Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN j 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 WAY-SlDi: FANCIES.
 
 WAY-SIDE FANCIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 FEANCES FREELING BEODERIP. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. 
 
 1857.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS. PRINTERS. WHITETRIARS.
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 I CANNOT bring the antique gracefulness 
 Of the acanthus leaf, to crown thy tomb, 
 Nor even a wreath of golden immortelles ; 
 Mine are but simple blossoms, kin to weeds ; 
 Yet, as the robins brought their offerLag 
 Of withered leaves, to strew upon the dead, 
 So do I lay this garland gently down 
 In perfect faith before thee, — it is thine. 
 Like the small rill beneath the eyes of night. 
 It does but mirror back those starry orbs 
 That gaze upon it with such loving eyes. 
 
 Ah, mine own Father, not too soon for thee 
 The rest and quiet of that early grave, — 
 I dare not wish thee back ! 
 
 Mat, 1857. 
 
 M -r>K-H^'^<0*'7/-|
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PArvE 
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. AN " OWRE TRUE TALE " . . . 1 
 
 THE LILT OF DEATH 24 
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A REFLECTION 34 
 
 THE SCULPTOR TO HIS MISTRESS* STATUE, AFTER HER DEATH . 39 
 
 THE PROMISE OF A VIOLET ....... 42 
 
 lilt's DOWER 46 
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS 48 
 
 A NEW CRUSADE 56 
 
 STELLDLA 65 
 
 SONNET 66 
 
 THE SUM OF A LIFE . . . . . • • .6/ 
 
 A DAIST ON A GRAVE 'i'S 
 
 LINES FOR MUSIC 79 
 
 IN C(ELO QOIES ^^ 
 
 HUMAN BUDS 82 
 
 "six DATS SHALT THOU labour" 87
 
 TUl 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE LOCKETS 
 
 THE CASKKT 
 
 GLASS HOUSES 
 
 THE MOTHER OF THE STAllVINU. SUGGESTED 13V A CASE 
 
 IN THE NEWSPAPERS 
 
 A PROTEST 
 
 TO THE GUDEMAN 
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS, AND THEIR RELATIONS 
 
 THE TWO BOUQUETS 
 
 THE HEARTSEASE 
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE 
 
 A maiden's OMENS 
 
 THE LITTLE CUP OF TEARS 
 
 SLEEP 
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS 
 
 childhood's glee 
 
 THE QUESTION 
 
 WOMAN S LOVE 
 
 DUMB FRIENDS 
 
 ROSES . . . . 
 
 LILLY OKAY 
 
 THE soul's forging . 
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE 
 
 MEMORY . . . . 
 
 THE PET NAME 
 
 PAGE 
 
 95 
 
 99 
 100 
 
 112 
 116 
 121 
 123 
 135 
 141 
 142 
 153 
 155 
 161 
 163 
 179 
 181 
 183 
 lo6 
 191 
 192 
 195 
 197 
 208 
 210
 
 CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 DAILY CARES   • 212 
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER . . . . . 213 
 
 THE SYREN 226 
 
 A RHYME 228 
 
 THE spring's last MESSENGERS 230 
 
 bubo's wanderings 232 
 
 a dream song 246 
 
 Mary's treasures . 248 
 
 the legacy 250 
 
 there is a skeleton in every house 251 
 
 only a woman 260 
 
 A PRAYER 263 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF LIFE 266 
 
 L KNVOI 268
 
 WAY-SIDE FANCIES, 
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 AN "OWRE TRUE TALE." 
 
 No good ever could come of that wedding ! All 
 Little Pitchard said so ! Now, Little Pitchard was a 
 small village in the west, much like others of the s6rt, 
 where agricultural labour was the order of tlie day, ' 
 In such places, where the fair sex find some employ- 
 ment in apple picking, bean setting, or hay making, 
 they have plenty of opportunity to retail the small 
 change of scandal ; and those who know by experience 
 what field work for women really is, are qiiite aware 
 that the conversations that take place are anything 
 but select or edifying. In all small country places, 
 scandal, like an inky stream, runs up the one main 
 street, branching off into various little channels uj) 
 the bye lanes, settling into a fair-sized puddle at the 
 
 i
 
 2 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 door of the village di-essmakcr, and finally accumu- 
 lating into a vast hlack pond opposite the one shop. 
 Little Pitchard felt itself vastly aggrieved when Sam 
 Diirston "fell over the pulpit," that being the elegant 
 vernacular of that imaginative little place for having 
 your banns put up. Now, matrimony l)eing a rare 
 thing among such a scanty population, ^\•hich subsisted 
 on two weddings a year, such an event was watched 
 and waited for witli intense excitement. How, when, 
 or where, Sam Durstou and Charty, or more properly 
 Charity Luke, first met, Avalked, courted, or made 
 love. Little Pitchai-d could not discover, and was wroth 
 accordingly. A wedding imder its very nose, and not 
 to know of it : to be thus quietly cheated out of its 
 usual and highly prized pi-yings and spyings ! Pieally 
 it was quite iniquitoiis, and no good ever coidd come 
 of it. Mrs. Sei-innpct made so much pi'ofit on the 
 sale of twicc-di'ied tea leaves, retailed as " excellent 
 four shilling Souchong," for the "tea mags" of the 
 place, that she sported a bran new bonnet on the 
 strength of it. l-'.li Pil>p, the blacksmith, sullenly 
 swore that Sain was a fool to be any woman's sammy ; 
 and Nancy Trivett protested she only pitied Charty, — 
 for she quite hated and abhoiTed Sam Durston, —
 
 MURDER WILL OUT, 6 
 
 indeed she did ! Mrs. Coddlin could not see what on 
 earth they meant to do, poor, idle, thriftless young 
 folks, that knew no more about housekeeping than 
 her flat iron ! 
 
 Now, the afore-mentioned scandal avers that Eli had 
 " spooned " and mooned after Chaity Luke for the 
 last two years, and even went so far as to nail up an 
 old horse shoe over her door " to ward oft" the hags." 
 And Nancy Trivett had wasted a host of little atten- 
 tions, including five new bonnets, and a sixpenny 
 valentine on Sam, while the couple expectant had 
 actually taken the identical cottage Mrs. Coddlin had 
 "her eye on" for the last six months, with the best and 
 most unfailing well in the parish, and a famous green 
 field opposite for a drying ground ! Thus private and 
 interested motives peeped through the anger of these 
 good folks ; but the mingled spite of all Little Pit- 
 chard put together (and that was not a little) fell short 
 of the concentrated malignity of old Hester Cobble- 
 dick, the " wise woman " of the place. What her 
 grudge was, no one knew ; unless that, like the old 
 fairy in the nursery tale, they omitted to ask her to 
 the wedding. 
 
 Hester Cobbledick was very old, and most super- 
 
 B 2
 
 4: MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 naturally ugly ; indeed she was more like a large toad 
 than a little old woman. She had the credit of all 
 the cattle diseases and rheumatics in the place, and 
 everybody feared and flattered her accordingly. The 
 veracious chronicle of Little Pitchard affirmed that 
 she " overlooked " Farmer Thorn's milk, and though 
 j\Irs. Thorn w^orked at it all day, she could not get the 
 butter to come till some one advised her to cross it 
 with an ash twig and spit in it, when it came directly. 
 In short, all the mischief that ill-luck or their own 
 carelessness brought upon them, was ascribed by the 
 good folks of Little Pitchard to old Hester Cobble- 
 dick. 
 
 The wedding day came, — and Charity Luke became 
 Mrs. Sam Durston ; but their ill- fortune followed 
 them up to the door of the chm-ch, for they were late,' 
 (thanks to the varied chronicle of time kept at Little 
 Pitcluu'd) and kept the pa)"son waiting half an hour, 
 and forgot tlie clerk's fee, which so ii-ritatcd that 
 touchy old functionary, that he threatened to punch 
 the bridegroom's head in the aisle ; to the utter 
 scandal of the vicar, the alarm of tlie bridal party, 
 and the great enjoyment of Little Pitchard in general. 
 
 The young couple, however, did not seem to take
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. » 
 
 much to heart the ill-will of their neighbours; perhaps 
 they were used to it. Three or four years passed on, 
 and added to their domesic hearth a round, sturdy, 
 fat urchin, with a stolidly grave face and heavy double 
 chin, oddly contrasted by laughing, twinkling eyes. 
 We grieve to say, a stern regard for truth compels 
 us to confess, that the domestic felicity of that same 
 hearth was not so great as it should be. Whether 
 the evil prognostications of the village had woi^ked 
 their own fulfilment, or mutual acquaintances had 
 blown little sparks into a blaze, according to their 
 usual amiable wont, is impossible to prove. One 
 thing only is certain : that Hester Cobblcdick's domi- 
 cile was within a stone's throw of their cottage, — in 
 fact, she was their only near neighbour. This, no 
 doubt, was one reason why she was summoned on the 
 day that ushered the aforesaid Master Tommy into 
 the world, — a mysterious tie, of which she took advan- 
 tage by intruding herself on every possible occasion, 
 however unwelcome. In fact, they fully realised the 
 impression of living constantly under an evil eye, and 
 no doubt, in Little Pitchard jJtirlance, were " over- 
 looked " to some purpose. 
 
 Be that as it may, squabbles became loud and
 
 b MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 freqiient, and bickerings were the order of the day. 
 Sam Durston, from a steady hard-working stonemason, 
 became wild and quarrelsome, frequenting the Red 
 Lion more than was necessary or economical, and 
 Charty, from a neat, blooming girl, became a coarse, 
 untidy scold. Little Pitchard shook its head with 
 solemn gravity, exulting in its wise forebodings, and 
 augured still worse for the wedded pair. Eli Pipp 
 ascertained that Sam's wages were stopped back for a 
 ]inaehing fine ; and Mrs. Coddlin discovered that most 
 of the furniture had disappeared from the now deso- 
 late-looking cottage ; while Nancy Trivett proclaimed, 
 with secret glee, that "the horrid wTctch beat his wife 
 awful." Consequently, Little Pitchard — sage, moral, 
 virtuous Little Pitchard — was quite scandalised, but 
 nowise astonished to see, one afternoon, a perfect gust 
 of domestic storm in the cottage, and to hear, en 
 passant, Charty vow, with anything Itut loving expres- 
 sions, tliat "she'd serve 'un oiit." Sam went off as 
 usual to the Red Lion, and tlicre meeting a few old 
 cronies, abru])tly declared Ins intention of " going up 
 the hills," — that being the set phrase for a joiu'uey 
 after employment into Wales. He imbibed his usual 
 potations, and then took leave of his old mates,
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. / 
 
 casiially mentioning his intention of calling at liis 
 cottage to fetch his rough coat. Next morning, of 
 com-se, all Little Pitchard was cognisant of the fact of 
 the fracas and its consequences, and the cause of 
 quarrel, and every expression used by the belligerents, 
 was repeated and commented on over all the tea-tables 
 of the place. That is to say, the native version, or 
 rather versions of the difference, — for every one had 
 their own theory on the subject. Our own private 
 idea is, that no one tale bore more than half a grain 
 of truth — but this is quite a confidential opinion. 
 
 Little Pitchard accordingly moralised long and 
 sadly on the case, animadverting strongly on the 
 calm way in which Charty took her husband's 
 absconding. Indeed, now he was gone, a strong- 
 tide of pity set in, all in Sam's favom*. Mrs. 
 Scrumpet averred that he'd never been the same 
 since he mamed, — " He used to be a good customer of 
 hers, but Mrs. Durston preferred walking three miles 
 to Barkham for what she wanted ; no doulit she had 
 her reasons for it ! " Nancy Trivett wiped her eyes, 
 and said she felt like a sister for him, and if she only 
 knew his address, she'd write and tell him so ! As for 
 Charty, she snubbed every one abruptly who offered
 
 8 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 her cither condolence or advice. A few months passed 
 on, and at last, no one exactl}- knew how, odd whispers 
 began to buzz about, in regard to Sam's disappearance. 
 Little Pitchard began to inquire how it came to 
 be an asserted fact that Sam did go at all. Did any- 
 bod}^ see him go, or had anybody heard from him 
 since ? Certainly not. As to this last supposition, 
 Abednego Potter, who kept the post-office, could take 
 his oath that no letter had come from him since. 
 What his gi'ounds were for this confident assertion 
 Little Pitchard did not inquire, — perhaps wisely afraid 
 of shutting up a prolific and bountiful sotu'ce of 
 village enlightenment. 
 
 It was remembered that Sam had intended going 
 home before he left the village, — the host of the Red 
 Lion had watched him up to the privet hedge of his 
 cottage garden, but no one had seen him any fm-ther. 
 Rumoiu' gi-ew, and waxed larger, like a great snowball, 
 Init no one dared openly accuse Charty of the deed, for 
 moral courage, or indeed any courage at aU, was not 
 one of Little Pitchard's virtues. 
 
 While every gi-ain of fact and falsity Avas carefully 
 sifted and collected by the scandalous coteries, as may 
 be supposed, no one was more active tlian old Hester
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 9 
 
 Cobbledick. One fine; clear autumn evening she 
 invited Sally Wilkins, the quilter, and Betty Andrews, 
 the village nurse, two somewhat kindi-ed spirits, to tea 
 with her. The three old crones looked like the em- 
 bodied essence of the envy, hatred, and malice of 
 Little Pitchard, nor did they belie their vocation. Of 
 course, the staple of conversation, after a little coquet- 
 ting with Parson Stokes's maid serv^ants, and Squire 
 Jones's bru-nt hayrick, was Sam Durston's disappearance. 
 At first old Hester said little, till, looking out of win- 
 dow, she spied Master Tommy, the fat boy aforesaid, 
 playing at the village pump with an old tin lid and a 
 bone. Hester winked at her guests, and hobbling to 
 the door, tempted the child in with a bit of the hot 
 cake which, plentifully buttered, stood before the fire. 
 Tom's eyes glistened, — he had never seen such a thing 
 before, — poor child ! his had been one perpetual banyan 
 day ! He tasted it, and his eyes sparkled still more ; 
 he began to grow chatty, and talked familiarly with 
 the three old hags, who bore no slight resemblance to 
 " the fatal three " in Macbeth, wiling some unlucky 
 child to be an ingi-edient in their broth kettle. " Well, 
 Tommy, my dear, and where is your poor daddy 
 gone ? "
 
 10 MURDER WILL OUT, 
 
 " Oh ! " said Tommy, fixing his eyes on another 
 piece of cake, " he's all gone ! " 
 
 " Tommy, will yon have another hit of cake ? " 
 Tommy gravely assents. 
 
 "Now, my dear, yon tell your poor old nursey, 
 where you see 'un last ! " 
 
 " He were a lacin' on his boots," says Tommy, medi- 
 tating, " and mother had a got the big wood-chopper 
 a-hind 'un " 
 
 " The Lard presarve us ! " groaned the gossips, in 
 horror and secret delight. 
 
 " Hnsht yere tongue, woman," said old Hester, 
 angrily. " Here, Tommy, my man, here's some 
 lozengers for you, — do 'ee tell I if ye're mother hit 'un 
 wi it ? 
 
 " Yes," said Tommy absently, as well as his mouthful 
 of cake would let him, but still clutching greedily at 
 the promised dainties. Significant glances were ex- 
 changed between the worthy trio. 
 
 " What lUd she do wi' 'un, Tommy, love ? " coaxed 
 " Betty Anders," as she was ])o])ularly called. 
 
 " I doant know," said the greedy child, who saw 
 that all the cake was gone, and probably felt the effects 
 of his unaccustomed stuffing, and now began to roar
 
 . MURDER WILL OUT. 11 
 
 mid shout, " he did want to goo-o whoam ! " Home 
 they were forced to let him go, after trying all the dex- 
 terous pumping and bribing of their united strength, 
 but all in vain, for they could gain nothing farther. 
 Accordingly, with a sly poke and a thump, accompanied 
 by a hypocritically affectionate leave-taking, old Hester 
 Cobbledick let him out, and returned to her cronies. 
 Long and eagei'ly did they invent and imagine eveiy 
 detail of the transaction — from the laced boots up to 
 the blood-stained hatchet — till next morning, Little 
 Pitchard, albeit an easy, dignified place, was sent 
 almost into fits by the circumstantial narration of the 
 awful murder of poor Sam Durston by his wicked wife. 
 But that wife, the once pretty, laughing Charty, the 
 iiTitated, neglected woman of later years, was not 
 shocked or pained by this dreadful accusation, for she 
 had taken her chdd the same night and had gone off, 
 — no one knew where. Little Pitchard said it was 
 conscious guilt ; but it was helpless and impotent in 
 the matter, for, as tliere was no hody, there could be no 
 " crowner to sit on it," and it was therefore left 
 to weary itself oiit with its own conjectures. The 
 vicar and the squire inquired into the matter as far as 
 they could, but nothing further transpired. There
 
 12 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 were but few debts, and the scanty sticks of fui-niture 
 left, quite covered the amoimt ; and Mrs. Scrumpet, 
 who had helped herself to a long-coveted chimney- 
 corner settle, as a liquidation for her little account, 
 bore her loss very patiently, and talked pathetically, 
 with her hard, sour face, about " poor Sam ! " 
 
 Little Pitchard was, moreover, at this time particu- 
 larly busy about its first annual wedding, the banns 
 having been asked, for the last time, of Eli Pipp and 
 Nancy Trivett, "both of that i)lace ; " and Mrs. 
 Coddlin quietly took possession of the long-coveted 
 cottage. 
 
 PART TWO. 
 
 Our second glimpse at Little Pitchard is after a 
 lapse uf seven years, wlien we find that interesting 
 little place in nuicli the same state of temper and civili- 
 sation in which we left it. Seven years will, however, 
 work some changes even in the best regulated families — 
 changes of deatlis or marriages, children grow up into 
 yoimg people, and middle-aged folks begin to feel 
 elderly, and wear spectacles. Little Pitchard, however.
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 13 
 
 is still its own dear self in the gossiping line, in 
 which as yet it stands unrivalled. 
 
 It is a clear, cold day at the end of March, with 
 bright gleams of sun that do not in the least counter- 
 act the keen March wind, that is raising a "king's 
 ransom " in the shape of clouds of dust along all the 
 highways. The bean-setters can fully appreciate the 
 nipping, biting keenness of the air, and avow frankly, 
 in their own peculiar idiom, " that they be pretty nigh 
 scrammed ! " There are six of them at work in 
 Farmer Thorn's field, each with her canvas apron 
 made iip into a large bag in front to contain the beans, 
 as they are paid, not by time, but by the quantity 
 they put in. Each carries a " planting stick," which, 
 for the benefit of the uninitiated, we will explain to be 
 a thing somewhat resembling a long attenuated peg 
 top, with a cross bar on one side. It is shod with iron, 
 to dibble a hole in which the bean is drojjped. We of 
 Little Pitchard are much too far behind the rest of 
 the world to indulge in drills or any such vanities ; we 
 hold all machines in holy horror, as taking the bread 
 out of poor folk's mouths. One of the bean-setters, a 
 short, stout woman, in a dark-blue print gown, a faded 
 shawl, flap bonnet, and clumsy nailed men's boots,
 
 14 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 turns round, on completing lier row, and discovers the 
 countenance of the quondam Nancy Trivett, now Mrs. 
 Pi])p. Time has not by any means laid a gentle hand 
 on her, nor five children and a drunken husband added 
 much to her personal attractions. Moreover, two years 
 after their marriage, Eli, while shoeing a horse, received 
 a kick that broke his right arm. Kind Little Pitchard, 
 after its usual wont, remarked that Squire Dalton's 
 quiet mare " Pearl " was never known to kick before, 
 and consequently Eli must have had a " wee drappie 
 in liis 'ee," and made it wince by some awkward treat- 
 ment. Be that as it may, Eli had been utterly dis- 
 abled from work for some months, and had never 
 since been capable of anything beyond little tinkering 
 jobs. Consequently the family finances had been in 
 anything but a flourisliing condition, and JSTancy 
 had been forced to lay aside her i)ride, and take any 
 work she could get to fvn'uish lier cliildren and 
 herself with a meal. 
 
 " Well, Nancy, ha'nt 'ee heared the news ? " inquired 
 Polly Darch. 
 
 " No," said Nancy, snappishly. " I catched cold the 
 day as Mrs. Coddliirs flue took fii-e. I wei'e there to 
 woi'k, and what wi' the fright, and the water, and tlic
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 15 
 
 hurry o' riddiii' out her things, I ha'nt been the same 
 since." 
 
 " Ah, and so Mrs. Coddlin be forced to go to the 
 poorhouse, and good enough for the hkes o' she. But 
 I do mean the tale about the Martin's house being 
 troubled." 
 
 " No, I ha'nt a heard," said Nancy indifferently. 
 
 " Why, there be such strange noises and sounds of a 
 night, that they ha'nt had a wink of sleep these ten 
 nights. Some'at keeps a walkin' and a pounding 
 round about the house all the night." 
 
 "Aye," said Sally Darch, "and they say, whatever 
 'tis, it scrapes its feet on the door step ! " 
 
 " Bill told we," said Biah Cox, " that he'd a been 
 down to the moor yesterday to order a load of turf 
 for Mrs. Scrumpet, and Jem Martin told 'un they saw 
 footprints all round the house on th' earth, and 'twere 
 like the mark of a cow, wi' a split hoof like ! " 
 
 " Lord, Biah ! " said the other, " 'tis terrible ! And 
 father do say he do knoiv 'tis Sam Diu'ston's ghost." 
 
 " Wliat ! " said Nancy, now strongly excited ; " What 
 do 'em say ? " 
 
 "Why father says as how 'twere always known 
 that Sam Durstou never did go to the hills after all,
 
 16 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 and he can mind how old Hester Cobbledick that's 
 dead now, told how little Tom Durston saw liis mother 
 kill 'un wi' a big wood-chopper." 
 
 "'Tis tme enougli," said Biah ; "and after she'd 
 killed 'un, she went up the lane to Jack Stone's, and 
 he and she, and Nelly Stone, took 'lui u}) to their boat 
 on the canal just by, and he rowed 'un down to Martin's 
 house, and buried 'un there somewhere." 
 
 " The folks do say that Jack and Nelly do always go 
 about together," said Sally. " You never see one, but 
 t'other isn't fm- off, and ftither says they be 'fraid o' 
 one another's tellin'." 
 
 "Come, maidens," said Biah, "you be a putting 
 thick holes too close," 
 
 '•' Well," said Nancy, " I did never think no good o' 
 Charty ; she were a deal too fine and stuck up for I, 
 wi' her brooches and her lilack aprons ! " 
 
 " If 'twere in tli' old times, the parson would luV 
 had smnmut to do wi' it," said Biali. " My mother 
 have a told many's the time how a ghost were laid in 
 Fanner BmToughs' brewhouse, and were driv' to the 
 well in th' oi'chard, and bound to stay there for a 
 thousand years ! " 
 
 Here all further revelations wei'e broken in uj)on by
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 17 
 
 Farmei- Thorn, who came to see how they were getting 
 on, and to keep a sharp eye that they did not plant 
 the beans too thick, which, though a speedier mode of 
 getting rid of their measures, was not so conducive to 
 the well-doing of his crop. Meanwhile, the other kind 
 of crop, viz. scandal, like Jack's wonderful bean, gei'- 
 minated in a night, and hj next day all Little Pitchard 
 was in possession of a full, particular, and circumstan- 
 tial account of " poor Sam Durston's walking," and 
 gloried in all the notoriety of having a mm-der and a 
 ghost of its own. It was now the turn of Joe Butts 
 of the Red Lion to make a haiwest of the news, and 
 no doubt he availed himself of the occasion. The 
 little tap-room was quite full, and the event of the day 
 was of course the toi)ic discussed. Bill Cox was the 
 centre of the group, and was detailing the last tidings ; 
 how Jem Martin had for a long time missed his 
 potatoes, and thought some one must have stolen 
 them ; when on setting a trap one night he caught a 
 "want." Now, a "want" is the provincial title of 
 the little gentleman in black velvet of Jacobite 
 memory, commonly called a mole. It seemed these 
 animals, assisted by rats, had committed nightly de- 
 predations on Jem's potatoes, and on catching the
 
 18 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 individual in question, he traced him to las hiding- 
 place or storehouse. Here he found a good many of 
 his stolen potatoes, and something more than he bar- 
 gained for. On digging out the hole, he came to a 
 bone that had evidently belonged to some human 
 creatm'e, and looked like part of an arm or leg. 
 
 Here was the elucidation of the mysteiy — the reason 
 of the troubling ; and no doubt poor Sam Dm'ston's 
 mortal remains were inteiTed beneath the rats' larder. 
 This story was confirmed by the entrance of Ben 
 Darch, the vicar's gardener, who announced that Mr, 
 Todd, the doctor, had called on "meastcr" that 
 morning, to tell him of his intention of driving down 
 to Jem's cottage on the moor, for the piu'posc of dig- 
 ging out the hole and finding the body. The vicar 
 and Dr. Todd had aiTanged that it was to be carried 
 in a roughly knocked-up shell to the belfry, there to 
 await the coroner's inquest. 
 
 At this point of the story the doctor's own man 
 entered, and was smrounded by a cluster of eager and 
 excitctl ([ucstioners. He gravely and quietly drank 
 off his cu}) of cider, accepted one of half a dozen ready 
 pipes offered to him, and tlien vouchsafed to inform 
 his impatient auditors that " Dr Todd was gone up to
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 19 
 
 the ' House ' to see the Squire, who was laid up with a 
 sudden attack of gout." Hereupon skilfully pausing, 
 he was again assailed by a host of confused interro- 
 gations from the assembled company, who by dint of 
 bawling, hustling, and talking foiu* at a time, elicited 
 the foct that " measter " and he had, in company with 
 Jem, dug almost all the gaixlen over without the least 
 success, or trace of a body. In the midst of a dead 
 pause of astonishment caused by this intelligence, a 
 quiet-looking man, who had been sitting in the chimney- 
 corner, suddenly rolled about in seeming convulsions, 
 to the vast alarm of the assembled company, who 
 crowded round him. After a variety of remedies had 
 been suggested by everybody, the very mention of 
 which seemed to add to his contortions, the doctor's 
 man took his hat to fetch his master. On seeing this 
 the stranger sprang up, and taking off his brown wide- 
 awake, and struggling with another jDaroxysm that 
 almost choked him, asked if no one remembered him. 
 
 " I'll be shot," shouted Bill Pike, "if that ain't Sam 
 Durston or his ghost ! " 
 
 Sam's answer was a good substantial thump on the 
 back, to prove his flesh and blood qualifications. All 
 was now worse uproar than before, for questions and 
 
 2
 
 20 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 suppositions rained thick and fast upon Sam till he 
 fiiirly gave in, and sat down, laughing weakly like a 
 child. After order was a little restored, he told them 
 his story. He had gone oft', as he said, into Wales, 
 and, getting a very good job of mason-work at a lucky 
 moment, everything had seemed to prosper with him ; 
 he had but little leism'e, and had consequently found 
 no time to indulge in di-inking. Things had gone well 
 with him ; he had obtained a long lease of a very 
 tumble-down cottage for a mere trifle, and had by hard 
 work and constant thrift converted it into a tidy little 
 shop. He had begun by selling a few cakes, balls of 
 cotton, and "lozengers," and at the present moment 
 was doing quite a roai'ing trade in a small way. 
 
 " And Charty ? " 
 
 Ah, poor Charty, thanks to Little Pitchard's tender 
 mercies, her life had been none of the pleasantest ; and 
 so she had made up her mind to take her chance 
 and follow him, on hearing the wicked stories and 
 insinuations of the place. They had made up their 
 quaiTcl, and better days had brought better feelings 
 and deeds. She had worked very hard as well as him- 
 self, and they had now as tidy a shop as you could see 
 anywhere.
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 21 
 
 Some one here inquired what had brought him back, 
 when he rephed that, having business connected with 
 his trade at Barkham, he had walked over to Little 
 Pitchard to see how things were going on. And now 
 he wanted to know a little in his tm-n. What had 
 become of Mrs. Scrumpet, as he had seen a blue 
 board with gold letters, " Scrip, Tailor and Woollen- 
 Draper," posted where her shop-window used to be. 
 
 Joe Butts said, that about half a year before Mr. 
 Jacks, the newly appointed inspector of weights and 
 measures, had dropped in "promiscuous like" on his 
 rounds and detected a bad penny soldered on to the 
 bottom of her cheese scale, and found her weights 
 deficient in the proportion of an ounce short to the 
 pound. She had been heavily fined, as this was not 
 her first offence. A new shop had also been started, 
 with a grand glass front and canvas shade, where 
 articles were vended far below her prices ; so she had 
 been obliged to decline business, and enter on private 
 life as a charwoman. 
 
 Sam next inquired for his old friend Hester Cobble- 
 dick, and Joe replied she had been dead some years, 
 but she had not come to her death by natural means. 
 She had been severely admonished by the vicar for
 
 22 MURDER WILL OUT. 
 
 some fortune-telling and conjuring with some of the 
 young folks ; and, as a punishment, he scratched her 
 name off his soup list. She was bitterly angry at this, 
 and promised to })ay the 2)arson out for it. It was 
 supposed she had pulled out some of the palings that 
 fenced in an outlying strip of his vegetable garden, on 
 purpose to let in a litter of young pigs that were kept 
 in a field beyond. Whether one of the pigs had run 
 against her and upset her was not known, but in the 
 morning she was found lying in great agony with a 
 broken leg, and her apron tied up full of the pieces of 
 wood from the hole in the palings, through which the 
 pigs had obtained ingress to feast on the vicar's early 
 cauliflowers. The night had been very frosty and cold, 
 and the exposure to the night air had, no doubt 
 increased the mischief The vicar had kindly foi'given 
 her, and visited her anxiously and often ; but she 
 lingered on in sullen inipeuitcnce for a week or so, and 
 died, raving like a maniac. 
 
 Sam Durston listened gravely to 1lie history of 
 his old enemy's cud, and then related how she had 
 sown mischief and discord in liis Iiuuk.', and had 
 been the cause of all the misery of his early manicd 
 life.
 
 MURDER WILL OUT. 2 3 
 
 "And how's thy boy, Sam, — how's little Tom T' 
 inquired Bill Cos. 
 
 " Hearty, thank ye. Bill, and he've got a little sister, 
 now, a pretty, blue-eyed little maid ; we called her 
 ]\Iercy, after my jwor mother. She be a terrible pet 
 with I. And so ye see — with Charity and Mercy by 
 my fire-side — I can forgive and forget, even Little 
 Pitchard." 
 
 Poor Little Pitchard ! After all its moral horror 
 and judicial sagacity, to be quietly made such a laugh- 
 ing-stock. And the worst of it was, that other neigh- 
 bouring villages, who bore it a grudge, were quite 
 delishted to 2;et such a crow over it. So that " Who 
 killed Sam Durston 1 " became quite as insulting 
 a taunt to a Little Pitchardite, as the famous allusion 
 to " puppy pie and Marlow Bridge " is conducive to 
 rousing the ire of an Eton bargee. 
 
 Poor Little Pitchard ! we repeat. It has hung its 
 diminished head, and sung small ever since !
 
 THE LILY OF DEATH. 
 
 The Monastery of St. John, Cell of Father Chrysographus. 
 
 What a bright day ! The sun shines out so warm, 
 
 I do not need to set my miniatures 
 
 By any other help ; the minium mixed 
 
 With due proportion of vermihon, glows 
 
 Lively and warm upon the parchment's face. 
 
 The very sunbeams tangle in my work, 
 
 And riui along each tracery of gold. 
 
