipotent to dare, 
 Lifts up his hands, lifts up his voice in prayer, 
 Making the very hosts of Heaven to blush, 
 And for awhile their alleluias hush ! 
 
 Oh ! I have seen him, when a passing cloud 
 A little speck on his horizon showed ; — 
 When Commerce for awhile let go the rein, 
 A better, safer, firmer hold to gain ; — 
 Yea, I have seen him, heedless of their doom, 
 Or of their starving little ones at home.
 
 THE CONTRAST. I5 
 
 Remorselessly cast off the very men — - 
 (Till Commerce, smiling, seized tlie rein again) — 
 The very men who from the mine of Trade 
 Had won his gold, and all his fortune made, 
 His sumptuous board with eveiy dainty spread, 
 Themselves contented with a crust of bread. 
 
 Oh ! I remember one in days gone by. 
 Nor ever shall forget his streaming eye ; 
 Five little ones, dependent on his care, 
 Clung to his knees, and clustered round him there ; 
 Wept when, alas ! they saw their father weep. 
 And tried to cheer him till they fell asleep. 
 Perplexed and wondering how it was that he 
 So full of grief, so sorrowful, should be : 
 What recked they of that sad foreboding fear. 
 That he at length those little ones should hear 
 Cry out for bread, and he have none to give, 
 And yet be forced to hear them, and to live ?
 
 1 6 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 But soon, alas ! his strength began to fail — 
 Diseases will in time of dearth prevail ; 
 Yet, ere he parted with his flickering breath. 
 Or lost his once melodious voice in death, 
 He sang the sweetest, the most touching strain 
 I ever heard, or e'er shall hear again : — 
 
 " Ah ! what can gold or silver do. 
 
 Though heaped up mountains high ? 
 Can they repel the tide of woe, 
 Or bliss eternal buy ? 
 
 " How few who care but to increase 
 The miser's glittering ore. 
 Shall reach the glorious port of Peace 
 When Time shall be no more ! 
 
 " How few who can the poor man spurn 
 Indignantly away. 
 Know what it is to sit and learn 
 The harp of Love to play !
 
 THE CONTRAST. 
 
 " But there's a brighter world than this, 
 A world from avarice free, 
 
 A mansion of eternal bhss, 
 
 Reserved in Heaven for me. 
 
 " There never more the bm-ning tear 
 Of sorrow shall be shed ; 
 No father's heart shall break, to hear 
 His children cry for bread." 
 
 17 
 
 — r^)o@o@i.{_
 
 l8 THE MARRIAGE OF 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE 
 
 OF WALES, AFTER WITNESSING THE ILLUMINATIONS 
 
 AT BRADFORD. 
 
 |00N as the glorious sun had wheeled away, 
 And closed in golden clouds the eye of day, 
 Thousands of stars that Newton never knew, 
 Sprang from the earth, and burst upon the view : 
 But the star which all others eclipsed with its light — 
 The star of the evening, the gem of the night — 
 The star of all others to freedom most dear — 
 The star of all others, unsulhed and clear, — 
 Was the star of Victoria, resplendently bright ! 
 Oh ! that was the gem and the star of the night ! 
 Illuming, attracting the nations afar, 
 The beacon of earth, both in peace and in war ; 
 A star which for aye in its fulness shall shine, 
 For the star of the righteous shall never decline !
 
 THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 19 
 
 It was that which so cheered, so elated the mind, 
 
 That all hearts in the bonds of affection combined, 
 
 And Kfting their eyes and their hands up on high. 
 
 To the God of their fathers enthroned in the sky, 
 
 With His love and His mercy so sweet and serene, 
 
 Implored Him to bless and to succour the Queen ; 
 
 On the bosom of earth, on the waves of the sea, 
 
 Her rock of defence, and her pilot to be ; 
 
 To guard and to watch with a fatherly eye, 
 
 From His throne in the fathomless depths of the sky. 
 
 Her children, to England, to Britain so dear ; 
 
 To adorn them with robes of angelical wear — 
 
 With the garments of virtue, of truth, and of love. 
 
 Interwove by the hand of some angel above ; 
 
 To encircle the home of Prince Albert her son, 
 
 And the bower of the beautiful bride he has won. 
 
 With a halo of beauty, of bliss, and of light, 
 
 Which shall shine when the stars shall be shrouded in 
 night.
 
 20 THE DEITY, 
 
 ON BEING REQUESTED TO WRITE A POEM ON THE DEITY. 
 
 |HERE sliall my theme begin ? where shall it 
 end? 
 
 Tell me, my honoured, much-respected friend : 
 Millions have toiled His wonders to explore, 
 But who can gauge a sea without a shore ? 
 Is there an atom or a grain of sand 
 The most exalted mind can understand ? 
 Where is the man that ever yet explained 
 All that's within a drop of dew contained ? 
 Or how the forest boughs their leaves expand, 
 TiuQ-ed with a touch of the Eternal's hand ? 
 What know we of the High and Mighty One, 
 Who only speaks, and what He wills is done ?
 
 THE DEITY. 21 
 
 Of Him who hung the boundless arch of night 
 
 With golden lamps, for ever burning bright ; 
 
 Of Him who can at once the sea control, 
 
 However high the threatening billows roll ; 
 
 Or, in a moment, rend the earth in twain, 
 
 And the same moment close it up again ! 
 
 Oh ! who can fathom that stupendous mind, 
 
 Which all in Earth, and Hell, and Heaven designed ?
 
 22 THE LOST ONE. 
 
 i|jt ffd #ifu. 
 
 ' She is not dead, but sleepeth. 
 
 OU shall find her again in the land of the blest, 
 Wliere the weak and the weary for ever shall rest, 
 Where no evil awaiting its prey shall be found, 
 Concealed in the ever green verdure around ; 
 You shall find her again at the close of the day, 
 When all that is mortal has vanished away, 
 Where the hills are for ever illumined with light. 
 And the vales never know the dim shadows of night ; 
 Where eternal serenity reigns in the skies, 
 And all tears shall for ever be wiped from your eyes, — 
 If you tread in the steps she so faithfully trod, 
 The bright pathway that leads to the temple of God.
 
 CHILD AND MOTHER. 
 
 23 
 
 i|i ^itiU C|ill ml %U M^i^m: 
 
 " It is a beautiful, a blessed belief, that the beloved dead, grown angels, 
 watch the dear ones left behind."— Miss Landon. 
 
 CHILD. 
 
 ND do the blessed angels love 
 To hear me say my evening prayer ? 
 And do they leave their seats above, 
 
 For me at midnight hour to care ? 
 And is it true that they have wings, 
 
 That they on dove-like pinions fly, 
 Surpassing all the pride of kings, 
 
 Too brilliant for a mortal's eye ? 
 That they on golden cymbals play 
 
 The hills of Paradise among, 
 Or chant through an eternal day 
 
 Some sweet, some all-inspiring song ?
 
 24 THE LITTLE CHILD 
 
 That they are spirits, which have been 
 Once tenants of this earthly sphere, 
 
 And who, on this terrestrial scene, 
 
 Have shed full many a heart- wrung tear ? 
 
 MOTHEE. 
 
 Yes, my child ! the angels love 
 
 To hear you say your evening prayer, 
 To leave their blessed seats above 
 
 For you at midnight hour to care. 
 And it is true that they have wings, 
 
 That they on dove-like pinions fly. 
 Surpassing all the pride of kings, 
 
 Too brilliant for a mortal's eye : 
 That they on golden cymbals play 
 
 The hills of Paradise among. 
 Or chant through an eternal day 
 
 Some sweet, some all-inspiring song :
 
 AND ITS MOTHER. 25 
 
 That they are spirits, which have been 
 Once tenants of this earthly sphere, 
 And Avho on this terrestrial scene 
 
 Have shed full many a heart-wrung tear. 
 Yet, still, my child, you cannot see 
 
 The angels with a mortal's eye ; 
 Though they around your bed may be, 
 
 Sent to watch o'er you from the shy. 
 But you may be an angel, too. 
 
 And on a golden cymbal play ; 
 Unto your heavenly Father go, 
 
 Li happy regions far away : 
 Only, my child, remember this, — 
 
 Be good, and kind, and true to all. 
 And there is not a saint in bliss 
 
 That shall not you an angel call.
 
 26 ON "chance 
 
 frhfUB 
 
 ON UEAKING IT ASSERTED THAT ALL THINGS CAME 
 BY CHANCE, 
 
 " Can that which is not, shape the things that are ? 
 Is chance omnipotent ? Resolve me why 
 The meanest shellfish, and the noblest brute, 
 Transmit their likeness to the years that come ! " 
 
 DILKOT SHADDEK. 
 
 BEHOLD tlie vast ethereal dome ! 
 The gUttenng gems that gild the night! 
 And tell me, — Could the stars become 
 By chance so beautiful and bright? 
 
 Could day and night by chance roll on 
 Through countless ages still the same? 
 
 And the glad Spring, ^Yhen Winter's gone, 
 Her golden chariot reclaim? 
 
 Could chance have hollo^yed out the deep, 
 Restrained and set the sea its bounds?
 
 .^: 
 
 ON "chance/' 
 
 Marked out the path the planets sweep, 
 And fixed their everlasting rounds ? 
 
 Could chance have stopp'd the mid-day sun, 
 
 Held back the silvery orb of night, 
 Till Joshua the battle won, 
 ^ And put his myriad foes to flight? 
 
 Did not the dews of Heaven descend 
 Obedient to th' Eternal's will, 
 
 "Would not our harvests have an end? — 
 Could chance alone our granaries fill? 
 
 Behold the lilies of the field ! 
 
 "Who made them so divinely fair ? 
 To Him that 's everywhere revealed. 
 
 Ye hopeless votaries of Chance declare. 
 
 27
 
 28 THE LATE CANON FAWCETT. 
 
 ^lu f;rtiJ €nm\x g'^xwati. 
 
 "I should be wanting to ray o\vu best feelings if Tallowed tliis 
 public, though deferred, opportunity to pass, without some few words 
 of grateful and aliectionate respect to the memory of a frleiid, the late 
 Canon Fawcett, who, for some years past, has so ably assisted me in 
 the duties of my visitation. The affecting suddenness of his death — a 
 painful surprise to us all — in the unimpaired vigoiir of middle age, in 
 the full and active exercise of mind and body, in labour of large and 
 varied usefulness, — may well be received as a renewed call to each of 
 lis to remember the uncertain tenure of human life, and the importance 
 of so occupying oiir imijortant trust as never to be unprepared to 
 resign it into the hand of God, that gave it. I need not dwell on the 
 winning softness of his gentle, affable, and kindly spirit, which gave 
 him, far and wide, so enviable an influence for good ; or I might tell of 
 many a parochial and doubtful question referred by the Clergy and 
 Churchwardens to his judgment, — to many a rising contention allayed 
 by his ready and judicious mediation." — Archdeacon Musgrave. 
 
 |H ! for some heavenly prompter, w.hile I sing 
 The praises of a more than earthly king ! 
 The praises of that Man of God, Tvhosc name 
 Is destined to survive all earthly fame ! 
 How well to him these beauteous lines apply, — 
 No doubt he ever kept tliem in his eye : —
 
 LATE CANON FAWCETT. 29 
 
 "The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered, 
 
 Nor to rebuke the ricli offender feared ; 
 
 His preaching much, but more his practice wrought, 
 
 A living sermon of the truths he taught." 
 
 And wlio can find, in all his actions here, 
 
 Or in his public or his private sphere, 
 
 One single deed that he should not have done, — 
 
 One act of his the sons of God vrould shun ? 
 i 
 
 Did ^Yant or poverty assail the poor. 
 He never closed his hospitable door ; 
 Did sickness, plague, or pestilence i)revail, 
 None ever saw him in his duties fail. 
 
 t
 
 30 
 
 FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 n ^%Vi% Mi ^np\,'s^. 
 
 ' 111 tliG vast, and the minute, we see 
 The unambiguous footsteps of the God 
 Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing. 
 And wheels His throne upon the rolling worlds." 
 
 COWPEB. 
 
 ALK of the wondrous works of man ? 
 Ascend the brow of night, 
 And try th' Omnipotent to scan, 
 His majesty and might! 
 
 Go, see the moimtains of the deep 
 
 In headlong fury huii'd 
 Adown the all-amazing steep, 
 
 The wonder of the world, — 
 
 Into the foaming gulph below, 
 Making the earth to nod,
 
 FALLS OF NIAGARA. -21 
 
 As if exultingly to show 
 The majesty of God ! 
 
 Go see, o'er Nature's rock-bnilt walls, 
 
 A liundred rivers roll ! 
 Go see those vast, stupendous Falls,^ 
 
 Th' outbursts of Nature's soul. 
 
 Go see them, and while you survey 
 
 Their everlasting sweep, 
 Their rainbow wreaths, their golden spray, 
 
 Crowning the awful deep, — 
 
 Fall on your knees, and there exclaim — 
 " Oh God, how great art Thou ! 
 
 Who can Tliy mighty acts proclaim, 
 And all Thy goodness show ? "
 
 32 
 
 TO A YOUNG LADY. 
 
 WjS'^g.« 
 
 SENT TO A YOUNG LADY, ON BEING PRESENTED BY IIER 
 
 WITH A KOSE WHICH HAD GROWN UPON THE 
 
 BANKS OP THE AIRE. 
 
 ' In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, 
 
 And they tell in a garland their loves and cares; 
 Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, 
 
 On its leaves a mystic language bears: 
 Then gather a wreath from the garden bowers, 
 And tell the wish of thy heart in flowers." 
 
 Percival. 
 
 H ! how beautiful and fair 
 Was the rose you gave to me; 
 On the sunny barJvS of Aire, 
 
 Not a lovelier flower could be; 
 Yet in no untimely hour 
 
 May its fated lot be thine: 
 Oh ! thou beauteous, bonny flower, — 
 So angelic, so divine !
 
 TO A YOUNG LADY. 
 
 But should some unfeeling blast 
 
 Blow upon you from above, 
 May an angel o'er you cast 
 
 His protecting sliield of love. 
 And when you have ceased to bloom, 
 
 Like a gem of Eden, here, 
 In a land beyond the tomb 
 
 May you as a star appear ; 
 That upon it I may gaze 
 
 "While eternal ages last, 
 As upon a star whose rays 
 
 Shall illumine all the past. 
 
 33 -
 
 34 FAIRFORD : 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT, 
 
 " Oh ! cursfed lust of gold ! when for thy sake 
 The fool throws up his interest in both worlds! 
 First starved in this, then damned in that to come." 
 
 Blair. 
 
 WAS once thy boast, Fairford, to behold 
 Thy circling hills o'ertopp'd with waving gold ; 
 Thy valleys with a rich luxuriance spread, 
 And all thy sons with millc and honey fed : 
 Thy heavens as bright, and glorious to the eye, 
 As when the sun first lit the vaulted sky ; 
 Thine air as sweet as ever fanned the flowers 
 Of Eden's beauteous groves and sunny bowers. 
 
 On yonder slope, where first he drew his breath. 
 And where at last he closed his eyes in death, 
 One of thy noblest sons all wondering stood. 
 And thence survcy'd the mighty works of God ;
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 35 
 
 Counted the stars that met his ravished eye, 
 And tracked the blazing comet through the sky ; 
 Traversed the glories of the ]\Iilky ^Vay, 
 Heaven's brightest passage to eternal day ; 
 Explored the vast and boundless realms of night, 
 Till morning's opening doors let in the light. 
 Dearer to him by far, than all the gold 
 The coffers of the great and wealthy hold. 
 To scan the glorious firmament of stars, — 
 To watch the planets in their golden cars 
 WHieeling around their everlasting spheres. 
 Charged with the seasons and the circling years. 
 
 Upon the summit of a rising hill, 
 Endeared to me by sweet remembrance still, 
 Lived one whose name to publish I forbear, 
 But yet some angel prompts me to declare — 
 'T was not in him to turn a scornful eye 
 On the poor beggar as he passed him by
 
 36 FAIRFORD : 
 
 To lift a haughty, overbearing brow 
 Above his fellow-man, however low : 
 No widow craved a morsel at his gate, 
 On whom his servants were not told to wait ; 
 No suppliant orphan ever sought his door, 
 But found in him one benefactor more. 
 
 And e'en as Joshua, when his aged eye 
 Grew dim with years, and death was drawing nigh, 
 Summoned all Israel to his dying bed, 
 And, pausing on the confines of the dead, 
 Implored them with his last expiring breath — 
 Made more impressive by th' approach of death — 
 To cleave to Plim whose arm alone can wield 
 The sword of Fate upon the battle-field. 
 Arrest the chariot of the mid-day sun 
 High o'er Gilboa, until the battle 's won : —
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 37 
 
 So, patriarch-like, old ****** ere he died, 
 Or the bright pinions of an angel tried, 
 Called in his friends, and, with uplifted eyes, 
 (As if transfixed upon the opening skies,) 
 Showed them, as only dying men can show, 
 The vanity of all things here below ; 
 TSi' insanity of laying up in store 
 Heaps upon heaps of dust, and nothing more ; 
 Whilst his poor soul, neglected to the last, 
 Uncared for till the bourn of life is past, 
 Shut out from Heaven, and banished from the Earth, 
 Curses th' unhappy day that gave it birth. 
 