 Enter Felix. 
 Good-morrow, Father ! I have come to see 
 Your progress in your missal — how goes on 
 The delicate work 1 — azure, and green, and gold, 
 Glow in its leaves like liquid jewels — see. 
 You have outdone yourself ; this title-page 
 Is worthy of its subject. Oh, how fair 
 Is this Madonna ! with those golden liraids 
 Of bright hair flowing rountl her, like the rays 
 Of sunshine on a fomitaiu !
 
 THE LILY OF DEATH. 25 
 
 FATHER CHRTSOGKAPHITS. 
 
 I am glad 
 You do admire my book ; a toil of love 
 That lightened many a sad and gloomy hour, 
 With thoughts and forms of beauty, drawing up 
 My soul above this dark and narrow cell, 
 To a blest commune with celestial things. 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 What brilliant hues ! How, do you call this red 1 
 Ts this Dutch cinnabar 1 — this tender oTcen, 
 Like the first primrose-bud of Spring, before 
 The delicate yellow tinges it , and this ? — 
 Surely you robbed our blue and smiling skies 
 To win this azure. Tell me, Father, whence 
 You gain your colours — all these brilliant dyes ? 
 
 FATHER OHRYSOQRAPHUS. 
 
 From many a varied source we gather them ; 
 Some are rich earths of many kinds and hues, 
 Tempered and blended by the skilful hand 
 To fit consistence ; and the deep, dark mine 
 Contributes many a mineral and ore, 
 Besides the precious metals, niddy gold
 
 26 THE LILY OF DEATH, 
 
 And shining silver ; many a foreign tree 
 Distils rare giuns to temper these ; and then, 
 We borrow from the fields to swell our store. 
 The blossoms that in Nature's usual coiu'se 
 Would fade and then decay, and leave no trace 
 Of all their varied hues, and colours fair, 
 Now lend their tints to bloom immoi'tally 
 Upon our pages, giving back their charms 
 To glorify their Maker, and His shrine. 
 The azure blossom* growing 'mid the corn. 
 And di'inking in the colour of the skies, 
 MuTors it back in mimic rivalry. 
 The meek and lowly violet brings a dye 
 Meet for the Virgin's robe, and when we seek 
 For " pasta verde " for our grass or trees. 
 The juice of rue gives us a sober green. 
 Or the blue lilies yield a tenderer tint. 
 The dyer's weedt resigns its fragrant breath, 
 To add its golden yellow to the rest. 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 AVhy, then, you almost need King Solomon, 
 
 * The blue corn-bottle, Cj'anus centaurea. 
 
 + Reseda luteola, the mignonette, from wliicli is made " Giallo 
 Santo," Yellow-lake.
 
 THE LILY OF DEATH. 27 
 
 To learn the properties of every plant ; 
 And if he saw your lily blooming here, 
 He'd pluck its shining vestiu-e for himself. 
 How exquisitely you have finished it ! 
 The tiny bells are threaded tenderly 
 Upon the delicate stalk, the very dew 
 Might fall upon it, thinking still to find 
 A pearly chalice in its blossoms white. 
 The lily seems a favourite flower of yours. 
 Yet, if report says true, you have no cause 
 To bear much love to them, for I have heard. 
 That ere a brother of your order dies, 
 He finds upon his seat within the church 
 A blooming lily, laid by angel hands. 
 For Death's Annunciation. Is this true 1 
 
 FATHER CIIRYSOGRAPnnS. 
 
 'Tis even as you say ; and for this cause 
 I joined the order. I have waited long, 
 And seen our earthly lilies bloom and fade 
 Full thirty times since then, but still await 
 The flower of Heaven, whose tardy blossoming 
 Seems doubly long to those who wait for it.
 
 28 THE LILY OF DEATH. 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 And do you long for death so eagerly ? 
 Methinks that the inferior flowers of earth 
 Would suit me better than such omens dark. 
 I'd rather have the peasant maiden's wealth 
 Of pearly water-buds, from quiet brooks, 
 Or valley-lilies from the nearest wood. 
 And yet I know not ! if my youth were past. 
 And these quick pulses, whose strong healthy beat 
 Sends the warm life-blood to a joyous heart, 
 Chilled to your languid measure — I might think 
 Life was not such a sunny holiday 
 As when the world and I were gay and young. 
 
 FATHER CURYSOGRAPHUS. 
 
 Ay, thou wilt find a change, and not alone 
 Does tlie dim shade of age creep o'er the fi-amc 
 And bow its stately form to feebleness ; 
 But e'en the heai*t itself grows old and sere. 
 And the same trumpet-call that roused our youth 
 To hottest fire, now falls upon the ear 
 Almost unheeded by the age-dulled sense. 
 In years gone by I loved the world as well 
 As thou dost now, but calmer age since then 
 Kevealod the value of my early di'eams.
 
 THE LILY OP DEATH. 29 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 Father, though several years have passed away 
 
 Since first this cell became my favourite haunt, 
 
 I never heard thee speak so of thyself 
 
 As now thou hast ; long has thy wisdom been 
 
 A steady counsellor unto my youth ; 
 
 And like the wary pilot, guiding off 
 
 The giddy bark from rocks and quicksands near, 
 
 My hasty inexperience hast thou taught 
 
 To profit hj thy counsel calm and high. 
 
 Deem me not idle or impertinent, 
 
 If I do urge thee to unlock thy breast ; 
 
 Nor think that cvuiosity alone 
 
 Could prompt my wish to know thy secret grief. 
 
 FATHER CHRYSOGRAPHUS. 
 
 I do believe thee, Felix, and although 
 The tale has never passed these lips till now, 
 Yet something urges me to tell thee all. 
 Youth never throbbed more eagerly and strong 
 Within thy heart, than once it did in mine. 
 This trembling hand, that guides the pencil now. 
 Then bore a sword that never left its sheath 
 But in its countiy's cause, and won a fame
 
 30 THE LILY OF DEATH. 
 
 Second to none, where all were brave and true. 
 My cup of life seemed sparkling to the brim, 
 Nor did it lack love's wi*eath of roses bright 
 To cruwn the goblet ; — she I loved was fair. 
 Even among the fairest, and as good 
 And pm-e as she was gentle and beloved. 
 No idle follies harboiu-ed in her heart ; 
 But truth, and love, and maiden innocence 
 With Avhite and dove-like pinions, nestled there. 
 I loved her with the fervour of my youth. 
 And joyously we dreamed of future days, 
 To wake despairing from that happy dream. 
 For she was destined for another's arms. 
 And prayers and tears of bitterest agony 
 Won her no respite from tlie hated suit. 
 They dragged her to the altar, to compel 
 Those faithful lips to utter vows profane ; 
 But their power ended there — before the shrine 
 She was set free : the silver cord was loosed. 
 The golden bowl was shattered by the fomit. 
 
 I saw them bear her to her cpiict grave : 
 
 The trembling dove was harboxu'ed in the ark ; 
 
 Her quivering wings had borne her wearily
 
 THE LILY OF DEATH. 31 
 
 Over the troubled waters to her rest. 
 
 The virgin hly garland on her brow 
 
 Was not more calm than was her gentle face ; 
 
 And the still peace stole o'er my aching heart. 
 
 Upon the pulseless breast, that heaved no more 
 
 With the unquiet tide of life, there lay 
 
 Her golden cnicifix : her folded hands 
 
 Pressed gently over it ; and I recalled 
 
 All her meek life — her chdd-like faith and trust — 
 
 And knew that, a bright angel, she was gone 
 
 Before her Father's throne. I left her then, 
 
 And in her name and mine, forgave them all 
 
 The wrong and sorrow thej^ had wrought us both ; 
 
 Then, with a heart dead to all earthly hope, 
 
 I sought this quiet shelter near her grave. 
 
 They planted snowy lilies over it. 
 
 And thirty springs have seen their blossoms grow, 
 
 And thirty winters shed their snows on me. 
 
 They are my calendar — I date my life 
 
 But by their blossoming and their decay ; 
 
 And long and patiently I've watched, and lioped 
 
 To see tlie signal lily laid for me 
 
 In my accustomed place.
 
 32 • THE LILY OF DEATH. 
 
 The Chapel — Father Chrysographcs. 
 Enter Felix. 
 Good evening, Father ! 
 
 FATHER CURTSOGRAPHUS. 
 
 Benedicite ! 
 Comest thoxi, dear son, to take my last farewell 1 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 How mean you, Father ; ai-e you going hence 1 
 
 FATHER CHRTSOGRAPHUS. 
 
 Ay, Felix, like a weary traveller 
 At the last stage of his long joui'ney home. 
 The time is come : the vesper bell had rung, 
 When, passing to my visual place, I saw 
 The warning angel calmly standing there. 
 The token lily gleaming in her hand ! 
 
 FELIX. 
 
 Oil, my dear Father, must I part with thee ? 
 Alas ! it is so ; for I see thine eyes 
 Gleam with uncaiihly fire — the strength of youth 
 Upx-aisc once more thy bent and aged foiin.
 
 THE LILY OF DEATH. 33 
 
 FATHER CHRYSOQRAPHUS. 
 
 Mourn not, my son ; the labourer does not grieve 
 When all the heat and toil of day are past, 
 And home invites him to its welcome rest. 
 
 I saw her, Init how changed ! her spotless robe 
 Glistened like woven sunbeams, and her hair — 
 Those golden tresses that I loved so well — 
 Flowed like a glory round that radiant face, 
 That never more shall know the stain of teai'S. 
 Those tender eyes were fixed upon me then, 
 Fresh with the smile that grew in Eden last. 
 Beneath its influence, this feeble clay 
 Seemed like a fetter falling gently off 
 To let the immortal spirit rise, unchained 
 By any link of earth ; this poor weak heart, 
 That throbbed so painfully, grows young again, 
 To-moiTow's sun shall waken bird and bee, 
 And smile upon earth's lilies, as it did 
 Through all those thirty years I tended them ; 
 But I shall wake no more — these eyes have gazed 
 Upon the glory of that Eden bloom. 
 And close at last to earth and all its flowers.
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A REFLECTION. 
 
 " That space of inky darkness seems to be a field for Fancy to 
 play her revels in. She may call up other features to meet iis, 
 instead of the reflection of our own ; or, as in the spells of Hallowe'en, 
 which we learned in childhood, some unknown form may be seen 
 peeping over our shoulder." 
 
 Scoffs Chronicles of the Canongate. 
 
 A LOOKING-GLASS, — a coltl bright piece of silvered 
 crystal, in a frame of old dark oak, cai-ved to represent 
 a wi-eath of roses, with hei-e and there a buttei-fly 
 settled on the flowers. 
 
 A foolish fancy — to shape so hard and strong a 
 material into the likeness of those beautiful but frail 
 objects, and after all, it only has the appearunce, as 
 any reasonable person would suppose, of a very stifl" 
 attempt at an impossibility, and ending in quite i\, 
 ludicrous caricatiu-e. 
 
 Now, had it been a garland of ivy, or oak loaves, 
 the iinfitness of the idea would not have struck us so 
 forcibly ; for there is a more solid substance about 
 these last -mentioned leaves that, connected with the
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A REFLECTION. 35 
 
 recollection of their evergi-een properties, makes them 
 a far more appropriate oi*nament. But the fragile 
 and ethereal rose, with the fluttering leaves attached 
 so slightly to the glowing heart, that a sudden breeze 
 will scatter them ere withered ; and that eloquent 
 type of the soul, the butterfly, whose brilliant hues 
 and minute plumes vanish at the touch of a finger, — 
 pshaw ! What taste some of those old artists must 
 have had after all, — even worthy of the practical sar- 
 casms of Marlborough House, and the glittering darts 
 of 'Household Words.' And yet, after all, why muse 
 and criticise so bitterly over the mere ornament, when 
 the thing itself, had it words, could preach so sadly 
 and yet truly 1 That old shining mirror that has 
 reflected so much, and yet profited so little by it ! As 
 I gaze on it, a sort of dim remembrance of Hawthorne's 
 House with the seven gables, goes before me, and fancy 
 pictures all the generations of Pyncheons in the dusty 
 surface. I thought of Aunt Margaret and her Mys- 
 terious Mirror, as well as her funny little lecture on 
 looking-glasses in general. And the one that is now 
 before me has seen much of human life, no doubt, 
 and were it endowed with the marvellous properties of 
 that belonging to the Pyncheons, would doubtless 
 
 j> 2
 
 36 REFLECTIOXS ON A REFLECTIOX. 
 
 present as many changes and figm-es. There we might 
 trace perhaps the lovely face of some fair girl, with her 
 golden ringlets dressed in that graceful fashion of 
 Henrietta Maria, that would perhaps be succeeded by 
 one as fair, Pui'itan thoxigh it l)e, and not set off by 
 " the iniloveliness of love-locks." Did no fine frank 
 face peep over their shoulders, and show the long cui-ls 
 falling over the embroidered collar, or the stern dark 
 round head with short hair and glittering breastplate 1 
 These had all their day, and were followed by the 
 powdered heads and bagwigs of later times. Over the 
 polished surface had glided the sweet dimpled face of 
 childhood, laughing sm'prised at the twin baby before 
 it. The girl has gazed there, " getting her own beauty 
 by heart," perhaps smiling at the comparison of the 
 pink-tinted blossoms in her dark tresses, to the stiff 
 oaken blossoms on the frame. And the I'ecollection 
 of the gathering and the giver brings a blush, that 
 equals the richest tints of the I'oses, and that dies 
 away from the glass, as in their turn fade from the 
 earth the roses, and the soft cheek beside them. 
 
 Then comes middle age, with its absent gaze and 
 fiuTOwed brow, and perhaps detects the " silver 
 monitor " in the once raven hair, and, recalled from
 
 REFLECTIONS ON A REFLECTION. 37 
 
 his musings over the ever-reciirriug cares of existence, 
 he, half-bitterly, half-philosophically, smiles at the 
 visible traces of its stormy waves, as faithfully given 
 back by that silent witness. Old age rarely studies 
 its own aspect, — ay, even happy old age, — for too 
 many dear and heart-stiiTing memories are connected 
 with that old mirror, and the eyes of age are dim, — and 
 the tears that have now a deeper source, come more 
 rarely to those weary eyes, that woidd fain gaze 
 inwardly on the recollections of the past, till they are 
 closed by the dust of the chiu-chyard. 
 
 What are the pleasiures and associations of a mirror 
 to the Mrs. Skewtons of the world, we will not inquire, 
 — it is the dustiest and darkest side of the picture. 
 
 George Sand has furnished us with a motto for a 
 looking-glass. Consuelo finds inscribed on the mirror 
 in her splendid prison, the words, — 
 
 " If your soul be as pure as my crystal, you will 
 see yom*self eternally young and handsome, but if 
 vice have tarnished your heart, fear to find in me a 
 severe reflection of your moral ugliness." 
 
 But, were I to choose, I should prefer to the 
 brilliant French moral, the stern and mournful sen- 
 tence of the wisest of khigs, — " Vanity of vanities, all
 
 38 REFLECTIONS ON A REFLECTION. 
 
 is vanity," — a fitting commentary on the oaken 
 blossoms, whose ephemeral pattern flowers have 
 withered to dust and nothingness centmies ago, with 
 the human roses that were reflected on its crystal face. 
 That still, calm mirror has been the faithful witness 
 and receiver of how many secret feelings 1 What dear 
 and happy faces have smiled upon it, in the gaiety and 
 bloom of youth and hope, only to pass from its surface 
 as utterly as then- bodily presence has since gone from 
 this changing earth, where the waves of life roll on 
 and on, and present the same glassy appearance as if 
 no human loves and struggles had svmk beneath them 
 for ever ? 
 
 And as vainly does the weeping mother or wife 
 appeal to that cold mirror, to bring again before 
 them the bright foces treasured in their very hearts' 
 core, as we call on that dark silent ocean to restore 
 the loved and lost. But at the Great Day when that 
 immeasurable sea shall give up its dead, they shall 
 all retui'n, and shadows and delusions shall be ended 
 with Time.
 
 THE SCULPTOR TO HIS MISTRESS' STATUE, 
 AFTER HER DEATH. 
 
 I GAZE upon thy sculptured form, 
 
 And on thy marble cheek, 
 Thy brow, thy lip, — thy smile I trace, 
 
 I wait to hear thee speak. 
 And on that fair and noble form 
 
 A golden sunbeam shines, 
 Through the wide lattice, soft and warm, 
 
 Among the clustering vines. 
 
 These vineleaves, once thy leafy crown, 
 
 Shed soft and shady grace, 
 Among the rippling ringlets, down 
 
 On that calm lovely face. 
 Oft have I dreamt the breath of life 
 
 Must part those lips of thine ; 
 But oh ! they would not smile so cold 
 
 On these sad tears of mine.
 
 40 THE SCULPTOR TO HIS MISTRESS' STATUE. 
 
 T'pnn thy cold and pulseless breast 
 
 Doth lie a marble rose, 
 But neither heart nor flower can break 
 
 That passionless repose. 
 Still as of yore tlie summer sun 
 
 On fleeting blossom glows, 
 But summer sun can never more 
 
 Those marble blooms unclose. 
 
 I call thee, — and the wind replies 
 
 In low sad murm'ring tone, 
 I only hear the river's voice 
 
 As it goes mourning on : 
 That gliding river softly flows 
 
 Amid its reedy spears ; 
 Its music now more mournful gi'ows 
 
 And seems to end in tears. 
 
 Now beauty's form and radiant face 
 Will smile on me in vain ; 
 
 The last thou art in all thy grace 
 My hand sliall shape again.
 
 THE SCULPTOR TO HIS MISTRESS' STATUE. 41 
 
 In vain will fall on this dull ear 
 
 All mortal praise and blame, 
 For thy approving smile I strove, 
 
 For thee I hoped for fame. 
 
 So wilt thou stand both night and day, 
 
 And bathed in shadows deep. 
 Whereon the moonlight's silvery ray 
 
 Will tremble, — in its sleep. 
 And thou wilt smile unchanging then, 
 
 Untouched by Time's decay. 
 Who on that cheek, so pale and fair, 
 
 His finger cannot lay. 
 
 Mine eyes with gath'ring drops are wet; 
 
 My star ! thy beams are o'er, 
 And on my gloomy midnight sky 
 
 Thy light will shine no more. 
 And yet, — ^yon wave, whereon the sun 
 
 His last faint ray has cast. 
 Seems like a path of glory won 
 
 To heaven and thee at last !
 
 THE PROMISE OF A VIOLET. 
 
 " Violet, dear violet ! 
 
 Thy blue eyes ai'e only wet 
 With joy and love of him who sent thee." 
 
 J. R. Lowell. 
 
 The summer flowers are fading 
 
 In dying beauty fast, 
 And crowned with darker blossoms 
 
 The autumn comes at last ; 
 But all of us look forward 
 
 To hail a bloom more dear, — 
 When the spring shall seek our valleys, — 
 
 He wiU come when the violet's here. 
 
 Lovely the purple twiliglit 
 
 In summer's glowing reign, 
 And calm and soft the moonlight 
 
 When autumn comes again
 
 THE PROMISE OF A VIOLET. '43 
 
 The winter hearth gleams pleasant 
 
 When howling winds jon hear j 
 But better far the spring-tide, — 
 
 He will come when the violet's here. 
 
 Our mountains in the summer 
 
 Are green and fair to see, 
 And clothed in brown and russet 
 
 Is every autiunn tree : 
 Ice-jewelled in the winter 
 
 Do rock and branch appear ; 
 Steel-tipped the spring will see them, — 
 
 He will come when the violet's here. 
 
 The mowing scythe in summer 
 
 Gleams in each sunbm-nt hand ; 
 The sickle in the autumn 
 
 Is heard throughout the land ; 
 And through the woods in winter 
 
 The ringing axe you hear, 
 We keep our swords for spring-time, 
 
 Till the violets blue appear.
 
 44 THE PROMISE OF A VIOLET. 
 
 In every fei-tile vineyard 
 
 The ])m'ple grapes we'll press ; 
 A time will soon be coming 
 
 When we can laboiar less. 
 The juice in vats now foaming 
 
 Shall sparkle bright and clear, 
 To drink the health of onr exile 
 
 Who will come when the violet's here. 
 
 Our children pluck the daisies 
 
 That gi'ow around their feet ; 
 The elders love the roses 
 
 For their odoiu's rich and sweet. 
 And, wreathed in glossy tresses, 
 
 To our maids are lilies dear ; 
 But we love best the violets 
 
 That tell his coming here. 
 
 The ripened grape of summer 
 A plenteous vintage yields; 
 
 Our granaries are loaded 
 
 From autumn's golden fields ;
 
 THE PROMISE OF A VIOLET. 45 
 
 And the winter nights shall serve us 
 
 To sharpen sword and spear^ 
 For the time when the early violets 
 
 Shall tell ns he is here. 
 
 Note. — The Emperor Napoleon's secretly planned escape from 
 Elba was previously notified to bis adherents by the mysterious 
 message, " He will come with the violet." Hence the adoption of 
 that flower as the peculiar badge of the Bonaparte family.
 
 LILY'S DOWER 
 
 How many kisses, my Lily dear, 
 
 To-day, hath tender love impressed 
 On dimpled cheek, and rosy lip, 
 
 And innocent baby breast 1 
 Softly and gently have they been set, 
 Like the wind's light touch on a violet ; 
 Long and lingering, sweet and slow, 
 With a blessing miu-mui-ed deep and low ; 
 On the prattling mouth and the bonnie eyes, 
 As blue and clear as the sunny skies. 
 If these were tunes — like the days of old — 
 When kind words changed to fairy gold ; 
 And kisses were turned to guineas free, 
 An heiress rich would my Lily be ! 
 
 Yet, gold and riches bring endless care, 
 With anxious striving and sorest smart ; 
 
 And gilded fetters can never hide 
 
 The throbs of an aching, human heart.
 
 LILY S DOWER. 47 
 
 So, Lily, my dear one, I crave for thee, 
 
 No fairy favours, or golden fee ; 
 
 But a deep true love that can cheer and bless 
 
 Even through all life's weariness, — 
 
 And will, with holy kisses be near 
 
 In all the world's battles, to aid and cheer. 
 
 Though sorrow and death may often trace 
 
 Their path of tears on that fair young face, 
 
 May sin never darken the innocent brow — 
 
 Be it loving, and gentle, and calm as now ; — 
 
 So that, strong and faithful, through grief and pain, 
 
 Like a flower up-rising after the rain, 
 
 Thy heart may spring to the sunshine, strong, 
 
 And in love and hope chaunt its morning song ; 
 
 And value ever, as life's deep bliss, 
 
 The heart's pure gold of a loving kiss.
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 
 
 " Float some fi-agments of a song, 
 From the far-off isles enchanted, 
 
 Heaven has planted 
 With the golden fruit of Truth." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 " An island is a portion of land surrounded by 
 water," says Goldsmith. Now, whether from our 
 island birth, we feel peculiarly interested in those 
 specks on the ocean, I do not know. But this I do 
 know, that there is a lurking partiality for them in 
 every one's mind. Who has not in childhood dreamed 
 of pleasant islands, surrounded by smiling waters, and 
 studded with feathery palm-trees 1 According to our 
 various ages and tastes, we have either pictured them 
 in the style of Juan Fernandez, and peopled them 
 with " men Fridays " and talkative paiTots, or 
 wandered w^ith the gentle i)air of the Isle of France, 
 through their luxuriant garden, blooming in all tlie 
 glowing beauty of a warmer clime than ours.
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 49 
 
 Some of us have pored over the bloody, but thril- 
 ling chronicle of St. Domingo ; the very name brings 
 a vision of the maddened negroes, crowding with 
 ferocious shouts and gestures, round the spacious 
 verandah surrounding the luxurious home of him, who 
 was yesterday their exacting master, and to-day will 
 be their helpless victim. 
 
 There is another picture, and a sad one, of a rocky 
 iron-bound steep, arising from a vast expanse of glit- 
 tering waters. There mouldered away the expiring 
 embers of a mighty ambition, flickering and fading 
 till it lay a heap of ashes, and the worn-out casket was 
 laid beneath the shadowing willow. 
 
 Every one has some pet island in which he takes 
 prodigious interest, and adopts after his foshion. There 
 is Tom, home for the holidays, who coils himself u}) 
 in a very doggish attitude, in the large fork of an old 
 tree, and ponders over all the wondei-s of Laputa, with 
 its oblivious inhabitants, and their flapping remem- 
 brancer. Then there is a Julia, who raves about 
 
 Venice — 
 
 " Throned on her hundred isles." 
 
 Charles puts in a word in favour of the Island of 
 Aiitiparos, and its glittering caves ; of Salsette, peopled
 
 50 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 
 
 with tigers ; of Deles, the bu'thplace of the bright- 
 haired god. 
 
 We will leave him to his oration, or pei'haps we 
 shall have the island of Calypso, or Paphos, and a 
 hnndi-ed others, with all their legends, and proceed to 
 others more generally interesting. 
 
 Then a vision rises before iis of Rhodes, with its 
 harbour, where the vessels of the mercenary Jews are 
 lying, waiting to carry off the pride of the island, the 
 Colossus. Then we go on in thought to Malta, full 
 of noble memories of the gallant old L'Isle Adam with 
 his knights, and there seems to be a flutter of pennons 
 and flowing mantles, signed with the eight-pointed 
 cross before our eyes. 
 
 Then we pass on to Corfu, and we see the race of 
 the contending galleys. The vessel of the Tm-k 
 sweeping on a-head, the white turbans of the Mussid- 
 men bowing low with each stroke of the oar. The 
 Crescent is triumphant, and the Lion of St. Mark is 
 passed, and left behind. But the eager Venetians 
 scorn to resign the ])i'ize ; there is a flash, and a report, 
 and a shot from the distanced galley is the first thing 
 that touches the wall, which is the goal of the race. 
 Thus, by the ready wit of the chikh-en of St. Mark,
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 51 
 
 was the fair island of Corfu secured to the republic 
 and to Christianity. Then there is Madeira, which 
 brings the idea of a verdant isle, whose shores are 
 bathed with the quiet ripples of a cahii sea, and whose 
 soft and gentle breezes bring ease and health to the 
 frail, flxir victims of " the English disease." 
 
 For those who peruse with avidity all stories of 
 mutinies and shipwi-ecks, there is Pitcairn's Island, 
 and its primitive inhabitants — who must have reversed 
 the usual custom of the human race, by improving, 
 instead of degenerating from the original stock. 
 
 The lovers of pirate and buccaneering histories can 
 find many islands celebrated as the haunts of these 
 gentlemen, and where no doubt much of their ill-gotten 
 treasure even now lies concealed. 
 
 The very formation of these detached portions of 
 land is deeply interesting. Some of the smallest 
 islands near the mainland are very frequently separated 
 and isolated by shocks of an earthquake, or continual 
 irruptions of the sea. 
 
 As an instance of this, we may mention the Steep 
 Holmes, in the Bristol Channel, which is populai'ly 
 supposed to have been connected with Brean Down, 
 until the same earthquake that tore the rift in the 
 
 E 2
 
 52 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 
 
 Meiidip Hills, known as the Cheddar Cliffs, shattered 
 the rocky land that joined them, and the sea came 
 over and suiTOunded it. 
 
 On the same coast there is also a low, flat, unin- 
 habited island. The Somersetshire tradition relating 
 to it says, that it was joined on to the mainland, where 
 the village stands that bears the same name ; but 
 that the farmer to whom it belonged, wishing to 
 prcA'ent trespass on his fields, dug a ditch between. 
 The sea flowing at each end of this, a high tide soon 
 swelled the water, and overflowed, and, each time 
 making fresh aggxessions, soon separated it entirely, 
 so that vessels now sail over part of it. This is 
 the vulgar and common-place part of the question ; 
 but it has a poetical side too. For instance, there 
 are coral islands. We can picture the thousands of 
 busy little creatm-es, toiling at their gigantic task, and 
 see the beautiful fabric rise day by day through the 
 waters, till it reaches the surface, and then perhaps a 
 tuft of seaweed catches in the rough points of the coral. 
 The sea-birds come and make it a resting-place, often 
 bringing, perhaps unconsciously, downy and winged 
 seeds, that strike and take root. Gradually, vegeta- 
 tion covers slowly the whole extent of the reef, and it
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 53 
 
 is clothed with verdure, and becomes one of the 
 pleasant sjDots of the sea. The natural decay again, 
 feeding the fresh supply of life, it grows and spreads, 
 and is a fair and fertile tract of land, founded on the 
 minute homes of tiny insects. 
 
 Nature has also other resources, and in the little 
 islands of the Mississippi she shows another method. 
 There is a great flood, and the swollen river hurries 
 along, boiling and foaming, and bearing on with it 
 many vestiges of the damage it has done. A huge 
 tree comes rushing by, and, whirled along with the 
 force of the waters, is snddenlv caught, and wedded 
 firmly in the bed of the river, with its roots upwards. 
 The flood subsides, and the river resumes its calm 
 aspect ; but there is the tree fast. One day a cotton- 
 pod is drifted down the stream ; it catches in the 
 " snag," and growing, in due time becomes a fair and 
 goodly tree. Successive cotton-pods are caught in the 
 same way, and imbedded in the soil, collected in the 
 same gradual manner as that on the coral reef, grow, 
 and form a graduated series of trees, from the old 
 patriarch that first caught fast in the " snag " down 
 to the little bush at the end of the island, the last 
 deposit. Those who have seen Burford's Panorama
 
 54 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 
 
 will remember the peculiar appearance of these islands, 
 clotted ou the breast of the broad river. 
 
 That same ing'enions old lady, Nature, commits 
 another curious freak, and that is, when she puts 
 herself into a jjerfect convulsion of rage, and, heaving 
 and sobbing, flings up little volcanic islands in the 
 sea, which, like peppery people retracting their hasty 
 words when cool, she takes back again when her quake 
 is over. 
 
 Yes, we liave certainly, most of us, a penchant for 
 an island ; and while in youth romantic tales and 
 unheard of wonders most drew our attention, now 
 that we are older and more sober we look to the 
 utilitarian side of the question. If we are elderly, and 
 troubled with rheumatic knees or shoulders, we patro- 
 nise the Shetland Isles, on accoimt of their knitted 
 shawls, veils, and knee-caps. If we are pious, we 
 prefer the Feegee or Looclioo Islands, on accovuit of 
 the missions there to the benighted natives. If we 
 ai'e sickly or consumptive, we hunt in the map for 
 the Lofoden Isles, so celebrated for their cod-liver oil. 
 If we indulge in tlie " noxious weed," we vote for 
 Cuba and cigars; while our poor, neglected half-sister 
 Ireland still furnishes the fruitful and favourite after-
 
 A GOSSIP ABOUT ISLANDS. 
 
 55 
 
 dinner chat to disputing politicians. And now, having 
 wandered among a host of ishxnds, and glanced at 
 each in passing — from the Hesperides to Ultima Thule, 
 that island as much enveloped in the mists of anti- 
 quity as the Isle of St. Borondon is in real substantial 
 fogs (at least, so say the pilots) — I will conclude with 
 the expression of one earnest conviction ; and that is, 
 that it is a great pity that some of the addle-headed 
 members of our community at home are not shipped 
 off, like Sancho Panza, to some little Baratarias of their 
 own, and brought to a sense of their insignificance, 
 and the necessity for a "leetle" more experience, before 
 attempting to rule om- own " right little, tight little, 
 island ! "
 
 A NEW CRUSADE. 
 
 Oh ! for a gift like that of old, 
 
 That charmed the Hermit's tongue - 
 Whereon such burning eloquence 
 
 And mighty influence hung : 
 That swayed alike to noble deeds, 
 
 The vassal and the king, 
 And a powerful sign, o'er land and sea 
 
 The Cross went conquering. 
 
 The weeping mother blessed her son. 
 
 And armed him for the fight ; 
 The bridegi-oom kissed his bride's pale lips. 
 
 That matched her garland white. 
 Fu-ed by a holy frenzy, all 
 
 Pressed forward undismayed, 
 To quell the vaunting Saracen, 
 
 And join the gi'cat Crusade.
 
 A NEW CRUSADE. 57 
 
 They fought and fell, those dauntless hearts, 
 
 To wm the Holy Shrine ; 
 And left their bones to bleach iipon 
 
 The sands of Palestine. 
 Yet still the turbaned infidels 
 
 The sacred precincts claim, — 
 And o'er the Holy Sepulchre 
 
 Is seen the Crescent's flame. 
 
 Yet was it left to later days 
 
 To show a stranger sight, 
 Enough to rouse to burning ire 
 
 Each buried Templar knight ; 
 And nerve to life the mail-clad arm. 
 
 To wield the sword and lance, 
 To see the Moslem Crescent linked 
 
 To England and to France. 
 
 Oh ! for the Hermit's eloquence. 
 To rouse this slumbering age,- 
 
 Against a darker, deadlier foe, 
 A warfare fierce to wage.
 
 58 A NEW CRUSADE. 
 
 Oh ! for another Lion Heart, 
 The conflict to begin, — 
 
 A vast crusade against tlie powers 
 Of Ignorance and Sin. 
 
 A Christian band of brotherhood, 
 
 Of dauntless heart and hand. 
 To sweep away this dire reproach 
 
 That festers through the land. 
 To press, unquailing, fearlessly, 
 
 Tlu-ough worldly pain and loss, 
 A Christian war that well may claim 
 
 The banner of the Cross. 
 
 He that would arm him for the fight. 
 
 With high resolve and prayer, 
 Let him go forth into the streets. 
 
 And see his labour there. 
 Those noble streets, so broad and wide, 
 
 That glitter in the sun, 
 Where a human tide of rich and poor 
 
 Does like a river run.
 
 A NEW CBUSADE. 
 
 59 
 
 The hum of Hfe may meet his ear, 
 
 Its spleudom- catch his eye, 
 But look ! beneath those ghstening waves 
 
 What awful phantoms lie ! 
 Less brilliantly on Sodom's walls 
 
 The sun's departing ray 
 Cast lingering light, — Gomorrah slept, — 
 
 Morn rose, — and where were they ! 
 
 Behind these mansions proud and tall. 
 
 As 'neath a purple vest, 
 The plague spots lie of vice and crime 
 
 Upon the heaving breast. 
 And crowded alleys gather in, 
 
 Vast herds of human kind. 
 With all the attributes of brutes, 
 
 Except their human mind. 
 
 From out these foid abodes of vice 
 Naught that is good can come. 
 
 Nor dare we give to such low haunts 
 The holy name of " home."
 
 60 A NEW CRUSADE, 
 
 The new-born babe's first breath of Hfe 
 
 Is drawn beside the dead, 
 The birth and the death angels meet 
 
 Beside the ragged bed. 
 
 While fever loads the very air, 
 
 By all alike inhaled, 
 The great twin mysteries, of life 
 
 Stand awfully unveiled : 
 The viewless presences that bring 
 
 A thrilling hush and dread, 
 An atmosphere of awe on all 
 
 About the rich man's bed, 
 
 Here doubly terrible appear, 
 
 'Midst ribald oaths and din. 
 Where unmolested stalk the fiends 
 
 Of Ignorance and Sin. 
 Amid this dreaiy pestilence 
 
 Of body and of mind, 
 What trace remains to ])i-ove them still 
 
 Allied to liuman kind i
 
 A NEW CRUSADE. 61 
 
 Outcasts alike from love and home, 
 
 And all their sacred ties, 
 To hope, and faith, and prayer unknown. 
 
 Or human sympathies : 
 From gentle charities shut out, 
 
 The kindly links that bind 
 Us with a slender golden chain, 
 
 Alike to all mankind. 
 
 x\ll the world gives, a hiding den. 
 
 Unfitting man's abode ; 
 Yet do these human Pariahs breathe 
 
 The life bestowed by God : 
 And painfully that breath is drawn, 
 
 'Mid fever and disease, 
 Where even water seems denied, 
 
 Their burning thirst to ease. 
 
 Oh, God ! that givest mountam rills. 
 
 That trickle pure and clear ; 
 Through moss, and rush, and gurgling brooks,. 
 
 That spring up everywhere :
 
 62 A NEW CRUSADE. 
 
 Not Thiue the gift of fetid streams, 
 That poison as they flow, 
 
 And bear on their polluted course 
 Disease, and death, and woe. 
 
 Man taints his precious heritage. 
 
 Through want of thought or heed ; 
 And seven-fold miseries, scattered, grow 
 
 From each neglected seed. 
 Unw^holesome vapoiirs fill the air, 
 
 And taint the very breath, 
 While churchyard filterings transmit 
 
 The gei-ms of rapid death. 
 
 Ye stewards of a mighty Lord, 
 
 Ye great ones of the land, — 
 Ye do not mete your measui'es out 
 
 With the same liberal hand ; 
 Still i)ride and pomp are nestled in 
 
 Tlic 1)111-1 )le of your state, 
 And still doth Lazarus lie unmarked 
 
 Beside your palace-gate.
 
 A NEW CRUSADE. 63 
 
 Oh ! soiils that. — fit for high emprise, 
 
 For great and noble deed — 
 Have slumbered long in indolence, 
 
 Rise up and meet the need ! 
 Gird steadfiist patience on your hearts, 
 
 Unfailing hope and trust ; 
 Long have your energies been given 
 
 A prey to moth and rust. 
 
 The warning voice has called you forth, 
 
 And summons heart and hand, 
 To war against this fearful foe, 
 
 That harbours in the land. 
 Oh ! clear us from this dark reproach. 
 
 This black and bitter shame ; 
 And free ovir country from the stain 
 
 Upon her glorious fame. 
 
 Sons of St. George ! a monster host 
 Against us stand array' d ; 
 
 Be his red cross our battle sign 
 To lead a new Crvisade.
 
 64 A NEW CRUSADE. 
 
 A vast Crusade against tlie powers 
 
 Of Ignorance and 111 ; 
 Mav God be with us for the right,- 
 
 By this sign conquer still !
 
 STELLULA. 
 
 She was the hope, for many a year, 
 
 Of this poor human heart ; 
 In every throb of grief or joy 
 
 She bore a wilhng part. 
 When darkest clouds hung o'er my way, 
 
 And all was lost but love, 
 That little star within my sight 
 
 Still glimmered from above. 
 
 When shone the sun once more on me, 
 
 And turned my hopes to gold, 
 The one dear thing I loved so well 
 
 Lay in the chxu-chyard cold. 
 Now sun or stoi-m may come alike. 
 
 My eyes to them are blind. 
 For memory paints that little star 
 
 Still in my darkened mind.
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Good night, we say with cai'eless lip and brow, 
 
 Good night, we smile to some beloved embrace, 
 
 While gazing on some dear familiar face, — 
 
 We look no further than the present now. 
 
 Forgetful that a morrow may not dawn 
 
 For us on earth ; to-morrow we may be 
 
 Beyond the stars, and our eternal mom 
 
 May open on us, — we can ne'er foresee, 
 
 If we shall waken to earth's flowers again, 
 
 Or see the glorious blooms of Paradise, — 
 
 If we again may greet om- fellow-men. 
 
 Or Heaven dawn on our death-strengthened eyes. 
 
 Good night, — perchance the night may soon be o'er 
 
 Good night, — pcrlia})s. Good night for evermore.
 
 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 
 
 ' ' She speaks miicli of her father ; says she hears 
 There's tricks i' the world ; and hems, and beats her heart ; 
 Spurns enviously at straws ; speaks things in doubt, 
 That carry but half sense ; her speech is nothing, 
 Yet the unshaped use of it doth move 
 The hearers to collection ; they aim at it, 
 And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts." 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 » 
 
 *• For Love himself took part against himself 
 To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love — 
 Oh this world's curse, — beloved but hated — came 
 Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 When I first entered upon my curacy in the 
 
 country town of S , I had not long been ordained, 
 
 and brought to my labours all the energy of youth 
 and zeal for my profession, that a young clergy- 
 man generally feels, when he has embraced it from 
 a serious wish to enter his Masters service, and 
 has not merely been influenced in his choice of it, 
 by what, alas, is the case in too many instances, a 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 
 
 snug living waiting for him. I had not this tempta- 
 tion, for I had neither money nor interest, and no 
 hopes of rising in the Church. I had, moreover, 
 had no experience in deahng with the most numerous 
 class of my parishioners — the poor, — and many were 
 the sleepless nights and anxiety of mind I went 
 through, in musing over the difficult cases brought 
 before me. Light are the toils of the physician or 
 the banister in comparison, — for theirs are but 
 losses or gains to the body ; but mine, — I was answer- 
 able at that awful tribunal for eveiy human soul 
 committed to my charge, and aU these woidd be 
 reqvured of me in that 
 
 " day of wrath, that awful day, 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away." 
 
 This thought pursued me incessantly, and urged me 
 beyond bodily pain, or fatigue, to do my veiy utmost 
 to preserve the souls under my charge ; and my 
 heart sometimes sickened at the thought of the small 
 — awfully small — harvest to be gathered in. After 
 three or four years of these exertions, which I can 
 now look back upon calmly, and feel the consolation 
 that, imperfect as they were, they were my utmost, 
 niy health, never veiy strong, gave way utterly, and
 
 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 09 
 
 I was obliged to give up all duty for mauy months. 
 However, kind friends were given me, my worldly 
 prospects brightened, and I obtained a veiy small 
 Hving, with a inu-al population, where I could still 
 do my duty conscientiously without injmy to my 
 health. 
 
 Light indeed is it, compai'ed with all I had 
 
 known in the crowded little town of S , where 
 
 sin and vice sprung up like mnshrooms, and were 
 enough to discom-age even a stout heart. Long, 
 long was it before the awfid scenes I had witnessed 
 ceased to be vividly impressed on my memoiy. 
 
 Among the many tales of real life that came before 
 me, was the one I am about to relate. I had made 
 a rule on entering my curacy, to call upon eveiy one 
 in my district ; and among others, upon an elderly 
 widow, living in one half of a very smaU cottage, in 
 a back street. I found her imnsually inteUigent and 
 sensible, but labouring imder a gi-eat depression 
 of spii-its. AATiile I was talking to her, I chanced 
 to put my hand \ipou an old book lying in the 
 window-seat. It was an ancient almanack, much 
 thoucrht of in its dav, I dare sav, hut now long for- 
 gotten. But my eye was stiiick with the curious
 
 70 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 
 
 appeai'ance of the book, — for all do^ii the margin 
 of each page Avere tiie following figures, — 
 
 17 
 
 23 
 
 15 
 2 
 There were several letters, and a word or two with- 
 out connection, but the same fig-ures recurred again 
 and again ; and, in fact, in every page of the book. 
 The handwriting was beautifully small and fine — the 
 figures especially, and I asked the old woman if the 
 writing was hers. She answered " No," and seeing the 
 tears in her eyes, I did not make any further allusion 
 to the subject. On a later visit, however, when she 
 was laid up by a severe attack of illness, and, perhaps, 
 felt more acutely the force of a little sympathy, she 
 opened her mind fully to me, and unasked told me the 
 stoiy of the book. 
 
 Her husband had been a carpenter, and they had 
 but one surviving cliild, a daughter, having lost two or 
 three in their infancy. This endeared tlie sm*vivor 
 istill more to them both ; but especially to her mother. 
 They had been rather above the common class of 
 poor, and contrived to keep several comforts around
 
 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 71 
 
 them, and the old man was said to have saved iip 
 a considerable sum for a poor person. They had 
 always kept their daughter at school, where she had, 
 by perseverance and intelligence, gained quite a supe- 
 rior education to those of her own rank. When she 
 was about seventeen, a young stonemason of the 
 neighboiu'hood proposed marriage with her, to her 
 father. She had long known and liked him, and 
 had many a pleasant walk on a summer evening 
 with him. For a wonder she had chosen wisely and 
 well, for he was as superior, and even more so, to 
 his station, as she was, and was as good a scholar 
 as herself. Unfortvmately, however, her father, after 
 tacitly allowing it so long, objected on the score of 
 money, and in spite of her entreaties — joined with her 
 mother's — forbid him the house. At first she hoped 
 to soften him by her submission, which indeed came 
 natm-ally to her gentle spirit, and her lover remained 
 constant, their only consolation being the frequent 
 letters passing between them. Some of these the poor 
 mother still possessed, and showed them to me ; and, 
 notwithstanding their frequent homeliness of expres- 
 sion, there was a simple pathos and resignation in 
 them, that touched me almost to tears.
 
 72 THE SUM OF A LIFE. 
 
 Two or three years went on, slowly and sadly, — the 
 father continuing still obstinate in accordance with his 
 rugged nature, and hope fading gradually but surely 
 from the humble lovers. She was a gentle, affectionate 
 gh'l, and would not marry without her father's consent, 
 although she could not conquer the love that was 
 twined with her veiy heart-strings. At last her father 
 finding that she still clung to this first and last attach- 
 ment, and that she refused two or three offers he 
 thought more suitable, forbid the correspondence, and 
 desired her to think of him no more. 
 
 This was a heavy blow to her, and for a while her 
 health and spirits sank under it. To rouse her from 
 this, her parents sent her to the wedding of a country 
 cousin, thinking the change and gaiety might do her 
 good. But this was the drop that overbrimmed the 
 cu]) : the sight of the new-married couple in their 
 honeymoon happiness, and the quiet domestic comfort 
 of their little country cottage in its tiny garden, 
 sunk wdth a painful contrast into her heart, and she 
 returned home, only that her mother might rush 
 wildly fi'om one doctor to another, in the hope that 
 something might be done for her. 
 
 The body recovered, but the mind was gone hope-
 
 THE SUM OP A LIFE. 73 
 
 lessly ; and as she grew more vacant and unconscious, 
 her health got better, for the mind no longer wore 
 out and harassed the feeble frame. She had taken to 
 writing over every scrap of paper she coidd lay hands 
 on, — most likely from a lingering association of past 
 days, like the wind wandering through the strings of 
 a harp and bringing out an imperfect sovind. It was 
 almost always the same figures; the first, 17 and 23, 
 were their respective ages, — the 15 th of May was the 
 date of their first meeting, and the 2nd of November 
 the last time they met, — that bitter parting that had 
 unsettled her intellect for ever. She had at first been 
 very difiicvdt to manage, and required more skilful 
 treatment than her poor heart-broken mother could 
 give her, and she had accordingly l)een placed under 
 proper care. As time went on, she grew as gentle as 
 an infant ; but, on attempting to remove her to her 
 mother's home, had manifested such distress, that 
 although the expense of keeping her away cost her 
 mother every little indulgence she had hitherto pos- 
 sessed, she submitted without a murmru', only grieving 
 that she could not have her always with her. 
 
 I gazed sadly upon the dim discoloiu-ed figures that 
 had before seemed to me but the mere vague wan-
 
 74 THE SUM OF A LIFE, 
 
 derings of insanity, but now that I had the key to 
 them, the mournful record of that blank existence, — 
 the summing up of that humble tale of resignation 
 and sorrow. 
 
 Her ftither had died, bitterly remorsefid of the ruin 
 he had made, and the lover of years before, himself no 
 longer young, had been killed by accident. But the 
 poor crushed heart, that had loved them both too well 
 for its own peace, was unconscious of their loss, and 
 the wan fingers still continue their melancholy task, 
 surviving them all, — until it shall please the Almighty 
 to add up those days of mere existence, and sum up 
 the sorrows of her life — " Vitae summa brevis, spem 
 nos vetat inchoare longam ! ''
 
 A DAISY ON A GRAVE. 
 
 1 SAW a churchyard, — not that holy place 
 
 Where the green tiuf lies o'er the quiet dead, 
 
 And the calm sunshine, like a loving smile 
 
 Falls through the green leaves rusthng overhead, 
 
 And pious memory comes oft to grieve, 
 
 And tend her blossoms in the dew^y eve : 
 
 But a rank graveyard, — a neglected place, 
 
 Walled up by frowning houses bleak and bare. 
 
 With scarce a glimpse of sky ; where barren mounds 
 Showed many a human form lay mouldering there ; 
 
 And meagre gravestones worn and cracked by years 
 
 In place of simple blossoms dewed with tears. 
 
 I paused beside a small and lowly grave, — 
 
 The narrow bed of childhood,— where there grew 
 
 One stunted daisy, small and withered up, 
 That never saw the sun or drank the dew;
 
 76 A DAISY ON A GRAVE. 
 
 But drew unwholesome nurture with its breath 
 (The very air was redolent with death). 
 
 Thus tender Nature, who with common things 
 So much of truth and beauty iuterweaves, 
 
 Had with a solemn meaning shadowed out 
 The little sleeper's history in its leaves. 
 
 More eloquent than words, a single glance 
 
 Took in its touching mute significance. 
 
 A fitting emblem of the haj)less child, 
 Born in the darksome cellar, or the den, 
 
 In some great city's low and secret haunts ; 
 The Im-king-place of bad and guilty men. 
 
 Each wholesome impulse stifled in its birth. 
 
 Choked down with all the crime and sin of earth. 
 
 Childhood, without its innocent delights. 
 Reft of its hap})y mirth and healthy play. 
 
 The first and sweetest roses of its life, 
 
 From cheek and heart alike have passed away : 
 
 The sallow face, a type of all within. 
 
 Withered by hiuiger, sufl^ering, and sin.
 
 A DAISY ON A GRAVE. 
 
 77 
 
 They know no wanderings in the russet woods 
 For nuts or berries ; nor can they explore 
 
 The haunts of bird or insect, — closed to them 
 The country urchin's ever- varied store. 
 
 They have no primrose, no first violet. 
 
 Nor are their hearts upon such treasures set. 
 
 Not theirs that holy season of the heart, 
 
 That innocent childhood 'tis so sweet to see ; 
 
 Early iniu-ed to poverty and toil, 
 
 Not theirs the heritage of bird and bee : 
 
 But, born of sin, — and reared 'mid g-uilt and crime, 
 
 To a precocious evil ere their time. 
 
 Not theirs the terrors of the happy child. 
 
 Used to the sunshine and green leafy bowers, 
 
 Whose only foretaste of the world is gained 
 
 By sweet companionship with birds and flowers ; 
 
 While these no knowledge have of light and bloom. 
 
 Sadly unchildlike, — conversant with gloom. 
 
 When summer fruits are gone, and autumn's grain 
 Is garnered in, still are the birds supplied ;
 
 78 A DAISY ON A GRAVE. 
 
 The scarlet holly, and the coral hip, 
 
 Are caterere for them, scattered far and wide. 
 The stiu'dy robin, welcomed and caressed, 
 Is to each window a most honom-ed guest. 
 
 But the poor child, half-starved from veiy birth, 
 Feels the keen pangs of hunger, and is led 
 
 With sharpened instinct, but a darkened soul. 
 To filch a moiddy cnist, — his daily bread. 
 
 Oh, God ! to see those wild and wolfish eyes. 
 
 Where only tender childish teiu-s should rise ! 
 
 Yet do their angels evermore "behold 
 
 The face of Him, who once their likeness wore, 
 And solemnly commending childhood's state, 
 
 Blessed it and sanctified for evermore : 
 " Woe unto him, who causeth them offence ! " 
 Dare we look up and plead our innocence ?
 
 LINES FOR MUSIC. 
 
 —   — 
 
 Ah, wherefore seek to read mine eyes 1 
 A heedless glance is mine : 
 
 Why wish to make me see the love 
 That ever beams in thine 1 
 
 e- 
 
 When sighing for the absent face 
 Fond memory paints to me ; 
 
 Not thine the fire that warms this heart, 
 That sigh is not for thee. 
 
 When musing over harp or lute, 
 
 At evening's calm decline, 
 The murmured name, — the cherished vow. 
 
 Nor name, nor vow are thine.
 
 IN CCELO QUIES. 
 
 The maiden smiled at the tender tone 
 
 Of a voice on the midnight air, 
 For she deemed that one of her suitors gay 
 
 Worshipped her beavity there ; 
 And still the soiind was in her ear, • 
 
 Upon the night-wind given, 
 " Look np ! look up, oh ! weary soul, 
 
 For there is rest in Heaven !" 
 
 The sage looked up with an angry frown, 
 
 And dark and glooming look. 
 For the soimd had disturbed his musings deep 
 
 Over his mystic book ; 
 And in his sarcastic smile you read 
 
 Philosophy's bitterest leaven. 
 "Look up !" still sang the voice, " oh, soul ! 
 
 For there is rest in Heaven !"
 
 IN C(ELO QUIES. 81 
 
 The starving outcast gazed above 
 
 On the sky so cahn and clear, 
 And he heard the sound on the passing wind, 
 
 As it came on his listening ear. 
 And a smile of joy came o'er his face, 
 
 Like a sunlit cloud at even. 
 " Look ujj ! look up ! oh, weary soul. 
 
 For there is rest in Heaven !" 
 
 The maiden turned to her flowers asrain, 
 
 With a smile half checked by fear ; 
 The sage as he tm-ned o'er another leaf, 
 
 Mused deep on life's strange career : 
 But the outcast, tired with the weary strife 
 
 The world with his spirit had driven, 
 Lay calm as a child on its mother's breast, 
 
 There is rest and peace in Heaven !
 
 HUMAN BUDS. 
 
 " Bud, if I kiss you, 'tis that you blow not. 
 Mind the pink-shut mouth opens never ! " 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 Daixty things are buds, little fat round buttons, 
 with pink, pouting lips ; chubby, polished, healtliy- 
 looking things ; that I, for one, am almost sony to 
 see expand into full-blown flowers, for they are far 
 prettier in their bud-hood, with all their delicate 
 leaves cm-led closely romid their hearts, and the 
 pale gi'een tips of the calyx curling tenderly over 
 them. And the gentle dews nourish them, and the 
 sun smiles gaily on them, and the rain, that beats 
 roughly on the fragile leaves of the full-blown blos- 
 som, slides off the smooth surface of the little bud. 
 Those toiling children of Mammon, the busy bees, 
 pass them by, and go on to the more mature flower, 
 which has passed the joys of youth, and must now 
 bear its share and do its part in the busy life around 
 it. Dear little buds ! they look so innocent and fair,
 
 HUMAN BUDS. 83 
 
 that one can hardly find the heart to phick them, 
 and the most ruthless flower-gatherer generally spares 
 them. 
 
 Look at the daisy-bud, with its pink-tipped leaves 
 tightly compressed to the centre, like a rosy mouth 
 that says, " You shan't kiss me — there now !" and 
 screws itself up in resolute determination. What 
 can be prettier than a cluster of rosebuds, especially 
 wild rosebuds 1 and, down in the centre of the gi'oup, 
 sheltered by the rest, is the tiniest little thing — 
 without a speck of pink in it as yet — and looking 
 small and delicate enough for a f\iiry's own adorn- 
 ment. And if these blooming children of Nature 
 are fan- in our eyes, how much more fair are those 
 human buds that are given to our keeping ! The 
 little tender nurslings we rear wnth such care and 
 anxious love, and whose loss plants an aching pain 
 in our hearts never more to depart. 
 
 The structure of both is very similar ; the futm'c 
 character and thoughts are as carefully curled up in 
 the little human heart as the petals of the rosebud. 
 And tender must be the watching and the fostering 
 care that no untimely frost may kill, or sudden blight 
 wither the little germ of good within. Gentle must 
 
 a 2
 
 84 HUMAN BUDS. 
 
 tlie hand be that tends it, and judicioiis the training 
 and watering ; and it woidd be as cruel to force the 
 little human bud to precocious matm-ity, as to tear 
 open the green leaves of its pretty type, alike de- 
 stroying the ripened beauty of both. 
 
 The beneficent Father, who scattered the bright- 
 hued buds and flowers so plentifully over every field 
 and meadow, that His own poor might enjoy their 
 beauty and fragrance, as well as their more wealthy 
 brethren, has also endowed them with the gift of 
 human blossoms, as promising. Many a little rosy 
 face peeping over a cottage-gate, shows as bright blue 
 eyes and golden locks, as those that are endowed with 
 all the aid of wealth. Both are pretty in their places. 
 As we can appreciate the grace of the exquisite 
 stephanotis, and the beauty of the camellia of the 
 conservatory, without denying our tribute of love 
 and admiration to the pale, sweet, wild rose of the 
 hedges, and the mountain daisy, so also is the fair, 
 delicate beauty of the patrician child, in its elegant 
 and simple attire, as striking as the rosy bloom, and 
 healthy limbs of the cottagers' bairn. 
 
 Lonely, indeed, woidd our homes be without them 
 — whether rich or poor. How lonely, we only know
 
 HUMAN BUDS. 85 
 
 when it has pleased the Father of all to remove one 
 of those precious little blossoms from its earthly rest. 
 
 Then, by the aching void — by the desolate and 
 deserted nursery that we dare not enter — by tlie 
 trifling toys now hoarded with all a miser's care, 
 because once touched by those tiny fingers, — by those 
 small garments folded by, that the little wearer, now 
 clothed in shining white raiment with angel wings, 
 requires no longer ; — by all these pangs we know how 
 dearly we love them, and thus measure our love by 
 its loss. 
 
 And even where the Angel of Death has not come, 
 his brother minister of sickness has cei'tainly visited, 
 and dread has been the struggle betwixt him, and the 
 agonised parents, over the bed of the little sufferer, a 
 conflict that has, many a time, left its scars behind, 
 that you may trace in the still fair brow shaded by 
 sorrow, and the dark hair prematurely sprinkled with 
 silver threads. 
 
 But you — oh, happy parents — who liave as yet been 
 spared this mighty anguish — who have not partaken of 
 the bitter cup whence our first parents ch-ank the primal 
 draught — who have seen your little buds expand into 
 fair and promising flowers — your thanksgiving should
 
 86 HUMAN BUDS. 
 
 I'ise to the stars. All minor losses and anxieties 
 should be lightly esteemed ; they are but trifles in 
 the balance ; and while yoiu- happy circle is yet 
 imbroken, take to heart no privations or trials : let 
 them glide off you like rain-drops from the rosebud. 
 Take home the beautiful saying of the poet, and cry 
 with Victor Hugo : 
 
 " Spare, mighty Lord ! spare me and all I love, 
 Friends, brethren, kindred, even foes (that move 
 
 'Gainst me in triumph wild). 
 From e'er beholding summer reft of flowers, 
 Bee-less the hive, bird-less the leafy bowers, 
 
 The house without a child ! " 
 
 Clasp to your hearts liumlily and thankfully your 
 })recious cluster of buds and flowers, praying ever for 
 the gentle rain to nourish them, and the genial sun 
 to shine upon them, that, gi-owing up fair and inno- 
 cent, they may be meet for a better garden ; and, 
 when the great spring of the world shall come, that 
 will call fortli all living things from their wintry 
 tomb in the earth, they may rise in immortal beauty, 
 and blossom for ever.
 
 "SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOUR." 
 
 A CRY has gone throughout the land, a strong and 
 
 powerful cry, 
 And each liearer echoes loudly the same accents as 
 
 they fly,— 
 " Keep the Sabbath, — keep it holy, — keep the Lord's 
 
 day unprofaned ; 
 Read your Bibles, — go to chiu'ch and pray, as it hath 
 
 been ordained ! " 
 But another voice rings in mine ear, — and bitter words 
 
 are there, — 
 " Oh our judges, are you helping us to keep the day of 
 
 prayer V 
 
 Ours is but a mere existence, — toiling, grovelling 'mid 
 
 the dust. 
 To feed om* starving children wnth a diy and mouldy 
 
 crust ;
 
 88 "six days SHALT THOU LABOUR." 
 
 And tlie struggle for such living, maddens, crazes heart 
 
 and brain, 
 And soul and spirit die alike beneath that crushing 
 
 pain. 
 After striving 'neath the burthen, every day, and all 
 
 day long, 
 When the scanty wage is paid us, is not then tempta- 
 tion strong 1 
 (For we are not taught as you are) after di'udgery long 
 
 and sore, 
 Lo ! the glittering gin-palace opens wide its cheerful 
 
 door, 
 And the warmth and light invite us to our everlasting 
 
 hurt, 
 And in the lulling poison we forget our rags and 
 
 dirt ! 
 Bo we keep the Sabbath holy, — can we even if we 
 
 would 1 
 Oh, great men and legislators, do ye answer that 
 
 "we could?" 
 
 Oh ye peaceful village churches, lying calm in verdant 
 
 dells, 
 Calling all to come and worship witli the music of 
 
 your bells !
 
 "six days SHALT THOU LABOUR 
 
 89 
 
 With the bright and pleasant sunUght glowing in 
 
 through every pane, 
 And the wild birds' liquid voices filling pauses in the 
 
 strain ; 
 And the humble roofs, though lowly, aye, and mean 
 
 and poor they be, 
 Clustered close around the old gi-ey tower in calm 
 
 security : 
 It must be indeed a sinful heart, shut out from 
 
 heavenly bliss, 
 That would not seek its Maker amid influence like 
 
 this ! 
 
 But look on us in the city, — in the cellar and the den, 
 Shut from all that might improve us, from our happier 
 
 fellow men. 
 From the lessons we might gather from the blue and 
 
 smiling skies. 
 We but love them for their darkness, and the stars' 
 
 sad pitying eyes ! 
 Oh God ! to think our lands stretch wide ft-om farthest 
 
 pole to pole, 
 And all that's fair is valued there, except a Iminan 
 
 soul !
 
 9U " SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOUR." 
 
 We send missions to the heathen, far and wide our 
 
 preachera roam, 
 Planting schools and building chm-ches that are needed 
 
 more at home ; 
 And we hear of clnux-h bells ringing far in distant 
 
 solitudes. 
 Where there used to be but silence, or the rustling of 
 
 the woods. 
 Look at home, — the crowded cities, — nmning o'er with 
 
 guilt and sin ; 
 Surely these need Christianising, — it is here ye should 
 
 begin ! 
 'Mid the lowest dregs and refuse, those whose half- 
 taught natures rise 
 With a sort of struggling instinct, 'gainst the wrong 
 
 before their eyes : 
 'Tis to these the earnest preacher should most solemnly 
 
 proclaim 
 That God w'ho, for the sinner, from his throne of gloiy 
 
 came. 
 Can wc go into the chiu'chos, 'midst the great ones and 
 
 the ]ir()ud, 
 And feel that all are equal in His sight, before Him 
 
 bowed 1
 
 "six days SHALT THOU LABOUR." 91 
 
 Or in cold and draughty comers are we forced to stand 
 
 and wait, 
 While the beadle or the verger ushers in the rich and 
 
 great ? 
 
 We see you dainty stepping, robed in silk, in gems, and 
 
 gold. 
 From your carriage to the Opera, or some mansion 
 
 proud and old, 
 For your Satiirday's amusement ; and when midnight's 
 
 hoiu" is fled. 
 When we reel back from oiu- revel, you are driven 
 
 home to bed. 
 To yoiir downy rest, to waken up next morning 
 
 rather late, 
 When, again, all fair and glittering, in Sunday pomp 
 
 and state. 
 To set a good example, to church you strictly wend 
 To your cushioned pew and footstool, and most grace- 
 fully you bend, 
 Deigning slightly to acknowledge that it is a holy 
 
 place, 
 Where He says His honour dwelleth, and His angels 
 
 veil their face.
 
 92.' "six days SHALT THOU LABOUR." 
 