 To yonder old and venerable pile. 
 One of the noblest structures of our isle — 
 One that has breasted many a bitter blast. 
 Unscathed through many a fiery trial past, — ■ 
 Thy sons of old, Fairford, bent their way, 
 As Heaven ordained to spend the Sabbath-day,
 
 38 FAIRFORD : 
 
 To tune afresh their mingled harps of love, 
 To hold communion with the ho§ts above ; 
 To feast the soul on manna from on hisrh. 
 To learn the alleluias of the sky ; 
 To join in all the fervency of prayer, 
 As children of one common Parent there — 
 As sons and daughters of an equal birth, 
 Sj^rung from their parent dust^ the lowly earth ! 
 
 A time there was when yet the heart could feel 
 A thrill of transport for another's weal, 
 And when the breast heaved with a deeji-drawn sigh. 
 As fell the tear-drop from another's eye ; 
 But, ah ! let truth and sound experience say, 
 Has not that time for ever passed away ? 
 Has not the all-absorbing love of gain 
 The dove-winged seraph of affection wlaiii?
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 39 
 
 Who has not witnessed, even in our time, 
 (And hlushed to think that it was deemed no crime,) 
 The poor man's chikl worse treated than a shave* 
 That's bought and sold, and hashed into the grave ? 
 Till Oastler, like a mighty conqueror, came — ^ 
 Not in his own, but in the Eternal's name — 
 Till he arose, the champion of the young, 
 And, with the fire of Heaven upon his tongue, 
 Stood, prophet-lilce, upon Britannia's isle, 
 (Shielded and blest by Heaven's approving smile,) 
 To let the rulers of the people hear 
 That they must rale in righteousness and fear ; 
 That they must govern with impartial sway, 
 And sweep oppression from the world away ! 
 
 And oh ! if aught on earth can fire my muse, 
 Fresh vigour in her drooping wings infuse, 
 It is the thought that o'er the factory child 
 A brighter, happier day at length has smiled ;
 
 40 FAIRFORD : 
 
 Heaven knows it is the glorions Ten Hours Bill ! — 
 The triumph and the boast of Britain still. 
 
 Oh yes ! thank God ! a remnant yet remains 
 Amidst our hills, our valleys, and our plains, 
 Wlio make the sons of want their daily care — 
 Not spurning them with an indignant air ; 
 Knowing that to the all-surveying eye 
 Of Him whose presence fills the boundless sky, 
 All are alike, no matter what their birth — 
 For Heaven owns no distinctions upon earth : 
 That to the poor man, wheresoe'er he be. 
 The mountain gale, the breath of Heaven 's as free 
 As to the wealthiest that the world has known 
 Since it was on its whirling axis thrown. 
 But are there not, e'en in this land of ours, 
 With all its verdant groves and fragrant bow'rs. 
 Those whom the rich ambrosial airs of Spring 
 No sweetness on their rosy pinions bring,
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 4I 
 
 To whom the very Heavens themselves a2:)pear 
 A boundless waste, a vast unmeaning sphere ? 
 For them in vain the nightingale may try 
 Her most enchanting pjean in the sky : 
 Tlieir sweetest music is the buzzing wheel,® 
 With heart of iron and with nerves of steel ; 
 Unmoved the poor man's little one they see, 
 Slave-lilce, compelled, e'en from its infancy, 
 To creep along some dark and gloomy mine, 
 Where the bright sun is never known to shine : 
 Or with an eye that never shed a tear 
 On the poor widow's or the orphan's bier, 
 Alike can see the careworn mother go. 
 Torn from her babe, but newly-born, and so^ 
 To tend the bounding shuttle as it flies, 
 The parting tear still glistening in her eyes, 
 While she reflects, with all a parent's love 
 Implanted in her bosom from above, 
 
 F
 
 42 FAIRFORD. 
 
 On the dear babe that she has left behind, 
 Heart-rendmg thoughts revolving through her niind — 
 How will her darling in her absence fare ? 
 "\Mio to her child will lend a mother's care ? 
 
 But though the all-absorbing love of gold 
 Has often robbed the poor man's scanty fold, 
 Poisoned the air, and made our streams to flow 
 With reeking death, that lays its thousands Ioav, — 
 Thank God, His light shall yet illumine all 
 "Wlio prostrate at the shrine of Mammon fall ; 
 The pearl of greatest price to man shall be, 
 His all on earth and in eternitv.
 
 THE NEW YEAR. 43 
 
 %^-u% 
 
 COMPOSED JANUARY IST, ISfiG. 
 
 " Tliiuk wc, or think we not, time hurries on 
 With a resistless unremitting stream ; 
 Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief 
 That slides liis hand under tlie miser's pillow, 
 And carries ofE the prize. 
 
 jlNOTHER year is past and gone, 
 Yet yonder sun is still the same, 
 And shines as brightly as it shone 
 
 When God first lighted up its flame. 
 
 The stars give out as clear a light, 
 And glitter in the vaulted sky, 
 
 As when they burst the womb of niglit 
 To meet their glorious ([ueou on high. 
 
 Blatr.
 
 44 THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 The earth n})on its axis rolls 
 
 As when its motion first began, 
 
 And from the centre to the poles, 
 Provideth for the wants of man. 
 
 But where are our forefathers now ? 
 
 Where are the mighty men of old ? 
 Who will their dark sepulchres show ? 
 
 The ravages of death unfold ? 
 
 Where are the orators who made 
 
 The despot King to quake with fear ? 
 
 His citadel in ruins laid, 
 
 And summoned Freedom to appear ? 
 
 Where are the boasted works of man, 
 The wonders of the ages past ? 
 
 Tiike him, their day is but a span, 
 Jjike him, they ftill to dust at last !
 
 THE NEW YEAR. 45 
 
 And SO 'twill be — a few more years 
 
 And we too shall be dust again, 
 While yonder heavens, with all their spheres, 
 
 Their pristine glory shall retain. 
 
 Yea, like a meteor, we shall pass 
 From this michanging world away ; 
 
 Lilce to the withering, wasting grass, 
 The flower that l^looms but for a day. 
 
 Then shall we not improve the year, 
 
 To God's unerring precepts bow, 
 And nobly do our duty here, — 
 
 The work assigned to us below ?
 
 4^ ROBERT nURKS. 
 
 i^-tj ii|:s 3|l|-ms:f| 0i |i.rriij.^:nt ^-ir^'JiS, 
 
 "Blessings be with them, .-md eternal praise,— 
 The Poets, who on earth hare made us heirs 
 Of truth and pmre delight, by heavenly lays!" 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 ELL may old Scotia glory in liis name ! 
 'Tis Burns that stamped her with inmiortal fame ; 
 'Tis his soul-thrilling, all-inspiring song, 
 Has made the world around her mountains thronsr. 
 And where's the man that 's heard his matchless lay. 
 And melted not in ecstacy away ? 
 Or felt not, as a brother ought to feel, 
 That " man's a man," be he in want or weal ? 
 And, oh ! when summoned to the battle-field, 
 The awful instrument of death to wield,
 
 ROBERT BURNS. 47 
 
 Wbat is there that inspires tlie warrior's heart 
 
 With all that martial glory can impart, 
 
 ifore than th' immortal deeds of Wallace, sung 
 
 By Burns's all-electrifying tongue ? 
 
 Aiid though " the bridegroom may forget the bride, 
 
 Soon as the dear hymeneal knot is tied;" 
 
 And though the " mother may forget the child 
 
 Tliat, dandled on her Imee, so sweetly smiled ;" 
 
 Yet Burns's name shall ne'er forgotten be, 
 
 Till time is merged in vast eternity. 
 
 i
 
 48 A MIDNIGHT VISION. 
 
 WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF THE REV. G. S. BULL. 
 
 'The joy ot meeting pays the panps of absence; 
 Else, who cuuld bear it ?" 
 
 ROWE. 
 
 |H ! tliat I coiild have drawn the veil aside 
 The moment that dear friend of Oastler died,- 
 The veil that parts this world from that to come, 
 Tliis changing scene from our eternal home : 
 That I had seen those worthy patriots greet 
 In that blest land where all the good shall meet ; 
 Surrounded by a young and happy band, 
 Once factory children of their fatherland ! 
 Ah ! do I not this very moment see, 
 Beyond the threshold of Eternity, 
 The men Avho could not on their pillows rest 
 Till they beheld our children's wrongs redressed, —
 
 A MIDNIGHT VISION. 
 
 49 
 
 Till they beheld the Legislature rise, 
 
 Obedient to the mandate of the skies, 
 
 To let the tyi-ant and the oj)pressor see 
 
 That England is the country of the free ; — 
 
 The land where no man has a right to strain 
 
 Another's muscles for the love of gain ; 
 
 To grind the faces of the starving poor, 
 
 To treat them but as binites, and nothing more ? 
 
 yes ! there's Oastler ! — 'tis his well-known face, 
 
 Still brightly beaming with each Christian grace ; 
 
 Oastler, thank God ! not in a prison bound, 
 
 But with the heavenly wreath of freedom crowned ! 
 
 See how he welcomes to the realms above, 
 
 With all the ardour of a seraph's love, 
 
 His friend and brother in the glorious strife 
 
 Of bygone days, for Liberty and Life ! 
 
 Oh ! that some angel would inspire my lay. 
 And drive th' absorbing cares of life away ; 
 
 G
 
 50 A MIDNIGHT VISION. 
 
 Teach me to celebrate the blessed sight 
 Unveiled to me on this auspicious night : — 
 The meeting of two of the bravest men 
 That ever yet inspired the poet's pen, — 
 Men who, when danger threatened Freedom's fold. 
 Were more than men, were more than mortals bold, 
 The poor man's dear but hapless ones to save 
 From rathless bondage, and an early grave ! 
 
 How sweet to think the storms of life are past, 
 Til at they have reached the promised land at last ! 
 How sweet to think that God was on their side, 
 When boldly they to selfish man denied 
 The right to trample the defenceless poor. 
 As if to slavery doomed for evermore ! 
 And oh ! how pleasing to review the past, 
 The battle they so nobly won at last ; 
 Review the trials of this nether sphere, 
 Tlie storms, the tempests, that o'crtook them here ;
 
 A MIDNIGHT VISION. 5 I 
 
 Tlie snares that e'en their daily path beset, 
 The swords which hate and envy oft did whet 
 To cut them down in an unguarded hour, 
 Like some ill-fated, but all-fragrant flower. 
 
 'Tis theirs to range the boundless fields of light. 
 Where day shall never know th' approach of night ; 
 To hold communion with the saints above, 
 In that blest world of beauty and of love ; 
 To trace the banks of that celestial stream 
 Whose waters with eternal splendour beam ; 
 To converse with the mighty men of old, — 
 Not mighty, as possessing heaps of gold, 
 But mighty in some great and glorious cause. 
 Centred and based on Heaven's most sacred laws ; 
 The cause of Freedom, Liberty, and Love, 
 The cause of all the blessed powers above ; 
 The cause that breaks oppression's iron chain. 
 Our nation's deepest, darkest, foulest stain.
 
 52 
 
 ON THE BIRTHDAY 
 
 ^imi^ 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE BIRTHDAY OF ONE OF THE AUTHOR'S 
 
 CHILDREN. 
 
 "If any wliite-wing'd power above, 
 My joys and griefs survey, 
 The day when thou wert born, my love, — 
 
 He surely blessed that day. 
 And duly shall my raptured song, 
 
 And gladly shall my eyes. 
 Still bless this day's return, so long 
 As thou shalt see it rise." 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 HOU art come to a land full of trouble aud care, 
 
 To a land that o'erflows witli the tears of despair, 
 
 To a land that is filled with the bones of the slain, 
 
 Where the wail of the widow is heard, — but in vain ; 
 
 To a land where the high and the haughty abound, 
 
 Till the weak things of earth h;hall the mighty 
 confound ;
 
 OF A CHILD. 53 
 
 To a land that's foredoomed to calamities dire, 
 To stoi-ms and to tempests, to earthquake and fire, 
 Where no harbour awaits us, no port can be found, 
 That does not with dark-visaged dangers abound ; 
 Where friends, when most needed, will vanish away. 
 Like the dew of the earth on a midsunomer day ; 
 But yet, my dear babe, thou hast nothing to fear. 
 So long as the God of thy fathers is near : 
 Tlie tempest may rage, and the proud billows swell, 
 Yet protected by Heaven, all — all will be well !
 
 54 
 
 ON MEETING OLD FRIENDS. 
 
 WRITTEN ON MEETING WITH A NUMBEE OF DEAR OLD 
 
 FRIENDS. 
 
 "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soull 
 Sweet' ner of life, and solder of societj'." 
 
 Blair. 
 
 H yes ! if there be yet a treat 
 On earth, that gives profound delight, 
 'Tis when old friends and comrades meet 
 
 By chance, as we meet here to-night : 
 It is to spend a passing hour 
 
 Amidst society like this, 
 Where rankling care has not the power 
 
 To taint the sparlding cup of bliss : 
 It is to meet a happy band 
 
 Of mirthful, free, and honest hearts ; 
 Then sound it far o'er every land, 
 
 Friendship alone true joy imparts.
 
 A GLORIOUS TRUTH. 55 
 
 % <$lM'suni> Utzi\< 
 
 " See how the day beameth brightly before us, 
 Blue is the firmament, green is the earth ; 
 Grief hath no voice in the universe chorus, 
 
 Nature is ringing with music and mirth ; 
 Lift up thy eyes, that are looking in sadness. 
 Gaze, and if beauty can rapture thy soul. 
 Virtue herself shall allure thee to gladness, 
 Gladness — philosophy's guardian and goal." 
 
 From (he German. 
 
 ' H ! say not that here there is nothing but gloom, 
 No bright sunny spot on the way to the tomb ; 
 No city of refuge to which we can fly, 
 When foes are upon us, and danger is nigh ; 
 No peace on this war-waging planet of ours. 
 No haven of safety, no fairy-like bow'rs ; 
 Not while we can bask in the beams of the light 
 Of that sun which shall never be clouded by night ; 
 Not while we can list to the thunders on high. 
 As unto the voice of the cherubim nigh ; 
 And e'en in the midst of the oak-rending storm, 
 Find shelter beneath some angelical form.
 
 56 
 
 WAR. 
 
 M, 
 
 "War knows no rest, 
 War owns no Sabbath ; war, with impious toil 
 Unspent, with blood unsated, to the fiends 
 Of vengeance still rebellious, still pursues 
 His work of death ; nor pauses, nor relents, 
 For laws divine, nor sight of human woe." 
 
 GRAHAME. 
 
 EE yonder far-extended waste, — 
 I To ruin and destruction doomed ; 
 By many a stately mansion graced, 
 
 Once lilce a paradise it bloomed : 
 See yonder city, once tlie boast 
 
 And pride of all the country round, 
 By some revengeful warrior-host 
 
 Laid waste, and levelled to the ground. 
 Who but an angel could portray 
 
 The all-appalling scenes of war — 
 The blood, the bones, that track its way, 
 
 Alluring vultures from afar.
 
 FUTURITY. 57 
 
 $ziwsihi. 
 
 'Our reason prompts us to a future state, 
 The last appeal from fortune and from fate, 
 Where GOD'S all-righteous ways will be declared." 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 UST all our hopes of joys to come 
 
 Dissolve and perish when we die ? 
 
 Our prospects of a future home 
 
 Fade like a meteor in the sky ? 
 Would He whose sim shall ne'er decline, 
 
 Predestine man to such a fate ? 
 But for a moment here to shine, 
 
 Such vast intelligence create ? 
 No ! though the heavens shall pass away. 
 
 And aU their radiant glories end ; 
 The pillars of the earth decay, 
 
 And in one awful ruin blend : 
 No spirit shall unnumbered be 
 
 When the archangel's trump shall somid ; 
 No soul but in eternity, 
 
 Blest or accursed, shall be found. 
 
 H
 
 58 KINDNESS. 
 
 MitlfiJisg, 
 
 " I would not enter on my list of friends, 
 (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
 Yet wanting sensibility) the man 
 Who needlessly sets foot npon a worm." 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 GOD ! assist me in this task of mine, 
 And let Thy Spirit dictate every line ; 
 May every sentence emanate from Thee, 
 Whose glorious presence fills immensity ; 
 Whose bomity feeds the raven when it cries, 
 And the young eagle's daily want supplies ; 
 Whose chart and compass guide the cuckoo's wing, 
 When far away she seeks another Spring, 
 There's not a bird but on Thy care depends. 
 Not one but Thy all-watchful eye attends : 
 Then, oh ! ye children, bounding on your way, 
 Bright as the morn, and lightsome as the day,
 
 KINDNESS. 59 
 
 Learn for their little ones, their young, to care — 
 
 Earth's fields are yours, and theirs the fields of air ; 
 
 Mar not a feather, ruffle not a wing. 
 
 For God not only taught them how to sing, 
 
 But tipt their pinions with a thousand dyes, 
 
 E'en with the gold that gilds the morning skies. 
 
 There's not a colt that sports along the glade, 
 
 No creature that th' Omnipotent hath made. 
 
 That was not destined, when the world began, 
 
 To be subservient to the will of man, 
 
 Placed by indulgent Heaven beneath his care. 
 
 In all the produce of the field to share ; 
 
 But not to bear the tyrant's dreaded yoke, 
 
 The oft-repeated lash, th' inhuman stroke : 
 
 Ah ! no — that God whose word the tempest stills, 
 
 Who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, 
 
 Marks every act of cruelty that's done, — 
 
 And none can His avenging angel shun.
 
 60 TYRANNY. 
 
 The two succeeding Pieces were ■written after reading the 
 following paragraph in the Preface to Napoleon's "Julius 
 Cajsar :" — 
 
 "When Providence raises up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, 
 and Napoleon, it is to trace out to the nations the path they ought to 
 follow, to stamp a new era with the seal of their genius, and to accom- 
 plish in a few years the work of many centuries. Happy the nations 
 who comprehend and follow them ! Woe to those who misunderstand 
 and resist them ! they are like the Jews, they cnicify their Messiah ; 
 they are blind and guilty — blind, for they see not the impotence of 
 their efforts to suspend the final triumph of good ; guilty, for they 
 only retard its progress by impeding its prompt and fertile application." 
 
 " One murder makes a villain, 
 Millions a hero." 
 
 "Prinees were privileged to kill, 
 And numbers sanctified the crime." 
 
 Bishop Porteotts. 
 
 HE warrior chief of noble heart, 
 Who at his country's bidding goes 
 The tyrant from his throne to start, 
 To battle with his country's foes, 
 
 Is worthy of his country's iiraise, 
 If nobly he its bidding do ;
 
 TYRANNY. 6l 
 
 And gloriously his star shall blaze 
 
 Full many a rolling century through. 
 
 But shall some all-usurping soul 
 
 Arise, and earth's dominions claim ? 
 
 All kingdoms of the world control, 
 And make us tremble at his name ? 
 
 And shall we say that such an one 
 
 Shall as a constellation shine. 
 When yonder stars (their duty done) 
 
 For ever shall their spheres resign ? 
 
 Must every soul bow to the man 
 
 Who can the greatest nmnbers slay- 
 Achieve the most effective plan 
 To sweep a nation's pride away ? 
 
 To comets of ill-omened birth 
 
 If every star in heaven give place, 
 Then woe to this ill-fated earth — 
 
 And woe to all the human race !
 
 62 
 
 THE POOR. 
 
 ^|.^ ^&rs. 
 
 P what avail woiild be oiir mines 
 With all their beds of glittering ore- 
 
 Of what avail earth's vast designs, 
 But for the millions — the Poor ? 
 
 Biit for the millions, (not the few,) 
 
 That work and wield this world of ours : 
 
 What would a thousand Caesars do, 
 
 With all their boasted wealth and powers ? 
 
 Would they throw off the eraiine robe, 
 And lay the jewelled crown aside. 
 
 To circumnavigate the globe. 
 Or blocks of granite to divide ? 
 
 Would they themselves go dig for gold, 
 
 Melt and refine the iron ore ? 
 What is it to be great and bold ? 
 
 To be a murderer — nothing more.
 
 A VISION OF HEAVEN. 63 
 
 % f^MMii mf SisliEm, 
 
 " The future ! "— 't is the promis3cl land, 
 To which Hope points with prophet hand, 
 Telling of fairy tales of flowers 
 That only change for fruit." 
 
 L.E.L. 
 
 AISED were the doors of everlasting day, 
 And floods of glory issued every way, 
 Flowing from out a throne more bright than gold, 
 Eound which a stream of living waters rolled ; 
 And from the banks of that life-giving stream, 
 (A grand reality — no fabled dream,) 
 Ten thousand times ten thousand streets begun, 
 Lilce rays of light all glittering from the sun ; 
 Of all that's brilliant formed a blazing zone, 
 Around that great white Heaven-erected throne !
 
 64 
 
 WHO KNOWETH WHAT A DAY 
 
 U\& toW| il0|Bil u l3| -mn^ hthi^ lrfi|? 
 
 " In bower and garden rich and rare 
 There's many a cherished flower, 
 Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits 
 Within the flitting liour." 
 
 G. W. rOANE. 
 
 UT yesterday, my friend, all mirth and glee, 
 Bid fair for many a rolling year to come : 
 To-day you may the village sexton see 
 
 "With hands half palsied, digging out his tomb. 
 
 But yesterday, and one I knew full well 
 Began to build himself a princely hall : 
 
 To-day, touched by the hand of Death he fell. 
 As on the battle-field the wounded fall. 
 
 I ran to help him, but he breathed his last 
 As I essayed to lift his dying head : 
 
 I ran to help him, but life's day had past — 
 He fell, and where he fell he fell down dead !
 
 MAY BRING FORTH ? 65 
 
 But yesterday, and in yon cot bard by 
 Tbey passed a merry, bappy, jovial day, 
 
 As if some gale of mercy from on high 
 Had swept for ever all their cares away. 
 
 For yesterday the old man's only child 
 Rejoiced to see her wedding-day begun, 
 
 And, angel-like, upon her kindred smiled. 
 When she beheld the newly-risen sun. 
 
 To-day her knell tolls sadly in our ears, 
 
 Borne softly by the mournful breeze away ! 
 
 And who, as the awful future nears, 
 
 Knows what may happen in a single day ? 

 
 66 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 )^t%nij. 
 
 "Fain would my muse the flowing treasure sing, 
 The humble glories of the youthful Spring." 
 
 PorE. 
 
 HEN the clouds of heaven are low'ring, 
 Big with fertilizing show'rs, 
 And their honied dews are pouring 
 
 O'er our meadows, groves, and bow'rs : 
 
 When the glittering fish are bounding 
 
 At the giddy circling fly. 
 And the cuckoo's notes are sounding 
 
 Cheerily along the sky : 
 
 When the beauteous flowers are springing 
 From the rosy lap of May,
 
 SPRING. 67 
 
 And the busy bees are winging 
 The delicious hours away : 
 
 "When both earth and air are teeming 
 
 With reanimated dust, 
 And the glorious heavens are beaming 
 
 On the wicked and the just : 
 
 What a heart that man possesses 
 Who exvdts not with delight, 
 
 And the God of Nature blesses 
 For His mercies day and night 1
 
 68 
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 %stn&h$Un$^: 
 
 SUGGESTED ON VISITING A POOR DYING MAN AT SALTAIRE, AND 
 
 ON HEARING OF THE CARE AND ATTENTION BESTOWED 
 
 UPON HIM BY HIS EMPLOYERS, MESSRS. TITUS 
 
 SALT, SONS, AND COMPANY. 
 
 "From the low prayer of want, and plaint of woe, 
 O never, never turn away thine ear ! 
 Forlorn iu this bleak wilderness below, 
 
 All! what were man should Heaven refuse to hear?" 
 
 Beattie. 
 
 H ! 'tis a theme on which I love to dwell, — 
 A theme that makes this heart of mine to swell 
 "With more than common gratitude and love 
 To the great Ruler of all hearts above, — 
 That there are stiE, in this fair land of ours, 
 With all its mighty yet unfeeling pow'rs, 
 Those who delight to visit the distress'd, 
 And see the sons of want and sorrow blest.
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 69 
 
 Oh ! what can be more pleasing to the eye 
 Of Him who foi-med th' illimitable sky, 
 Than to behold those great ones of the earth, 
 (Of vast possessions or illustrious birth,) 
 Our dreary courts, our sunless alleys pace, 
 The haunts of poverty and want to trace ! 
 To cheer the widow in her humble cot, 
 By all but the Omnipotent forgot ! 
 Upon the sick and dying to attend. 
 Their cup of grief with heavenly joys to blend !
 
 10 OPPRESSION. 
 
 ^^^tnuun. 
 
 " Oppression makes men mad, and from their breasts 
 All reason and all sense of duty wi-ests." 
 
 Waller. 
 
 Perhaps there never was a time when the sun of prosperity- 
 shone so brightly upon our enterprising capitalists as the present ; 
 nor when our labouring population had such ready opportunities of 
 laying by a portion of their earnings, to prepare them for a time of 
 adversity. Still, notwithstanding the prosperity we see around us, 
 there are yet to be found— and that too amongst the most successful 
 of om- employers of labour— men who do not scorn to have attained 
 their success by unworthy means ; men who, perhaps, employ 
 hundreds of their fellowmen, but ignore the common relationship, 
 and use them only as tools wherewith to make their riches ; and, 
 in return, pay them such a scanty pittance as will scarce sufBce to 
 hold life together. Well may such injured ones ask— Where is the 
 professed Christianity of their employers ? Well may they doubt if 
 such Christianity will stand the test in the dying hour ! 
 
 OW can he be " an Israelite indeed," 
 And die the death that Joshua wished to die ; 
 How can he to eternal life succeed, 
 
 Who doth the poor man of his rights deny ?
 
 OPPRESSION. 71 
 
 How can he do Jehovah's sovereign will, 
 And serve the demon of oppression, too ? 
 
 How with unrighteous gains his coffers fill. 
 And still the duties of a Christian do ? 
 
 Man was not made to be his brother's slave, 
 To toil and sweat his precious hfe away ; 
 
 To crouch along his passage to the grave. 
 
 As if 'twere haunted by some beast of prey. 
 
 Man was not destined to be bought and sold, 
 Nor by some upstart robbed of half his due : 
 
 Then who would share the vile oppressor's gold, 
 Who would such dark and selfish ends pursue ?
 
 72 EARTH AND HEAVEN. 
 
 <§uti\ ^nh Sislrj^ttu 
 
 " Oh ! there is not lost 
 One of earth's charms from off her bosom yet ; 
 After the lapse of untold centuries. 
 The freshness of her fair beginning lies, 
 And still shaU lie." 
 
 PERCIVAL. 
 
 ^H ! it is glorious to behold 
 The newly-wakened sun arise, 
 The golden doors of heaven unfold, 
 To light the temple of the skies : 
 
 To see the everlasting hills, 
 
 And aU the " cloud-capp'd " mountains, too. 
 Girt with a thousand ghttering rills 
 
 Of silver, burst upon the view ! 
 
 But what will aU this grandeur be, 
 
 When we the bourne of life have pass'd. 
 
 When we the Heaven of heavens shall see. 
 The glories which for aye shall last ?
 
 TO A BEREAVED FRIEND. 73 
 
 ADDEESSED TO A BEREAVED FRIEND. 
 
 ' The righteous die ; their deeds of love 
 Track their bright course to realms above ; 
 Earth's flowers in fadeless glory shine, 
 And Angel hands the wreath entwine." 
 
 W. J. Brock. 
 
 HAT ! died he not the death the righteous die, 
 With light, and life, and gloiy in his eye ? 
 Was not his end like to the setting sun, 
 Just when the golden gates of Heaven are won ? 
 Passed he not like the glorious sun away, 
 Lost in the splendours of eternal day ? 
 Then why lament that Albert is no more, — 
 That all his sorrowing, sighing days are o'er ? 
 That Death so soon the silver cord unloosed, 
 His eyes on all life's scenes of sorrow closed ?
 
 74 
 
 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 
 
 WrliU %n%u €>$it< 
 
 " Poor orphan ! on the wide world scattered, 
 As budding branch sent from the native tree, 
 And thrown forth until it be withered." 
 
 Spensek. 
 
 WHAT a dear and lovely cliild 
 Was little Aniaie Gay ! 
 Few like her so benignly smiled 
 A mother's grief away. 
 
 Her eyes were bright as any star 
 
 In yonder heaven above, 
 Shining and glittering afar, 
 
 Like beams of heavenly love. 
 
 Her flowing locks, like links of gold 
 Foi-med by some seraph's hand, 
 
 In many a rich and wavy fold 
 Hmig down, supremely grand !
 
 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 75 
 
 Yet, where's the child, however fair, 
 
 Who never heaved a sigh, — 
 Who never flooded with despair 
 
 Its young and sparkling eye ? 
 
 In one short melancholy hour, 
 
 With Annie by her side. 
 Crushed like some fated fragile flower, 
 
 Poor Annie's mother died, — 
 
 Imploring Heaven that Annie might 
 
 Have some one ever nigh, 
 To guide her youthful steps aright, 
 
 And train her for the sky. 
 
 And by that mother's dying bed. 
 
 Knelt one who then did vow 
 To see poor Annie clothed and fed. 
 
 While in this world below.
 
 76 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 
 
 Yet scarcely had that mother's soul 
 Escaped this vale of tears, 
 
 Or passed the glittering stars that roll 
 Through heaven's unbounded spheres ; 
 
 Than she forgot the vow she'd made 
 
 Upon her bended knee ; 
 Forgot that little one to aid, 
 
 Her guardian here to be. 
 
 But He who promised to befriend 
 
 Tlie motherless and poor, 
 Till all their earthly trials end, 
 
 Till time shall be no more ; 
 
 At last He summoned Annie, too, 
 And called her hence away, 
 
 To where the truly righteous go 
 Their golden harps to play.
 
 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 77 
 
 Aiid as she lifted up her eyes, 
 
 (Glazed by the hand of death,) 
 And gazed upon the opening skies, 
 
 With softly ebbing breath; — 
 
 " My mother comes ! oh see ! " she cried, 
 
 *' Descending from above ! 
 " My mother ! " she exclaimed, and died. 
 Wrapt m seraphic love. 
 
 Such was the end of Annie dear, 
 
 That bright, that blessed star, 
 Sent but to show us mortals here, 
 
 How beauteous angels are. 
 
 But when that little one was dead. 
 
 And mouldering in the dust, — 
 When her triumphant soul had fled 
 
 To mingle with the just ; —
 
 78 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 
 
 Her fair, but base, inconstant friend 
 No peace, no comfort Icnew : 
 
 And so all holy pleasures end 
 "VMiene'er we prove untrue ! 
 
 No happy dreams, no slumbers light, 
 Could she at midnight boast ; 
 
 But some unearthly, fiendlike sprite, 
 Or some unsightly ghost, 
 
 Would haunt her at that dreary hour, 
 And fill her soul with dread, 
 
 As if she saw Heaven's vengeance lower 
 On her devoted head. 
 
 But when life's closing scene drew nigh, 
 What were her feelings then ? 
 
 Could she repress the anguished sigh, 
 Or gushing tears restrain ?
 
 LITTLE ANNIE GAY. 79 
 
 Was little Annie sent to bid 
 
 Her welcome to the skies ? 
 Was little Annie sent to bid 
 
 Her soul trimnpliant rise ? 
 
 Had she a glorious hope in death, 
 
 A guardian spirit nigh, 
 An angel waiting for her breath ? 
 
 Answer. — There's no reply.
 
 8o 
 
 SOLITUDE. 
 
 " sacretl Solitude I divine retreat ! 
 Choice of the prudent! envy of the great! 
 By thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade, 
 We court fair Wisdom, that celestial maid." 
 
 Young. 
 
 H ! 'tis divinely sweet to steal 
 From this vain world away, 
 The bliss of solitude to feel, 
 As shuts the eye of day. 
 
 Far from the busy scenes of life. 
 
 To seek some lonely spot, 
 Wliere all of earthly care and strife 
 
 May be awhile forgot ! 
 
 To watch the bi-ight, the full-orbed moon, 
 The heights of heaven ascend, 
 
 "With all the stars around her throne, 
 The hymn of praise to blend ! 
 
 To sit and hold communion sweet 
 With Ilim who reigns on high ; 
 
 In some secluded, lone retreat, 
 Unseen by mortal eye.
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 8l 
 
 "And what is Friendship but a name, 
 
 A charm that lulls to sleep ; 
 
 A shade that follows wealth or fame, 
 
 But leaves the wretch to weep?" 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 ilH ! if there's a man upon earth I detest — 
 
 If there's one who should go to his fathers unblest, 
 
 O'er the turf of whose tomb not a tear should be shed, 
 
 For the peace of whose soul not a prayer should be read, 
 
 Oh ! believe me, 'tis he who, in life's brightest days, 
 
 Wliile he basks in their sunshine will glut me with praise ; 
 
 But alas ! when the time of my glory is past. 
 