 Then you listen to the music with a critic s practised 
 
 ear, 
 
 And a rather altered version of last night, perhaps, 
 
 you hear ; 
 'Tis a fashionable chapel, and the company is high, 
 And the dresses are most exquisite, your own 
 
 especially ; 
 Then the park or ring invites you, 'mid the fashionable 
 
 throng. 
 And, that over, you may finish with your banquets rich 
 
 and lone:. 
 
 "&• 
 
 Can you wonder we are Chartists, — that we miu-mur 
 
 and repine 1 
 We are ignorant ; teach us better ; point us up to the 
 
 Divine, — 
 Teach us He appointed rich and poor their separate 
 
 course to take, 
 Doing each their solemn duty meekly, himibly, for 
 
 His sake ; 
 Tell us of a better world on high, where all distinctions 
 
 cease, 
 And the beggar and the king alike share one eternal 
 
 peace.
 
 "six days SHALT THOU LABOUR." 93 
 
 Waken from your calm debating in the palace ye have 
 
 built, 
 For your solemn legislation o'er our wi'ongs, our woe, 
 
 our guilt ; 
 Come and learn om- true condition, with yom- quiet 
 
 high-bred grace ; 
 The same merciful Creator made that calm and happy 
 
 face, 
 And these pinched and haggard features, worn with 
 
 sorrow, sin, and pain. 
 And the human souls beneath them both must go to 
 
 Him again ! 
 By all these thoughts, — the evil past, and that which 
 
 draweth nigh, — 
 By life and death's great mysteries, oh, heed our 
 
 warning cry ; 
 Give to the winds the sordid thought of gaining place 
 
 or pelf, 
 And, working for one common weal, forego all dreams 
 
 of self. 
 Oh, great and mighty of the land ! how will ye yield 
 
 your trust. 
 When the Archangel's awful trump shall summon 
 
 slumbering dust
 
 94 "SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOUR." 
 
 To meet the Judge in majesty ; the record dread 
 
 um-oUs, — 
 How shall ye answer to your God for all these human 
 
 soids 1 
 By your dearest hopes, your deepest fears of that 
 
 tremendous day, 
 
 Oh, save us from the penalty that both of us must pay, 
 
 " The evil wrought by want of thought ; " the human 
 
 creatures lost ; 
 The vast amount of wasted souls your indolence has 
 
 cost !
 
 THE LOCKETS. 
 
 Nay, Edward, do not smile, I know thou think' st 
 
 This cluster of small lockets scarce is fit 
 
 For manly wearing ; but thou dost not know 
 
 How all the wild emotions of a life 
 
 Rise at the sight, and make me young again. 
 
 For every head which bore its share alike. 
 
 And gave a raven braid or sunny curl, 
 
 Lies with the parent dust— the young, the loved, 
 
 All my heart cherished in its earliest years. 
 
 All faded from me, save these locks of hair. 
 
 This braid of sable, sprinkled here and there 
 With silver, lay upon my mother's cheek — 
 Her still, fair cheek— before I left my home. 
 And, twined with it (as were their lives as well), 
 My father's this, white as the drifted snow. 
 God rest them both — their sleep is deep and calm ; 
 After a life-long love, they travelled home :
 
 96 THE LOCKETS. 
 
 I can look on them cheerfully, nor grieve • 
 That the ripe grain was gathered in its prime. 
 
 Here is the lock I severed from the head 
 
 Of my young brother, for his promised bride ; 
 
 But the deep sea has sung his obsequies, 
 
 And twined mid coral reefs his long fair hair — 
 
 It lay upon her heart, until she went 
 
 To him in heaven — parted so far on earth ! 
 
 Here is my only sister s — a fair girl. 
 
 Who shared our boyish sports and triumphs once 
 
 In the same happy home — now severed wide, 
 
 By the world's changes, as the farthest seas. 
 
 For other loves have stolen her heart from me, 
 
 And the same tresses whence I stole this curl, 
 
 Then ^vreathed with meadow flowers, are braided now 
 
 With pearls and gems, whose lustre coldly gleams 
 
 Upon a face as passionless as they. 
 
 She is the only one who lives of all 
 
 The idols that my earth-bound lieart set up ; 
 
 And all lie in the dust ; but she the most 
 
 Is dead to me — more so than those who sleep, 
 
 But in my dreams revisit me again :
 
 .THE LOCKETS. 97 
 
 Whose eyes shine with a brighter tenderness, 
 And voices, fresh from heavenly melodies, 
 Show me the golden links that ch-aw me up 
 From this lone earth to seek their starry home. 
 
 See this fair tress of bro^\m — to look on this, 
 
 Still moves my heart imto its inmost core, 
 
 And shows the open wound, as fresh as when 
 
 I saw that gentle head laid in the dast. 
 
 And went, a homeless wanderer, o'er the world. 
 
 That soft brown hah- — how youth, and hope, and love, 
 
 Twined round it in the hour that saw it mine ! 
 
 And fancy circled it with orange buds. 
 
 That after days ripened to snowy flowers : 
 
 She gave it with a blush and happy smile, 
 
 A precious earnest of tlie warmest heart 
 
 That beat for me until it beat no more. 
 
 Behold this small gold trinket — it is formed 
 
 Into the semblance of a heart : there lies 
 
 A tiny cmd, soft as the finest silk, 
 
 And golden as the loving hopes that hung 
 
 Around the little stranger, as it lay 
 
 On its young mother's knee — my sweet firstborn !
 
 98 THE LOCKETS. 
 
 The lily flowers above thy grave have bloomed 
 
 Full many springs since then ; and not alone 
 
 Ai-t thou — a sister, fragile as thyself, 
 
 Shares now thy naiTow tenement : and she 
 
 Who watched those infant sleepers tenderly, 
 
 Could not abide without them, and she went 
 
 To watch them once again, and join tlicir rest. 
 
 Bear with me, Edward, for these relics tell 
 
 My real life's story — all beyond it but 
 
 The chronicle of glittering dust and clay. 
 
 Life is made up of love ; with it, a dream 
 
 Of fairy beauty ; and without it, dark. 
 
 And lone, and dreaiy, as a winter's night. 
 
 What are life's honoui's — pomp, ambition, wealth 1 
 
 Either the means to minister to love, 
 
 Or the despair that cloaks its want and loss : 
 
 The single passion that survives the gi'ave. 
 
 The tic between the misecn world and this. 
 
 That, purified from earth, shall reign in heaven.
 
 THE CASKET. 
 
 I BEHELD 
 
 A closed casket, and it had no key ; 
 Methought no force could move the massive lid, 
 Yet, oft-times, suddenly, 'twould slowly rise 
 At some faint signal — a familiar tone, 
 A chord of music, or a perfumed gush 
 From some fair blossom, on the quiet air. 
 And then it opened, and gave up its store. 
 Its varied treasures, to one single gaze : 
 Some dim and shadowy as a troubled dream. 
 Some bright and vivid as the lightning's flash ; — 
 One shone, 'mid tears, with a pale rainbow light. 
 And one in gloom, deep as the darkest hours ; — 
 Some far more precious than the fabled gems 
 In ancient tale ; and some that wrung the heart 
 With the dim sense of a forgotten pain. 
 And all possess this treasure-house, — ^yes, all. 
 Though unto some it is a golden store. 
 To othei-s a dark shadow of the heart — 
 ]\Ien call it " ^Memoiy ! " 
 
 H 2
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 
 
 " Vitrea fracta; 
 
 Trifles, odds, and ends." 
 
 Petronius. 
 
 Glass houses ! I do not mean the world-famed 
 Exhibition in Hyde Park of tlie memorable year of 
 1851, or its giant offspring, the Sydenham Palace, 
 nor even do I allude to its more distant but defunct 
 relatives in Paris or Dublin, — all very pretty speci- 
 mens of large-sized beehives, showing to the prying- 
 eyes of this inquisitive generation the workers and 
 drones, either labom'ing or " doing the looking on." 
 
 I allude to yom* little private hothouse, my dear 
 Mrs. Spytchourspyte, as well as those of Samson 
 Smoothe, Esq., and the Reverend Jeremiah Good- 
 enough. Why, everybody has a little glass-house of 
 his own ! 
 
 Some years ago, the tax was taken off" greenhouses 
 (being luxuries), to i)ut it on something else (being 
 necessaries), and immediately there sprung up a
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 101 
 
 number of little gi-eeuhouses, like a crop of fungi 
 on the stump of an old tree. Everybody accom- 
 plished one that had any pretensions to gentility. 
 The doctor, at Colocynth House, had a round glass 
 building filled with geraniums and heliotropes, that 
 ill-natured people said used to be his room for dental 
 operations ; the solicitor, at Caveat Villa, had a 
 sort of glazed colonnade along the side of his house ; 
 while Mr. Shai'pe, the tax collector, rebuilt his 
 drawing-room on puqDOse that it miglit open into a 
 conservatory. Every advertisement in the "Times" 
 of " Three or four pretty little cottages to let, with 
 two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms," endeavoured 
 to Im-e a tenant by the "greenhouse;" which might 
 be either an overgro^\^l bow-window or a zinc-covered 
 landing-place with a great skylight. 
 
 And yet, numerous as these buildings are, they 
 are scarce to the hothouses, large or small, that 
 people erect for themselves, and to vdiich they do 
 not court observation. The most curious featm-e of 
 the case is, that people are as malicious about the 
 crystal erections of then- neighboixrs as if they owned, 
 no such frail structures themselves, and, practically 
 quoting Shakespeare, throw as many metaphorical
 
 102 GLASS HOUSES. 
 
 stones, ill the shape of sermons, as they possibly 
 can at every one else's panes. They positively revel 
 in the smash and breakage ; and yet they are all 
 people in good society, and some of them " pious 
 people," too, who woiild be horror-struck if you 
 told them they were fellow criminals with Bob 
 Starveling, who demolished Mr. Howie's v,indows to 
 get a loaf for his seven famishing childi'en ; or 
 Nancy Ryatt, who is committed for breaking sixteen 
 panes of glass at the Driveham Workhouse. 
 
 And, yet, my woi-thy Mr. Howies, you tln-ew a 
 very large stone labelled " Popeiy " through the great 
 painted window at St. Oswyth's, forgetting that you 
 had several glazed apertures overlooking yoiu* neigh- 
 bour " Little Zion," tln-ougli which a great limip 
 of " Dissent " might fairly be pitched in retm-n. 
 
 And you, dear Mrs. Russell Inglassy, in the same 
 manner, launched a malignant missile, called " extra- 
 vagance," at Mi's. Oinopoly, the "wine mercliant's 
 lady," quite oblivious to the fact that there are 
 sundry satin dresses and velvet cloaks in 7jour glass- 
 house. Mrs. Pegger, next door, lectures lier house- 
 maid Maiy for an hour " by the clock" on the sinful 
 extravagance of pink cap ribbons, and the iniquitous
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 103 
 
 waste of good muslin in white sleeves, while she 
 majestically lays her spectacles clown on Madame 
 Figgout's bill for a gorgeous crimson-and-gold turban, 
 to adorn her flaxen wig at the Opera to-night. 
 
 And you, my good Mr. Burtonail, fling with in- 
 dignant energy a weighty objurgation at Bob Brown's 
 Sabbatical glass of beer at the "Salmon and Com- 
 passes," on a broiling July afternoon, while coolly 
 discussing your bottled Bass or Dublin stout, served 
 to you by a liveried " Jeames " in your well-furnished 
 drawing-room. Will you not, my friend, take the 
 obtnisive quart out of yom- own eye before you 
 offer to wipe away the little modest half-pint out 
 of his 1 May not you be intoxicated with self- 
 righteousness, while he has only a " wee drappie in 
 his 'ee 1 " Why should you deal out his allowance, 
 meting it with yoiu' own bushel, and putting him 
 straight by a level that is not a kindly spirit level, 
 or setting him in the right line by a " Grosveuor 
 Square 1 " There's Lady Arabella Hartlesse lan- 
 guidly wonders, while reclining on a luxm'ious couch, 
 beneath a dome of crystal, and shaded by the fans 
 of tropical plants, and lulled by the plash of a scented 
 fountain, " How it is that those shocking lower
 
 104 GLASS HOUSES. 
 
 classes can want to break the Sabbath by going to 
 the Crystal Palace on a Sunday!" and her fashion- 
 able ear is dull to the crash, and her cold heart 
 closed to the fact, of the many hoiu's of laboiir (far 
 outnumbering her own restless toil after the phantom 
 Pleasiu-e) the rememlirance of that vision of grace 
 and beauty has lightened ; she dreams not of the 
 thoughts of the Creator and His marvellous works, 
 awakened, for the first time, perhaps, in the scared 
 and withered natiu'es that have hitherto known only 
 the little reeking back parlour of the " Rising Sun," 
 or the gaily-lighted bar of the gin-palace. 
 
 You, my fair Miss Hathwite Niggers, with many 
 of the sympathising fair sex of Great Britain, 
 "hove" a great stone all across the Atlantic at the 
 better-halves of the slave-owners and slave-drivers 
 in America, and a pretty little splash it made, I 
 dare say. But, in this case, there was a slight re- 
 taliation in the shape of a sharp, many-angled flint, 
 that c;\me skimming back like a " duck and drake " 
 in a pond, hopping and popping into several snug 
 little glass-houses of yoiu- own, containing over- 
 worked milliners' girls and benighted miners' children. 
 
 There's the Hon. Beatrice Bcllcringe moralising on
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 105 
 
 tlie sad depravity of Lucy Stitchem, the dressmaker's 
 apprentice, who walks iu the park on Sviuday with a 
 man " in a moustache and an eye-glass," quite over- 
 looking her own heartless flirtation with Percy Dolman 
 of the Guards. She is elegantly casting pebbles at a 
 poor little glass-house that is scarcely more than a 
 cucumber-frame ! 
 
 And you, my dear Mob — the " million," as you are 
 technically termed — you were " chucking stones " on 
 one of the famous July Sundays, at the windows of all 
 respectable houses in Belgravia. But you might have 
 had a few geological specimens fairly sent back to you 
 in kind ; for was it not yo\i, oh ! Artful Dodger, that 
 picked an old gentleman's pocket of his pm-se and 
 handkerchief, and cut a lady's guard, and obtained her 
 watch and a bundle of charms ? 
 
 Messrs. Cachem and Checks, ruthlessly prosecute 
 poor Tom Taddles, the clerk, who has embezzled £5 
 to pay for a few last comforts for his dying wife and 
 sick chikh-en, little dreaming that in the next six 
 weeks their ow^n names will be in the " Gazette." Tom 
 meets the worthy partners as he is led to the cold cell 
 to await, with a sinking heart, the seal of his ruin of 
 prospects and character ; while they, being gxeater
 
 106 GLASS HOUSES. 
 
 sinners, in every sense of the word, are ushered into 
 the gaoler's snug room, to gossip over the fire with their 
 friends. Young Checks will advise his wife how to 
 send him his flute, and some books, directing her what 
 to do witli his favourite mare, "Ebony," and so on. 
 Meanwhile, poor Tom is pictming on the blank wall of 
 his cell, the wasted form stretched out beneath a white 
 sheet, of whose release from ])aiu and poverty he has 
 just been told, and his five orphan chikh-en crying for 
 food and wai-mth — his vision of home. Messrs. Cachem 
 and Checks' has been an awful smash, ruining widows 
 and orphans, and crippling tlie resoiu-ces of several 
 charities, while poor Tom did scarcely more than crack 
 a pane, — and his own heart with it. 
 
 Here we are in the market-place of the populous town 
 of Mudboroiigh, during the election of an honourable 
 member for that celebrated little place. Mr. O'Kanvass 
 is on his legs, having just recovered from a violent 
 assault from the defunct remains of a fine specimen of 
 the feline race. He is animadverting on a certain case, 
 in which Mr. Pole, his opponent, was seen to kiss the 
 baby of Mrs. Murpliy, the gi-eengrocer, and give it a 
 penny to buy lollipops. Mr. O'Kanvass waxes sternly 
 indignant while expatiating on this flagi-ant case of
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 107 
 
 bribery, — when hang comes a stone tlu'ougli an un- 
 defended sash in his house, — in the shape of an 
 exposure of his own dehnquencies against the Act, by 
 treating Bill Heaves, the burly coal-heaver, to a pot of 
 half-and-half at the "George," and buying the wavering 
 allegiance of Mr. INIinikin, the linendraper, by ordering 
 a large flag. 
 
 Now, in the greenhouses we looked into first, people 
 cultivate all sorts of flowers ; but, from various reasons, 
 have a particular predilection for one especial kind, for 
 which they slight the rest. Lord Odontoglossum is 
 celebrated far and near for rearing rare orchids ; while 
 his neighboiu- Sir Charles Heath, not being able to 
 command such an amount of damp heat, cultivates 
 ericas and azaleas. Mrs. Waterum, again, whose 
 income and house are still more limited, is obliged 
 to be content with gloxinias and fuchsias, while the 
 cottages are satisfied Math geraniums and verbenas, 
 and a I'are slip or two raised imder a broken wineglass 
 or cracked tumbler. And so, though you may not 
 yovirself possess any slip or cutting of the little choice 
 vice you are railing at in your neighbour, you have as 
 goodly a crop as any one can desire of other little pet 
 sins, — all niu'sing up in your hothouse, and growing
 
 108 GLASS HOUSES. 
 
 as large and as strong as Mrs. Martagon's fine 
 Japan lily. 
 
 And so, although Captain Markhem is so stern with 
 Edward Blackshow, for breaking the commandment — 
 " Thou shalt not steal " — by helping himself to neck- 
 ties and Eau de Cologne, he himself violates another 
 by shooting Ensign Spune dead, in a duel. You can 
 sip your claret, my good Mr. Baggem, Q.C., and talk 
 most eloqviently on the infringement of the game laws, 
 by Tom Springe's snaring a pheasant, that was feeding 
 on the little patch of wheat intended for Tom's 
 winter provision ; liut do you never foster litigation, 
 and encourage Chancery suits, or snap up a case 
 under Mr. Fen-et's very nose 1 That's poaching on 
 his manor ! 
 
 The Rev. Ebenezer Grone, the " minister of Spatter- 
 sea Chapt'V" holds fortli to the poor charity buy, on 
 the crying sin of flying his kite on the Lord's Day, and 
 asks him if he rcniembers the Fourth Commandment, 
 forgetting that he lias built uj) his own glass-house 
 so as to shut out the view of the following Com- 
 mandment, — "Thou shalt not bear false witness 
 against thy neighbour ! " 
 
 There's Felix Beezwin will talk, holding up his glass
 
 GLASS HOUSES. 109 
 
 of port wine, critically, to the light, of the drunken- 
 ness and immorality of the lower orders. My good 
 fellow, do you never go behind the scenes at the Opera 
 House 1 There's only the difference of qiiality between 
 your bottle of old, crusted port, and Jack Smith's small 
 beer ! You have your little conservatory, too, only it's 
 none of your common glass and putty ones, but an 
 oriel-fronted, zinc-framed, and span-roofed palm stove, 
 heated on the last new principle. 
 
 Oh ! Soloman, Solyman, or Suleiman — whichever 
 fashion and Mr. Lane bid us call you — one really 
 longs to benefit by your peculiar but extinct art of 
 bottling up all evil spirits, — Genii, Jinn, or gin, — 
 whichever they are, and sealing them down for the 
 inspection and disposal of Mimkir and Nakir. 
 
 And yet, my dear public-spirited orators, — would-be 
 reformers of the human race ! — why should I inteirupt 
 your pretty, little pastime 1 You are, after all, only 
 children of a larger growth, and doing what little Sam 
 Stokes is now about, shying pebbles into the back- 
 windows of Miss Stark. The only difference is that 
 Dr. Byrch will put down his misdemeanors in half a 
 dozen of his quarterly bills, and six innocent parents 
 and guardians will severally pay for Master Sam
 
 110 GLASS HOUSES, 
 
 Stoke's mischief. While you, ladies and gentlemen, 
 are all indidging in a perfectly legal amusement, and 
 will even escape the personal consequences, over which 
 Master Sam is now roaring in the Doctor's private 
 study. You will be cheered and applauded, no 
 doubt ; and if you achieve a gi'eat crash, and only 
 make noise enough, may receive public thanks, and 
 perhaps even a piece of plate, as a reward for your 
 sei'vices in lithobaly. 
 
 But to you, who have received these heavy missiles 
 wherewith the world, and those of the world, endow 
 you, — these figm-ative stonings, almost as cruel and 
 bitter as Stephen's — and who stand mutely and 
 patiently gazing on the destruction of i/our little 
 crystal palaces, even if they be only the size of a 
 teaciqi — I have a gi-aver word to say. So eager and 
 merciless are the peltings of "the })itiless storm," 
 that one could fancy that each one who marked a 
 happy day with a white stone for himself, cast a per- 
 fect cairn of lilack ones for his neiglil)i>uv. Nor is 
 even tlic tomb a protection, for the touching Spanish 
 custom of casting a stone on the grave by the wayside 
 is still kejjt up, imt with tlie omission of the kindly 
 feeling and the prayer. Be you patient, however, and
 
 GLASS HOUSES. Ill 
 
 let the missiles lie as they fall, to be a perpetual 
 monument against the hand that threw them, and like 
 the stones of the Arabian talc, to utter with an hun- 
 dred tongues the injustice and wrong of them that 
 sent them. 
 
 And to both, the aggressors and the sufferers, there 
 is a lesson in the words of Him, who taught us in the 
 most perfect pattern ever laid down for man, to judge 
 our own selves ere we sought to point out the fault of 
 our brother. When one accused was brought before 
 Him, He silenced her accusers by the sentence, " Let 
 him who is without sin among you cast the first 
 stone ! "
 
 THE MOTHER OF THE STARVING. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A CASE IN THE NEWSPAPERS. 
 
 A WOEFUL cry is iu mine ear, 
 
 It breaks my rest both uight and day, 
 A vision sad, of faces wan. 
 
 That will not pass away. 
 Oh ! pity, — mercy, — ye who claim 
 
 The name of Him, who died to save 
 Both rich and poor alike, — behold 
 
 Me in this living gi-ave. 
 
 Look on these children, — I recall 
 
 Their innocent and dear embrace, — 
 The baby hands so soft and fair, 
 
 That gently pressed my foce ; 
 I see them i-oimd me, pale and cold, 
 
 And slowly starving, — they wliom I 
 Would give my heart's blood, drop by di-o}), 
 
 Yet see them starve and die.
 
 THE MOTHER OP THE STARVING. 113 
 
 My baby sickeued at my breast, 
 
 The food that happier mothers give, 
 My o'ertasked strength could ill supply, — 
 
 At length it ceased to live. 
 The large sunk eyes gazed pleadingly 
 
 Upon me, from its features spare ; 
 Until the " great Consoler " came, — 
 
 And only peace was there. 
 
 I bent above its coffined form. 
 
 No sliroud the thin cold limbs did hide ; 
 Yet dear to me as healthy bloom 
 
 Of richer mother's pride. 
 I worked beside it, day by day, 
 
 Until it lay beneath the sod. 
 Then I rejoiced that it was gone 
 
 Back to its home with God. 
 
 I saw my children's faces grow 
 
 More sickly still, for want of bread, 
 
 I toiled my fingers to the bone, 
 But they were scarcely fed.
 
 114 THE MOTHER OF THE STARVING. 
 
 And in that hour temptation came, 
 I heard theh* starving cry for food, 
 
 And risked my heritage in heaven 
 But for their eartlily good. 
 
 Now shame doth dog my daily path, 
 
 And even labour is denied, 
 And the dark waters tempt me, — but 
 
 Their wants must be supplied. 
 Then pity me, ye mothers young, 
 
 Wliose children Hve yoiu* home to bless, 
 Whose holiest feeling-s are not tiu-ned 
 
 To tempt yoiu' sore distress ! 
 
 Oh ! childhood is a lovely sight 
 
 In its unfettered careless glee ; 
 But when a haggard, creeping thing. 
 
 How dread it is to see ! 
 The angels love the sunny face, 
 
 And happy laughter's ringing flow. 
 But God doth hear the feeble wail. 
 
 From those pinched lips, the woe.
 
 THE MOTHER OF THE STARVING. 115 
 
 mothers ! by whose happy hearths, 
 
 Your childi-eu gather round the knee, 
 Whose full round limbs and rosy cheeks 
 
 Do glad your hearts to see, 
 Think of those women pale and wan, 
 
 Whose love is strengthened by despair. 
 Who gaze on infant faces, wrung 
 
 By the gaunt hand of care. 
 
 And if there is a little gravej 
 
 Where go your thoughts at morn and eve, 
 Oh ! think of those less blessed than you. 
 
 Who have no time to grieve. 
 Bestow the labom* and the care 
 
 On those whose want is very sore, 
 That little angel-form you love 
 
 Shall need of you no more.
 
 A PROTEST. 
 
 '* A dirge for her, — the doubly dead, hi that she died so 7/oung." 
 
 E. A. PoE. 
 
 Nay, mourn not for the early dead — whom the gods 
 love die young, 
 
 Before the blossoms in their path to bitter fruit have 
 
 sprung. 
 Weep, rather for the pilgrims worn, whose task not yet 
 
 is o'er, 
 'Neath noontide heat their weary feet still tread life's 
 
 l:)uruing shore, — 
 Whose weary footsteps linger yet along life's sandy 
 
 shore ! 
 
 But not for those whose youthful steps scarce wander 
 
 to the brink, 
 Who have not jiauscd, with thirsty lip, the bitter wave 
 
 to drink.
 
 A PROTEST. 117 
 
 Who think of death — a secret dim — with saddest 
 
 meaning rife, 
 Nor deem its sleep a respite deep from all the toil of 
 
 life,— 
 Nor dream of sadder secrets hid in the long toil 
 
 of life ! 
 
 Not theirs that winter of the heart when all seems 
 dull and sere, 
 
 And autumn's dusky tinges charm, more than the 
 opening year ; 
 
 "When, for the primrose chronicle of spring that child- 
 hood weaves, 
 
 We count our age by autumns now, and by the falling 
 leaves, — 
 
 We keep our sober calendar by autumn's russet 
 leaves. 
 
 The spring-time brings to youthful mind the song of 
 
 lark and bee, 
 That older sense, engrossed by cares, can neither hear 
 
 nor see ;
 
 118 A PROTEST. 
 
 AMiile yet the dewy roses, plucked so merrily at 
 
 morn, 
 And worn amid the sunny cm'ls, betray no piercing 
 
 thorn, — 
 The fragrant wreath its blooms beneath betrays no 
 
 piercing thorn. 
 
 While, ringing clear and musical, our childhood's 
 
 streamlets run, 
 And flash a hundred sparkling smiles to gi-eet the 
 
 golden sun, — 
 Their saddest cadences are kept 'mid shadows dark and 
 
 deep, 
 To ease the heart of bitter smart, refreshing tears to 
 
 weep, 
 To ease the careworn heart once more that scarce knew 
 
 how to weep. 
 
 Ere youth's quick pulse is checked or chilled, its merry 
 
 heart grown cold. 
 Its bounding step grown sad and slow that was so light 
 
 of (.1.1,
 
 A PROTEST. 119 
 
 Ere, sown by many a weary hour of sorrow, pain, or 
 
 care. 
 The snows of Time have fallen like rime upon the once 
 
 bright hair — 
 The silvery thi'eads, Time's footprints lie thick mid 
 
 the raven hair. 
 
 While all life's knowledge does but hold the tender 
 kiss of home. 
 
 Nor prophesies the sadder lore of bitterness to 
 come ; 
 
 While all youth's golden hopes and dreams, ixpspringing 
 evermore, 
 
 Are shielded right from frost and blight, like rose- 
 leaves at the core, — 
 
 Are folded safely, like the leaves aroimd the rosebud's 
 core. 
 
 Before the knowledge of the worst — the saddest secret 
 
 told : 
 That hope can fail, and faith can change, and love 
 
 itself grow cold.
 
 120 A PROTEST. 
 
 We stand appalled before the sight of all this deep 
 
 untruth, 
 And yearn once more to know the faith — the simple 
 
 faith of youth, — 
 Oh, better far to die with all the unquenched hopes of 
 
 youth ! 
 
 In all the glow of love and hope the eyes are sealed to 
 
 sleep, 
 To see no change, to miss no dream, or wake to watch 
 
 or weep ; 
 While all the world seems gay and bright, and glows 
 
 with hues of truth. 
 Oh, doubly blest, thus laid to rest, are those who die in 
 
 youth, — 
 Are those who win that early rest in the golden prime 
 
 of youth.
 
 TO THE GUDEMAN. 
 
 My Gucleman an' I, we're not rich and not great, 
 We've nae siller to care for, nae honours to wait ; 
 But we've a' the gi'een braes an' the bonnie blue sky. 
 And that's e'en muckle walth for my Gudeman an' I. 
 
 Our hoose is but sma', an' our pouk is nae lang, 
 So we needna tak' tent to be barring uj) Strang ; 
 Nae robber can steal from us, e'en though he try. 
 The luve an' the peace o' my Gudeman an' I. 
 
 We've nae lands and nae lairdships, nae plenishings 
 
 fine — 
 Nae kists fu' o' siller, nae cellars o' wune ; 
 But we've gude hamely cheer for each friend that gaesby, 
 And a right honest welcome — my Gudeman an' I.
 
 122 TO THE GUDKMAN. 
 
 When the winter sets in, an' without blaws the storm, 
 We sit in onr ingle neuk cosie an' wann ; 
 Wi' our tliree bonnie bairnies, an' proudly we cry — 
 " We are rich in our blessings," my Gudeman an' I. 
 
 For wi' a' warldly gear will come wearifu' care, 
 
 And for each hoarded groat wiU spring mony a white 
 
 hair; 
 Sae we'U store up the sunshine o' heart an o' skv, 
 We've plenty eneuch for my Gudeman an' I. 
 
 0' silks an' o' pearlins but sma' is my store, 
 But my bainiies can hang round my knee a' the more ; 
 An' for gowd an' for jewels I never will sigh, 
 While we've tln-ee such sweet bairns, my aidd Gudeman 
 an' I. 
 
 We see their bi-ight ecu an' each saft rosie cheek, 
 And the luve in oiu* hearts is too tender to speak ; 
 Sae let a' warldl}' riches an' lionom-s gang by. 
 We're sae happy without them, my Gudeman an' I.
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS, AND THEIR 
 RELATIONS. 
 
 " Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes, 
 That on the green turf suck the honied showers, 
 And puri^le all the gi-ouud with vernal flowers." 
 
 Milton. 
 " The small warm rain 
 Melts out the frozen incense from the flowers, 
 And fills the air with so much pleasant health 
 That even the dying man forgets his shroud." 
 