 When the dark fiend of ruin is heard in the blast, 
 
 "When my vintage has failed, and my table 's unspread, 
 
 When the Chaldean bands with my cattle have fled, 
 
 When my gold and my silver, like birds of the night, 
 
 Have made themselves wings, and have taken their flight : — 
 
 Will leave me to want and to ruin a prey, 
 
 As the refuse of earth, or the scum of the day. 
 
 L
 
 82 
 
 THE qUEEN. 
 
 'Mi^ C^lllUI 
 
 "I've scann'd the actions of his daily life 
 With all the industrious malice of a foe. 
 And nothing meets mine eyes but deeds of honour." 
 
 Haknah More. 
 
 OW is it that while other lands 
 By Heaven are doomed to fall, 
 That Britain still so nobly stands, 
 The wonder of them all ? 
 
 How is it that when o'er the sea 
 The battle-flag 's mifurled, 
 
 That hither all the vanquished flee- 
 The refuge of the world ? 
 
 That while so many despot Kings 
 Dashed to the dust have been. 
 
 Old England still so proudly sings 
 The praises of her Queen ?
 
 THE QUEEN. 83 
 
 It is because she will not see 
 Her subjects cringing round ; 
 
 But holds the hand of Liberty 
 To all on British ground ! 
 
 'Tis that our Sovereign has a mind 
 
 Above all low design ; 
 And hence upon her brow we find 
 
 The star of peace doth shine.
 
 84 
 
 THE OLD MAN 
 
 ;|i Mh Hw mil |i§ (iifsiKlr=lut||llm 
 
 ' mortals, short of sight, who think the past 
 O'erblown misfortune still shall prove the last I 
 Alasl misfortimes travel in a train, 
 And oft In life form one perpetual chain ; 
 Fear buries fear, and ills on ills attend, 
 Till life and sorrow meet one common end." 
 
 YOUlfG. 
 
 ?pasacia"EAR yonder vale, so oft the Poet's theme, 
 
 The source of many a happy, bUssfid dream, 
 Where I in childhood sweetly whiled away 
 The fleeting hours of many a sunny day ; 
 Beneath the shelter of a well known wood 
 A little rastic straw-thatched cottage stood — 
 A Paradise on earth, if one there be 
 In all this grand but vicious world to see ; 
 Wliere, for a still more glorious country bound, 
 Lived in unruffled peace with all around
 
 AND HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER. 85 
 
 An Israelite in whom there dwelt no guile, 
 
 Whose face was e'er illumined with a smile. 
 
 An oi-phan child, but five years old at most. 
 
 Was all he could of mortal kindred boast ; 
 
 The tender object of his cares and fears. 
 
 And solace of his fast declining years. 
 
 Oft was he heard to say — This little one, 
 
 The fairest, sweetest flow'r beneath the sun — 
 
 A tiny bark upon a stormy sea — 
 
 My dear and only daughter left to me : 
 
 Never shall I her parting look forget. 
 
 Never — till memory's sun for aye shall set 1 
 
 Imploringly she clasped her hands, and cried, 
 
 " Heaven bless my child ! " and in that moment died. 
 
 But scarcely had the days of mourning fled, 
 Or the first daisy flourished o'er her head. 
 When on one summer morning, bright and fair, 
 While lightly tripping on the banks of Aire,
 
 86 AGE AND YOUTH. 
 
 A beauteous flower his little darling spied, 
 
 Suspended o'er the deep deceitful tide ; 
 
 She tried to pluck it, but o'erstepped the bank, 
 
 And in the calm and limpid current sank. 
 
 Old Simeon from the threshold of his door. 
 
 His whitewashed porch with ivy mantled o'er, 
 
 Beheld his darling as she floated by, 
 
 And headlong plunged to save her or to die ; 
 
 But both, alas ! were swiftly borne away, 
 
 And ere the night o'ertook that fatal day. 
 
 Fast in the aims of death together bound. 
 
 That brave old man and Emma's corpse were found I 
 
 -{-®o!g»^<-.
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 87 
 
 • ♦ 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OP THE LATE CANON STOWELL. 
 
 " Still o'er the grave that holds the dear remains, 
 The mouldering urn, her spirit left below. 
 Fond fancy dwells, and pours funereal Btrains, 
 The soul-dissolving melody of woe." 
 
 Scott, of Amwell. 
 
 OW Satan trembled when that man of God 
 
 Essayed to battle with the powers of Hell ; 
 And tottering Eome itself began to nod, 
 Like Troy's devoted pillars ere they fell. 
 
 "Who in such glowing language could portray 
 Tlie mystery of the love of God to man ? 
 
 Like him, could bear th' enraptured soul away, 
 The grandeur of the spirit- world to scan ? 
 
 Well may the Church of England, bathed in tears, 
 Lament that Canon Stowell is no more ! 
 
 That he has numbered his appointed years. 
 And that his span of life so soon is o'er !
 
 88 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 WiBnmi< 
 
 " Woman ! in our hoiirs of ease 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 And variable as the shade 
 By the light quivering aspen made ; 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 SCOTT. 
 
 |H0 is it soothes the heart of man 
 When overwhelmed with care ? 
 Who is it keeps the heart of man 
 From sinking in despair ? — 
 
 Woman ! 
 
 Who is it that will linger near 
 To help and cheer him on, 
 
 To wipe away the bitter tear 
 
 Wlien all his friends are gone ? — 
 
 Woman !
 
 WOMAN. 89 
 
 Who is it that can make his home 
 
 Like one of Eden's bowers, 
 
 And strew his pathway to the tomb 
 
 With never-fading flowers ? — 
 
 Woman ! 
 
 Who with her sweet angelic smUe 
 
 Can soften eveiy Ul, 
 
 The winter of man's Hfe beguile, 
 
 And make it summer still ? — 
 
 Woman ! 
 
 Who when the chilly damps of death 
 
 Upon his brow descend, 
 Bends o'er him as he pants for breath. 
 
 His first and latest friend ? — 
 
 Woman ! 
 
 M
 
 90 
 
 DEATH OF AN INFANT. 
 
 ^|fm||ts 
 
 SUGGESTED ON BEHOLDING THE EKMAINS OP ONE 
 OF THE AXJTHOE'S CHILDREN. 
 
 " 'Tis hard to be parted from those 
 With ■whom we for ever could dwell !" 
 
 Mrs. Opie. 
 
 HAT is it that my eyes behold, 
 So pale, inanimate — so cold — 
 So beautiful in death ? 
 Can it be one of heavenly birth, 
 Some angel-visitant on earth. 
 That's parted with its breath ? 
 
 No ! 'tis a little child of mine, 
 In form and features too divine, 
 Too delicate and fair,
 
 DEATH OF AN INFANT. 9 1 
 
 For sucli a changeful world as this, 
 ^\^ierein there 's scarce one cup of bliss 
 That's dashed not mth despair. 
 
 And hence, from yonder happy sphere. 
 Where evil never shall appear, 
 "^Vhere death shall never come ; 
 
 Where sorrow shall for ever cease, 
 And where the olive branch of peace 
 Eternally shall bloom : 
 
 At midnight hour an angel came, 
 This favourite of the Heavens to claim, 
 
 For a more genial sky : 
 At midnight hour she passed away. 
 And sweetly smiling, seemed to say — 
 
 " Weep not for me ! Good-bye ! "
 
 92 
 
 ONWARD ! 
 
 <§%km% I 
 
 'Why lose 'We life in anxious cares, 
 To lay in hoards for future years? 
 Can these, when tortured by disease. 
 Cheer our sick hearts, or purchase ease? 
 Can these prolong one gasp of breath. 
 Or calm the troubled hour of death ?" 
 
 GAY. 
 
 NWARD ! Onward ! was the cry, 
 j In the day when I was young : 
 
 Onward ! upward to the sky ! 
 Zealously our fathers sung. 
 
 Onward ! let your motto be, 
 
 Unto God your duty do : 
 Onward ! to etemity, 
 
 In the path the righteous go. 
 
 Onward ! till the saints unfold 
 
 Heaven's bright gates to let you in ;
 
 ONWARD ! 93 
 
 Brighter far than burnished gold 
 Is the crown that you may win. 
 
 Onward ! see ye not the gate 
 
 Of the Citadel of Eest : 
 Onward ! where the angels wait 
 
 For the spirits of the blest. 
 
 Onward ! onward ! but not up, 
 
 Now their children's children cry ; 
 
 Onward ! onward ! but not up — 
 What is there beyond the sky ? 
 
 Onward ! wheresoe'er you be, 
 Getting all the gold you can ; 
 
 Gold alone, on land or sea. 
 
 Makes and constitutes the man !
 
 94 
 
 EARTH AND HEAVEN 
 
 C^sirll mih llfsn-tn^ €B-srhrdi>iih< 
 
 "Beauty was lent to Nature as the tj^e 
 Of Heaven's unspeakable and holy joy, 
 "Wliere all pc.rrection makes the sum of bliss." 
 
 Mrs. Hall. 
 
 EE liow til' all-encliantin£r flowers 
 Adorn the liills around. 
 
 Imparadise our summer bowers, 
 
 And beautify the ground. 
 
 And is there yet a fairer land 
 
 Than this beyond the sky, 
 "With hills and vales more nobly grand, 
 
 More pleasing to the eye ? 
 
 Oh ! yes — there is a fairer land 
 Than this beyond the sky,
 
 CONTRASTED. 
 
 More lovely, more divinely grand, 
 More cliarming to the eye : 
 
 The valleys there are ever green, 
 
 And beauteous to behold ; 
 And there the hills are never seen 
 
 But clad in robes of gold. 
 
 "Winter shall never blow her breath 
 
 Upon those scenes so fair ; 
 Nor shall the ghastly fonns of death 
 
 E'er gain an entrance there. 
 
 95 
 
 W
 
 96 
 
 THE HYPOCRITE. 
 
 [^ l)|^ii?$'illi< 
 
 'Why didst thou choose the cursed sin. 
 Hypocrisy, to set up in ? " 
 
 Butler. 
 
 |IFT i;p tliine eyes, man, and see 
 TIic sun in all his splendour rise ; 
 Beaming afar o'er earth and sea, 
 
 And opening out the boundless sides. 
 
 Behold the fiiTQament on high, 
 Behold it at the midnight hour ; 
 
 Behold its myriad worlds, and try 
 To fathom th' Almighty's power ; 
 
 To trace the wonders of His hand 
 Upon the bo.soui of tlie deep,
 
 THE HYPOCRITE. 97 
 
 When mountain-like, sublimely grand, 
 From shore to shore proud billows sweep. 
 
 Behold I and tell me how you dare 
 
 Presume to mock the Deity ? 
 How in the face of Heaven to wear 
 
 Tliat damning mask Hypocrisy ? 
 
 Does not the Great Eternal know 
 
 The inmost secrets of the heart ? 
 Does not the Great Eternal know 
 
 Who acts or saint's or sinner's part ?
 
 98 
 
 TIME. 
 
 ®rmi. 
 
 " Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, 
 And delves the parallels in beauty's brow ; 
 Feeds on the rarities of Nature's truth, 
 
 And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow." 
 
 Shakspere. 
 
 OW short 's the allotted time of man ! 
 How fleeting his appointed day ! 
 A momentary breath, a span, 
 A shadow flitting fast away. 
 
 Yet there are those who seem to think 
 Life's transient joys will ne'er be o'er — 
 
 That they will at the fountain diink 
 Of earthly bliss for evermore : 
 
 That they shall call their lands their own 
 For years, for ages yet to come ; 
 
 Ecap that which other hands have sown, 
 And balk the still insatiate tomb.
 
 THE ADULTERESS. 99 
 
 'Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; 
 Of all tame, a flatterer." 
 
 Ben jonson. 
 
 ilTI ! come with me, and take your fill of love, 
 ' 'Tis that alone which rules the realms above ;" 
 I'll draw my silken curtains round your head, 
 With myrrh and cassia perfume my bed. 
 Then come, enjoy the midnight hour with me, 
 Tliis snow-white bosom shall your pillow be, 
 Where you may slumber till the morning light 
 Has chased away the blissful hours of night. 
 
 He followed; — but, like one in battle slain. 
 He fell, alas ! no more to rise again !
 
 100 THE POOR MAN. 
 
 i|i ^sM's Ulii^/ 
 
 " blissful poverty I 
 Nature, too partial, to thy lot assigns 
 Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace — 
 Her real goods— and only mocks the great 
 With empty pageantries." 
 
 FENTON. 
 
 []H ! if there be a sight I love to see, 
 It is the poor man in his humble cot, 
 Content and happy as frail man can be, 
 (However poor) with his appointed lot ! 
 
 It is the man who cheerfully will work, 
 In just obedience to his Maker's will ; 
 
 The man who never willingly doth shirk 
 
 The task which Heaven 'designed him to fulfil.
 
 THE POOR MAN. lOI 
 
 But for tlie poor man, all men would be poor — 
 To him the rich man all his affluence owes ; 
 
 And small indeed would be the miser's store, 
 
 But for the sweat which from the poor man flows. 
 
 The poor man is the greatest man on earth, 
 
 The most renowned amongst the heavenly host ; 
 
 Tlie poor man (if he be a man) is worth 
 
 Ten thousand worlds, with all that they can boast !
 
 102 A CHRISTENING. 
 
 ■ lltfUi 
 
 KECITED ON THE CHRISTENING OP A LITTLE CHILD 
 BELONGING TO A FRIEND OP THE AUTHOR. 
 
 GOD ! may this lovely, this beautiful boy, 
 All the blessings of earth and of Heaven enjoy ! 
 May a cherubim band, sent down from the skies, 
 His sentinels be when he closes his eyes ; 
 And when he awakes, may his eyelids unfold 
 On a sky that is radiant ynth purple and gold : 
 May his pathway be strewn with the choicest of flowers, 
 And the sunshine of Eden illumine his bowers : 
 And when he has finished his course upon earth, 
 May the same heavenly band that encompassed his birth, 
 Surround him again, to escort him away 
 To a land where no night shall o'ershadow the day !
 
 THE CHRISTIAN INDEED. I03 
 
 "Religion's ray no clouds obscure, 
 But o'er the Christian's soul 
 It sheds a radiance calm and pure, 
 Though tempests round him roll." 
 
 Ano7i. 
 
 HOW blest is the man that's a Christian indeed, 
 Tlie man who can feel for a brother in need — 
 The man who delighteth to help the opprest, 
 To see that the poor and the needy are blest ! 
 How sunny and bright his horizon appears, 
 As the verge of the grave undaunted he nears. 
 It is tinged with the glories that stream from on high. 
 It is lit with the light of th' angelical sky ! 
 Like the bow of the beautiful sunbeams above. 
 It is gilded with mercy, and perfumed with love. 
 And oh ! when he enters the Valley of Death, 
 Though gasping, and panting, and struggling for breath. 
 How sweetly his head on his pillow reclines, 
 While on him the light of eternity shines !
 
 104 LINES ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 ON THE DEATH OP THE LATE EEV. G, S. BULL.' 
 
 WRITTEN BY REQUEST FOR THE BRADFORD 
 
 "ST, JAMES' PARISH MAGAZINE." 
 
 |HAT cared he for the miser's boasted gold ! 
 To have his name amongst the rich enrolled ! 
 His was a higher aim, a nobler end, 
 Than this vain world's possessions to extend : 
 'Twas his delight to plead the widow's cause ; 
 To vindicate the great Eternal's laws ; 
 To help the poor man in his hour of need, 
 As Heaven in mercy and in love decreed. 
 And oh ! how oft throughout the midnight hour. 
 As if endowed with more than mortal power. 
 He toiled to set the slaves of Britain free ! 
 To let the tyrant and th' oppressor see 
 That there's a God enthroned above all height, 
 Amidst the blaze of Heaven's unsullied light ! 
 That there's a God whose vengeance shall o'ertake
 
 THE REV. G. S. BULL. IO5 
 
 High-towering pride, and make the haughty quake ; 
 Give to the winds of heaven th' oppressor's gain, 
 And hurl him back to beggary again. 
 
 Then who would not his noble acts rehearse. 
 Immortalise him in immortal verse ! 
 Sing of the nightly vigils that he kept ; 
 How o'er the children of the poor he wept. 
 To see them all but from the cradle torn. 
 To see them on a father's shoulders borne. 
 To work and toil the weary hours away. 
 Like fettered slaves, throughout the livelong day ; 
 As if their very limbs were made of steel ; 
 As if they could no aching sinews feel ; 
 As if they were but doomed to wear the chain, 
 Another's pomp and glory to maintain ; 
 To be the vassals of a tyrant's wiU, 
 His coffers with unhallowed gold to fill. 
 Yet this shall still his weeping friends sustain, — 
 We know our loss is his eternal gain !
 
 io6 
 
 DUTY. 
 
 ^nh 
 
 WRITTEN FOE, AND READ AT, A YOUNG MEN'S 
 DINNER PARTY. 
 
 " Possessions vanish, and opinions change, 
 And passion holds a fluctuating seat; 
 But, subject neither to eclipse nor wane. 
 Duty remains." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 EVER leave undone to-day 
 
 Auglit that Heaven commands you do ; 
 Time 's receding fast away — 
 Still as death the moments go. 
 
 Never triumph o'er your foe, 
 Nor exult to see him fall ; 
 
 Think that you are mortal too — 
 Hidden snares beset us all.
 
 DUTY. 10 
 
 / 
 
 Never act a treacherous part ; 
 
 Knowing that, where'er you be, 
 God can read your inmost heart — 
 
 Every thought and motion see. 
 
 And that you may never crave 
 Aught a brother has to spare, 
 
 Strive some little store to save — 
 For the ills of life prepai'e. 
 
 Do your duty, one and all, 
 
 Do it both to God and man ; 
 
 When you see a brother fall, 
 Eun and help him, if you can.
 
 I08 GENEROSITY. 
 
 §)rsis^tMmi'i. 
 
 " For tnio cliarit}', 
 Though ne'er so secret, finds a just reward." 
 
 Thomas Mat. 
 
 PH yes ! there's a something that can't be expressed, 
 
 In relieving the wants of the poor and distressed ; 
 For in blessing another, the heart's doubly blessed. 
 And liveth there one who no pleasure can find 
 In soothing, in softening the ills of mankind, 
 To the heavenly duties of Charity blind ; — 
 "Whose heart is as hard as the nether millstone. 
 Who will pass by the woimded, and leave him alone, 
 Though he's flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone ? 
 He shall sink to his grave unlamented at last. 
 Destruction shall sweep him away at a blast 
 To the shades where the refuse of Hell shall be cast !
 
 TO MR. T . 
 
 109 
 
 ADDRESSED TO MR. T — . 
 " I like not fair terms, and a villain's mind." 
 
 SlIAKSPERK. 
 
 HEN fare-thee-well ! I'd ratlier make 
 My bower upon some icy lake, 
 AVhen thawing smis begin to shine, 
 
 Than, T — , trust that heart of thine." 
 
 Didst thou not say — Go, take the fickl. 
 And like a conquering hero fight ; 
 
 Go, and I'll make thy foes to yield ; 
 Go, and I'll put them all to flight ? 
 
 And didst thou not the battle sell, 
 
 When I the victory had won ? 
 T — , where does that being dwell 
 
 "Wlio could a fouler deed have done ? 
 
 Wliat heart more hard, more vile can be, 
 Than that which can betray a friend ; 
 
 Expose him on a stormy sea, 
 
 And then his sails asunder rend ?
 
 ilO THE TONGUE. 
 
 " 'Twas slander filled her mouth with lying words,— 
 
 Slander, the foulest whelp of sin." 
 
 roLT,OiC. 
 
 IIEN the tongue is uubridled, what mischief is 
 done, 
 
 What a hell upon earth in a moment 's begun ! 
 'Tis a weapon that most can with cruelty wield, 
 And the wounds it inflicteth but seldom are healed ; 
 No venomous reptile can sting us so deep, 
 80 chase from our pillow the angel of sleep : 
 'Tis a tempest which nothing on earth can control — 
 A legion of demons encamped in the soul ; 
 Tis a flame that's enkindled and fostered in hell, 
 And who the extent of its ruin can tell !
 
 THE RIGHTEOUS. Ill 
 
 ' Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with him." 
 
 "Happy were men, if they but understood 
 
 There is no safety but in doing good!" 
 
 Fountain. 
 
 H ! how supremely blest is he, 
 Whatever storms may rise, 
 Who through the darkest cloud can see 
 The light of other skies ! 
 
 Who trembles not beneath the blast 
 
 That rends the oak in twam, 
 Knovdng that when the stonn is past 
 
 The heavens shall smile again ! 
 
 Knowing that the Eternal's word 
 
 Is finner than the poles ; — 
 The loudest thunder ever heard, 
 
 Heaven's majesty controls ; 
 
 That not a billow sweeps the sea 
 
 Without His sovereign will, 
 No storm but waits on His decree. 
 
 His mandate to fulfil.
 
 112 DAVID AND GOLIAH. 
 
 '§$ihih mh (ifIliB|< 
 
 "But the might's with the right; 
 From the cloud breaks the light ; 
 And the head high at morning, 
 May lie low ere the night." 
 
 Sheridan Knowles. 
 
 BEHOLD ! the giant warrior of Gath 
 Comes like the potentate of Heaven and earth ; 
 ►Scorns with contempt the bold intrepid youth 
 Arrayed in all the panoply of Truth ; 
 Tells him his flesh and body shall be given 
 A feast for reptiles and the fowls of heaven. 
 
 But, hark ! that brave, undaunted youth replies, 
 Lifting on high his Heaven-directed eyes — 
 " The ravenous vulture and the savage beast 
 Shall on thy carcase, Goliali ! feast." 
 Nearer and nearer, see, the champions draw, 
 While halting armies wait with speechless awe : 
 Nerved by that Power that rends the earth in twain, 
 And the same moment closes it again, — 
 Though by a stripling slung, the well-aimed stone 
 Sinks in the forehead of the champion !
 
 PRIDE. 
 
 iifslm, 
 
 " Of all the causes which conspire to blind 
 Man's erring judgment, and mislead the mind, 
 What the weak head with strongest bias rules, 
 Is Pride — that never-failing vice of fools." 
 
 "3 
 
 Pope. 
 
 H ! I have seen, e'en in my day, 
 A haughty ***** lift up his head 
 As if he coiUd the whirlwind stay, 
 Or sweep the ocean from its bed. 
 
 I've seen him with a scornful eye 
 Turn from the cottage of the poor, 
 
 And pass the helpless beggar by. 
 As but a woi-m, and nothing more. 
 
 But then, again, I've seen him fall. 
 
 Dashed headlong back from whence he rose, 
 His boasted wealth, his pomp, his all. 
 
 Exchanged for want, with all its woes.
 
 114 
 
 TO AN UNKNOWN FRIEND. 
 
 iJin Sin W,%l%$bn M%"ht%. 
 
 " A little word in kindness spoken, 
 A motion or a tear. 
 Has often healed the heart that's broken. 
 And formed a friend sincere." 
 
 H ! bow it sootlies the troubled mind, 
 When sinking in despair, 
 Some kind, some kindred soul to find, 
 
 Anxious our griefs to share — 
 To stem the bursting tears that flow 
 From fountains breaking up with woe. 
 
 And how consoling are the sighs, 
 When every hope has flown, 
 
 That in another's bosom rise 
 Responsive to our oavu !
 
 TO AN UNKNOWN FRIEND. II5 
 
 The throbbings of a friendly heart, 
 E'en in despair some joy impart. 
 
 Then, oh ! my friend, whene'er the tear 
 
 Of sorrow dims thine eye, 
 May some Samaritan be near, 
 
 Some guardian angel nigh, 
 Gently to wipe that tear away — 
 Tlie fountain of thy griefs to stay. 
 
 Pi 

 
 ii6 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT. 
 
 ON SEEING THE CORPSE OF A LITTLE CHILD BELONGING 
 TO A FKIEND OP THE AUTHOR. 
 
 "Gather the rosebuds while you may, 
 Old Time is still a-flying; 
 And that same flower tliat blooms to-day 
 To-morrow may be dying." 
 
 HERRICK. 
 
 OW oft the fairest flow'rets die 
 Before meridian day ; 
 Or caught by some enraptured eye, 
 Are quickly borne away ! 
 
 Thus in its ovm sequestered bower, 
 
 An angel, in disguise, 
 By chance espied this matchless flower, 
 
 And plucked it for the skies. 
 
 m.
 
 LUST, 
 
 117 
 
 'ni>i. 
 
 " But when Lust 
 Lets in defilement to the inward parts, 
 The soul grows clotted by contagion, 
 Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose 
 The divine property of her first being." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 HY should we long for that which ne'er 
 Can satisfy th' immortal mind ; — 
 For pleasures pregnant with despair, 
 And leave eternal joys behind ? 
 
 Why should we pant for other streams 
 Tlian those the wells of life supply ; — 
 
 For waters where pollution teems, 
 And pass the living fountains by ? 

 
 Il8 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Cpll^liiflf. 
 
 "And I saw a lovely child, who knelt 
 
 Beside the cot where his father dwelt, 
 
 At the sunset hour ; and his hands were raised 
 
 Toward the sky, on which he gazed ; 
 
 And on his rosy lips a prayer 
 
 Seemed hovering, like the summer air : 
 ' Pear'st thou,' said I, ' the shades of even ? ' 
 
 He smiled, and said— 'See how bright is Heaven 1'" 
 
 M. A. Brown. 
 
 THOUGHT that my childhood for evor 
 would last, 
 
 With all its romances so gay ; 
 
 But the days that I fancied would never be past, 
 
 How swiftly they vanished away ! 
 
 I thought — but, alas ! it was only a dream — 
 I thought, as the older I grew,
 
 CHILDHOOD. Iig 
 
 My joys would flow on in a far richer stream 
 Than e'er in my childhood they flew. 
 
 But though the delights of my childhood are gone, 
 And my pillow 's left flooded with tears, 
 
 A land full of beauty, to mortals unknown. 
 From Pisgah's high mountain appears : 
 
 A land where the weary for ever shall rest, 
 And their sorrows for ever shall cease ; 
 
 The land of immortals, the land of the blest — 
 The loved region of glory and peace !
 
 120 THE TROUBLES OF LIFE. 
 
 "I hold the world but as the world— 
 A stage, where every man must play his part, 
 And mine a sad one." SHAKSPERE. 
 
 * 
 
 |HERE is the man who ne'er retired to weep 
 One deep-drawn, silent, solitary tear ; 
 
 Before whose startled eyes, when closed in sleep, 
 No ghastly phantom ever did appear ? 
 
 Wliat mariner has never felt the shocks 
 Of some o'erwhelming, desolating wave ; 
 
 Or, near the precincts of some hidden rocks. 
 Never been threatened with a watery grave ? 
 
 Does not the footsore traveller often pant 
 To taste again the honied joys of home ? 
 
 And the sad exile pray that Heaven may grant 
 One ray of sunshine on his hopeless doom ? 
 
 Oh, what a world ! — a dreary desert this, 
 
 O'errun with known and unknown beasts of prey, 
 
 Uprooting all the plants of social bliss — 
 Tearing the olive branch of peace away !
 
 A REMONSTRANCE. 121 
 
 W^^mM'sirhwiis^.. 
 
 ON BEING REQUESTED " TO STAND FOR B .G' 
 
 " The time has been when no harsh sounds would fall 
 Prom lips that now may seem imbued with gall ; 
 But now so callous grown, so changed since youth, 
 I've learned to think, and sternly speak the truth." 
 
 Byron. 
 
 TAND for B g, and be bound, 
 
 Slave-like, to tlie powers that be ! 
 Freedom shall in chains be found, 
 Ere to man I'll bend the knee. 
 
 Stand for B g ! and declare 
 
 That the smoke is nobly grand, 
 
 That it purifies the air, 
 
 Tills and fructifies the land ! 
 
 Stand for B g ! What ! and winlc 
 
 At the wrongs the great ones do ; 
 
 Stand, and like a coward shrink 
 From my boundcn duties too I 
 
 Q
 
 122 A REMONSTRANCE. 
 
 Stand for B g ! never more, 
 
 Till the poor man dare be free 
 
 As that God the Heavens adore 
 Formed and destined him to be ! 
 
 Till he dare a freeman go, 
 Of no dastard spy afraid ; 
 
 And, as every man should do, 
 Vote unbiassed, midismayed : 
 
 Fearless, though a D — there 
 
 Vauntingly should take his stand, 
 
 And with proud presumptuous air. 
 Despot-like, his men command ; 
 
 Fearless, though a T — should 
 His unmanly bearing show. 
 
 By those voters understood 
 
 Who that haughty tyrant know ;
 
 A REMONSTRANCE. 
 
 Foarlcs.s, thongli a C — should be, 
 With his dark deceitful eye, 
 
 At the polling booth to see, 
 
 Wlio should dare his word defy ; 
 
 Fearless, once again I say, 
 
 Tliough that senseless, brainless man, 
 B — , like some beast of prey, 
 
 Shall be there the votes to scan. 
 
 Stand for B — g ! yes, I may, 
 
 "When the men their man can choose ; 
 But till that far distant day 
 
 I shall like a man refuse. 
 
 Stand for B — g ! never more, 
 Till the poor man dare be free 
 
 As that God the Heavens adore 
 Formed and destined him to bo. 
 
 123
 
 124 A REMONSTRANCE. 
 
 When he dare, I'll stand again, 
 For I dearly love the place 
 
 For the few brave-hearted men 
 Who that ward so nobly grace : 
 
 Men whose friendship does not share 
 In the meteor's sudden blaze — 
 
 Men whose friendship will compare 
 With the sun's eternal rays : 
 
 Like the sun each day the same, 
 Ever true and sound at heart, 
 
 Burning with a constant flame, 
 Joy and gladness to impart. 
 
 And, whate'er my fate may be, 
 As revolving years roll on, 
 Like the billows of the sea. 
 
 Here, and then for ever gone
 
 A REMONSTRANCE. I25 
 
 Maj I meet those friends on higli, 
 
 Where the good alone shall meet, 
 Then my bliss beyond the sky 
 
 Shall for ever be complete. 
 
 %V^^
 
 126 
 
 TO A FRIEND. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO A FEIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS FIKST-BOEN. 
 
 "Alas! what stay is there in human state? 
 Or who can shun inevitable fate? 
 The doom was written, the decree was past, 
 Ere the foundations of the world were cast." 
 
 DllYDEN. 
 
 jjND is there not a time for man to die, 
 Fixed in the irrevocable book of fate ? 
 Who can reverse the edict of the sky, 
 
 Or shun the death Heaven doomed him to await ? 
 And know you not there's not a sparrow falls 
 
 Unnoticed by the Eye that never sleeps ; — 
 Tliat when the Almighty on an infant calls. 
 
 It is in love and mercy that He S2:)eaks ? 
 Then, oh ! my friend, repress the rising sigh, 
 
 God only knoweth when to strike the blow ; 
 Ujion the goodness of His aiTu rely. 
 
 And you the secret of the Lord shall know ; — 
 Shall know that there is not a sparrow falls 
 
 Unnoticed by the Eye that never sleeps ; 
 That when the Almighty on an infant calls, 
 
 It is in love and mercy that He speaks !
 
 THOUGHTS ON VIEWING A PORTRAIT. I27 
 
 SUGGESTED OX VIEWING THE POETEAIT OF E — A H — Y, OP 
 BRADFOED, A KIXD FEIEND OF THE AUTHORS. 
 
 " The ear inclined to every voice of grief ; 
 The hand that op'd spontaneous to relief ; 
 The heart \vho.?e impulse stayed not for the mind 
 To freeze, to doubt what charity enjoined, — 
 Best spring to maifs warm instinct for mankind." 
 
 The Xew Timon. 
 
 I HO ever saw him turn away 
 Coldly from one in need, 
 Or Icnew him say the suppliant nay, 
 Either by word or deed ? 
 
 Long as he sees a friend distrest, 
 
 His hand is open still ; 
 He'd rob his own delightful nest 
 
 Another's nest to fill. 
 
 And shall such beings live and die 
 
 Unnoticed, unrenowned ? 
 Sooner the stars shall quit the sky, — 
 
 The sun forget its round.
 
 128 A VISION. 
 
 WRITTEN ON THE DEATH OP THE KEV. WILLIAM SHERWOOD, 
 AND SET TO MUSIC BY THE LATE MR. G. ROBINSON. 
 
 S I lay on my bed in the dead of the night, 
 A fair being appeared, most resplendently briglit ; 
 And Lis wings seemed the essence of purple and flame ; 
 In a fall flood of splendour and glory he came : 
 A star-studded diadem gleamed on his brow, 
 And the robe that he wore appeared whiter than snow. 
 Then I shaded my eyes, for he shone like a sun 
 As he hovered above me, and sweetly begim : — 
 " Oh, thou dweller on earth, be thy heart not dismayed, 
 Nor let gloomy forebodings thy bosom pervade ; 
 For I'm winging my way to the chamber of death, 
 There to watch and to wait for the last parting breath 
 Of a form that I loved in the days of my youth — 
 A dear fav'rite of Heaven, and a champion of truth : 
 Yes, I go to conduct him in triumph away 
 From this earth's dreary night to bright regions of day !" 
 
 I awoke — and, alas ! my dear pastor was dead ; 
 Yea, the spirit of Sherwood for ever had fled !
 
 FINALE. 
 
 "All hail! ye fields, where constant peace attoiuls! 
 All hail! ye sacred, solitai-y groves ! 
 All hail I ye books, my true, my real friends, 
 Whose conversation pleases and improves." 
 
 129 
 
 Walsu. 
 