 Keats. 
 " Bright and glorious is that revelation 
 
 Written all over this great world of ours, 
 Making evident our own creation 
 
 In these stars of earth, — these golden flowers." 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 If there is any vestige left of oiir first parents' 
 happy sojoiu-n in the Garden of Eden, it is in the 
 beauty and profusion of our wild flowers, and in the 
 love for them implanted in almost every child's heart. 
 What can be more lovely than the bright buds and 
 blossoms, springing up in native luxuriance in eveiy 
 lane and meadow, and under every hedge 1 We scarcely
 
 124: MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 prize them enough, I think ; at least those who are 
 accustomed to them, are so familiar with their beauty, 
 that they pass them almost unnoticed. The fragrant 
 and cloistered violets, and that wildest and yet prettiest, 
 and most ephemeral flower, the large, white bind-weed, 
 or convolvulus, how abundant they are ! And that 
 much despised, but elegant blossom, the wild clematis, 
 with its thick clusters of scented blossoms. Nor must 
 the briar-rose be forgotten, that fau* and frail type of 
 human beauty, under the most insidious of all diseases 
 — consumption. It is undoubtedly the most lovely of 
 all roses in form and colour, and had it been lately 
 discovei'ed and reared in a greenhouse, woidd have 
 been priceless. And then of all vegetable wonders, 
 the curious tribe of native orchids, with then* mimic 
 insects, as if Nature, having exhausted all her wealth 
 of beauty, was reduced to copy from the living creatm-es 
 that flit about in the summer air. That cm-ious and 
 pretty bee orchis, I wonder if its living prototype ever 
 fancies one of liis coiii])anions has got the staii of him; 
 he must be a wise bee if he doesn't, for the little downy 
 body looks wonderful!}' life-like. They are certainly 
 among the best gifts of the Almighty, — open to all, from 
 the titled lady in her splendid conservatory, filled with
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 125 
 
 the rarest productions of India or America, to the little 
 cottage-maiden with her lap filled with the largest prim- 
 roses, or the earliest tuft of violets. The changing 
 season too, ever bringing fresh beauties without the 
 trouble of tending them. It may be only fancy per- 
 haps, but 1 cannot help loving the field-flowers best, 
 — they always seem to me as some poet has prettily 
 described them, " footsteps of the angels," and more 
 peculiarly God's own children, nursed by His showers 
 and dews, and tended by His sun and wind. So far 
 I have always preferred them to the delicate exotics 
 that are niu'sed up in a hothouse, and sheltered care- 
 fully from the free air and breezes which blow over 
 their more healthy but humbler relations in the fields. 
 In the spring, how eagerly do the chikh-en search for 
 the first daisy, — that little pet of all, — I do not sup- 
 pose there is a child, who has ever known what a 
 flower is, that does not love that early favourite. 
 Little tender blossom, springing even on the neglected 
 graves that bear no other signs of love and companion- 
 ship. How much more honoured has it been than 
 any expensive and valuable flower with an unpro- 
 nounceable name, that ever won prize at a fashionable 
 flower show. Every poet almost has paid it some
 
 126 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 tribute, and hailed it with pleasure, and even the 
 royal Marguerite did not despise it as her badge. 
 Its English name so prettily recalls to the mind's 
 eye the first dawn of morning, — pink streaked from 
 the east. 
 
 I love to see a cottage garden, with its old-fashioned 
 flowers, — the pale sweet monthly rose climbing almost 
 up to the roof. The borders edged with thrift, and 
 gay with the time Californian coloured marigolds, 
 thyme, sweet-scented thyme, and marjoram for the 
 bees. And generally, the pride of all, a huge lavender 
 bush, whose produce is carefully collected to scent 
 the drawers and old chests with. And the sunflower, 
 which in my younger days (when I was at that happy 
 age of perfect trust and belief in all legends and fairy 
 tales, however impossible), having read of the beauti- 
 ful Clytie, pining away in silent worship of the 
 bright sun, I pictured to myself a slight gvacefid 
 blossom, with pinky bells, and feathery leaves ; and 
 all at once om- so-called- sunflower came to my mind 
 with a sudden shock, and I felt a tempest of annoyance 
 at the idea of the large flaring yellow flower with a 
 most plebeian thick stalk, and great coarse green 
 leaves, tm-ning its broad saucy-looking face to the
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 127 
 
 orb of day, as if it were really staring it out of coun- 
 tenance. I did not then know that it was not the 
 real Clytie after all, but it destroyed that little 
 romance for me at the time. 
 
 But to return to our cottage garden, the spicy 
 smelling old clove-carnation, in huge clusters carefully 
 tied up, the velvet polyanthus, the oxlips, and, perhaps, 
 the summit of childish ambition, a hen-and-chicken 
 daisy. There too you may see tlie dear old cabbage 
 rose, — the very queen of all roses, — that warm-hearted 
 glowing flower, in which (barring the insects) one 
 could imprison one's nose for an hour to enjoy the 
 cordial sweetness which seems to do one's heart good. 
 Oh ! I do love a cottage garden, and always fancy that 
 wherever it is well and carefully tended, and evidently 
 the pride and glory of its owner's heart, there is some 
 good and gentle, even if rough and untaught spirit, 
 which works for good ; at any rate, there are almost 
 always industry and tidiness, — tiuo virtues at least. 
 
 AU hearts have naturally a love and yearning for 
 flowers. The respectable part of the London working- 
 classes, how proud and fond they are of their windows, 
 generally ornamented with a vivid imitation in minia- 
 ture of some very neat green palings, with a pretty white
 
 128 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 gate in the middle, which serves as an enclosure and 
 support for the various pots and pans containing their 
 favourites. A better pen than mine has delineated, in 
 Mrs. Gardiner, a lover of a suburban garden under 
 difficidties : with her growing and blowing propen- 
 sities the reader is doubtless acquainted ; of that, 
 therefore, I will say nothing. But even the very poor 
 of this great metropolis, up in their little, smoky, 
 dingy garrets, generally manage to have a few flowers. 
 And there is to me something inexpressibly touching, 
 in this vivid longing for the green fields and meadows. 
 The dwindled stick of a geranium, perhaps with two 
 little yellow crumpled leaves, stuck in a broken pot, or 
 a few faded wallflowers in an old mug, are often to be 
 found even in our prisons, carefully watched and tended 
 as any seedling of the most valuable kind. It shows 
 there is still, amidst all the sorrow, ignorance, and 
 darkness, one trace of human fellowship, at least — one 
 link of old memories, perhaps of the daisied fields of 
 childhood, innocent childhood, often looked at with a 
 heart-ache more sad than tears. What universal wit- 
 nesses they are of our strongest emotions, many a forai 
 now mixing with its parent earth could testify, could 
 it tell of the little bunch of withered flowers laid on
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 129 
 
 the cold and pulseless breast : how often this has 
 been the case, though unknown. 
 
 The young bride, whether she be the fair patrician, 
 marrying for money, rank, or anything biit love, wears 
 them on her cold bosom, albeit with no thought of 
 their beauty and freshness, but only with the idea 
 that the bouquet cost so many guineas — or whether 
 she be the cherished one of many affectionate hearts, 
 leaving her parents' home for another. She has a 
 thought to spare for her flowers, mingled perhaps, 
 with fond associations of the giver. 
 
 The next announcement in the newspapers — the 
 next thought in our minds — from marriage, is death ; 
 which natm'ally brings us to the flowers in church- 
 yards, upon the little, lowly graves unmarked by 
 anything else. It was indeed a sweet thoiight to put 
 them over those we loved in life, whether lying in the 
 cold, lifeless hand, or placed beside the pale cheek, 
 to fade and decay together, or planted over the grave, 
 blooming and again reviving year after year, like 
 promises of another life after death. "Bring flowers," 
 sweetly and truly sang a beautiful voice that has now 
 paused in silence, and above whom they are now 
 blooming. Sharers of om- triumphs, from the laurel 
 
 K
 
 130 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 of victory, the orange-wTeath of the bride, the roses 
 for the feast, the bay of the poet, the myrtle for the 
 lover, and, the last sweet office they can perform for 
 us, the forget-me-not for the tomb. 
 
 They are the visible memories of the past ; for how 
 often does their scent awaken in us long trains 
 of thoughts aiad events, past and almost forgotten : 
 chroniclers are they of happy times, perhaps once 
 as blooming as themselves. 
 
 And not alone to delight om' eyes, and touch the 
 most hidden chords of the heart, are flowers sent ; but 
 to assist the poor with their valuable medicinal pro- 
 perties. The humble cottagers, who cannot afford to 
 pay for costly drugs, go to the hedges and fields, and 
 make cooling febrifuges and healing salves from the 
 wild herbs ; and many an aching head and foim may 
 thank tlicm for sleep and refreshment. 
 
 I hope that pretty old custom in some parts of 
 England, still does and will exist, of keeping the first 
 of May; for then flowers hold a pre-eminent place of 
 honoiu", adoraing the blushing little queen and 
 decorating her throne. Innocent state ! that is a 
 crowai that does not weigh heavily, and the cares of 
 such a sovereignty cannot be very responsible. At
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 131 
 
 the harvest-home, again, and its attendant festivities, 
 they are welcome embellishments of the old farm- 
 houses. 
 
 In Germany, the partiality for them is great ; and 
 often, when wandering in its dark pine woods and 
 green valleys, I have had bunches of the blue 
 " forget-me-not " (that pretty flower, with its poetical 
 name and legend,) and of the sweet valley lilies, 
 which always seemed to me to have been made for 
 the fairies' own hands to ring, offered for my accept- 
 ance, with an earnest good faith, and a sort of quiet 
 satisfaction that I should value them as they did, 
 that was quite delightful in its quaint simplicity. 
 When you travel, too, they will run beside the car- 
 riage and throw in little bouquets, arranged with 
 infinite though untaught taste — a pretty way of 
 asking for cliarity. What is more pleasant than, 
 when you are staying on a visit, to find a few flowers 
 kindly placed on your table 1 it makes you feel so 
 at home, as if yom* sympathies and feelings were 
 understood and valued. They are pretty offerings ; 
 even if you do not comprehend the intricate mys- 
 teries of the language of flowers, at least you can 
 interpret kind thoughts and meanings from them. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 They are indeed the very protegees of poetiy, from 
 which all its most delicate and fanciful images are 
 taken. Then, again, the legends relating to them 
 are without number, from the "sanguine flower in- 
 scribed with woe," the Greek hyacinth, with its 
 mournful "ai," to the before-mentioned "forget-me- 
 not." There is no doubt , a host of treasm-es are yet 
 hidden in their many-coloxu-ed cups ; for I am sure 
 the varied forms they present, contain whole volumes 
 of suggestions to a thoughtful mind. Look at that 
 exquisite and wonderful flower that bears the symbols 
 of the Passion ; and again, the gi-aceful Solomon's 
 seal, where you may trace, when fully blown, in its 
 six petals the intersected triangle from whence it 
 takes its name. There is yet ample room for many 
 more of these fonciful and imaginative fictions. 
 
 I can quite understand the love of the poor prisoner 
 in that touching story of the " Prison Flower" for his 
 Picciola. That little talc is an almost universal 
 favourite, even in these utilitarian days, except by 
 some few who cry it down as silly and sentimental, 
 and do so perhaps because they are ashamed to confess 
 how much they were touched by it. The popularity 
 tliis little tale has obtained, shows how much its
 
 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 133 
 
 simple beauty and natural relation were appreciated, 
 but still more, how deeply rooted and widely spread is 
 the love of these beautiful children of the sun and air. 
 Is it not easy to understand, how that one link of 
 fellowship to the world, that frail, helpless, unconscious 
 little thing, more beloved perhaps than a living crea- 
 tm-e, because it could not understand and retvu^n that 
 love, clung round the poor prisoner's heart, whispering 
 of the green world beyond his prison bars, and the 
 hopes of liberty ? 
 
 " Keep him at least three paces distant," says 
 Lavater, " who hates music and the laugh of a child." 
 He might have added, and who does not love flowers, 
 for surely it is a sweet human trait in the character. 
 Who is there who does not, who cainiot, love flowers 1 
 Are not our best poets' sweetest lines about them 1 
 Is it not as natiu"al to love them as the human buds 
 and blossoms over which we watch so tenderly, and 
 over whose untimely fading we shed such bitter tears ? 
 From our cradle to om* grave they strew oiu- paths, 
 at some time or another. And it ought to be a subject 
 of deep thankfulness to all mankind, that the great 
 Author of aU did not think even the smallest weed or 
 flower beneath His notice, but scattered them with a
 
 134 MY FRIENDS IN THE FIELDS. 
 
 prodigal and kindly hand over valleys and meadows, 
 giving even the most bai-ren hills their tnft of vege- 
 tation. They are open alike to all the richest and the 
 poorest, to encourage the sweetest and kindliest sym- 
 pathies of our hearts and minds, leading us to Him 
 who gave us the musical and thriUiug melody of wild 
 liirds, and the bloom and fragrance of wild flowers.
 
 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 
 
 No. I.— THE BALL ROOM.; 
 
 " Thou goest, love, to the festive hall, 
 
 To join in the mirth and dancing. 
 With thy lip so red, and thine eye so bright, 
 
 Like the stars in the blue sky glancing ; 
 And the heedless crowd are hurrying on 
 
 To where the pale lamps quiver, 
 Then let these blossoms, young and fair, 
 
 Remind thee of the giver. 
 
 " With thy snowy robe and radiant wreath 
 
 Of gems that sparkle and glitter, 
 Oh ! flowers as fresh and fair as thyself 
 
 For thy youth and beauty were fitter. 
 Go forth with thy smiles and winning wiles, 
 
 And thy step of graceful lightness ; 
 Of all the fairest and youngest there 
 
 The first in thy dazzling brightness.
 
 136 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 
 
 "Thou goest alone, and I must stay 
 
 To muse o'er thy coming pleasure, 
 And pictm-e thee in the evening gloom, 
 
 My sole and priceless treasm-e ! 
 Then, take these flowers in thy snowy hand, 
 
 Glance sometimes on their bestowing ; 
 At least my flowei-s will be with thee there, 
 
 ^Vhere I am not with thee eroine;. 
 
 " Go, sweetest, amidst the vows and sighs 
 
 Which scarce can to pity move thee. 
 While I who smile to thy gay farewell. 
 
 Most truly and tendei-ly love thee ; 
 Cast one sweet glance on my favoiu-'d flowers. 
 
 Then go in thy glee, light-hearted. 
 And let their perfume and tender bloom 
 
 Remind thee of me when departed." 
 
 She went, in her gay and rich attire. 
 With gems in her bi-ight hair gleaming, 
 
 And left her lover with tender smile 
 To muse o'er his own sweet dreaming ;
 
 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 137 
 
 With a glance for all, and a smile for some, 
 
 And' a whisper'd jest for many, 
 She moved in her calm, but witching grace, 
 
 And cared not the while for any. 
 
 Midst the smiles and sighs of all she moved, 
 
 No memory sweet hath bound her. 
 And a thousand enchanting flatteries 
 
 Breathed low on the air around her. 
 And ere the last sound of the first gay dance. 
 
 To each smile and jest replying, — 
 She pass'd in her beauty, while on the gi-ound 
 
 The worthless flowers were lying. 
 
 No. 11.— THE CITY OF THE PLAGUE.* 
 
 " The horn' is come, the last eventful dawning 
 Which we, beloved, together e'er may see : 
 
 Oft have we watch'd the rosy clouds of morning 
 Dawn from the east, behind the tall old tree; 
 
 * See the story of Guyon of Marseilles.
 
 138 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 
 
 And now our parting vigil we are keeping, 
 Yet are we calm, beyond all hope and fear ; 
 
 And fondly have I knelt to watch thy sleeping, 
 This last dark hovu- that thou mayst linger here. 
 
 " See, love, this bunch of herbs, and some few flowers. 
 
 The last ray hand may ever pluck for thee ; 
 Place them beside thee in the long faint hours, 
 
 When at thy dangerous task away from me. 
 When in that awful chamber, all deserted, 
 
 In the dread silence of the long warm day. 
 The sounds of life have everywhere departed. 
 
 And hope and health alike have pass'd away. 
 
 " Go, Vfith tlie thought of thy great work before thee,. 
 
 To rest and joy, beyond this world of strife ; 
 Ere long we meet — the grave will soon restore me 
 
 Back to thine arms, and to a better life. 
 Let the forekuowledge of the good thou 'I't doing 
 
 Strengthen thy heart this agony to bear ; 
 Remember thou, thine own young life foregoing, 
 
 Redcem'st so many from tlieir dark despair.
 
 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 139 
 
 " Think of the fearM sufFerers round us lying, 
 
 The yoiuig and old, the poor, the rich and fair, 
 Who, hopeless, helpless, everywhere are dying, 
 
 Deserted by all tender love and care. 
 In thy hand was the power to aid and save them, 
 
 And thou (all noble as thou ever art), 
 Stood' St up amid the shrinking hearts, and gave them 
 
 Thy life, thy choice, to do the better part. 
 
 " To die with thee to me than life were dearer. 
 
 The world to me will be a barren land ; 
 But thou must have thy mind to all things clearer. 
 
 The thoughts of me must not unnerve thy hand. 
 The hour has struck,— ah, Heaven, still this weeping, 
 
 Strengthen my heart to bear this bitter hour ; 
 My own beloved, God have thee in His keeping, 
 
 And aid thee ; for He only has the power." 
 
 The night has closed around the fated city. 
 
 The pestilence broods o'er with poisonous breath ; 
 
 All health and hope are gone, all love and pity 
 Have fled before sucli misery and death.
 
 140 THE TWO BOUQUETS. 
 
 The faithful woman kneels beside the dying, 
 
 Once more her arms the loved one fondly clasp ; 
 
 Long has she sought him, and has found him lying, 
 The wither' d flowers still in his dying gi'asp. 
 
 And now the worst pai't of her fate is over ; 
 
 She wipes the death damps from his alter'd brow 
 Where the last awful smile begins to hover. 
 
 His part is ended, — hers is ending now. 
 Contagious poison from his pale lips di-inking, 
 
 She feels upon her cheek the last faint breath ; 
 Like wearied child upon his breast- down sinking. 
 
 She smiles her welcome with him, unto death.
 
 THE HEARTSEASE. 
 
 " Heartsease, thiit is tears. " 
 
 A WREATH for mine own true love, 
 
 A garland that tells of light and bloom, 
 And that whispers of deep blue skies, 
 
 To lay by the couch in the darken'd room. 
 Where a weary siififerer lies ! 
 And the violets blue shall lend their hue 
 
 To brighten the heavy eye, 
 And the wan cheek steal the rose's flush 
 
 That it wore in days gone by. 
 She shall lay on that worn and weary heart, 
 
 That has ached for so many years, 
 This blossom that men call " memory," 
 
 But its truest name is " tears !"
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE. 
 
 ' ' They knew not that beneath that hard dry exterior, lay folded 
 delicate golden wings, wherewith, when the toils of the day were 
 over, he soared and revelled in the evening air." 
 
 Longfellow's' Kavanagh. 
 
 Poor Cousin Hepsie ! How well do I remember 
 her, — tall, and thin, and angular, with tlie same old- 
 fashioned di'ess and manner she must have worn 
 dozens of years befoi-e ! When I first remember her, 
 I was a graceless nondescript of uncertain age and 
 boisterous manners, with a painfidly loud voice, and 
 most uncomfortably awkward hands and arms, that, 
 from the shoulders downwards, I did not know what 
 to do with. 
 
 Cousin Hepzibah Taylor was a cousin of my 
 mother's father ; and, from her genuine kindness of 
 heart and simplicity of character, was beloved and 
 revered by our whole family. Did any of us catch 
 the measles or hoo})ing-cougli, or any of the accus- 
 tomed routine of juvenile blessings 1 Cousin Hepsie
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE. 143 
 
 was sure to be sent for, and certain to come ; for 
 her devotion in sickness was only to be equalled by 
 a Soeur de Charite ; and the poor unfortunate little 
 victim was sure to see her come in, with her pecu- 
 liar muffled step, and take her usual place by the 
 sick bed. 
 
 Oh ! ungTateful creatures that we are ! to rail 
 as we do against old maids, and vent on them all 
 the malice or pique we entertain against either 
 sex ! Who is it that is at the beck and call of all 
 her pei-verse juniors, but the maiden aunt or cousin 1 
 Whether it be the lingering death-bed of one darling 
 of the flock, or the advent and care of another, 
 watching by day and sitting up at night, there she 
 is, smoothing the ruffled pillow and bathing the 
 fevered head. And yet she was once as gay and 
 youthful as any of us. That quiet grey hair, per- 
 haps, waved in as sunny cm-Is as ever hiuig over 
 merry blue eyes. Ah ! those eyes have seen life in 
 its changes and chances, and have been acquainted 
 with tears ; and, from secret causes, hidden like 
 black rocks beneath the water, on which were 
 wrecked all the promise and bud of a glowing 
 human life, she is become the grave but cheerful
 
 144 COUSIN HEPSIE. 
 
 old maid, the consoler of all in affliction, and whose 
 best praise is the love of all who know her. 
 
 But we have wandered far away from om* friend 
 Miss Hepzibah Taylor, or rather "Consin Hepsie," 
 as she was familiarly called by all of us, from the 
 heads of the family downwards to the last new- 
 comer, who could only lisp out a combination of 
 sounds that required the aid of mother or nurse to 
 interpret into "Cousin Hepsie." 
 
 Her arrival was a great jubilee to all the juveniles 
 wlio were off the sick-list ; for a certain large black 
 silk bag she always bore, capacious enough to carry 
 a quartern loaf in, was sui'e to be well stuifed with 
 oranges or currant heart-cakes, and often some little 
 especial gift for the elder members of the circle, 
 chosen with a considerate eye to their likings and 
 habits. Poor Cousin Hepsie ! many a naughty word 
 and rougli practical joke, rush on my conscience as 
 I WTite, and all endured with such cliccrful good 
 temper ! Many were the caricatures of her old black 
 poke bonnet and large cape, and particularly straight 
 and scanty-looking garments we, little sinners, per- 
 petrated. As we gi-ew older we used to tease her 
 sadly about what we called her "strict" ideas of
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE. 145 
 
 right and ^Tong, and said all sorts of wild things, 
 on purpose to see her innocent look of horror. She 
 was one of the old-fashioned kind of people, and 
 very jjrecise in her duties, and under all her formality 
 beat as warm a heart as ever lived. She used to 
 teach a class at a Sunday-school in her neighbourhood, 
 and carried to her work there, the simple, straight- 
 forward earnestness that characterised her life 
 throughoiit. Not content with doing her duty com- 
 pletely to the letter, she tried to enter into the 
 spirit of it as fully. She loved all the chikh-en of 
 her class almost as if they had been her own, and 
 not only their outward wants and necessities were 
 known to her, but their minds and little secrets 
 too ; and doubtless her simple advice and example 
 have led many of them tlu'ough the thorns and 
 briars of this world. 
 
 I remember the story of one of her scholars, a 
 pretty modest girl, and a great favourite of Cousin 
 Hepsie's. She left the school to go to service, and 
 many were the kind words and prayers uttered on her 
 behalf, — alas ! not destined to be fulfilled. Cousin 
 Hepsie did not hear of her again for many months, 
 for she had gone to London, which was a long distance
 
 146 COUSIN HEPSIE. 
 
 from the tovra where she lived, and in those days 
 travelling was not snch an easy matter as it is now. 
 When Coxisiu Hepsie did hear of her, the news cut 
 her to the heart ; for the temj)tations of the great 
 Babylon liad been too much for the unsophisticated 
 country-girl, and she fell lower and lower, until at 
 last a few almost illegible lines reached Cousin Hepsie, 
 bidding her farewell in this world. But Cousin 
 Hepsie coidd not rest content with this ; so, packing 
 up her few travelling requisites, she started off to 
 London, and in a WTctched close attic, in a densely 
 populated part of the tovra, she found the poor dying 
 gh'l. She was not prevented from visiting her by the 
 evil character of the neighbourhood from which the 
 invahd was too ill to be moved, and at last, after 
 watching her through the brief but terrible agony of 
 hopeless disease, the poor dying crcatm'e gazed her 
 last u})on tlie well-known face of her old dearly 
 remembered teacher, — her faithful nui-se and com- 
 forter, Cousin Hepsie. No word of reproach or disgust 
 had escaped her lips, and all htr old maid's precision 
 and strictness, had vanished like mist before that 
 agony of penitence and death, and left only the 
 womanly beauty of her tenderness and pity.
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE. 147 
 
 I can now xinderstand the reverence and affection 
 felt for her by the older members of the family, who 
 could appreciate the beanty of character veiled under 
 that homely exterior, and even we, with all our grace- 
 less tricks and speeches, loved Cousin Hepsie dearly ; 
 and deep and long were the wailings and weeping, 
 when the sudden news was brought to us that she 
 was dead ! — I think her health had been breakino; for 
 months past, but she never complained, and at last 
 the change came on rapidly, and she sank in the course 
 of a day. So rapid was it that she was denied the 
 comfort she had given to so many, — and there was no 
 one biit her maid with her when she died. 
 
 When she was clothed for her last home, a little 
 worn silk bag was found suspended to a black ribbon 
 round her neck ; it contained a few dried flowers, and 
 it was left over the cold and pulseless heart, whose 
 secret history it contained in its withered leaves, and 
 which, beating on it through so many weary years, had 
 ceased at last and for ever. 
 
 Cousin Hepsie had been the eldest sister of a 
 numerous flock, and was the only plain one of several 
 beautiful sisters, at least so judged the world, whose 
 idea of beauty is but skin deep. She had seen them 
 
 L 2
 
 148 COUSIN iiErsiE. 
 
 all married off, except the youngest, aucl with lier she 
 dwelt, giving her all a mother's love and care. In the 
 town near which they lived, resided a yoxmg siu-geon, 
 earnest and talented in his profession, and as devoted 
 to his work as herself. At first, he attended them as 
 a stranger, and afterwards visited them as a friend. 
 She was won by his sweetness of temper, and the 
 unaffected tenderness and kindness he exhibited to his 
 poorer patients ; and at last, slowly, step by step, poor 
 Hepsie's heart was irretrievably gone, and she gave 
 way to the feeling, as many sober people do, the more 
 from its contrast to their nature. Utterly hopeless 
 however was she ; for she reckoned so surely on the 
 superior attractions of her sister, that she never sup- 
 posed he could think of her. 
 
 One day in summer he came to her (her sister 
 was away with a friend), and told her in great agita- 
 tion, that the crisis of his life was come, that a 
 relation had just left him a legacy sufficient to justify 
 him in setting up in life, and pleading his cause where 
 his heart had long been given. That, of course, she 
 must have seen it ; but he had not considered it right 
 to speak before he could do so with certainty. That 
 he was now on a journey to town, and could not wait
 
 COUSIN HEPSIE. 149 
 
 an instant, bnt that he could not leave without asking 
 her if he had any hope, and that his fate was in her 
 hands. All this he poured forth, leaving scarcely time 
 for reply, even could she have done more than falter 
 out a few unmeaning words, so completely were her 
 senses overthrown for the moment. He kissed her 
 hand warmly and joyously, asked for her sister, and 
 left her utterly bewildered. When he was gone, poor 
 Hepsie sank into a seat, scarcely daring to think of 
 the change from quiet despair to the greatest happi- 
 ness. When she had somewhat recovered, and in- 
 dulged her happy fancy to its extent, and had lived 
 for a brief time in dream-land, she recalled her ideas, 
 and looking round, saw on the floor a little bunch of 
 flowers, which had di'opped from his hand in the eager- 
 ness of the conversation. All that happy week, those 
 flowers were the silent witnesses of Hepsie's joy. 
 Friday came, and with it a letter from her sister, say- 
 ing that after what Dr. S had told her on leaving, 
 
 her dear Hepsie would not, of course, be surprised to 
 hear of her happiness. That dear Edward had, on 
 finishing his business in London, come on to her, to 
 learn from her own lips whether she would share his 
 better fortunes. That he should never forget dear
 
 150 COUSIN HEPSIE. 
 
 Hepsie's kind eucoiu-agement, and cordial reception of 
 his incoherent declaration. This, and much more, 
 met poor Hepsie's eyes ; her dream-land castle lay in 
 ruins at her feet, her bright hopes had only left her 
 more wretched than before, and she had the bitter 
 feeling that it ^yas her o\m self-delusion, and, there- 
 fore, to be the more carefully hidden in her o'mi heart. 
 Her better feelings came to her aid, and she was able 
 to meet the young betrothed pair with her old calm 
 smile, in which they, engrossed in themselves, failed 
 to perceive a mournful sweetness it had never know^l 
 before. Her love was buried, indeed ; but she had 
 not the strength of mind to part with the flowers — 
 the relics of the happiest week of her life, and which, 
 while reminding her of brighter hopes and happier 
 days, preached also to her humbled heart, that 
 their faded blossoms and withered leaves were em- 
 blems of all human hopes, not founded on better 
 things. 
 
 She could not live witli the young pair, much as 
 they wished it ; but she pleaded old habits, and her 
 numerous relations who wanted her. It was durins 
 one of her visits of consolation, that she was summoned 
 back by a letter from her sister. Edward had caught
 
 COUSm HEPSIB. 151 
 
 a contagiovis fever from one of his poor patients. 
 Hepsie set off at once, and found him in violent deli- 
 rium — even his temfied wife shrinking from him. On 
 Hepsie devolved all those sad duties that wife should 
 have performed ; watching through the wild ravings 
 of the fever, and the ten-ible exhaustion that suc- 
 ceeded — receiving his last wishes and prayers, in the 
 short interval of consciousness that preceded his 
 death. And then the last sad offices, the funeral — her 
 widowed sister, whose bursts of unreasonable grief 
 refused all restraint. But Hepsie was calm and patient 
 throiigh it all, — her trials did but soften her. She took 
 her sister to her own home, and again watched over 
 her as in her childhood, scarcely believing but that 
 all that had passed was a painful dream, from w^hich 
 she was awakened by the widow's cap and weeds. 
 These, however, in a few years were again exchanged 
 for bridal costume, and again Hepsie's home was 
 lonely ; and yet not so, — her life of charity left her 
 no room for painful retrospection. Her love and 
 sympathy were ever with the young ; and the withered 
 flowers were no true sign of the heart that preserved 
 its youth, after all the changes that had passed over 
 it, and all that had been precious to it was removed.
 
 152 COUSIN HEPSIE. 
 
 To her might be applied the beautiful words of 
 
 Longfellow : — 
 
 " Her soul, like the transparent air 
 That robes the hills above, 
 Though not of earth, encircles there 
 
 All things with arms of love. 
 
 * * * 
 
 She makes her life one sweet record 
 
 And deed of charity. 
 
 * » * 
 
 It is their prayers that never cease. 
 That crown her with such grace ; 
 
 Their blessing is the light of peace 
 That shines upon her face." 
 
 Beloved and remembered, cherished in our very 
 heart's memories, are the kindly deeds and simple 
 words of dear Cousin Hepsie.
 
 A MAIDEN'S OMENS. 
 
 " II m'aime, — 
 Un pen, — 
 Beaucoup, — 
 Pas de tout ! " 
 
 Old rhyme. 
 
 A WILD rose grew on a thorny spray, 
 And there passed by a maiden fair, 
 
 Who phicked the blossom, that grew so low 
 That it clung to her shining hair. 
 
 '& 
 
 A merry fancy crossed her mind, 
 
 And the first leaf fluttering fell, 
 With a kiss, and a sigh, and a murmured name,- 
 
 The naiiie that she loved so well. 
 
 " He loves me ; " — she plucked the second leaf 
 
 With a bright but flitting blush. 
 The reddest leaf at a rose's heart 
 
 Were pale to that rosy flush.
 
 154 A maiden's omens. 
 
 "But a little ;" — the glance of her saucy eyes 
 Was as bright as the dew of morn, 
 
 When its diamond fetters it weaves and flings 
 To hang on each briar and thorn. 
 
 " He loves me well ;" — no word she spake, 
 But so tenderly glowed her cheek, 
 
 I read tlie meaning that little heart 
 Beat too thick and fixst to speak. 
 
 " Not at all ;" — her voice as low as a sigh, 
 Scarce breathed out the old rhyme's close. 
 
 And the faint smile fell from her quivering lip 
 With the last red leaf of the rose.
 
 THE LITTLE CUP OF TEAES. 
 
 • 
 
 She stood beside the hearth, the same old place 
 
 Where formerly she sat and rocked her child, 
 
 Her little blue-eyed babe, with tender songs. 
 
 And hushed him off into a rosy sleep. 
 