 F there be anglit that I have penned 
 That will not stand the test of truth, 
 That will the Church of God offend, 
 Or vitiate the mind of youth : 
 
 If there be aught in this my book 
 
 That shall disturb my peace in death. 
 
 Make me abashed upon it look, 
 
 As I resign my fleeting breath ; — 
 
 Then may it perish, like a wreck 
 That's cast upon the angry deep, 
 
 While o'er its desolated deck 
 
 The wild and ruthless billows sweep :
 
 130 
 
 FINALE. 
 
 Yea, may it sink, no more to rise 
 Upon tlie sea of time again; — 
 
 For ever lost to mortal eyes 
 
 In dark oblivion's waveless main. 
 
 But should it to the good man yield 
 One hour of pure, unfeigned delight, 
 
 If in its pages be revealed 
 
 One ray of Heaven's unsullied light : 
 
 Should some poor man within this book 
 Aught to console his spirit find. 
 
 For comfort m. these musings look. 
 
 When anxious cares press fast behind 
 
 Or should the widow's heart rejoice 
 To scan these humble verses o'er; — 
 
 Believe my spirit's inmost voice, 
 That's all I wish— I ask no more.
 
 (Jlirif,
 
 P H A i^I T Y . 
 
 (■WRITTEN FOR A SPECIAL OCCASION.) 
 
 ^0 HARITY," says one of the inspired writers, snf- 
 °''1:j>. fereth long, and is kind; Charity euvieth not, 
 
 is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil :" and Cowpcr 
 
 says — 
 
 "Did Charity prevail, the Press would prove 
 A vehicle of virtue, peace, and love." 
 
 But, alas ! it docs not prevail, as is seen not only in the 
 field of battle, where the pride of a nation is sometimes 
 cut off even in a single day, but also in every part of the 
 habitable globe wherever has been imprinted the foot of 
 man. And is there not even less of that brotherly love 
 and affection now than in days gone by ? 
 
 " Has not the all-absorbing love of gain 
 The dove-winged seraph of affection slain r"
 
 134 CHARITY. 
 
 Some seventy years ago, in the days of that heavenly- 
 minded man the late Rev. Bartimas Goodman, vicar of 
 Fairford, a kindly feeling pervaded the breasts of the 
 inhabitants; the. rich and the poor met together, knowing 
 that the Lord was the maker of them all ; and the holy 
 and beautiful house, the old Parish Church, was then held 
 in the highest veneration : every Sabbath day its hallowed 
 walls resounded with the prayers and the praises of the 
 inhabitants, and 
 
 " Oft have I thought if there were aught below 
 That could the faintest glimpse of Heaven bestow, 
 Of yonder bright and beatific sphere. 
 That never yet was watered vrith a tear, — 
 It was the beauty of that House of Prayer, 
 When high and low met undistinguished there ; 
 The glorious incense of vmfeigned love 
 Ascending from the heart to heaven above ; 
 The humble adorations of the poor, 
 Devoutly met their Saviour to adore." 
 
 And, oh ! what pleasure there is in contemplating the Kfe 
 of some noble-hearted, charitable man ! — of such a one 
 as, even at this moment, in imagination, bursts upon my
 
 CHARITY. 135 
 
 view, and of whom it may be truly said, that a being with 
 a nobler heart never existed — that one more beloved by 
 his workpeople could nowhere be found. In their hours 
 of sickness he watched over them with a parental ten- 
 derness ; and when, through old age and infirmities, 
 they could no longer perform their daily task, a weekly 
 allowance was granted them, thus making a permanent 
 provision for their declining years; and though upwards 
 of a quarter of a century has elapsed since that gentle- 
 man retired from the busy haunts of trade and commerce 
 into the quiet haven of private life, numbers of his old 
 servants are still enjoying the weekly allowance so gene- 
 rously bestowed upon them. Perhaps there is not a man 
 living who has done more for the once greatly-to-be-pitied 
 factory child. It was he who first, with the Holy Bible 
 before him (opened, no doubt, to that beautiful passage 
 which saith " Suffer little children to come unto Me, and 
 forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven") 
 exposed the unheard-of horrors of the factory system in 
 the town and neighbourhood of Fairford. It was he 
 who first made known how the children of the poor were 
 torn from their beds by five or six o'clock in the morning
 
 136 CHARITY. 
 
 — and on many occasions much earlier — and compelled to 
 labour till eiglit or nine m the evening, with only twenty 
 minutes during the whole day allowed for meals. It was 
 he who first suggested to one of the most eloquent men of 
 his day the urgent necessity there was for not only eman- 
 cipating the swarthy grown-up slaves in distant lands, 
 but also for freeing the infantile population at home, — of 
 breaking the bonds of oppression, and of saying to the 
 oppressor, as with a voice of thunder — " Thus far shalt 
 thou go, and no further." It was his purse which enabled 
 that eloquent man to carry out the fervent desire of his 
 soul — to shield the factory child from the hand of the 
 petty tyrant, and enable him to 
 
 " Stand, prophet-like, upon Britannia's isle, 
 Shielded and blest by Heaven's approving smile, 
 To let the rulers of the people hear 
 That they must rule in righteousness and fear, 
 That they must govern with impartial sway, 
 And sweep oppression from the world away." 
 
 Never was that man of God so happy as when engaged in 
 acts of charity and benevolence ; and Icnowing that the 
 appointed time of man upon earth is but of short duration
 
 CHARITY, 137 
 
 — that he is destined to siu-vive the wreck of matter and 
 the crash of worlds — that a place of everlasting happiness 
 or misery awaits him beyond the changing scenes of this 
 transitory life, — he was not unmindful of their future and 
 everlasting welfare ; as an evidence of which, go and see 
 yon beautiful temple — a lasting monument of his love and 
 devote dness to the poor — a temple of which it may 
 truly be said, " that while one stone remains upon another, 
 it will be a monument more dmable than brass of the 
 noble liberaUty of the worthy founder;" and within the 
 walls thereof, when the bones of that man shall be moul- 
 dering in the dust, thousands yet unborn shall meet to sing 
 the praises of Him " who oft descends to visit men 
 unseen, and through their habitations walks to mark their 
 doings." 
 
 ENVY not the man whose sordid heart 
 Has not one single blessing to impart, . 
 To cheer the widow when of all bereft, 
 When nothing but the vacant chair is left; —
 
 138 CHARITY. 
 
 The naan who cares not for the withering blight 
 That on his neighbour's vineyard may alight, 
 Nor for the pestilence that rends the air 
 At midnight, with a shriek of wild despair, 
 While the destroying angel passes o'er 
 His own accursed, inhospitable door. 
 
 Oh ! if there is a being to be found 
 In all this wide extended world around. 
 Beloved on earth, and registered on high 
 As one made meet and fitted for the sky, 
 'Tis he who, knowing he is but a man, 
 Whose days on earth are shorter than a span, 
 Whose life e'en as a shadow flits away. 
 Whose goodly frame is but a heap of clay, — 
 Seeks for a more enduring rest on high. 
 An everlasting city in the sky ; 
 Assists the poor man in the hour of need, 
 Delights himself in every noble deed ;
 
 CHARITY. 
 
 Compared to his, -nhat is the hero's name, 
 
 Though he may twice a hundred battles claim ? 
 
 Compared to his, what is the prince's birth. 
 
 Whose hopes are all concentred upon earth ? 
 
 Can wealth or fame alone a refuge find, 
 
 A covert from the tempest and the wind, 
 
 In that momentous, that tremendous day 
 
 When Heaven's artillery on the world shall play, 
 
 And sweep the everlasting hills away ? 
 
 No, no ! but heaven-born Charity shall stand 
 
 Firm as the pillars of th' Eterxal's hand ; 
 
 And as the citadel of Heaven secure, 
 
 Long as the sun, and moon, and stars endure ! 
 
 J 39
 
 y 
 
 fm
 
 i
 
 The jPr^ss. 
 
 (spoken at a dinxer partt, when the author was 
 called upon to give "the press.") 
 
 do justice to " The Press" would require the 
 tongue of an angel, and the wisdom of one of 
 the highest order of celestial intelligences ; for 
 it is to a free asid unfettered Press that England is, 
 in a great measure, indebted for the high and exalted 
 position she holds amongst the nations of the earth. 
 Had that glorious machine, the Press, never been 
 invented, there is no doubt that, even to the present 
 day, we should have been trafficking in the blood 
 and bones of our fellow-creatures, and looking upon 
 slavery with an eye of exultant satisfaction. Had that 
 wonderful machine never had existence, how many who 
 are now filling some of the highest stations in society, 
 and even sitting with the Kings and Princes of the earth,
 
 144 THE PRESS. 
 
 would still have been grinding at the mill, or, for a scanty 
 pittance, attending to the labours of the field ? Without 
 the Press, what should we have known of the mighty- 
 men of old ? or of the great and good of bygone days ? 
 What should we have known of the grand and all-amazing 
 discoveries which have been made in the heavens above 
 us, and the wonderfid achievements in the earth below ? 
 And though even the very globe itself may be said to be 
 one vast network of railways, — and though the electric 
 wires have given to us the glorious j)rivilege of holding 
 communion with almost every nation on the face of the 
 earth, — yet, notwithstanding all these things, without the 
 Press, how little should we have known of the passing 
 events of the day, amidst the hum of the ongoing world 
 around us ! 
 
 ^o^O^o* 
 
 HE Press ! the Press ! the mighty Press ! 
 With everlasting blessings fraught ! 
 Who can thy glorious acts express, 
 
 Or tell the wonders thou hast wrought ?
 
 THE PRESS. 145 
 
 'Tis tliine to break Oppression's chain, 
 
 To set the guiltless captive free ; 
 Earth's dreaded despots to restrain, 
 
 And pave the way of Liberty. 
 
 'Tis thine, with more than trumpet voice 
 
 To herald in the reign of Peace ; 
 To bid despairing lands rejoice. 
 
 And War, with all its woes, to cease. 
 
 'Tis thine all nations to unite 
 
 In one blest bond of heavenly love ; 
 
 To spread abroad the hallowed light. 
 Descended from the realms above. 
 
 'Tis thine, O Press ! — thine to display 
 The might of the Eternal's hand, 
 
 Which can the foaming billows stay. 
 And turn the ocean into land.
 
 146 THE PRESS. 
 
 'Tis tliine to scatter far and wide 
 
 The priceless treasures of the mind ; 
 
 To see our thirsty souls supplied 
 
 From fountains in the heavens enshrined.
 
 IJ 
 
 If^ 
 
 ao
 
 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 " Nor taint with fetid breath the vital air." 
 
 [The reader mill find a full exposition oftlie meaning of tlie above 
 line in the following extracts from Speeches delivered hy the 
 Author 'before the Corporation of Bradford, on tlie Smoke 
 Nuisance.'] 
 
 The Smoke Nuisance is one of the greatest nuisances in the 
 whole borough ; hut it is some gratification to know that there are 
 a few in the Council of the same opinion as myself with regard to 
 that gloomy subject ; and there are hundreds, if not thousands, in 
 the town and neighbourhood, who look upon it not merely as a 
 nuisance of the greatest magnitude, but also as an evidence of a 
 most serious dereliction of duty on the part of the Town Council 
 to permit its continuance. I have no hesitation in saying, that if 
 the whole of the medical men of this country were consulted on 
 this siibjcct, by far the greater portion, if not the whole of them, 
 would be of the same mind as was that highly-gifted and eloquent 
 man, the late Dr. Beaumont (the "Martyr of the Corporation" ) 
 who, to use his own words, " was fully convinced that a smoky 
 atmosphere had not only an injurious effect upon the health and 
 the comforts of the community at large, but that it was also inju- 
 rious to vegetation." Therefore, whatever amount of money may 
 be expended on the external embellishments of the public or pri-
 
 150 NOTES. 
 
 vate buildings in Bradford, it is, to a very great extent, so much 
 money thrown away ; for no sooner is the structure completed, 
 than the curse of the smoke nuisance falls upon it, and all its 
 beauties disappear beneath the gloom. 
 
 Looking down from the surrounding heights upon the town 
 the other day, and seeing it submerged in a sea of smoke, where a 
 thousand dark billows were incessantly rolling, I could not help 
 thinking that there would be but few places where the inhabitants 
 would be more comfortable or more healthy, being so highly 
 favoured with an abundant supply of water, if the town were effi- 
 ciently drained ; if that monster nuisance the Canal were cleansed 
 of its impurities ; and if the provisions of the 29th section of the 
 Bradford Improvement Act were can-ied out, so that the smoke would 
 be either consumed or abated — at least so far as it is possible to do 
 it : and I firmly believe that to clear the atmosphere of Bradford 
 from its contaminating influence, would be no difficult task : 
 though there are gentlemen in this assembly who, without ever 
 making themselves in the least acquainted with the subject, will 
 unblushingly assert that the smoke cannot be consumed — gentle- 
 men who vfiH tell you that there is something sublimely grand in 
 the heavens being darkened at noon-day, our costly and magnifi- 
 cent buUdings covered with soot, and the trees which once so 
 beautifully flourished around us, being shrivelled up, as if the 
 burning breath of the simoon had passed over them. But at Salt- 
 aire, with little less than 2,000 horse power, and something over 
 40 furnaces, nearly the whole of the smoke is consumed, and that 
 with a considerable saving to the enterprising owners thereof. In 
 many of the principal towns and cities of England, a Smoke Nui- 
 sance Inspector is maintained, and the manufacturers are compelled 
 to use every precaution ; and in London, the penalty for the first 
 offence is five pounds, and it is doubled for every subsequent 
 offence. It was not until the Legislatiu-e were thoroughly con-
 
 NOTES. 151 
 
 vinced that the smoke could be consumed, that they insisted on its 
 being done. Therefore, seeing that these things are so, I would 
 ask — Is it not the duty of the Council to endeavoiir to preserve 
 that air without which we cannot for a moment exist, as much 
 as possible in its original purity ? 
 
 Amongst the gentlemen entrusted with the government of 
 the borough, there should be no partiality in the discharge of the 
 duties devolving upon them, especially in a sanitary point of view. 
 How is it, then, that when the most paltry drain belonging to a 
 poor man is choked up, the Inspector of Nuisances is at once 
 ordered to serve him with a notice, to the effect that if it is not at 
 once opened and cleansed, compulsory means wiU be resorted to ? 
 or if some poverty-stricken lodging-house-keeper neglects to attend 
 to the cleanliness of his house, a charge is preferred against him ? 
 and so with respect to^the poor man who, perchance, happens to 
 have "the jintleman that pays the rint" in a stye too near the 
 public highway, or in the vicinity of the house of some august 
 member of the Council, the Sanitary Committee is no sooner made 
 acquainted with these irregularities, "than the poor man is com- 
 pelled to take immediate steps for their removal ; whilst, at the same 
 time, a nuisance of ten thousand times greater magnitude — a nui- 
 sance affecting the whole boroiigh — is not only allowed to con- 
 tinue, but most alarmingly to increase 2 * * * * 
 
 At that noble and magnificent manufactory, Saltaire, almost 
 every member of the committee has had an opportunity of seeing 
 the subject thoroughly tested, and is now fuUy convinced of the 
 practicability (to a very great extent) of consuming the smoke : 
 and I am persuaded that those who witnessed the operation on 
 that occasion must have been forcibly struck with the simplicity 
 of the means used, and with the effects produced, — especially while 
 surveying the chimney, and watching the contrast between the 
 consumption and the non- consumption of smoke ; while gazing
 
 152 NOTES. 
 
 upon the dial-plate of the pirameter, or fire-measurer, and seeing 
 how, when the smoke is consumed, the heat of the furnace rises 
 upwards of 100 degrees even in a few seconds ; how, when it is not 
 consumed, it sinks in a coiTesponding ratio ; thus showing that 
 the admission of the atmospheric air, in conjunction with a little 
 steam, into the furnace, has not a tendency, as has been rashly- 
 asserted in the Council, to damp the intensity of the fire and 
 to lower the steam, but the contrary. Moreover, the Committee 
 have had the satisfaction of knowing that the introduction of these 
 two counteracting elements into the furnace has not the least inju- 
 rious eflfect upon any portion of the boiler ; thus for ever setting 
 aside the fallacious and unfounded idea, that wherever the smoke 
 is consirmed, the fundamental parts of the boiler will in a very 
 short time be destroyed, through the effects of the smoke-burning 
 apparatus. 
 