 The embers flicker with unsteady light. 
 
 And show her where the cradle used to stand, — 
 
 That cradle now as vacant as her arms. 
 
 The little sleeper's rest is calm and deep, 
 
 No need to hush her household duties now. 
 
 Or creep about with quiet noiseless tread ; 
 
 For nothing but the dread Archangel's trump 
 
 Shall rouse him from that silent di-eamless rest. 
 
 No longer need of soothing lullabies. 
 
 Or cradle songs, or innocent baby-talk, 
 
 The simple language, that untaught will spring 
 
 To every mother's lips to please her child. 
 
 No want of pillow, or warm coverlet, — 
 
 The little golden curls lie peacefully
 
 156 THE LITTLE CUP OF TEARS. 
 
 Within a churchyard nest. — Another spring 
 
 Shall broider o'er his covering with flowers, 
 
 And daisies that, one little month ago, 
 
 He plucked so merrily with dimpled hands 
 
 To fiU her lap, shall soon grow over him. 
 
 Poor lonely mother ! — but to-day she stood 
 
 Beside the yawning earth, and saw them lay 
 
 The little coffin slowly down, and heard, 
 
 " Ashes to ashes, — dust to dust," — and earth 
 
 Unto its kindred earth, — the dread divorce 
 
 That parted her from the poor senseless clay, 
 
 Flesh of her flesh, that one short week ago 
 
 Was wai'mly thi'obbing with the pulse of life. 
 
 The holy promises that bid her raise 
 
 Her eyes with faith up to those calm blue heavens, 
 
 Now her child's home for ever, — fell upon 
 
 Her senseless ear, that took no meaning in 
 
 Unto her soid in all its dark despau'. 
 
 Each sod of earth that fell upon the lid 
 
 Of that small coffin, like a bolt of ice. 
 
 Struck with dull anguish on her heart and brain. 
 
 The sun that shone so brightly everywhere, 
 
 And smiled fresh buds to blossoms, only seemed 
 
 A chilling mockery of her grief and loss :
 
 THE LITTLE CUP OF TEARS. 157 
 
 And the warm breeze that robbed the churchyard- 
 limes 
 Of all their odorous breath, swept o'er her sense 
 With sickening faintness, — earth and air were bright 
 With life and music ; but she stood 'midst all, 
 Wi*apt in the gloom of her rebellious grief. 
 " My little one, — my only, precious child, — 
 My sole ewe lamb, — my solitary dove. 
 That nestled in my bosom day and night ! 
 lu many another home, where faces bright 
 Gather in many circle round the hearth. 
 Death might have had his choice; it was not well, — 
 Not right — Death ! to rob me of my child ! " 
 So spake the mother's heart, that eventide, 
 In passionate impatience wailing sore ; 
 While the calm stars came shining, one by one, 
 To keep their watches o'er the darkening earth ; 
 And the great heart of ocean ebbed and flowed 
 Obedient to its boundaries, — birds and bees 
 Had humm'd their vespers, all with one accord 
 Breathing, " Lord our God ! Thy will be done." 
 
 The second evening, on the casement dark 
 Came heavy gushes of tempestuous rain,
 
 IGO THE LITTLE CUP OF TEARS, 
 
 She dared not clasp her dear one to her heart. 
 
 The httle child spoke to her — " Mother dear, 
 
 I am permitted once to come to joii, 
 
 To bid you weep no more ; behold this cup 
 
 Is full to ovei-flowing — one drop more 
 
 Will brim it over ; for, collected here. 
 
 The mourning angel gathers up your tears. 
 
 If the cup once o'erflows, then I shall have 
 
 No rest or quiet in my little grave. 
 
 No joy in yonder heaven ; mother dear, 
 
 If you do tridy love me, weep no more ; 
 
 Angels are my companions, — I am blest 
 
 Beyond your utmost knowledge." With these words 
 
 The vision vanished. 
 
 Rising from her knees. 
 The mother dried her teai'S, nerved by a love 
 Stronger than death, she who had watclied so well 
 Her infant's sleep in life, could not in death 
 Disturb the peaceful sleeper in his grave. 
 Or cast one shadow on the glorious joy 
 Her child had won in lieaven. No selfish drop 
 Thenceforth fell from her calm but mournful eyes. 
 To ovei'flow the angel's cup of tears !
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 When in the silvery moonlight 
 
 The lengthened shadows fall, 
 And the silence of night is dropping 
 
 Like the gentle dew on all. 
 
 When the river's tranquil murmixr 
 
 Doth lulling cadence keep, 
 And blossoms close their weary eyes, 
 
 He giveth all things sleep. 
 
 From the little bud of the daisy, 
 And the young bird in the nest, 
 
 To the luunble bed of the peasant child 
 All share that quiet rest. 
 
 It comes to the poor man's garret. 
 
 And the captive's lonely cell. 
 On the sick man's tossing, feverish couch 
 
 It Ipys a blessed spell. 
 
 u
 
 IGO THE LITTLE CUP OF TEARS. 
 
 She dared not clasp her dear one to her heart. 
 
 The httle child spoke to her—" Mother dear, 
 
 I am permitted once to come to yon, 
 
 To bid you weep no more ; behold this cup 
 
 Is full to overflowing — one drop more 
 
 AVill brim it over ; for, collected here, 
 
 The mourning augel gathers up your tears. 
 
 If the cup once o'erflows, then I shall have 
 
 No rest or quiet in my little grave, 
 
 No joy in yonder heaven ; mother dear, 
 
 If you do truly love me, weep no more ; 
 
 Angels are my companions, — I am blest 
 
 Beyond your utmost knowledge." With these words 
 
 The vision vanished. 
 
 Rising from her knees. 
 The mother dried her tears, nerved by a love 
 Stronger than death, she who had watched so well 
 Her infant's sleep in life, could not in death 
 Disturb the peaceful sleeper in his grave. 
 Or cast one shaddw on tlie glorious joy 
 Her child had won in heaven. No selfish drop 
 Thenceforth fell fi'i>ni her calm but mournful eyes. 
 To overflow tlie angel's cup of tears !
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 When in the silvery moonlight 
 The lengthened shadows fall, 
 
 And the silence of night is dropping 
 Like the gentle dew on all. 
 
 When the river's tranquil mm-mur 
 
 Doth lulling cadence keep, 
 And blossoms close their weary eyes, 
 
 He giveth all things sleep. 
 
 From the little bud of the daisy, 
 And the young bird in the nest. 
 
 To the humble bed of the peasant child 
 All share that quiet rest. 
 
 It comes to the poor man's garret. 
 And the captive's lonely cell. 
 
 On the sick man's tossing, feverish couch 
 It loys a blessed spell.
 
 162 SLEEP. 
 
 And the Holy One who sends it down, 
 
 For a healing and a balm, 
 Doth bless it with a mighty power 
 
 Of peacefulness and calm. 
 
 He counts the buds that fade and drop, 
 And marks all those who weep ; 
 
 And closes weary, aching eyes 
 With the holy kiss of sleep. 
 
 The truest comfort He has given 
 For all earth's pain and woe, 
 
 Until that glorious life beyond 
 Nor tears nor sleep shall know.
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 " To win the secret of a weed's plain heart 
 Eeveals some clue to spiritual things, 
 And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art : 
 Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes, 
 Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense ; 
 He knows that outward seemings are but lies. 
 Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence 
 The soul that looks within for truth may guess 
 The presence of some wondrous heavenliness." 
 
 J. EussELii Lowell. 
 
 It is always a puzzle to me, that distiuctiou between 
 flowers and weeds. What are weeds ? Frank Lee 
 obligingly remarks, that he only knows of one kind, 
 and that's the Oxford weed ; and the best sort, he 
 thinks, are Havanas at twenty-one shillings the poimd ! 
 
 We will ask Harry Spud, the gardener, perhaps he 
 can enlighten our ignorance. 
 
 " Well, HaiTy, what is a weed 1 " 
 
 "Why, ma'am, them's weeds as always will gTOW 
 everywhere as they oughtn't to, and won't be got rid 
 of no how ! "
 
 164 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 " Well, Hariy, perhaps that is some rule to work 
 upon, but that's not exactly what I want. My dear 
 Mr. Budde, now you are such a first-rate amateiu- in 
 all that belongs to horticulture and floricvdture, can 
 you throw any light on the subject ?" 
 
 " Well, ma'am, there are a great many weeds, — 
 in fact the countiy's inundated with them, — there's 
 Mason's White Perfection, and Sorel's Scarlet Beauty, 
 and the Gloire Unique, all weeds, mere weeds, — don't 
 pay for cultivation. Then there's " 
 
 " Stop, stop, my good friend, I am much obliged to 
 you ; I don't want to know of any more. Here, little 
 Mary, can you tell me what a weed is 1 " 
 
 " Please, ma'am, I don't know, because daisies and 
 buttercups are flowers. Please, ma'am, perhaps nettles 
 and thistles are weeds, because they sting so ! " 
 
 Well done, little Mary, that's the best definition 
 we have had, and yet your old quiet donkey there, 
 wlio is chewing a whole crop of those " stinging weeds," 
 would cavil at yoiu* reservation, and protest that you 
 were mistaken, in preferring a poor useless rose or 
 violet to his piquant edibles. He would be quite as 
 energetic, depend upon it, though not perhaps so 
 eloquent, as my favourite American poet who has
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 165 
 
 invested Ms weed, the common dandelion, with so 
 much interest for ever, — 
 
 " Dear common flower, that gi-ow'st beside the waj 
 Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 
 
 First pledge of blithesome May, 
 Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold — 
 High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they 
 An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
 
 Which not the rich earth's ample round 
 May match in wealth — thou art more dear to me 
 Than all the prouder summer blooms may be. 
 
 " Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
 Through the primeval hush of Indian seas. 
 
 Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
 Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 
 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now 
 To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
 
 Though most hearts never imderstand 
 To take it at God's value, but pass by 
 The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 
 
 ' ' Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
 To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 
 
 The eyes thou givest me 
 Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 
 
 Not in mid June the golden- cuirassed bee 
 Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment 
 
 In the white lily's breezy tent. 
 His conquered Sybaris, than I when first 
 From the dark green thy yellow circles burst." * 
 
 There are three more verses that will amply repay 
 * J. Russell Lowell.
 
 IGG FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 the reader for the perusal. Who would not even wish 
 to be a weed to be so sweetly worshipped in a strain 
 that is redolent of the spirit of the old poets, and is 
 a perfect cabinet of little picture gems. 
 
 But to return to our weeds, — we will first consider 
 Harry Spud's definition, — " Them as grows eveiywhere 
 as they oughtn't to, and won't be got rid on no how ! " 
 This is certainly a serious accusation, and I am afraid 
 if we do battle with him on the subject, he will 
 put us quite to the rout by citing carrot-beds and 
 wheat-fields against us, and exclaiming with old 
 Tusser, — 
 
 " Dotli darnell good, among tlie flowery wlieat ? 
 Do thistles good, so thick in Mlowes spyed ? " 
 
 He would not understand tis, I dare say, if we endea- 
 A'oiu'ed to show him the great purpose of those very 
 weeds, the chastening instrument of the Almighty, who, 
 for man's iniquity, cursed tlie ground that it should 
 bear thorns and thistles, as well as wholesome herbs. 
 They may rank with the Ijail and blight, the locust 
 and the pestilence, the hindrances and bars to the 
 success of man's industr}', but also the stinudants to 
 greater exertions, and the teachers of the great lesson 
 of patience and content. Nor are even these two
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 167 
 
 weeds without their virtues, if we are to believe the 
 old herbalists. Darnel is beneficial in cases of leprosy, 
 and thistles boiled in wdne, " dispel melancholy, and 
 make a man as merry as a cricket." Thoiigh, perhaps, 
 some of our modern sceptics would recommend the 
 omissioii of the thistles, and think they might not be 
 missed. Our herbalist says, probably with a know- 
 ledge of this want of faith, " Dioscorides saith, the 
 root borne about one doth the like, and removes all 
 diseases of melancholy. Let them laugh that rvin, my 
 opinion is, that it is the best remedy against all 
 melancholy, that grows ; they that please may 
 use it ! " 
 
 Even little Mary's stinging-nettles have some virtue 
 in them. " An handful of the leaves of green nettles 
 and another of deanwort, or wallwort, bruised and 
 applied simply themselves to the gout sciatica, or joint 
 aches, hath been found an admirable help thereto." 
 In former times, when the qualities of plants were 
 more studied, and the still-room flourished under the 
 active superintendence of the Lady Bountiful, what 
 we shoiild now account as mere weeds gathered from 
 hedges and fields, were almost more valued than better 
 flowers, for their medicinal properties.
 
 168 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 The healing mallows of the marshes, and their 
 commoner relatives of the fields, whose round white 
 seed-vessels formed the " cheeses," of oui- " daisy -loving 
 childhood," were accounted of wonderful efficacy in 
 diseases of the chest. Feverfew and camomile were 
 potent in quelling fever, and wormwood, with its 
 powerful bitter, was an excellent tonic. Poppies 
 brought sleep to the tossing and feverish pillow. 
 Our herbalist says of them : " They are a lunar herb, 
 and of their juice is made opium, only for lucre of 
 money they cheat you and tell you it is a kind of tear 
 that drops from poppies when they weep, — and that 
 is somewhere beyond the seas, I know not where 
 beyond the Moon ! " 
 
 There was undoubtedly a gi*eat leaven of the 
 wonderful in these old herba,ls, that, although it suited 
 the vulgar palate most esjiccially, would tax even the 
 gi'eatest credulity ; as, for instance, of the herb moon- 
 wort, of which oiu" author very gravely asserts : 
 " Moonwort is an herb which (they say) will open 
 locks, and unshoe such horses as tread ujjon it. This 
 some people laugh to scorn, and those no small fools 
 either ; but country people, I know, call it unshoe the 
 horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say, that
 
 FLOWERS AXD WEEDS. 169 
 
 on White Down, in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there 
 were found thirty horse-shoes, pulled off from the feet 
 of the Earl of Essex's horses, being there drawn up 
 in a body, many of them being but newly shod, and 
 no reason known, which caused much admiration, and 
 the herb described usually grows upon heaths ! " 
 
 Oiu- worthy author has evidently sundry lurking 
 misgivings on the subject, though he much inclineth 
 to a full belief, yet eschewing the idea of being 
 ridiculed for his trust. Can one not fancy the great 
 round staring eyes of some "Jem" or "Garge" 
 peering from a brown and red face out of a smock 
 frock, the owner thereof standing stock stiU to gaze 
 at the bran new horse-shoe on the green turf. Then the 
 half fear, half pleasure, with which he conveys it care- 
 fully home, somewhat on the plan of a boy with a 
 hot halfpenny, and nails it up over his cottage door, as 
 doubly efficacious in protecting him against the 
 "cantrips" of the hags. 
 
 Luckily for the security of our homes, thie name of 
 the herb is typical of its qualities, and the notion of 
 its opening locks is, of coiu-se, " mere moonshine." 
 Only fancy om- modern Jack Sheppards creeping 
 stealthily " o' nights " to om- doors, bearing not pick-
 
 170 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 locks or crowbars, but a huge tuft of this herb ! It 
 w^ould look far more picturesque and romantic cer- 
 tainly than a bunch of skeleton keys ; but, unfor- 
 tunately, tliey prefer the assistance of the latter, and 
 find them more efficacious and simple. It would 
 be particularly unpleasant to our deft burglars and 
 ticket-of-leave men, to be defeated in their designs on 
 some rich plate hoard, or bank chest, by an untimely 
 frost nipping up all the ^^recious herb, or by some 
 voracious cow selecting it as a tit-bit, and swallowing 
 their El Dorado at one mouthful. 
 
 The legend, however, is worthy to rank with 
 Gerarde's Barnacle-tree, " whereon do growe certaine 
 shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are 
 contained little living creatm-es : which shells, in time 
 of maturity do open, and out of them grow those 
 little living things, which, falling into tlie water, do 
 become fowles, wliicli we call Barnacles ! " 
 
 The old doctrine of signatures flourished in those 
 believing and primitive days : " And by the icon or 
 image of every herb, the ancients at first found out 
 their virtues. Modern writers laugh at them, but I 
 wonder in my heart, how the virtues of herbs came at 
 first to be knowne, if not by their signatures." Rather
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 171 
 
 a fixnciful theory to carry into practice, and one in 
 our times that would prove most inconvenient. 
 According to this idea every herb bore the repre- 
 sentation of the disease it "was supposed to cure. Now, 
 when so many diseases are in vogue that our grand- 
 mothers never dreamed of, the physician practising on 
 this plan had need first to " purge his eyes with fairy 
 euplirasy " to avoid errors. We are .sad sceptics, how- 
 ever, and more than we need be ; and with all this 
 chaff have, doubtless, thrown away not a few grains of 
 truth. Nauseous as they were, no doubt some of the 
 old-fashioned herb teas and diet drinks were more 
 wholesome and less expensive than the so-called Bohea 
 of British manufactm-e, retailed to the poor as veritable 
 Chinese ! 
 
 But to come nearer home after this long digression, 
 and dispose of om" definitions. Frank Lee and his 
 " Oxford weed " may be passed deservingly over by 
 giving him Gerarde's opinion of it. " The dry leaves 
 are used to be taken in a pipe, set on fire, and suckt 
 into the stomach, and thruste forthe againe at the 
 nosthrils." We would further hint for Frank's edifica- 
 tion, that he much prefers the " syrup above this fu.me 
 or smoky medicine ! " Even little Mary's objection to
 
 172 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 the " stinging weeds " may, in a moral point of view, 
 be turned to account on our side. After all, it is not 
 the pleasant things of the world that are always best 
 for us, and pricks and stings like Rosamond's brace- 
 let, are often useful monitors. We are too apt to 
 withdraw our tender flesh hastily from the rough 
 greeting, when, if we grasped it manfully, ay, and 
 " womanfully " too, we should not suffer half the pain. 
 And now to dispose of our friend Mr. Budde. We may 
 say of him as of the fine lady, enjoying the perfume 
 of her early hyacinths or mignonette, that have been 
 tenderly cherished and forced into premature bloom 
 in a hothouse — the yellow primrose, the treasure of 
 the cottager's child, would be no more than it was to 
 Peter Bell. And, indeed, not half so much, for to her 
 all Natiu'e's own flowers on which the rains and dews 
 of heaven fall so bountifully, and the sun shines so 
 w'armly, are but weeds, for which she would not care 
 to give one sprig of her Covent Garden bouquet. 
 
 Such people could not a})i)reciate the value of a 
 weed, and, had they been exiled to Ascension, might 
 have perished for the lack of that simple green moss, 
 which a more watchful eye estimated rightly and put 
 to a good use. We can now all admire the idea of
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 173 
 
 the barren rock watered by such simple means, but 
 are there not many of lis who would have considered 
 the weeds of the field unworthy of a moment's 
 thought? And yet, that little lowly green creeper 
 was more precious and useful than the stately 
 Victoria regia. 
 
 There is a veiy curious theoiy about wheat, the 
 truth of which seems doubtful ; bvit, at any rate, the 
 meaning of the legend is beautiful. The idea is, that 
 wheat is the only thing that is never discovered in a 
 wild state, and that, if not duly cultivated and stored, 
 it might become extinct, but wotQd never degenerate 
 to a mere grass or weed. It might be swathed for 
 hundreds of years in the mummy-cloths of Egypt, or 
 be found like the few scattered gi-ains in the Spanish 
 lady's bag, and still retain its vitality ; but it has not 
 been discovered growing in any of the virgin solitudes 
 of newly discovered latitudes. The idea upon which 
 this tradition is founded is a fine one, as we said 
 before ; viz. that corn was peculiarly a gift of the 
 Great Father to his children, as the staff of life. It 
 was to be cultivated by man's labour, and the sweat 
 of his brow, and only thus to prosper. The Al- 
 mighty gave him eveiy other requisite, both flowers
 
 174   FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 and fruits to refi-esh his weary senses, which sprung 
 
 up,— 
 
 " As effortless as ■woodland nooks 
 Send violets up and paint them blue ! " 
 
 but the bread which was to sustain his temporal body, 
 like that destined for the support of his soiil, was to 
 be the object of earnest and continued care. 
 
 There is a world of deep and spiritual teaching, hid 
 in all tliese small atoms of this perfect world, Avhich 
 its Maker saw " was good," when coming fresh from 
 His creating Hand. What Tennyson so beautifully 
 and tridy says of the tiny shell with " delicate spire 
 and whorl," — 
 
 ' ' What is it ? — a learned man 
 
 Could give it a clumsy name. 
 
 Let him name it who can, 
 
 The beauty would be the same. 
 » *   * * 
 
 Slight, to be crushed with a tap 
 Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
 Small, but a work divine — " 
 
 might also extend to the weeds of the field. Take for 
 instance the common white bind- weed of the hedges, — 
 what artist could design a more elegant shape than 
 that graceful semi-transparent chalice, or wind its 
 beautifully formed leaves into more elegant and
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 175 
 
 fantastic garlands. Look at the nettle-tribe with their 
 minute blossoms, — each a study in itself, and unrivalled 
 in its delicate tracery and pencilling. And yet these 
 are all weeds. Unnoticed, unregarded, they festoon 
 with their light trails, the dusty hedges, or fill up the 
 most out-of-the-way nooks and sides of the road. If 
 you only take a square-foot of mere common, what a 
 little world of vegetable life it contains ! And the 
 busy world goes hurrying by on the roads and path- 
 ways utterly blind to all the daily miracles taking 
 place before its very eyes. 
 
 And are there not human flowers and weeds 1 and 
 do we not regard them in the same partial and 
 prejudiced manner "? We are not apt to wish even, 
 to " win the secret of a weed's plain heart," much 
 as it may reveal of better and holier things : we are 
 so eagerly pursuing the perishing flower of beauty, 
 we leave her more humble sister, the weed, with scorn 
 and neglect. Many a noble heart, thrilling with 
 high and holy aims, but veiled, unfortunately, beneath 
 a homely exterior, has been chilled and disappointed 
 for the want of tliat tender, sympathising love, that 
 is as necessary to its healthy development, as the air 
 and light to a plant ; and stretching forth pale and
 
 176 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 sickly shoots to the nearest chinks and crannies, its 
 warm life-blood and better energies have been 
 cramped and checked, wliich, imder kindly fostering, 
 might have gi'owTi to goodly proportions. Many a 
 one's secret history could tell the bitter mortifications, 
 and keen feelings woimded by the thoughtless ob- 
 servations, uttered in a careless moment, before the 
 " plain one of the family." And yet that one may 
 be, morally, the fairest of the flock. I do not think 
 the acute feelings of a child are half known or sus- 
 pected by the many, or how long a heedless speech, 
 that has been forgotten by the utterer, may yet 
 rankle in the little heart, and poison the wholesome 
 spring. Many an awkward and imcouth child, pro- 
 nounced perfectly hopeless by the fastidious and 
 refined, (who almost look for perfection at that early 
 age when the yoimg spirits are as yet unfettered 
 by falsehood and formality,) may contain the germs 
 of a fine character, to whicli after years, with all 
 their course of sorrow and trial, bring at last the 
 required softness and finish. 
 
 But all these secret processes and silent miracles 
 pass unheeded beneath our eyes, in uur wild search 
 for beauty, and beauty only. There are, of com-se,
 
 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 177 
 
 exceptions to the rule, as when human nature, with 
 all its usual inconsistency, worships at one time the 
 graceful outline and slim proportion of an Italian 
 greyhound, and the next moment flies off to fall into 
 violent raptures over the perfect ugliness of a Skye 
 terrier; adopting, we suppose, the facetious advice 
 of om- witty moralist, Punch — " My dear, if you can't 
 be pretty, you must be odd ! " As a rule, however, 
 it is the phantom beauty we pursue so eagerly, even 
 down to delf and crockery. Everything — from a 
 razor-handle to a chdd's mug, or a plate destined to 
 add its fragments to piles of its old willow-pattern 
 predecessor — must have some pretensions to grace 
 and artistic design. We shall not be able to get 
 anything else, and feel like Miss Martineau's old 
 woman, when somebody told her we were to have 
 the Drummond light on every chmrch steeple. 
 " Oh, dear, ma'am," said she, " we shall not know 
 how in the world to get any darkness ! " We 
 shall be quite put to it to find a bit of good, 
 wholesome, refreshing ugliness. Perhaps, then, we 
 shall value it more on accoimt of its rarity. 
 Until that age arrives, many a disappointed heart
 
 178 FLOWERS AND WEEDS. 
 
 could echo the sentiments of the old ballad, and 
 say, 
 
 " Oh, beauty is a blessed gift, whatever the degree, 
 And were it mine, the rest might have all money bags for me. 
 I've heard them preach, that to the poor it is a grievous snare ; 
 But though the priest tells always true, yet would that I were 
 fair ! " 
 
 Oh, for the days, the golden days, when moral 
 beanty w^ill rank as high, and higher, than physical, 
 and when our eyes and hearts will be opened to a 
 truer investigation of the iveeds, as well as the 
 flowers !
 
 CHILDHOOD'S GLEE. 
 
 Nay, check her merry laughter not, 
 Her youthful heart is gay ; 
 
 Too soon the storms and cares of life 
 Will chase those smiles away. 
 
 That sparkling glance no more be seen, 
 Perchance, in futiu"e years ; 
 
 She has a woman's heritage 
 Of suffering and tears. 
 
 That rosy lip may smile no more, 
 And pale the rounded cheek ; 
 
 Though her soft voice, unmurmm-ing, 
 No sad complaint may speak. 
 
 The genuine laughter of the child 
 Ceases with childhood's hours ; 
 That happy sunshine of the heart, 
 
 With its forgotten flowers. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 childhood's glee. 
 
 Too soon the world and all its cares, 
 And griefs, must be her lot ; 
 
 Then, while her spirit can be gay 
 And happy, chide her not. 
 
 A butterfly, an opening flower, 
 
 A bird upon the wing, — 
 We wonder now how we were touched 
 
 By such a trivial thing. 
 
 Although they still have powers to bring 
 The thoughts of former years. 
 
 Back to om* altered hearts, 'tis now 
 With sad regretful tears. 
 
 Then, while such influences move 
 Her young heart to be gay, 
 
 Check not her laughter, let her yet 
 Be happy while she may.
 
 THE QUESTION. 
 
 " Oh, wind, that waiiderest idly by, 
 
 To steal the fragi-ance of the limes ; 
 
 Whose wings are fresh from other climes, 
 Beneath a sunnier sky : 
 Where'er thy fickle coiu-se has been, 
 
 From balmy south to glowing west, 
 Hast thou beheld a peaceful spot. 
 
 Where weary hearts may rest 1 " 
 But the breeze, with a low sad sigh. 
 Like a soft kiss went murmm-ing by. 
 
 " Oh, brooklet, flowing midst the hills, 
 Through mosses green and fringed fern. 
 Where every nook and winding turn 
 
 Brings tributary rills : 
 
 Haunter of sweet and pleasant spots 
 Upon the earth's green breast. 
 
 Hast thou beheld a quiet place. 
 Where weary hearts may rest 1 "
 
 182 THE QUESTION. 
 
 But the brook rippled on its way, 
 With pebbles in its course to play. 
 
 I gazed around, — ^the lark was gone 
 
 To chant her matin psalm on high, 
 
 And far up in the azure sky 
 Her voice was heard alone : 
 The miser bee was at his toil, 
 
 Hid in the fox-glove's bell ; 
 The busy ant was labouring 
 
 To store her granary well : 
 So, in despair for a reply, 
 I asked a piu-ple buttei-fly. 
 
 On active wing I saw her move, 
 
 I traced her slow and devious flight. 
 
 And saw her on a cross alight, 
 A lowly chm-chyard mound above : 
 " God's acre " was that quiet place, 
 
 The treasure house, Avherein we lay 
 Our precious tilings, in })aticnt trust. 
 
 Until the resun-ection day : 
 And the breeze swept the brook's calm breast, 
 And both breathed gently, " Here is rest ! "
 
 WOMAN'S LOVE. 
 
 'Tis true, as you say, man's love is deep, 
 
 As the world in its day-storm roaring, 
 Through all life's warfare of toil and wrong, 
 
 For her he is still adoring ; 
 But the silence of night is deeper far, 
 
 With no stars above it moving. 
 When the sun of her life and hope has set,- 
 
 Oh, tliis is woman's loving. 
 
 When the rosy light of the bridal moon 
 
 Gleams faint in the long-past distance, 
 And the hands that plighted their earnest troth 
 
 Work hard for a bare existence ; 
 When the eyes that lived in her veiy glance 
 
 Can behold her tears unmoving, 
 And e'en love itself is faint and cold, — 
 
 Even then is a woman loving.
 
 184 woman's love. 
 
 To struggle through scorn, and pain, and wrong, 
 
 With her weeping infants round her, 
 And the thought at her heart, stiU firm and strong, 
 
 Of the tie that to earth had bound her ; 
 To keep on his love her steadfast thought. 
 
 And her faith from an instant's roving. 
 And still press on to his home in heaven, — 
 
 Oh, this is woman's loving. 
 
 I say not the love of a man is light, 
 
 It may sway his heart and senses, 
 And may lu'ge to a hundred holy aims, 
 
 With its sweet, soft influences ; 
 But to cling with a closer and nearer clasp. 
 
 Like the ivy, unremoving, 
 When life, and youth, and hope are past, — 
 
 Oh, tliis is woman's loving. 
 
 'Tis a mournful crown for the sex, I claim, 
 That when all that is dear is pai'ted. 
 
 She holds to tlic lost witli tlie changeless faith, 
 And the love of the broken-hearted ;
 
 woman's love. 185 
 
 A man may drowii all his grief and loss, 
 In the cold world onward moving, 
 
 But her sun has set in one lowly grave,— 
 And this is woman's loving. 
 
 When the world grows dark, and the air is chill, 
 
 And the heaii; is weak to bear it ; 
 And the sun and flowers do but mock the grief, 
 
 That is hard without him to share it ; 
 To live with our loved is an easy task, 
 
 That scarcely is worth the proving; 
 But to live, and love on, in an empty world, — 
 
 Oh, this is the deepest loving.
 
 DUMB FRIENDS. 
 
 " Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood ; 
 Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, 
 Seeking to find the old familiar faces." 
 
 Charles Lamb. 
 
 When I speak of " dumb friends," I do not mean 
 those of the brute creation, as, for instance, that 
 fine animal the dog, who gazes up into your face 
 with those intelligent human eyes, and seems to 
 participate in all yoiu* joys and sorrows. Nor do I 
 allude to tlie cat : of her frailties and virtues I shall 
 speak elsewhere. 
 
 But I mean, literally, deaf and dumb friends. 
 There are objects with which our ideas have been 
 so long and intimately connected, that, although 
 devoid of sense and speech, they become to us as 
 old familiar associates. For instance, an arm-chair, 
 which belonged to our father or grandftither, long 
 since gathered to liis rest. How does the memory 
 of that venerable form and face rise up before us,
 
 DUMB FRIENDS. 187 
 
 indissolubly linked with it, and it seems almost a 
 part of themselves, left to cheer the survivor with 
 its old familiar face. 
 
 I do not say that everybody feels like this : the 
 young and happy have their own dear circle of living 
 and loving faces, but with the aged and solitary it 
 is diffei'ent ; wanting objects on which to lavish 
 those genial household affections which make home 
 such a happy place, they cling to the insensate 
 forms around them, which, from long use, have 
 grown quite necessary to their comfort. And, after 
 all, how much of our earthly pleasure does depend 
 upon these senseless appendages, even putting aside, 
 as we always should do to make life really happy, 
 all those instances of petty triumph in superior pos- 
 sessions, such as influenced those celebrated indi- 
 viduals who " astonished the Browns." 
 