 Not only at Saltaire, but also at various other places, the 
 Committee have been fully convinced, that if the manufacturers 
 would unite with the Corporation, in an earnest and anxious 
 endeavour to clear the atmosphere of Bradford from that which is 
 such a heavy tax upon the cleanliness of the people, the long- 
 desired object would be accomplished, our flourishing and wide- 
 spreading town would again be visible from the hills around it, and 
 every poor man possessing a little ground for the cultivation of a 
 few flower bods, might then, even fi-om the door- way of his own 
 humble dwelling, inhale the balmy fragTance of the sweetbriar, 
 and the delicious odours of a newly-blown rose. I would ask — la 
 it right, is it equitable, that the garden of the poor man and the 
 field of the fcirmer, should be blighted and blasted by a nuisance 
 which can in a very great degree be so easily abolished ? Not one 
 single report has been received from the many places to which the 
 Town Clerk has written, that does not bear testimony to the fact 
 already stated, viz. ;— that the smoke can be consumed as it is done
 
 NOTES. 153 
 
 at Siiltaire, with a saving of from three to five per cent, in fuel, 
 and not less, I am sure, than of twenty per cent, in the amount of 
 soap used for domestic purposes in that locality. In London, the 
 metropolis of the world, and on its waters of a thousand float- 
 ing engines, the smoke nuisance, owing to the vigilant inter- 
 ference of the local authorities, is almost a thing of the past. 
 And again, I ask, ought not the Corporation of Bradford to he as 
 deeply interested in the well-heing of its inhahitants, as are the 
 Corporations of London and Liverpool for the dwellers in their 
 respective cities ? As I said hefore, smoke is money thrown 
 away, scattered to the four winds of heaven; hut with it is 
 thrown the hlight and the mildew into the fields and the gardens 
 around us, and disease and death into the habitations of men. 
 And I do most earnestly hope that I shall ere long have the 
 pleasure of seeing Bradford enjoy a clear and unclouded atmos- 
 phere, and of beholding the garden of the poor man (who is com- 
 pelled to reside not far from the scene of his daily labours) fidled 
 with bloom and flushed with beauty. Then shall our magnificent 
 and costly warehouses, and the princely mansions of our merchants 
 and manufacturers, assimie their pristiae freshness and beauty ; 
 then shall the fields around us wave with that fi'eshness and luxu- 
 riance that delighted the eyes of oui- forefathers, in the day when 
 the air of Bradford was as sweet, as pure, and as invigorating as 
 the heather-scented gales which sweep over the quiet and salu- 
 brious village of Ilkley, on the verdant banks of the clear and 
 translucent Wharfe. 
 
 [Notwithstanding that at the time the above speeches were 
 delivered, the Coromittee appeared iirmly resolved to take active 
 measures to prevent or diminish the smoke ntiisance, I regret to 
 say it still exists. Now, as then, when we ascend the surrounding
 
 154 Notes. 
 
 heights, and look down upon the emporium of the worsted trade, 
 we are particularly reminded of the destruction of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and of the sight which greeted the eyes of the vene- 
 rable patriarch Lot, when, on the following morning, he beheld 
 the smoke of the city ascending up to Heaven as from some vast 
 furnace, or from the dark and gloomy abyss of eternal woe. 'Who 
 that from yonder village in the distance, has been accustomed to 
 gaze upon the town of Bradford, but has more than once com- 
 pared it to the smouldering remains of some ill-fated town, or vast 
 volcano, which had just spent its fuiy in devastating the country 
 around. For instead of diminishing, as time passes away, it is 
 continually increasing. Alas ! that the Committee should manifest 
 such a deplorable indifference with regard to the well-being of the 
 inhabitants. For though there may be found many noble-hearted 
 philanthropic men amongst our manufacturers — men who, whilst 
 honourably endeavouring to enrich themselves, take every pre- 
 caution in order to prevent any business carried on by them ever 
 being the means of contaminating the air we breathe, or the water 
 which God in His goodness has given us to drink, — yet there are 
 numbers who, while they are busily engaged in laying up for 
 themselves treasures upon earth, care but little whether the means 
 they employ to accomplish their desired end shall or shall not bo 
 the means of dealing the way for the pestilence that walketh in 
 darkness, and for the destruction that waiteth at noon-day ! ] 
 
 [The following is an extract from an unpublished Poem by 
 Mr. J — B— , a friend of the Author's, entitled] —
 
 BRADFORD: A DAY SCENE. I55 
 
 fj:rsMinrlr 
 
 A DAY SCENE. 
 
 I LACK murky vapours croucli along tlie vale, 
 And wait tlie coming of the sea-bom gale 
 To waft them o'er the broad and circling hills, 
 Far, far beyond the smoke-enshrouded mills. 
 Thousands of brains are toiling 'midst the gloom, 
 T' entrap coy Gold in meshes of the loom ; 
 Thousands of hearts are feebly beating there, 
 Foredoomed from early youth to war Avith Care. 
 The mighty sun peers dimly through the haze, 
 And turns in sadness from man's yearning gaze : 
 The giant factories lift their stalwart sides 
 In narrow streets,* wherein securely hides 
 Pollution, Death's forerunner, who 'mongst all 
 His trenchant poison stealthily lets fall. 
 
 » See Note, p. l.'>7.
 
 156 BRADFORD: A DAY SCENE. 
 
 Glazed sheets of water stud the busy view, 
 
 Like infant lakes, of dark and deathly hue ; 
 
 And factory towers start up in grim array, 
 
 And, beacon-like, bid Commerce turn their way ; 
 
 "While clatter and loud roar of whirling wheels 
 
 Now drown all human sounds by deafening peals. 
 
 Along the hilly ways, in dull disguise. 
 
 Long lines of cottages and villas rise. 
 
 Bright trails of white cleave through the sombre air 
 
 As shrieking engines fiercely, madly tear 
 
 Along their iron tracks. The town is girt 
 
 With winding lanes, thick crusted o'er with dirt, — 
 
 With smoke-attired fields, and stunted trees, 
 
 Where ancient sparrows perch in silent ease, — 
 
 Where dusky rooks, beneath the chequered sky, 
 
 Dispense their hollow croakings as they fly.
 
 NOTES. 157 
 
 NOTE 
 
 TO "BRADFORD: A DAY SCENE." 
 
 * Bradford has long been noted for its narrow and dirty streets, 
 in proof of which may be given the following extract fi'om a speech 
 delivered by the author before the Bradford Corporation, on the 
 question of " Street Improvements " :] — 
 
 I HAVE no hesitation in saying, that hundreds, if not thou- 
 sands, of lives have been sacrificed in this and other towns in 
 consequence of the narrowness of the streets, and the want of 
 sufficient room in their business thoroughfares. There is nothing 
 of greater importance to an enterprising, busy, manufacturing 
 town, than wide and commodious streets ; especially so when that 
 town is destined to be one of the wealthiest, one of the most 
 populous, and, in a commercial point of view, one of the most 
 productive of any to be found iu the British empire. Bradford 
 has a few good, and what I may venture to call spacious inlets and 
 outlets, leading to and from the various places around it ; but a 
 sti'auger coming amongst us, particularly one who has heard so 
 much concerning our trade and commerce — our warehouses, unri- 
 valled in magnitude and magnificence — our ever-increasing mills, 
 and the amazing amount of goods that are daily sent forth to every 
 part of the kingdom, and almost to every part of the civilised 
 world, — I say, a stranger coming amongst us under such circum- 
 stances, would be astonished beyond measure at the narrowness of 
 the streets, and the sudden and dangerous turnings, even in the 
 very heart of the town ; whilst in vain would he look for one 
 single thoroughfare worthy the name of a street in all the metro- 
 polis of the worsted manufactures. 
 
 I have very carefully and very diligently looked over tlie 
 report wliidi bas been presented to the Council by the Street
 
 158 NOTES. 
 
 Improvement Committee ; I have looked at it not only with an 
 eye to tlie jn-esent, but also witli an eye to the future — with an eye 
 to what Bradford will be when our children shall have taken our 
 places, and these unruly tongues of ours shall be for ever silent in 
 the dust. And if Bradford is to be improved — if there is to be a 
 thorough communication through the very heart and centre of the 
 town, from one side of it to the other — I cannot see how any one of 
 these proposed alterations can be dispensed with, without rendering 
 the others, to a very great extent, of no avail. I have paid parti- 
 cular attention to the intended alterations in Market Street, and I 
 cannot see how any man who takes a fall and unbiassed view of the 
 whole matter, can come to the conclusion that 14 yards will be a 
 sufficient width for the main arterial iiilet and outlet of one of the 
 busiest manufacturing towns to wliich our beloved Queen ever 
 signed a Charter of Incorporation. Cast your imaginative eye 
 on Bradford, as it may be, when 30 or 40 more fleeting years 
 shall have passed away, and what will you see (provided it 
 should continue to extend its borders in the same manner that 
 it has done for the last 20 years ) ? You will then, no doubt, 
 see the two Hortons, Bowling, Manningham, Shipley, and other 
 surrounding places, one imdivided town or city, studded in 
 every direction with mills and warehouses, and the mansions 
 of its merchants and manufacturers. Then, will you be so reck- 
 less, so indifferent to its welfare, as to say that 14 yards in width 
 will be sufficient for the principal street of such a place ? will 
 you thus for ever throw a barrier in the way of the free tran- 
 sit of the increasing traffic of the town, and do an irreparable 
 injur}-- and injustice not only to the present, but to ages yet to 
 come? And who is prepared to say that the future historian of 
 Bradford will not record the deed of the Town Council of this day, 
 a deed which is to decide whether the new Exchange and the Post 
 Office, if reared in Market Street, are to be an honour and an
 
 NOTES. 159 
 
 ornament to the town, by having open and spacious frontages ; or 
 whether they are to be crammed into a corner, to stand as a lasting 
 monument of the indiscretion and unsound judgment of the present 
 Town Council ? As an instance of such indiscretion, look for one 
 moment at our costly St. George's Hall, for ever thrown into the 
 shade, as if unfit for the scrutinising eye of the public ; and on 
 every occasion of a festival of any note, are not waggon loads of 
 timber required for barricading the streets, and vast numbers of 
 the police force necessary to sentinel them, in order to the preven- 
 tion of broken limbs or accidental death. 
 
 I am fully aware that these very important and most essen- 
 tial alterations and improvements cannot be achieved without con- 
 siderable outlay and expenditure on the part of the Corporation ; 
 but how insignificant (considering the wealth of the town) in 
 comparison to the great public advantage to be derived therefrom ! 
 I must express a hope that those gentlemen who have amassed 
 such immense fortunes amongst us — those gentlemen who have 
 added miU to mill, warehouse to warehouse, and who, at the same 
 time, have exchanged the humble cottage for a mansion, and 
 whose goods are continually blocking tip our streets — ought to 
 come nobly and spontaneously forward -with their hundi-eds, if not 
 their thousands, to assist the Corporation in carrying out these 
 great and indispensable improvements, which, when accomplished, 
 will be an honour to the town, and redoimd not only to the praise 
 of the Corporation, but to eveiy individual who shaU have assisted 
 in carrying out so desirable an object. 
 
 [It is only right to add that since the speech on " Street Im- 
 provements" was delivered, many desii'able and important improve- 
 ments have been made, and are still in progress, in the streets of 
 Bradford ; and judging, so far, from the activity displayed by the
 
 l6o NOTES. 
 
 Council in carrjTuig out those improvements, there is every reason 
 to believe the to'wn will yet be able to boast of a few thoroughfares 
 of sufficient width to accommodate its rapidly increasing traffic, 
 and that it will yet outlive the bad name it has hitherto (not 
 unjustly) received on account of its ill-planned, narrow, and dirty 
 streets.] 
 
 NOTE 2. 
 
 "Remorselessly cast off the very men." 
 
 If there is one act more dishonourable to a master than 
 another, it is the act of summarily discharging his workmen with- 
 out any previous warning. I do not say that every one has the 
 ability, be he ever so willing, to continue his men at their accus- 
 tomed work when he has not sufficient employment for them. 
 Yet I eniphatically maintain that it is dishonourable in the 
 extreme for those who have been heaping up gold as if it were 
 almost as plentiful as the dust of the earth, to discard their 
 employes at a moment's notice, as soon as the shadow of a passing 
 cloud makes its appearance in the commercial horizon. 
 
 NOTE 3. 
 
 " Go see tliose vast stupendous Falls ! " 
 
 "And now we come to Niagara, and what shall we say about 
 that ? Richard Cobden used to say, there were two sixbUmities in 
 Nature — one of rest, the other of motion ; one was the Alps, the 
 other Niagara. I have seen them both, and must say that, remark- 
 ably grand as they both are, it seems to mo Niagara is the sub- 
 Hmer of the two, and is what I take to be the grandest natural 
 sight in the world. I shall never forget the first moruino- when 1
 
 NOTES. l6l 
 
 arose early and stole away to get my first sight, as I desired to get 
 it, alone ; and as I walked over the ground that trembled under 
 its mighty power, and felt my soul filled with its gentle and yet 
 mighty thunders, and stood almost within the eternal bow which 
 was heaven's coronal of beauty and grandeur to rest upon the brow 
 of the Falls, and make it the queen of all the sights nature could 
 place before us ; — as I looked upon the pillar of mist and spray 
 that rises from the curdling sea into which the Falls plunge down, 
 it reminded me of the pillar of cloud that went before the Israel- 
 ites in their march through the desert. It mattered not that I 
 was almost di-enched to the skin by the spray that the wind 
 drifted in that direction. I felt that the dream of my life was 
 realised, and it would have been almost a relief to have packed up 
 my surroundings and come off home at once. That sight was 
 enough for a lifetime. You would not object possibly to accom- 
 pany us, as we all go in a party. We are stopping, then, at the 
 Cataract House on the American side, and we take carnages ; we 
 cross over the Suspension Bridge and are in Canada. We drive 
 on in the same direction till we come to the Clifton House, and 
 then the Falls burst fairly and gloriously upon us. A lady in the 
 company comes to myself and asks if we have such a sight as that 
 in all Great Britain to show. I reply, I do not think we have, 
 unless, I hope she will forgive me, if I remind her that she has left 
 America, and come round upon British soil to get the view which 
 I have the happiness of pointing out to her, and that it is from 
 British soil you get the finest view of the finest natural sight in the 
 world. I do not know how I can give you any idea of the Falls : 
 perhaps I may help you to do so if you build up in thought a vast 
 cliff of rock about 160 feet high, in the form'of a horseshoe, per- 
 haps a mile or a mile and a-half in its ciu've. Suppose it all to be 
 bare except a piece just on one side the centre of the bend where 
 there is Goat Island, and then the mighty waters to be poui'ed over 
 
 V
 
 l62 NOTES. 
 
 it at the rate of a hundi-ed million tons every horn-, — water that 
 covers a humli'od and fifty thousand square miles at unknown 
 depths before it is pent up into the river above, that flows fi-om a 
 hundred rivers and ten lakes, which, as we have said, are inland 
 seas, and which cover a surfiice equal to one-third of all the fresh 
 water upon the face of the earth. Suppose that to be all flowing 
 in one stream, and to pour itself over these cliff's, which you have 
 built up about 160 feet. Suppose it to be robed in rainbows of 
 exquisite beauty, and half concealed at times by the pillar of spraj"- 
 that rises up from its feet, and is its own monument, and you may 
 have some idea of Niagara Falls. You may take a boat and row 
 as near as you can to where they pour the mighty torrent into the 
 seething flood below, and that is wonderful. You may stand upon 
 what is left of the table rock, and watch the ever-beautiful green of 
 the curve where they pour themselves over the edge of the cliff, 
 and that is wonderful. You may go down and pass behind them, 
 where you have them like a wall of ever-changing emerald before 
 you, and that is wonderful. You may sit, as we did, at the foot of 
 the Terrapin Tower, where the mighty world. of waters is foaming 
 and thundering and flowing on and around you till you seem with- 
 drawn from the world, and your very soul is filled with its subli- 
 mity. Indeed, in whatever way you think of them, they are what 
 can never be conceived of if j'ou have not seen them, and can 
 never be described if you have." — Hev. J. P. Chowns '^Summer 
 Furlough Across the Atlantic."
 
 NOTES. 163 
 
 NOTE 3a. 
 
 " Wheeling around their everlasting spheres, 
 Charged with the seasons, and the circling years." 
 