 Take an example in the furnishing a house by a 
 young pair on their marriage. There is the piano, 
 brought by the bride from her early home, and dear 
 to them both from the recollection it brings of the 
 softly-mingled voices and tender whisperings, of which 
 it had been the silent and faithful listener. 
 
 The work-table, too, to be for some time the re-
 
 188 DUMB FRIENDS. 
 
 ceptacle of the bride's dainty, lady-like frivolities. 
 And tlie aforesaid easy-chair, to entlirone the tired 
 limbs of the husband after his long day's work is 
 over, and he comes back to enjoy all the delights 
 and ease of liis home. Many years after — what 
 changes ! — the bright-looking piano is daily strummed 
 upon by the grown-up daughters, all forgetful of 
 the soft and rich tones it used to send forth under 
 the slender fingers of their mother, who is now a 
 comely matron of middle age, and still thinks no 
 tones so sweet as those of the poor old instrument, 
 although her eldest hope raves about a new harp 
 she wants to coax Papa to give her. The juveniles 
 still climb about that father in the old worn chair, 
 for no other seems to his fancy so comfortable, 
 luxTirious as those soft-cushioned lounges are ; and 
 he decliU'es testily, that they don't know how to 
 make easy-chaire half so well as they iised to do, 
 after all ! 
 
 Ah, my dear sir, there is a gi-cat deal more of your 
 own partial fancy in that, than you woidd care to 
 believe. You Ikivc reclined in it so long, and j'ou liave 
 gi'owu to it, and it to you, until you are wedded to it, 
 as much as your wife to her old piano, or her work-
 
 I DUMB FRIENDS. 189 
 
 table, which she will not give up, although all your 
 growing tribe vow and protest it is awfully shabby. 
 
 "Ah, my dears," says the good mother, with a 
 tear in her eye, " that was part of oiu- wedding 
 furniture, when your papa and I were first married. 
 I remember he chose it for me, and sent it home the 
 night before the wedding, when we went to take a last 
 look over the new house. Many a happy hoiu- have 
 I passed beside it, when all you torments were in bed, 
 and on it lay a gi-eat pile of clothes, wanting the 
 stitch in time, torn and worn with all your juvenile 
 ingenuity." 
 
 And then the little cot, where the round rosy face 
 lay at night, when you made your usual pilgrimage to 
 it. The coverlet thrown half off, and showing the 
 round, mottled, healthy limbs of the little sleeper. 
 And, oh ! if that white nest was afterwards exchanged 
 for a deeper and colder one, beneath the gi-een sod of 
 the churchyard, by its little tenant, with what pangs 
 and thrills of memory did you afterwards look on it, 
 and yet love it too well to part with it. 
 
 And if those surrounded with a family can thus 
 cling to dumb friends, how doubly dear must they be 
 to the solitary, for whom they are the links that con-
 
 190 DUMB FRIENDS. 
 
 nect the happy buried past with the blank present. 
 When he returns after absence, each article greets him 
 like the smile of an intelligent being. They almost 
 fill the part in his home that living creatiu'es do in 
 that of others. Many a forlorn and desolate heart 
 has found comfort and solace in silent commune with 
 them, and many, in the secret recesses of their soids, 
 bless those dear and familiar companions, their faithful 
 " dumb friends ! "
 
 ROSES. 
 
 A SINGLE rose for thee, love, 
 
 One little rose for thee, 
 111 change for all the many flowers 
 
 That thoii hast given to me ; 
 So take it from my very heart. 
 
 Though pale and weak it be. 
 
 The wild pink buds of spring, love, 
 Did with our hearts unclose ; 
 
 Our marriage day was sweetly crowned 
 By autumn's last white rose ; 
 
 They've marked life's sunniest memories. 
 And may they wreathe its close. 
 
 How many summer roses, love, 
 
 Have dated pleasant hours. 
 And breathed a tender charm about 
 
 This quiet home of ours : 
 Ah, love ! ours was a happy lot, 
 
 Thus chronicled in flowers.
 
 LILLY GRAY. 
 
 " Oh, sing no more to senseless things 
 That sweet low murmuring song, 
 
 But give one kind woi'd, Lilly dear, 
 To one that's loved thee lonfj." 
 
 '&■ 
 
 " My songs are for the birds," she said, 
 " Whose notes, so sweet and clear. 
 
 Do drown the sound of angry waves, 
 That miuTxuu" in mine ear ; 
 
 That murmur hoarsely in mine ear, 
 
 And ever follow me ; 
 But when I'm singing with the birds, 
 
 I do not hear the sea ! " 
 
 " You've smiles for all the buds and flowers, 
 
 Can I not win one, too 1 
 For me those smiles arc fitter far. 
 
 For them the sun and dew."
 
 LILLY GRAY. 193 
 
 " My smiles are for the flowers of earth 
 
 So innocent and sweet, 
 That gaze so meekly in my face 
 
 And spring around my feet. 
 
 Amid his sunny locks are twined 
 
 The blossoms of the sea, 
 Their kindred blooms of earth, for this 
 
 Are very dear to me." 
 
 " Have you no love to sjDare," he said, 
 
 " From blossom, tree, and bird ? 
 Is there no echo in your heart. 
 
 By Love's sweet music stirred ! " 
 
 " Go, search the lone and silent sea, 
 
 My heart lies there," she said, 
 " With lover's vows, and buried hopes 
 
 Beside the early dead." 
 
 " Then fare you well, dear love," he sighed, 
 
 " Since mine ye may not be, 
 Yet give one kindly word, and cast 
 
 One gentle glance on me." 
 

 
 194 LILLY GRAY. 
 
 " My gaze is on the heavens," she said, 
 " And oh ! they seem so near, — 
 
 Mine eyes are fixed on yon blue heavens, 
 My all is treasured there."
 
 THE SOUL'S FORGING. 
 
 Lies the iron on the anvil, 
 
 Falls the hammer, quick and fast ; 
 'Neath the Master's hand, the metal 
 
 Yields like leaves before the blast. 
 
 By the action of the fire 
 
 Was the native iron tried ; 
 In the glowing furnace molten, 
 
 Was it cleansed and purified. 
 
 Slow and solemn falls the hammer, 
 Plies the iron 'neath the stroke. 
 
 As before the fiery lightning, 
 Quivering, falls the stricken oak. 
 
 Lies the Soul upon the anvil. 
 
 Falls the hammer — solemn, slow ; 
 
 Each, with its appointed measure. 
 Follow pain, and want, and woe. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE soul's forgixg. 
 
 Molten long in son-ow's furnace, 
 Till it lost some dross and stain ; 
 
 Quenclied in tears of deep affliction, 
 Grew it cold and black again. 
 
 On the world's hard anvil lying. 
 Heavy blows fall thick and fast, 
 
 Till the true and tempered metal, 
 Shapen well, lies there at last. 
 
 Then the mighty Master proves it — 
 Strength and temper — one by one ; 
 
 And the long and patient forging 
 Of the human Soul is done.
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 
 
 A FANCY. 
 
 " Who riseth from a feast, 
 With that keen appetite that lie sits down ? 
 Where is the horse that doth untread again 
 His tedious measures with the unbated fire 
 That he did pace them first ? All things that are, 
 Are with more sjiirit chased than enjoyed." 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 I AM weai'y, — or lazy, if yoii will, — and incline \'oy a. 
 stroll this drowsy, sleepy, avitunin day, when one can 
 do nothing but lounge about, and repeat listlessly, 
 
 " Heavily hangs the broad sunflower 
 Over its grave in the earth so chilly. 
 Heavily hangs the hollyhock, 
 Heavily hangs the tiger lily." 
 
 I incline for a saunter — not that I feci at all in a 
 pilgrim inood, inilcss it be that pleasant vagabond 
 life in picturesque rough sandals and a scallop-shell, 
 from which Mr. Thonibury derives the word. Youi* 
 true idler needs a companion, who must, moreover, 
 be endowed with that much-be-praised quality, the 
 art of listening well. Then how pleasantly and
 
 19;8 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 
 
 dreamily do his ideas ripple along, like a little brook 
 " coshering " over the pebbles. 
 
 The mood for strange vagaries is on me, and I follow 
 Mr. Edgai- Poe's example, and call upon Psyche to 
 accompany me. She must needs be a marvellously 
 convenient companion, needing neither ladies' maids, 
 state cabins, nor first-class ladies' carnages. I wonder 
 if she appeared to him imder her butterfy symbol, 
 something after the fashion of the graceful hostess 
 at the Grasshopper's Feast, as so prettily portrayed 
 l\y Alfred Crowquill in that favoiu'ite child's romance : 
 the beautiful painted wdngs seeming to belong natu- 
 rally to the elegant shoulders and dainty waist. 
 Pretty creatm'e ! in either fashion she is accustomed 
 to rather ch-cuitous modes of progression ; and I need 
 not to her apologise for the many digressions I may 
 make ; indeed, it woidd be more in accordance w'ith 
 her own " aiiy flight." 
 
 To her I need not excuse my stopping at this 
 pleasant southern wall covered with fruit-trees, loaded 
 with their sunny produce. Now I must plead guilty, 
 among my many fancies (and that they are manifold 
 some of my disconsolate relatives can tell you, to their 
 infinite bewildennent and perj)lexity), to a most insane
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 199 
 
 love for anything in the shape of a basket. Like Mr. 
 Beckford's tea-cups, I think I could find a basket for 
 every day in the year, — long, short, tall, flat, round, 
 square, white, or coloured, from the pretty corbeille, 
 clustered round with basketlings, like a hen-and- 
 chicken daisy of last month, do^\ai to the elegant 
 wicker equipage, drawn by small ponies ridden, 
 postillion-fashion, by a diminutive gToom, that has 
 haunted my dreams for the last week. I dare not 
 expatiate on the subject, for a perfect vision of 
 " basketerie " arises before me, from the gi'aceful rock- 
 work on the lawn, with a handle covered with luxu- 
 riant creepers, and filled with a glowing mass of 
 verbenas, to the elegant and poetical rustic receptacle 
 of varnished Hme-branches, filled with a tuft of bloom- 
 ing primroses that graced my table last spring, — that 
 breathed the very essence of fresh air and sunshine. 
 Does not eveiy gipsy beset me, owing to a perfect 
 foreknowledge of my weakness, with egg-baskets 
 flower-baskets, work-baskets, stained a pretty pale 
 lilac with peach leaves 1 And do not my intimate 
 friends predict that I shall not be biu-ied like a 
 Christian, but shall sail to the spirit -land like the 
 Indian, in a coracle, my earthly frame being buried
 
 200 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE, 
 
 at Glastonbiu'y, because Joseph of Arimatliea built his 
 first church there of wicker-work? 
 
 I do love a basket, and the theory to which I 
 am about to plead guilty, is the preference I have 
 for fruit in a basket. What is fniit in a plate, but 
 a mere adjunct to the dessert ? 
 
 Now Psyche, don't protest, but jump up with me 
 on Prince Houssein's carpet, — hey, presto ! here we are 
 
 at Lady Hautton's select dinner-party in square. 
 
 The table is cleared of the hot meats and French 
 entrees, all the " delicacies of the season," as the " Bel- 
 gravian Matutinal Dew-Drop " calls them. The table 
 is replenished with fruit and flowers ; Champagne 
 sparkles in the glasses, and incipient flirtations begin 
 to get lively under cover of the increased flow of talk. 
 
 Lord has enjoyed his dinner ; none of your 
 
 common beef and pudding affairs, but a recherche 
 repast, on which Monsieiu* Alphonse Delagout, Miladi's 
 chef, has employed aU the poetic resources of his 
 enthusiastic soid. He has conveyed a polite insinu- 
 ation in a fate, a compliment in a sotifflee, and a sonnet 
 
 (ir madrigal in a cream or -gelee ! Lord becomes 
 
 benignant, and tells iNIiladi, her cook is a man of genius, 
 — an observation " Jeames " transmits immediately
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 201 
 
 to the great artiste, who swoons in ecstacy on the spot. 
 The dessert is on the table; splendid epergnes loaded 
 with fruit and flowers, charm all the senses at once, 
 and the table, with its circle of well-di-essed men and 
 handsome women, becomes worthy an artist. But 
 alas ! little does the lovely Lady Clementina suppose 
 that the blushing strawberry she is lifting with taper 
 fingers, glistening with gems, to her ruby lips, has 
 been well fingered before by Bill Prickle, the boy of 
 Mr. Pyne the nurseryman, who sucks his cold red 
 paws between every beny. Equally innocent is the 
 Hon'ble Harry that the orange he is so delicately 
 peeling with his aristocratic digits, aided by a silver 
 fork, has been previoiisly well polished by the pocket- 
 handkerchief of Biddy Phelan, if you can dig-nify such 
 a rag by any title. Dear unsuspicious souls ! little do 
 they imagine all the transitions it passes through ere 
 it reaches Covent Garden or Mr. Pyne's shop. 
 
 Now, Psyche, come back to the south wall, — basking 
 in all the warmest smiles of the sun, — where the very 
 bees seem to become peach-consumers, instead of lotos- 
 eaters, and hum away all day, forgetting Dr. Watts's 
 eulogy on wax-plastering, and honey-storing. Now, 
 look at that dear little jaunty figure, attired in a
 
 202 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 
 
 coquettish, and yet quiet jacket, with cobweb collar 
 and full sleeves, and the prettiest of flower-besprinkled 
 ribbons. The dimpled hands pop about, touching the 
 velvet cheeks with the softest possible finger, picking 
 a fine ripe fellow, and nestling him down into the 
 dainty little basket so cosily lined with vine-leaves, 
 patting and coaxing to get him into his place. At 
 last the basket, lij^ped like a sea-shell, can hold no 
 more ; and the gatherer trips off, bearing away no 
 small portion of the glowing warmth and luxurious 
 balminess of that south wall. It is perhaps deposited 
 in some old-fashioned Indian lacquered corner cup- 
 board, in pleasant neighboin-hood with pots of g\iava 
 or mountain cabbage, or such dear old china basins as 
 Mrs. Clarinda Singlehart shelled her peas into, the 
 day Lucy first saw her ; a little picture that desenx'd 
 to be handed down to posterity by the pencil of 
 Millais. Be its deposit where it may, however, that 
 pretty little basket always comes out with a kind of 
 airy grace, like an improvised ballad, an embodied 
 song, breathing of balmy warm breezes, and recalhng 
 dainty fingers, that did not even chafe the bloom off". 
 Oh, Psyche, Psyche, is not tlie wicker basket more 
 poetical than the meretricious Scatcs porcelain 1
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 203 
 
 I have wandered again, Psyche, some way, but 
 your feathery pinions have helped my flight. Some 
 years ago, sundiy Chinese, embued with an imusual 
 love of adventure, set sail from the land of compli- 
 mentary cards, (or yards,) and small feet, in a vessel 
 adorned with two huge eyes in her bows, 'yclept a 
 junk, for New York ; but, the said eyes having a 
 trifling obliquity of vision, they diverged slightly 
 from their course, and landed on the shores of the 
 Thames. Such has been our voyage, which has ended 
 in landing us at the south wall again, over which 
 hang the boughs of a well-laden apple-tree. There 
 it is scrambling over in a sort of imcouth, ungainly, 
 gnarly way, with its cramped boughs furred with 
 dull, hoary lichen fit for old Hyems' beard. It's 
 a cranky, ill-tempered looking tree, just fit to bear 
 fruit that will make cider. 
 
 " Stop !" says Psyche, " cider is considered a luxury 
 by some people — a sort of water champagne !" 
 
 My dear creature, I don't mean the sparkling 
 beverage called Devonshire Cider, which you can't 
 get in Devonshire, but the harsh, rough drink the 
 poor natives imbibe in those uncultivated wilds. 
 
 Thump !
 
 204 BLOSSOMING AXD FKUITAGE. 
 
 Oh ! there's an apple too hard even for a dumphng. 
 I suppose that was a retort coiui;eous. It is rather 
 hard, for I was just going to say, that, ugly as it 
 looks now, there is hardly a prettier sight than that 
 old tree when in blossom. The dehcate pink and 
 white covers it as with a mantle of snow with a 
 sunset gleam on it. The delicate petals fall off as 
 crisp and round as the tiny blushing sea-shells, that 
 almost crumble beneath the touch of a finger. But 
 they are as frail and fleeting as the bubbles on the 
 edge of the wave, and they soon strew the ground 
 beneath them with their fallen leaves. 
 
 " All that's bright must fade, 
 
 The brightest still the fleetest, — 
 All that's sweet was made 
 But to be lost when sweetest." 
 
 Tlie most ctherial and gi-aceful blossoms die the 
 soonest, the most exquisite scent is gone after the 
 first instant you perceive it. M. Piesse will tell 
 you its veiy sweetness makes it the more volatile, 
 condensing it, like the Egyptian queen, into the 
 richness of one sliort drauiiht. The bloom on the 
 grape or the plum is as fleeting, the dust on the 
 butterfly's wing, your ovm butterfly, Psyche — all
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 205 
 
 perish at a touch ; the rainbow-hued bubble bursts 
 in your hand. Is it not so in other things, Psyche 1 
 Is not the long expectation better than the after 
 possession ? 
 
 Suppose we are young, passionate, deeply, madl}'^ 
 in love with Alicia. We cb-eam of her deep blue 
 eyes and sunny hair. We wiite sonnets to her ugly 
 or brown hat, photogi-aph her aU round. She is 
 oiu's ! and we are in raptures and live upon air 
 and visions of the future, to our landlady's extreme 
 satisfaction, who profits largely by our temporary 
 abeiTation. Three days after the wedding, we dis- 
 cover that one of our angel's shoulders has slightly 
 the advantage of the other. Tlie bubble has burst ; 
 we are wi-etched for life ; our blossoms, pink and 
 white, have fallen and left us only sour crabs or 
 rotten medlars ! 
 
 Or we are older and wiser, but crochetty. We 
 are a pictvu"e-fancier ; we see McDaub's famous his- 
 torical painting of the " Salvation of the Capitol." 
 We commission him to finish it for us, at a fabulous 
 price. We go daily, and watch its progi-ess, count 
 every well-defined feather on the out-stretched necks 
 of the patriotic creatures, see eveiy red or yellow-
 
 206 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 
 
 webbed foot duly depicted. It is completed, — framed, 
 — taken home, — hung up in our dining-room. We 
 rush home from the City an hovu- earlier, and find 
 our bosom friend. Bob Blunt, contemplating it. 
 " Why, Bagges," says he, slapping us on the back ; 
 " why, Bagges, old boy ! is this the first institution 
 of Michaelmas-day 1 What a sight of geese ! why, 
 you could tar and feather half London !" 
 
 Down go the blossoms in showers, though it is a 
 nipping, spiteful blight or frost that does it this 
 time ; however, down they go. We are disenchanted ! 
 We send off the pictiu'e, slily, to have the frame 
 altered, and bribe Munt, the carver and gilder, to 
 warehouse it for an indefinite period in his gairet. 
 Alas ! for the happy days when it was such a pleasm-e 
 to watch it growing and growing — when it was a 
 pleasure to come ! 
 
 Ah ! well, Psyche ! it's no \ise moralising, and the 
 fit's over, like the ague, for the present ; so I will 
 not detain you to enlarge upon tliis doom of etu'th 
 and its inhabitants, — that possession brings satiety, — 
 and the blossom dies before the fruit appears. Like 
 cliildren learning to walk, we must still be wiled on 
 by something to which distance lends enchantment.
 
 BLOSSOMING AND FRUITAGE. 207 
 
 Let US be thankful for the fruit when we have it, 
 but do not let us hasten to precocious maturity the 
 perishing blossom, which is its sweetest part, to all 
 but the toothsome schoolboy, who can digest hard 
 green balls that might puzzle an ostrich ! 
 
 No doubt this was the true reading of Pandora's 
 box, of which the last and best gift at the bottom 
 
 was hope. 
 
 " Believe me that the truest bliss 
 Is in the airy vision ; 
 The longed-for pleasure come at last 
 Is lost in its fruition ! " 
 
 Come, Psyche ! the sun is kissing the red leaves 
 of the creeper yonder into deeper blushes, and the 
 breeze is sweeping up those golden piles of leaves — 
 Nature's own coinage fresh from her mint. No, I 
 mistake ; it is Robin with a prosaic broom and bar- 
 row, — it is time we should depart.
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 Why dost thou tell us with thy haunting tone, 
 
 Oh sad- voiced Memory, of days j^ast by, 
 That borne on fleetest pinions long have gone, 
 
 To be entombed in thy dark treasury 1 
 Why wring our hearts, with voices and with forms 
 
 That long ago have vanished from oiu' sight 1 
 Why vex our world-worn sph-its with the shade. 
 
 The bitter shadow of our old delight 1 
 Sad is the knowledge we have won of thee, 
 Since we fii'st knew thy si)ells, oh Memory ! 
 
 Then dost thou lead us to green sunny fields, 
 
 Fresh with the song of liird, and hum of bee, 
 Where the soft breezes bend the cowslip flowers, 
 
 And rustling creep amid each leafy tree. 
 Up springs the lai-k, as blithesome as of yore, 
 
 And trills his joyous song uj)on the air, 
 All breathes one universal song of Spring, — 
 
 AVith life, and joy, and sunshine everywhere.
 
 MEMORY. 209 
 
 Tears dim our eyes, so that we cannot see 
 Thy sweet, sad pictures, faithful Memory. 
 
 Our souls are weak, are weaker than a child. 
 
 That, tangled in a deep wood's wild recess. 
 Hears its own heart throb in the silence deep. 
 
 And cannot weep for very weariness. 
 We, too, are lost amid the din of life. 
 
 To which the calm of death doth stand so nigh, 
 When weary hands are folded fi-om their toil, 
 
 And worn eyes look their last upon the sky. 
 Spare us, upon the Ijrink of that dim sea, 
 Oh solemn, tender, — mournful Memory !
 
 THE PET NAME. 
 
 " Yes, call me by ray pet name, let me beai- 
 The name I used to run at, when a cLild." 
 
 E. B. Bkowxing. 
 
 Not SO ! nay speak it never, never more : 
 
 Earth's dust and ashes press, a heavy weight, 
 
 Upon the loving Hps, whose utterance 
 
 Made all its music ; and in other tones 
 
 It has a strange and unfamiliar sound, 
 
 A mournful cadence on the listening ear, 
 
 And wakes no joyous echo in the heart 
 
 That thrilled of yore with the old sportive sound. 
 
 As kindred voices sweetest are in song, 
 
 And blend in notes of softest harmony, 
 
 So are those tender, playful, household names 
 
 The silver music of a hap[)y home : 
 
 Born from some careless jest in sportive hours, 
 
 And uttered merrily in laughing tones, 
 
 In after years to find a silent grave 
 
 With the fond lips that spoke them, that have said
 
 THE PET NAME. 211 
 
 Their latest words on earth. New hopes may dawn, 
 
 And other loves may blossom in the heart, 
 
 But let them grow with their own strength and hue. 
 
 Let new loves find new language, dear and sweet, 
 
 And perfumed with a thousand tender thoughts, 
 
 To be an heritage for future days; 
 
 But lay the old names in an honoured grave, 
 
 Enfolded with the sacred tones and looks 
 
 That live for ever in our memories. 
 
 And have no other life : you would not crown 
 
 A living brow with withered violets. 
 
 The golden cowslips of our childish days. 
 
 Faded, how many weaiy springs ago ; 
 
 And many a heart has ceased to prize their wealth, 
 
 That dowered its happy childhood ; golden stores. 
 
 That left no trace of wrinkle on tlie brow. 
 
 Where the world's fiery ore doth brand and sear. 
 
 Yet are they all gone by with childhood's joys, 
 
 Its innocent delights, and April tears : 
 
 So lay these precious relics of the past 
 
 Beside them, in a deep and honoured grave — 
 
 These withered blossoms of our childhood's tree. 
 
 p -i
 
 DAILY CARES. 
 
 These are the petty cares and tiny ills, 
 
 The constant drips that wear the stone away, 
 
 The mites that to the blossom bring decay 
 
 As svirely as the frost of winter kills. 
 
 Let none despise them, — in their added smn 
 
 They make the wings on which life doth depart, . 
 
 And by perpetual fretting try the heart 
 
 More than the crushing grief which strikes it dumb. 
 
 He who our mortal flesh so meekly wore, 
 
 Doth know our wants and trials : may we bear 
 
 All patiently the great and lesser care, 
 
 And hear Him say, when the last strife is o'er, 
 
 " Thou hast been patient over little, — see, 
 
 The great reward that is prepared for thee ! "
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 " Tou fai Tamour sus nostro tero." 
 
 Odes cV Anacreon traduitcs en vers Languedociens. 
 
 " Love's not a petty stream runs all one way, 
 But, like the ocean, deep and vast, and swayed 
 By Phantasy, its moon ! " 
 
 Barry Cornwall. 
 
 I WAS staying, in the latter part of the year 185 — , 
 at a fine old country house in W — shire, where 1 
 enjoyed, almost undistiu'bed, the solitary delight of 
 rambling and scrambling to my heart's content. It 
 had been long left under the care of a housekeeper, 
 a demure, starched matron, who had no soul above 
 her preserves and medicine-chest. I first made 
 acquaintance with the garden, — very appropriately 
 called the " Pleasaunce," for a more charming (jld 
 place could not be imagined, with its richly wrought 
 iron gates and railings, wreathed thickly with masses 
 of large white roses. These were guarded on each 
 side, after the old fashion, by two majestic yew-trees, 
 in the shape of a ponderous peacock and huge swan.
 
 214 A REVERIE OX A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 It was a stately old garden, and there were few 
 such rich, abundant "flower-knots," in the country 
 round ; old-fashioned blossoms, that would now be 
 utterly scouted from a modern garden, and perhaps 
 ju-operly so, but liere they seemed in their native 
 place, and acquired a richness and dignity that well 
 became them. The smooth green lawn stretched far 
 away, undulating here and there into little liollows 
 and dells, like the laughing dimples roxmd an infant's 
 mouth. In the distance, on the raised terrace walk, 
 grew picturesque groups of hollyhocks, gleaming 
 brilliantly with all the hues of the rainbow, — and even 
 the sunflower lost its usual coarseness, and, with its 
 velvet centre and golden Vandykes, was a fitting 
 accessory to the picture. Wallflowers, in all their 
 rich shades, from light yellow down to ricli chcsuut- 
 bi-nwn, and variegated snap-dragons, jjink and white, 
 fringed with lovely tufts of blossoms tlie old grey 
 walls, wliich were beneath so beautifully clad in their 
 thick green mantle of ivy. Fine old trees gi-ew about, 
 — the featheiy sprays of the birch, " light as a lady's 
 plume," peeping out in good contrast to the sombre 
 foliage of yews, or gigantic hollies, or the dark red 
 leaves of the copper beech.
 
 A REVERIE OX A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 215 
 
 But the beaiities of the stately old garden were 
 speedily eclipsed in my eyes by the more sober charms 
 of the library, which with large stone muUioned 
 window^s, looked forth upon it. The room was in good 
 keeping with the rest ; for beyond the little circular 
 turret, that seemed trying to reach out into that 
 paradise of sweets (though richly clad with aged pyrus 
 and clematis), stretched two transept-like wings, with a 
 long arched window, filled with stained glass, at each 
 end. Their walls were lined on each side with old oak 
 bookcases, almost black with age, reaching from the 
 ceiling to the floor. They were filled with treasures 
 that woidd have rejoiced the very heart of Lisardo 
 himself : rare editions, black letter volumes, with fine 
 clean margins, bound in parchment, or even vellum, — 
 nay, there was really a good Aldus or two, with its 
 symbolic dolphin, and a neat specimen of Caxton, 
 with red capital letters. But the gems of all were a 
 few little exquisite volumes of " Hours," plentifully 
 illustrated with graceful scroll borders, and initials, 
 and delicately painted miniatures. There were also 
 many, more generally interesting ; as for instance, a 
 book of ancient cookery, which opened readily at 
 " Green pesen with bakon," and " Wardens in
 
 216 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 Hjruppe," which I presume, from this evidence, were 
 the favourite dishes of the owner. There was also 
 Matthew Hopkins's " Discoveries in Witchcraft," with 
 a portrait of the old fanatic, steeple-crowned hat and 
 all, enough to strike terror into a whole Walpurgis- 
 night of witches, with their " Pyewackets," and " Peck 
 in the crowns," into the bargain. "Walton's Com- 
 plete Angler," came next, with quaint old engravings; 
 a curious edition of " Fullei*'s Holy Warre," illustrated 
 with portraits of Paracelsus and other eminent 
 worthies ; and a ragged, well-thumbed edition of 
 Percy's " Pieliques." One of the most modern works 
 in the collection, was " The Gentleman's Library," in 
 which Celadon, for the anausement, and, I hope, profit, 
 of " the brisk Florimel, and her witty associates," lays 
 dowai " rules for conduct in all parts of life." 
 
 After flying like a bee, sipping here and there, 
 (A'cr this rich banquet, now pausing over the " Prioress' 
 Tale," and now following Una on her com-se, I came 
 u]ion a curious manuscript volume, bound in antique 
 blue bi'ocade, embroidered all over, in tarnished silver, 
 with Iiearts, arrows, and torches. It was WTitten 
 in a neat but cramped hand, on ])archment, which was 
 iii>w much discoloured, and somewhat stained witli
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 217 
 
 damp. The ink was much faded, but I managed to 
 glean the purport of it, — no easy matter, as it was 
 written in very old French. 
 
 It was a pedantic treatise on Love, and with its 
 antique expressions and peculiar idiom was very enter- 
 taining. It began with an elaborate definition of Love 
 itself, analysing it with the most microscopic exactness, 
 as if it w^ere a midge or cheese-mite at the Polytechnic, 
 or a blood-stained hammer under the lynx eyes of 
 Mr. Spianprye. This preliminary discourse was very 
 ingeniously enveloped in French metaphor and sen- 
 timent, and plentifidly besprinkled with heathen 
 mythology and classic allusion. Some were as far- 
 fetched as the lament of the poet, who described 
 himself as dwelling " in the prison, of which Love 
 keeps the keys, aided by his three bailiffs, Hope 
 defeiTed, Beauty, and Anxiety ! " 
 
 The loves of Mark Antony and his Egyptian Queen, 
 Paris and Helen, Tristan and the fair Y'seult, were 
 all touched on, "en passant," in the most amusing 
 variety, and with an indescribable relish, worthy of 
 even Walter von Vogelweide, who admits of himself 
 that " for forty years and more he sang of love ! " Our 
 author then proceeds, arranging and classifying in an
 
 218 A BEVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 innocent, grave, matter-of-fact sort of way, the several 
 outward shapes and manifestations of the passion, its 
 hidden motives, and " c/.s jolis maux'" attendant 
 thereon. You would rather think it was Mr. Lias of 
 the British Museum, collecting and labelling his fossils, 
 than a gallant Frenchman, expatiating on such a 
 subject as "/a sesoiin crcmiour." 
 