 The study of astronomy, or the contemplation of the starry 
 heavens, is one of the noblest sciences on which the mind of man 
 can be engaged. Compared to the eternal glories of the heavens 
 above us, what are all the boasted works of man upon earth ? 
 Little did the celebrated man referred to in these lines care about 
 amassing wealth — an object which to such a large degree engages 
 the minds of the inhabitants of Fairford. Up to an almost 
 patriarchal age, that renowned son of science was engaged in the 
 soul-enobling task of counting the glittering gems of night, 
 "whose blended light, as with a milky^ belt, invest the orient," of 
 watching "the pensHe planets wheel their circuit round the year," 
 and in measuring "the eccentric cycles of the comets" — a task 
 which has absorbed the attention of some of the greatest men in 
 all ages ; and though one after another of these intellectual Imni- 
 naries has been swept away by the hand of death, it may be truly 
 said that " the astronomer has ever lived, and never dies. The 
 sentinel upon the watch-tower is relieved from duty, but another 
 takes his place, and the vigil is unbroken. No — the astronomer 
 never dies ! He commences his investigation on the hill-tops of 
 Eden ; he studies the stars thi'ough the long centui-ies of antedi- 
 luvian life. The deluge sweeps from the earth its inhabitants, 
 their cities, and its monuments ; but when the storm is hushed, 
 and the heavens shine forth in beauty from the siunmit of Jloimt 
 Ararat, the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In Babylon he 
 keeps his watch, and among the Egj-ptian priests he inspfres a 
 thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of Shinar 
 — the temples of India — the pyramids of Egj^t, — are equally his
 
 164 NOTES. 
 
 watching places. When Science fled to Greece, his home was in 
 the schools of her pliilosophers ; and when darkness covered the 
 earth for a thousand years, he pvirsued his never-ending tasls; from 
 amidst the burning deserts of Arabia. "When science dawned in 
 Europe, the astronomer was there — toiling with Copernicus — 
 watching with Tycho — suffering with Galileo — triumphing with 
 Kepler." And though the present generation appears to be almost 
 altogether rivetted to wordly things, yet there are to be found those 
 who are unceasingly bent on exploring the wonders of the Almighty 
 in the earth, and his handywork in the glorious firmament, know- 
 ing that, as the poet Longfellow says — 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime ; 
 And departing, leave beliind \1s 
 rootprints on the sands of Time." 
 
 NOTE 4. 
 
 " The poor man's child worse treated than a slave." 
 
 Pew of the young of the jDresent time have any idea of the 
 hardships suffered by factory childi-en some forty or fifty years 
 ago. At that day, children not more than six or seven years of 
 age were torn from their beds at a very early hour in the morning 
 — even in the depth of winter —and huiTied to the factory, which 
 in some localities was two or three miles distant, and there, for fif- 
 teen or sixteen hours a day, shut out as it were from all inter- 
 coiu'se with the world, except for one single half-hour which was 
 allowed for dinner, viz., from twelve to half-past. In con-obora- 
 tion of these statements, I may add that when only six years old I 
 myself was sent by my -^-idowed mother to work in the factory ;
 
 NOTES. 165 
 
 and never shall I forget the hardships I had then to endure. I 
 well remember being suddenly disturbed in my innocent slumber, 
 and dragged out of bed ere I had had one-half of my natural rest ; 
 for my mother well knew the fearful consequences of my being a 
 few minutes too late ; she knew that I should be either turned 
 away or • severely punished ; for the overlookers at that time 
 appeared to act as if they had unbounded licence, and might 
 inflict whatsoever punishment they thought proper. And as it may 
 not be uninteresting to the young people of the present day to 
 know something of the life and daily toil of factory children in 
 days gone by, I may further state, that the mill to which I was 
 sent commenced running — winter and summer— at six o'clock in 
 the morning. At eight o'clock the bell rang for breakfast, but 
 the whirling wheel continued its course. All the hands were 
 compelled to keep at their work till the arrival of their mothers 
 with their scanty mess of pottage, which was handed to the door- 
 keeper through a slide in one of the panels of the door, and the 
 poor creatures had to eat their meals as best they could, all the 
 while attending to their respective work. At noon thirty minutes 
 were allowed for dinner ; and when four o'clock came the bell rang 
 again as the signal for tea. This meal was also handed through a 
 panel in the door, and eaten in the same prison-like manner as the 
 breakfast. After that, like so many malefactors, fatigued and 
 well-nigh exhausted, they were kept in durance till eight, and 
 very often till nine o'clock ; and then, to the intense delight of the 
 poor weakly little slaves, the machinery was brought to a stand. 
 I well recollect on one occasion, a little before the closing of the 
 mill, I was so overpowered with sleep that I dropped unconsciously 
 down amongst some bags of waste Ij'ing near me, where I was 
 found still sleeping at midnight. As I had not retui-ned home, 
 and no one having seen me quit the mill, a search was instituted, 
 which resulted in my being found in the manner above described.
 
 l66 NOTES. 
 
 Mr. Matthew Balmc, the indefatigable secretary to the York- 
 shire Central Short-Time Committee, in a paper read before the 
 Social Science Congress in Bradford, says : — " I can bear testi- 
 mony, fi'om my own exjjericnce, that even in this town (Brad- 
 ford) and neighboLU-hood, children were required to work in 
 worsted factories from three o'clock in the morning to ten at 
 night, with only fifteen minutes for breakfast, thirty minutes 
 for dinner, and fifteen minutes for tea, and this, too, for six 
 weeks together in brisk times. Another instance I well recol- 
 lect, where the regular time of work was from six o'clock in 
 the morning to eight at night, and no time was allowed for meals, 
 either breakfast, dinner, or tea." 
 
 If any measure was ever passed in the Senate House of England 
 worthy of being ranked as one of its noblest acts, thatmeasiire was 
 the Ten Hours Bill. Many were the gloomy forebodings of the 
 timid and distrustful when the Bill was first introduced ; and one 
 gentleman, who was then member for Manchester, ventm-ed to 
 prophecy, that " if such a BUI should ever pass, it would be the 
 downfall of England," or as it may be more fully expressed, our 
 mills and warehouses T\fould soon be closed for ever, oiu- merchants 
 and manufacturers would be compelled to seek a settlement in some 
 foreign country, where there would be no restriction upon the 
 hours of labour, and where their tjTannies would be allowed to 
 continue their uninterrupted course ; and that the manufacturing 
 to-ttms of England would soon become Like Goldsmith's " Deserted 
 Village" — a desolation and a ruin. 
 
 But is it so ? has all our commerce fled ? 
 Oastler, we know, is numbered -with the dead, 
 Yet on the billowy bosom of the deep, 
 Far as the winds and waves of Commerce sweep, 
 Since the young slaves of England found redress, 
 Is there one single merchant ship the less? 
 See yonder chimneys towering up on high. 
 With belching smoke beclouding all the sky, 
 As if to hide some deed of darkness done. 
 By blotting out the bright and glorious sun.
 
 NOTES. 167 
 
 NOTE 5. 
 
 " Till Oastler, like a mighty conqueror, came." 
 
 Fou the following particulars I am indebted to Mr. Matthew 
 Balme, who, as before stated, acted for a long period as the secre- 
 tary to the Central Short Time Committee, and worked assiduously 
 by the side of Mr. Oastler and Mr. Bull, to gain the Ten Hours 
 Bill. 
 
 The name of Richard Oastler (who while fighting the battle of 
 the poor Victory children won fur himself the title of " The Factory 
 King" ) is a name never to be pronounced iathis locality but with 
 reverence — a name that will live for ever in the hearts of the fac- 
 tory people. 
 
 Eichard Oastler was the son of Robert Oastler, a linen merchant 
 of Thirsk — a man who had been an intimate friend of John Wesley, 
 and who did much for the cause of religion. The foundation of 
 Eichard Oastler's social and political system was Christianity, and 
 he believed that the poor and oppressed had special claims on the 
 consideration of Christian men and Christian government. Con- 
 sistently with these convictions, he took for his motto " The Altar, 
 the Throne, and the Cottage ; " and thi-ough good and evil report 
 maintained the reasonableness of, and the advantages to be derived 
 from, a social system in which the temporal and moral condition of 
 society is made subservient to the laws of God. The manner in 
 which the factory question fii-st gained his notice is somewhat 
 remarkable. In the year 1830 he was on a visit to his friend Mr. 
 Wood, of Horton Hall, then an extensive worsted-spinner. Mr. 
 Wood had long endeavoured by his own private influence to reform 
 the factory system, but in vain ; and dui'ing this visit he expressed 
 his surprise that Mr. Oastler had not turned his attention to the
 
 1 68 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 matter, asaui-ing him there were cruelties daily practised towards 
 little childi-en in mills, which, if Mr. Oastler knew, he would strive 
 to prevent. " Cruelties in mills ! " exclaimed Mr. Oastler, " I do 
 not understand you." Mr. Wood then detailed the e^dls— nay, 
 horrors— of the factory system. He told him that little children 
 were worked fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen hours a-day in 
 some mills, without a single minute being set apart for meals. Sir. 
 Oastler was deeply impressed with what he heard, but did not 
 make any inmiediate resolution. It hajipened, however, that he 
 had to leave early next morning, and during the night he was 
 aroused by Mr. Wood's valet, and requested to attend Sir. Wood 
 in his bed-room. SIi\ Wood was leaning upon a table, beside his 
 bed, on which were two candles burning, and between them the 
 Bible. On advancing towards him, he grasped Mr. Oastler's hand 
 in the most affectionate manner, and said — " I have had no sleep 
 to-night, for I have been reading this Book, and in every page I 
 read my own condemnation. I cannot allow you to leave me 
 without a pledge that you will use aU your influence in endea- 
 vouring to remove from our factory system the cruelties which are 
 now regularly practised." Mr. Oastler was deeply affected by his 
 friend's earnestness, and promised to do all that he could to further 
 his wish. How faithfully that promise has been fulfilled is well- 
 known; and the result of his labours has conferred upon our 
 manufactui-ing population imtold benefits, both of a physical and 
 social character.
 
 NOTES. 169 
 
 NOTE 6. 
 "Their sweetest music is the buzzing wheel." 
 
 A SIMILAR idea is given in a recentlj'-written storj' of local life, 
 called " Stephen Howell," by Jlr. James Burnley, wherein, in 
 describing the appearance of the streets of Bradford on a market- 
 day, there occurs the following passage : — " Knots of business- 
 men, eagerly intent upon bu\-ing and selling, congi-egated at street 
 comers. These were the men who kept the machinery clattering 
 and the chimneys smoking. To them the hum of the machinery 
 was the sweetest music, and the smoking chimneys a more 
 delightful sight than is the Aui-ora BoreaHs to the enthusiastic 
 traveller." 
 
 NOTE 7. 
 
 " Alike can see the careworn mother go, 
 Tom ft-om her babe but newly-born ; and so 
 To tend the bounding shuttle as it flies. 
 The parting tear still glistening in her eyes." 
 
 XoTHixG in this world would to me be a greater source of grief, 
 than that a little one of mine should be taken fi.-om its warm and 
 comfortable bed before' six o'clock in the morning — -however incle- 
 ment and uninviting might be the weather, in the dark and cold 
 winter as well as in the summer— and hurried away to the house 
 of some neighbouring friend or acquaintance, there to remain all 
 the long day, without ever seeing its mother tiU perhaps six or 
 seven o'clock in the evening. But there are hundreds of instances 
 of a similar kind occiu' daily even at the present time ; and often 
 
 has my heart ached when I have met a poor woman with an infant 
 W
 
 lyO NOTES. 
 
 in her arms, at such an early hour, wrapt up in the remnant of an 
 old blanket, or some well-worn garment, convepng it from its 
 home to the house of some such' friend or acquaintance, in order 
 that it might he tended till her daily toil at the factory was ended, 
 when she could return and take it once more to its own home. I 
 have often wondered, when I have seen such a pitiable sight, how 
 any person could leave an infant of a month, or even of a year old, 
 in such a manner for so many hours ; and surely nothing but the 
 keenest necessity could induce them to do so. I do not say that it 
 is impossible to meet with a nurse who happens to be an angel in 
 the form of a woman, who will act the part of a mother. Indeed^ 
 such a one, I am proud to say, I have seen, and glad have I been 
 to witness the anxiety and solicitude with which she has watched 
 over it, exhibiting the same care for its welfare as if it had been 
 her own child. But, alas ! more often has it been my lot to see one 
 of an opposite character — one who, instead of caring for the little 
 creature, as in duty bound, would treat it as if she were devoid of 
 all feeling and affection. In my opinion, it is an injustice done to 
 the tender and delicate infant, for a parent to leave it with any 
 person for such a length of time, even although it might be well 
 cared for ; as, also, it is no doubt contrary to the will of the great 
 Creator,— He who feeds the young ravens when they cry, and 
 without whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground. At the 
 same time, it is, perhaps, little matter for wonder that a poor 
 woman, whose husband's income is not more than some twelve 
 shillings a-week, should be desirous of adding a little to that 
 scanty income by earning a trifle herself. And I envy not the 
 employer's conscience who is making his thousands of pounds 
 a-year, and can be content to deal so hardly with the working- 
 man.
 
 KOTES. 171 
 
 LIXER RUPrOSEB TO PE SPOKEN AFTER READIVG THE AROYE, BY 
 A MOTHER -WHILE LOOKING UPON HER INFAXT. 
 
 Leave that fair, that beauteous form, 
 
 Till the liTclon.GT day is past? 
 No! — I'll brave the bitterest storm, 
 
 Face the keenest, fiercest blast. 
 Ere I'll leave that child of mine, 
 
 From the dawning of the morn 
 Till the sun again decline. 
 
 In refulgent splendour borne. 
 
 But if ever Fate decree 
 
 Me to leave my babe so long. 
 Thou who fiU'st immensity. 
 
 Hear and listen to this song : 
 Be, O God! for ever near, 
 
 And prevent my frenzied hand, 
 Ere unsummoned I appear 
 
 In the far-ofE Spirit land! 
 
 NOTE 8. 
 
 THE POOR MAN. 
 
 " That some should be richer than others, is natm-al and is 
 necessary, and could be prevented only by gross violations of 
 right. Leave men to the free use of theix powers, and some will 
 accumulate more than theu- neighbom-s. But, to be prosperous is 
 not to bo superior, and should form no barrier between men. The 
 only distinctions which should be recognised, are those of the soul 
 of strong principle, of incorruptible integrity, of usefulness, of 
 cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking for truth. A man, in
 
 172 NOTES. 
 
 prox)Oi'tion as he has these claims, should be honoured and wel- 
 comed evcrj^-here. I see not why such a man, however coarsely, 
 if neatly dressed, should not be a respected guest in the most 
 splendid mansions, and at the most brilliant meetings. A man is 
 worth infinitely more than the saloons, and the costumes, and the 
 show of the universe. He was made to tread all those beneath his 
 ieet. AVTiat an insult to humanity is the present deference to 
 dress and upholstery, as if silkworms, and looms, and scissors, and 
 needles, could produce something nobler than a man ! Every good 
 man should protest against a caste founded on outward prosperity, 
 because it exalts the outward above the inward, the material above 
 the sphitual ; because it springs from and cherishes a contemptible 
 pride in superficial and transitory distinctions ; because it alienates 
 man from his brother, breaks the tie of conunon humanity, and 
 breeds jealousy, scorn, and mutual ill-will. Can this be needed to 
 social order ? " — Channing. 
 
 NOTE 9. 
 
 KEV. G. S. KILL. 
 
 The Rev. Canon BrnriELi) has kindly furnished the author 
 •\\ith the following brief particulars of the Ecv. G. S. Bull's life. 
 
 Tub Eev. Geouge Stkixgek Bill was born at Tattingstone, in 
 Essex, on the 12th of Jidy, 1800. His father was rector of the 
 paxish. He became, soon after his twelfth year, a midshipman in 
 the royal navy ; but on the close of the Eui-opean War he left the 
 8er\'icc. Shoi-tly after, he went ovxt as a missionary-catcchist to 
 Sierra I.conc, and remained in the deadly climate of the western 
 toast (/f Africa for foiu' years. He thc^n returned to England, and
 
 NOTES. 173 
 
 was admitted to holy orders by Archbishop Harcourt, and licensed 
 to the curacy of Hessle, near Hull. He continued there three 
 years, and was transferred to the incumbency of Hanging Heaton, 
 near Dewsbiu-y. This he held for eighteen months, and then 
 went to Bierley. During his residence there, his interest com- 
 menced in the condition of the factory operatives of the West 
 Eiding, and for their amelioration he laboured with an unflagging- 
 zeal. The church of St. James, Bradford, was built by John 
 Wood, Esq., of Thedden Grange, Hants, under his counsel, and he 
 was presented by that retuing, but noble-hearted man, to the 
 li\-ing. From there he went to St. Matthews', Bir m i n gham, and 
 after toiling for seven years at what was called " The Church in 
 the Wndemcss," he was presented to the rectory of St. Thomas', 
 in the same town. Sixteen years of hard service in this enonnous 
 parish quite destroyed his constitution, and in the year 1863 the 
 Bishop of Worcester sent him to the quiet parish of Almelej'^, some 
 mUes west of Hereford ; but it was too late— he was worn out in 
 his Master's ser\ices — and after less than two years he died on 
 August 2.0th, I860. 
 
 His name wall be loved and reverenced in Yorkshire for gene- 
 rations. He lived for others, not for himself. He now rests 
 from his labours, but his works do follow him. 
 
 7. Ward. Printer, Caxton Square, Dcwsbiiry.
 
 E R I\_A 
 
 TA 
 
 Page 9, iitli line, for " ^Yordsworth," read "Cowijcr." 
 
 Page Go, line 2, insert reference figure 3a, and sec corresponding 
 
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