 Some of his definitions were amusino; enoutrh, as 
 "eye-love," the sudden stroke from the fair one's 
 bright orbs, more piercing than the lance of the 
 infidel : the " love platonic," that arrant piece of 
 Cupid's hypocrisy. Then comes "love chivalrous," 
 the dedication of lance and sword to the " Queen 
 of Love and Beauty ; " or the " love troubadour," or 
 minnesinger, which devoted lute and pen to the 
 honour of the " helha, doussa, dama chera ! " Very 
 man}' of the Protean changes and Janus aspects of 
 the mighty conqueror were eniunerated by Armand 
 do Troycs, who evidently held, with Alcxandro Magno, 
 that " Love o'er young and old now holds its mightiest 
 sway ! " He winds up the book by a glowing en- 
 comium of some chai'miug Adelais, " qui estait rjentille 
 et heller 
 
 Had Armand lived in these days, he might ccr-
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 219 
 
 tainly have added a few pictures to his gallery, though 
 not very many ; for on the whole, the reality of the 
 pictvu'e has not much changed, though the costume 
 has necessarily altered. For, of course, the " cupboard 
 love" of those days was nearly identical with tlie 
 same disease in oius, with tlie symptoms slightly 
 modified. As, for instance, the ancient sort might 
 have been for the best cut of the mighty baron of 
 beef, and the fine wheaten manchet, washed down by 
 a black jack of the oldest October; instead of the 
 modern wooing of B 47, for the cold leg of mutton 
 and the end of the bottle of stout. The " money love," 
 then, was for a purse of Spanish doubloons or golden 
 angels, while the " chink-a-chink " that rouses the 
 dormant emotion that softens our Lilly Bakers, is more 
 likely to be in tlie shape of a Californian nugget. 
 But the ruling passion is still the same, and 
 
 " Love, tlie universal birth, 
 
 From heart to heart is stealing ! " 
 
 in the same resistless way as when Armand de Troyes 
 sought to immortalise his fair Adelais by inscribing 
 this erudite essay to her, with the same deep feeling 
 and bright hopes as inspired him of Arqua, but 
 unfortunately, not with the like success. They have
 
 220 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 both long since laid down their loves, and hopes, 
 and vanities, to take their last sleep on the bosom of 
 old mother earth, and this little discoloured volume, 
 buried for years, and only brouglit to light by idle 
 cui'iosity, is the only record that remains of their little 
 bubble of passion that burst so many years ago. 
 
 Verily, mon hon ami Armand, a wiser head might 
 moralise long on the irresistible passion that induced 
 Cophetua to share his crown and throne with the 
 beggar-maid ; and that, with the charms of Mariamne, 
 could torture, in life and death, the proud and am- 
 bitious heart of Herod the king. 
 
 You might as well attempt to arrange the clouds, 
 and coimt the sands of the sea-shore, as define the 
 errant and versatile powei\ The annals of Cupid — like 
 his statue in the famous gardens — are inscribed with a 
 host of names, some great and illustrious, written in 
 sparkling characters on the yoW of f\xmc, and some as 
 obscure as that of your next door neiglibour, Mr. 
 Smith. The records of Chancery itself are not more 
 voluminous, or, as the old bachelor at number six would 
 teU you, more expensive. 
 
 Ask Mr. Arthm- Pendennis what he thinks of the 
 subject, — we suggest him as an able and experienced
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 221 
 
 authority; and, moreover, the author of "Walter 
 Loraine," which, as those who have read that able 
 work will know, turns chiefly on that subject. He will 
 frankly tell you — with a candoiu- that does him honour 
 — that he has experienced the sensation in all its 
 phases, from the first boyish intoxication of " boy 
 love " for the famous Miss Costigan, to the more 
 sober bliss he is now enjoying with Mrs. Pen. 
 
 " Ah, Laiu-a, that little Fanny Bolton was a dear 
 little thing after all, though you were so stern to her ; 
 but there is some allowance to be made for the state of 
 your feelings at the time. I think I shall write an 
 article on the evanescence of early attachments for the 
 P. M. G ! " 
 
 Ah, young love ! the sweetest rose in the world, 
 even though it has its thorns — hard and sharp ones, 
 sometimes — still how fresh and fair a blossom it isj 
 — with all the dew pearls of the morning of life 
 glistening on its unfolding leaves, before the world's 
 breath has blown its petals so roughly that they fall, 
 one by one, scentless — colourless — dead ! 
 
 Happy young love ! budding timidly under the 
 first warm rays, and, at last, unfolding in all its 
 beauty, — with a hundred fresh thoughts and emotions
 
 222 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE PO^YER. 
 
 springing in the heart like a patch of sweet spring 
 daisies after rain. Holy and tender are its memories, 
 even in after years ; bright morning walks in shaded 
 shi-ubberies, or the dearer wanderings in the quiet twi- 
 light, when the stillness is only broken by the low notes 
 of the nightingale beginning her song. These are dear 
 and precious remembrances for middle age, — aye, and 
 even old age, to look back upon. Happy young love, that 
 spring of the heart which tm-ns all to gold by its 
 own sunshine — which enshrines mere trifles as relics to 
 be hoarded with all the heart's miserhood, and that will 
 bring a thrill of recollection, even in after years, when 
 the white forehead is getting f uiTowed by Time's rough 
 ploughshare, and the flowing cm-Is are exchanged for 
 calm matronly braids. 
 
 And yet young love has an enemy, — a relentless, 
 persecuting enemy — who, mider one disguise or 
 another, since the beginning of the world, has crossed 
 his plans and thwarted his happiness. And this 
 enemy is Worldly Prudence, who comes — not with 
 kind, gentle feeling, dewy in its eyes — anxious for 
 young love's well-being, and eager to clear away the 
 obstacles in the path ; but a grim, malignant-looking 
 individual, with eyes like cut steel beads, and a sneer-
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 223 
 
 ing mouth. Tliis evil-minded meddler is always 
 making the discovery that Miss Soandso's fortune is 
 nothing like what it was said to be ; and advises Mr. 
 Someoneelse to break off his daughter's engagement, as 
 he is not an eligible pmii, being only a poor doctor or 
 curate. Worldly Prudence is somewhat of an orator 
 too, and can discourse at great length on prudent 
 calculation, and equality of station, and a proper regard 
 for appearances. Her impartial hearers listen and 
 applaud the glittering heartless harangue, when a little 
 rosy fece and angel's wings look over her shoulder 
 and, — hey, presto ! — away go all her sage apothegms 
 to the winds ! My poor Worldly Prudence, never 
 mind, — you are only sharing the fate of that poor 
 fellow in sky-blue and spangles, who has cleared a 
 space in the next stj-eet for his performance, antici- 
 pating a good harvest of halfpence. 
 
 He is just balancing on one leg, and preparing to 
 begin, when, " Roo-too-too-tooe}^," there goes Punch, 
 and off go all the spectators — helter-skelter — after him, 
 leaving poor Spangles to waste his agility on a lame 
 beggar and a policeman. Never mind, my good Worldly 
 Prudence, you will get the best of it yet, after your 
 own fashion. There are m<;re followers awaiting you
 
 224 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 
 
 than poor Spangles will have spectators to the day of 
 his death ; hosts of Belgraviau mammas, anxious to 
 profit by your teaching how to obtain an advantageous 
 establishment, — that's the elegant English for it. And 
 your time will come to ride in your coronetted carriage, 
 when foolish young love is eating 
 
 " robin's fare, 
 And sups the common rill." 
 
 Oh, Armand de Troyes, go back to your shelf again, 
 there is nothing new under the sun ; " eye love " is 
 still popular among the youth of Britain, employed in 
 cidtivating moustaches and extending crinoline ; " cup- 
 board love " still flourishes under the active superin- 
 tendence of the Reverend Dr. Machoul, who is 
 earnestly careful that Mrs. Flutter's excellent tea and 
 buttered crumpets shall feed none but the faithful ; 
 " money love " is yet all powerful in winning the liand 
 of Lord Screwfit's fair daughter for old Dyddle the 
 banker; "love platonic " is still the consolation of 
 blighted old bachelors and morose spinsters; and 
 " pious love," once devoted to the father confessor, is now 
 lavished on the interesting yoimg curate, in lavender 
 gloves and weak health, under the shape of silver 
 tea-kettles, worked slipj)ers, and Aclvet sermon-cases.
 
 A REVERIE ON A GREAT MOTIVE POWER. 225 
 
 Love, — ambitious, improvident ; in short, love the 
 motive power, with as many names and forms as your 
 maid-servant has new dresses and bonnets, still as 
 UMch of Lichtenstein says, " Love, so mighty is, all 
 things living to him bow," though we have no Armand 
 de Troyes to investigate its mysteries, or " belle 
 Adelais," to smile upon his efforts. So go back, my 
 old friend : 
 
 " Here's a snug niche I have made in my shelf, 
 
 A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s book shall cover you, 
 
 Here C. to be grave with, — and D. to be gay, — 
 With E. on each side, and F. right over you, 
 Dry rot at ease till the judgment day ! "
 
 THE SYREN. 
 
 " When Hope departs then cometh Resignation." 
 One day when the Spring was adorning 
 
 With garlands and blossoms fair, 
 And the light and the joy of her presence, 
 
 Seemed breathing in sun and air : 
 I heai-d a bird singing, and listened 
 
 To her warbling, so sweet and clear. 
 And I bore that bird home in my bosom, 
 
 Close cherished, — unthinking of fear. 
 
 And the note of that syi-en songster 
 
 Was a charmed lay to me, 
 And she fluttered my heart as wildly 
 
 As the loose leaves on a tree. 
 And since the careless moment 
 
 When I made my heart her nest, 
 It throbbed with tlie fever and longing 
 
 Of that fotal song's unrest.
 
 THE SYREN. 227 
 
 Now behold ! — she hath flowm from my bosom, 
 
 That she fretted so long and sore, 
 And her lay's deceiving sweetness, 
 
 Has left me for evermore. 
 But I miss all her grace and her beauty, 
 
 And the soft wings on which she came. 
 And they tell me now she has departed. 
 
 That Hope, was that fair bird's name. 
 
 And my weary heart grows quiet, 
 
 Where no more the syren sings ; 
 But the calm dove Resignation 
 
 Broods there on her folded wmgs. 
 And the strife, and the feverish lono-ina:. 
 
 And the restless feelings cease, 
 At that gentle dove's low murmur, 
 
 Whose other name is Peace. 
 
 Q 2
 
 A RHYME. 
 
 On, a rhyme for bab}' May ! 
 
 A merry ringing rhyme, 
 To soothe to sleep her large blue eyes, 
 That caught their hues from yonder skies, 
 
 They gazed so long a time. 
 A lay that we her tongue may teach, 
 When cooing sounds are changed to speech, 
 
 Sweet as a silver chime. 
 
 So a rhyme for baby May ! 
 
 To charm her listening ear ; 
 Not poet's dream or eloquence, 
 Or mighty words outgoing sense, 
 
 That she has yet to heai*. 
 For now far softer, sweeter sound, 
 Unheard by us, is breathed around 
 
 From unseen guardians near.
 
 A RHYME, 229 
 
 Yet a rhyme for baby May ! 
 
 So soft, and sweet, and low, 
 Perchance some wandering notes may rise, 
 In pause of angel harmonies, 
 
 And flutter to and fro. 
 Time symbol of om- weaker love 
 Than His, — the Father throned above, 
 
 Who loveth all men so ! 
 
 Then a rhyme for baby May ! 
 
 Soft slumbers round her creep, 
 No troubled dreams disturb her now, 
 No passing shadow clouds her brow. 
 
 As but a child can sleep. 
 Out-wearied with its happy play. 
 Untouched by sorrow or decay. 
 
 Who does not wake to weep.
 
 THE SPRING'S LAST MESSENGERS. 
 
 He did not live to see the flowers 
 
 Spread forth o'er hill and plain, 
 The spring with all its early blooms 
 
 Had brightened eai'th again. 
 And tender Love, with many a tear, 
 
 Did dewj violets bring, 
 To cheer the half-departing heart 
 
 With tidings of the spring. 
 
 Their fragrance bronght a fresher air 
 
 Within the darkened room, 
 And weary eyes gazed tenderly 
 
 Upon tlieir pm-ple bloom. 
 Dear were they to that gentle heart. 
 
 That with an instinct true, 
 Found holy lore in flower and leaf. 
 
 And blessing in the dew.
 
 THE spring's last MESSENGERS. 231 
 
 And when fit last in dreamless sleep 
 
 That aching heart found rest, — 
 These little blossoms cherished long, 
 
 Lay in the mourner's breast. 
 She loved their dry and withered leaves, 
 
 Though scent and bloom were gone. 
 Last memory of the pleasant spring 
 
 He lived to look upon.
 
 BUBO'S WANDERINGS. 
 
 •' Hark ! Peace !— 
 It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman 
 Which gives the stern' st goodnight." 
 
 Macbeth. 
 
 " Who are you 1 " 
 
 A startling query tnily, and one which seems at 
 first sight rather impertinent, hke those inquisitive ad- 
 vertisements that ask if you have lately lost a tooth, — 
 and, if so, direct you to Mr. Someone, who will furnish 
 you with a dental perfection for five shillings. But, — 
 no ! hark I — here it comes again over the bleak com- 
 mon, and it echoes in wild, weird cadences among the 
 dark fir-ti-ces in the distance. It is a gloomy night — no 
 stars to be seen, and the moon only sliows herself by 
 fits and starts through a fleecy veil of mist. It is one 
 of tliose damp, autumn nights when the very air seems 
 wet through, and everything you touch is clammy with 
 moisture. The road is a very lonely one, — stretching 
 through little plantations of larch and small fir-trees ; 
 the scattered cottages are vei-y few and far between.
 
 bubo's wanderings, 233 
 
 One solitary traveller is groping his way along, now 
 stumbling up against the bank on one side of the road, 
 which is surmounted by a hedge of quickset that 
 sharply resents his intrusion, — now wildly plunging 
 and scrambling out of the wet ditch on the other 
 side. 
 
 " Whoo — are you — oo ! " 
 
 " Oh— oh Lard !— dontee hurt I !— I be Dr. Tayler's 
 man, o' Wells,— do 'ee let I goo ! " 
 
 Close by his ear, brushing his very hair, stiffly 
 erected — a la porcupine — by his terror, goes the cause 
 of his alarm on its quiet solemn wings, repeating its 
 melancholy note of interrogation, and vanishing away 
 into the black night. Up scrambles the discomfited 
 wayfai'er, rubbing his elbows and knees, not materially 
 benefited by their contact with mother earth. Mutter- 
 ing and grumbling, and banning the cause of his fright, 
 he pm-sues his way, blessing his stars that it is an owl 
 and not a highwayman. 
 
 Flap, flap, flap, solemnly sail those great noiseless 
 wings, bearing their o'mier over field and common, 
 arable and pasture, — over the gi-eat levels with their 
 huge bushes looming like haystacks here and there, 
 and intersected by the " rhines," or wide ditches, that
 
 234 bubo's wanderings. 
 
 serve as boundaries, — over the road, that is merely 
 distinguished by its dusty line from the rough cattle 
 tracks or " droves," often far wider than the road itself. 
 It is not a very pleasant country to ramble over in the 
 dark. Even in the day-time you may go miles out of 
 your way in trying to get a short cut, finding yourself 
 still kept in by these same " rhines," not to be got over 
 unless you are a good leaper, and have a stout ashen 
 pole. They are pretty-looking enough, filled with reeds 
 and bulrushes, and in summer with the bright yellow 
 flag, and the pretty pink-tinged blossoms of the water 
 arrowhead. Now, however, ditch and drove, field and 
 road, are all alike buried in the dark shades of 
 night, through which the " jolly owl " pm-sues his 
 way. 
 
 Here is a handsome red-brick house standing in a 
 large garden, — one of those roomy, substantial homes 
 that country opulence delights in raising and in- 
 habiting. The ground-floor has deep bay windows 
 and a portico, and there are many lai-ge and lofty 
 rooms above. One window, rather at the side of 
 the liouse, shows a light — let us use our privilege, 
 and peep hi. It is a spacious, airy chamber, lined 
 with cu])boards and wardi'obes in a manner to delight
 
 bubo's wanderings. 235 
 
 every good housewife. By clay it has a cheerful 
 view over pleasant green fields, and a genuine country 
 lane, overhung with brambles and honeysu^ckle ; and 
 a fine hill stands vip in the distance, well wooded at 
 its base. As there is no road near, and the windows 
 are two stories above the gi-ound, the inmates do not 
 seem to care much about di-awing the blind quite 
 down. We can accordingly see a nice bright fire glow- 
 ing in the grate, and dancing and crackling under the 
 steaming kettle. By the scattered toys that lie about, 
 and the gay pictiures pinned up here and there, we 
 see that it is the nursery, although the little weary 
 owners of the dolls and balls are gone to enjoy that 
 healthy, happy sleep that never survives childhood. 
 Lucy, the smart housemaid, is " tidying," as she 
 calls it — i. e., sweeping wooden dolls without arms 
 and legs, and leaden tea-things ininus handles and 
 lids, and wonderful horses sans heads or tails, into 
 a huge basket, the appointed receptacle for all the 
 debris of the toy establishment. There is a knock 
 at the door — enter Sarah the cook, in her best bib 
 and tucker, and a cap whose cherry-coloiu-ed bows 
 are paled by the neighbourhood of her cheeks. She 
 has come tip to visit the higher regions, bearing as
 
 236 bubo's wandekings. 
 
 her offering to the gods, a huge himp of cake and 
 a suspicious-looking bottle. " Master and missus " 
 are gone out to dinner, and the rest of the house- 
 hold have planned to enjoy themselves. Miss 
 Emma, the eldest hope of the house, not' being old 
 enough to go out to dinner-parties, is snugly en- 
 sconced on the sofa in the dressing-room, reading 
 " Sir Charles Grandison " by stealth. Lucy, the nurse, 
 being also free from the espionnage of " missus," has 
 ventured to invite her sweetheart Tom Davis, the 
 son of the village carpenter ; he is to be dexterously 
 smuggled up the back-stairs by the aid of the house- 
 maid. Lucy has unscrupulously anticipated the iisual 
 bedtime of the young ones, and has packed them 
 all off in their separate dormitories, daring them 
 to talk or stir under penalty of the renowned 
 "Bogey." She is now putting on her smart velvet 
 bracelets of red and black, and arranging her ringlets 
 in the little glass Iiy the window — a matter of 
 difficulty, as they have only been in paper on the 
 sly, and refuse to curl on siich short notice. Sarah, 
 exulting in all the glory of a black jacket and 
 washed-out silk skirt — forbidden luxm-ies — stands by 
 her, pinching the pin of a refractory gilt brooch.
 
 bubo's wanderings. 237 
 
 "Oh — 660 — 00!" yells an awful voice at their 
 very elbow, and a huge white something with great 
 glassy eyes appears at the window, to which they 
 well know no human being can gain access. Lucy 
 goes off in a " dead faint " on the spot, while 
 Sarah's energetic outcries assemble the whole house 
 — " nice young man " and all. Miss Emma, having 
 stuffed the forbidden volume imder the sofa-cushion, 
 is also there, and is quite shrewd enough to remark 
 the appearance of the aforesaid individual, as well 
 as the other little arrangements of the party, and 
 her report to the heads of the house will to-moiTow 
 result in a month's warning to the smart nursemaid 
 and obliging cook. The children, aroused by the 
 violent noise and outcry, think that " Old Bogey " 
 really has come at last, and feel secretly rejoiced 
 that it seems to be "that cross Lucy" who is the 
 object of his visit. 
 
 Meanwhile the unconscious author of the mischief, 
 majestically sails away again into the dark night. On, 
 on, skirting the quiet villages, peeping into many a 
 belfry to interchange a word or two with the chatter- 
 ing jackdaws, who also make their home in the grey, 
 ivy-mantled tower. Very quaint and edifying must
 
 238 bubo's wanderings. 
 
 these owl gossips be, the intelligence exchanged, as to 
 provendei* — as, whether caterpillars and slugs are 
 " in," or grubs and snails " out," — if mice arc a mere 
 drug in the market, and so on. The pen of the hu- 
 morous chronicler * of the " grand passion of an 
 owl," could alone do justice to the subject. Om- friend 
 does not seem much interested, however, on the sub- 
 ject of his "wittles" at present, — he is restless, — like 
 the birds of the Bosphorus, he seems unable to find 
 any peaceful abiding place for the sole of his claw foot. 
 On, — still on, over fields, where the cpiiet cows are 
 nestled up together, cosily chewing the cud, or indulg- 
 ing in their first dreams of cool, shady pools, and 
 fragrant clover-fields. Past the great brewery with 
 its spacious yards, its malting kilns, and windmill. 
 And there is a sound on the ear, low and monotonous, 
 and the air is fresh, as only the sea-breeze can make it, 
 and now we can even hear the regular lap of the waves 
 on the sand. 
 
 " Whoo-are-you-oo ! " sliouts Bubo, as he makes for 
 the lighthouse with its bright gleaming light. It is 
 not out at sea, but rises tall and white from the midst 
 
 * "Zoological Recreations," by W. J. BroJerip, Esq., F.R.S.
 
 bubo's wanderings. 239 
 
 of a green field, where the hghthouse-men grow cab- 
 bages and potatoes. A low, long ridge of sand-hills 
 divides it from the beach, but its light — three minutes 
 bright, and half a minute obscured — is seen far away 
 at sea ; and many a vessel rules its com-se, and avoids 
 the dangerous Gore Sands by its aid. It is a pleasant 
 place that lighthouse, wdth its three low white cottages, 
 round the base where the men live. A very different 
 place to those situated on lonely rocks out at sea — on 
 distant breakwaters, where you would hear nothing 
 but the incessant roar and dash of the l^reakers, and 
 see little else but the " white wings " of distant ships : 
 whose watchers have little occupation but polishing 
 the reflectors of their lights, and keeping every bolt 
 and bar in that exquisite order peculiar to such places. 
 Here, however, the lighthouse-men ai'e in a little 
 Paradise. They have their sandy space of garden- 
 gi-ound for their vegetables, and a neat lawn, encircled 
 by a belt of evergreens kept in the trimmest order. 
 They have even live stock, but curiously enough, as if 
 common pets would not content them, instead of cats 
 or dogs, they patronise a large and venerable tortoise, 
 that crawls lazily about, and suns himself on the 
 warm earth underneath the tower.
 
 240 bubo's wanderings. 
 
 Alack, alack ! our poor "jolly owl," ovir solemn- 
 pinioned Bubo, has met with a misfortmie. Attracted 
 by the brilliance of the steady light, and stariiig, with 
 great goggle eyes fixed on it, like a Brobdignag illus- 
 tration of a moth and a candle, he has struck roughly 
 against the plate glass, and now sinks down slowly on 
 the back of the old tortoise who is half-way home to 
 one of the cottages. We will enter while poor old 
 curiosity is ruffling, and panting, and pluming his 
 battered wings, trying' to recover from the usual fete 
 attendant on poking one's nose unasked into other 
 folk's premises. This little low cottage, the smallest 
 of the three, and quite separated by a broad path from 
 the other two, belongs to the actual tender of the 
 great lamps above, the man who polishes the reflectors 
 and fills the burners ; and who is now, with dim eyes 
 and laboured breath, watching another little lamp 
 flickering and fading, over which he has no control. 
 It is his only daughter — his only child — whose mother 
 lies in the churchyard not far ofi", where the dead lie 
 as quietly as if the great, restless heart of the ocean 
 was not heaving and throbbing beside them. This 
 small child has been his sole comfort for many a day 
 — the tiny, weakly blossom of a commonplace exist-
 
 bubo's wanderings. 241 
 
 tence. There is a curious choking feeling in his 
 throat as he recollects how he first caiTied her, a 
 happy smiling infant, unconscious of a mother's love 
 and loss, up those dim steep stairs, to see her spring 
 and crow at the twin baby in the great bright reflector. 
 Then, in a short time, a sober toddling child, she 
 crawled up a few stairs after him ; till at last, with 
 innocent pride, she tripped up breathlessly, and 
 wearily, but still happily, before him. Then came a 
 time when the little feet fell more heavily and slowly, 
 and there was a feeble halting footstep, whose memory 
 even now makes him shiver. More seldom still were 
 those sounds, till the aching limbs were laid on the 
 low couch from whence she was never to arise. Since 
 then many a trifling toy and pleasure devised to cheer 
 away her pain, has wiled away sad thoughts from him, 
 as he watched the little light glimmer more feebly. 
 He is an uncouth awkward man, nothing more than 
 common-place ; but that tender human love that 
 welled up in one clear stream in his heart, is as deep 
 and as true as the love of the wise and the great. He 
 could not express it in eloquent words, and indeed you 
 might scarcely find even homely pathos in what he 
 will say to-morrow, when people attempt to console
 
 242 bubo's wanderings. 
 
 him. But look at the old broken wine-glass, for which 
 he has contrived a quaint wooden stem, and it makes 
 a good vase to hold those few flowers. And the neck- 
 lace of beads, alternate jet and amber, the spoils 
 gathered dming sea-side rambles, or the odd cockle- 
 shell pincushion — and pictm-e to yourself the patient 
 evenings of labour bestowed on them to gratify a 
 poor sickly child, whose smile more than repaid him — 
 and they will shine far brighter, as they do in the eyes 
 of the angels, than the diamonds in the royal crown. 
 This same deep feeling has instructed him to move 
 lightly and tenderly about the low couch, and taught 
 him a hundred ingenious means of ministering to the 
 frail body of his dear little sufferer. There is no more 
 toiTching sight, than the love-born gentleness of a 
 rough man ; it is the magic that trains his hard honiy 
 hands to soft touches, and his hasty tread to a woman's 
 stealthy step. 
 
 There is a pause, — a long-drawn sigh, — he raises 
 the little head ; another, — and he is alone, — with the 
 great lights bm-ning steadily above him, — visible far 
 away over the gloomy waters ; and guiding safely 
 home, many a travel-woni wanderer to his cheerful 
 hearth and loving chikh'en ; but his little lamp
 
 bubo's wanderings. 243 
 
 is quenched, and all is dark, till that blessed dawning 
 when he shall know that these 
 
 " dim funereal tapers 
 May be heaven's distant lamps :" 
 
 and a light footstep that is no longer halting, shall 
 spring to meet him, in a home where darkness and 
 death are no more. 
 
 Come, poor battered, prying Bubo, we have paid for 
 our peeping this time, and come away with sad 
 and aching hearts. Wail on, over the sandy expanse 
 and the wide flats. Sail on solemnly, mournfully, to 
 yom- home in the hollow ivy-covered stump. Pass 
 on yoiu" way near the little town with its gaily lighted 
 station, that looks like a Swiss cottage with its wide 
 projecting roof. But its lights do not tempt you, 
 Oh bird of Minerva, for there is also too much noise 
 and bustle to suit your ideas of propriety ; and, listen, 
 — there is a screech that rivals yoiu' owia power of 
 hooting ; and see, here comes a grim monster swiftly 
 along, with huge gleaming saucer eyes not unlike 
 your own. But you do not yoiu'self perceive the re- 
 semblance, and accordingly, in great fear and dismay, 
 suddenly take refuge — Oh mistaken fowl of night, — 
 
 R 2
 
 244 bubo's wandbeings. 
 
 in a chimney. Yoiu' dignified spouse is vainly await- 
 ing you in her snug ivy-cvirtained nook, and is 
 making the night melancholy, but not musical, by 
 her reiterated summons to her absent partner. 
 She has, j^erchance, a fine young mouse, that has 
 fed and fattened on the vicar's corn, awaiting you, 
 as a dainty petit souper after yom* rambles. And 
 here you are, on the top of a chimney. Flutter, — 
 scramble, dash, — dovai he goes, from his previous 
 mishaps rather weak in the legs and wings. Riistle, 
 rustle, — bringing down no small quantity of soot in 
 his ruffled plumes, — till, a mass of dirt, wet, and 
 black, he tumbles out headlong, escaping by a miracle 
 from the low fire, and finally comes to his feet, 
 but not his senses, in the middle of a nice Tiu'key 
 hearth-rug. He winks and blinks at the light, and 
 blunders about to the vast discomposure of the young 
 heir of the house, who has just aiTived from Oxford, 
 to the great delight of his pai-tial mother and wor- 
 shipi)ing sisters. He has been enjoying a " quiet 
 weed " after dinner, tilting his chair back, and putting 
 a leg on each side of the mantelpiece, while perusing 
 the last adventures of Mr. Verdant Green. He 
 ruefully contemplates the stains and splashes on
 
 bubo's wanderings. 245 
 
 his fashionable new nether garments, and apostro- 
 phises our unhicky owl in no measured terms. He 
 rings the bell violently, bidding the alarmed house- 
 hold staff remove the intruder, and turn him over 
 to the tender mercies of " Rough," the terrier. 
 Accordingly, poor old curiosity is ignominiously hauled 
 and cuffed off the stage, every one joining in levelling 
 a volley of abuse at his poor draggled pate. He 
 is wet, dirty, and weary, and too utterly dumb- 
 foundered by this last misfortune to reiterate his 
 only inquiry, " Who are you 1 "
 
 A DREAM SONG. 
 
 Deeam of those who love thee, 
 
 Fond young heart, and true ; 
 Ere the world's dark shadow 
 
 Dim the future's hue. 
 Dream of happy faces 
 
 O'er thy slumbers bent ; 
 Sweet and pleasant visions 
 
 With thy slumbers blent ; 
 
 Joys that never alter, 
 
 Friends that will not change ; 
 Love that like a tame cage bird 
 
 Will not — cannot range ; 
 Of the world's bright roses 
 
 Flung o'er dale and lea ; 
 Of Pleasiu-e's golden goblet 
 
 Offered unto thee.
 
 A DREAM SONG. 247 
 
 Death will steal those loved ones, 
 
 Dearest friends will change, 
 And will meet thee, altered, — 
 
 Greet thee, cold and strange. 
 Life's bright roses wither 
 
 Forsaken by the bees, 
 Pleasure's cup when tasted 
 
 Leaves most bitter lees. 
 
 Pity thou shouldst waken 
 
 From such golden bliss. 
 To the stern reality, 
 
 A cold world like this. 
 Turn thee back to slumber. 
 
 Though lost time it seem, — 
 A time wiU come when youth and hope 
 
 Will vanish like thy dream !
 
 MARY'S TREASURES. 
 
 —   — 
 
 Little Mary with a smile • 
 
 Counts her simple treasures o'er, 
 
 Coral berries from the wood, 
 
 Shells and seaweed from the shore ; 
 
 Pebbles from the rij^pling brook, 
 Verdant moss and lichen grey ; 
 
 Hazel nuts and acorn cups. 
 From the fairies filched away. 
 
 Counting up her precious store, 
 Little Mary paused, and smiled, — 
 
 " How my treasm-es do increase ! 
 Am I not a happy child ? " 
 
 Mary, gi'own a woman now, 
 Lifts her casket's carved lid. 
 
 Where amid its velvet folds 
 
 Gold and glittering gems are hid.
 
 Mary's treasures. 249 
 
 There the ruby's ardent glow 
 
 Deepens 'neath the diamond's ray, 
 
 And the emerald's lustrous hues 
 Coldly o'er the white pearls play. 
 
 With a quivering lip she tiu-ns 
 
 Sadly from their light apart, 
 " Worthless as my early stores — 
 
 Give me back my childish heart ! "
 
 THE LEGACY. 
 
 May every bright-hued blossom of the earth 
 
 Be a remembrancer of me to thee ; 
 
 The hyacinth shall, with its mute reproach, 
 
 Speak to thy heart in passionate wailing grief. 
 
 I'll give my blushes to the ardent rose, 
 
 My paleness to the lily, and my sighs 
 
 To the sad primrose, wan and pale with woe ; 
 
 And to the violet will I bequeath 
 
 The tear-dimmed brightness of these deep blue eyes. 
 
 Let these then be my memories, — let them bring 
 
 A softened recollection to thine heart, 
 
 Of one who loved the sunshine of thy smile, 
 
 And lived upon thy glances : but who died 
 
 In the dull chillness of a wintry day.
 
 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 
 
 "Bones oh !" 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 The pi'esont Dean of Westminster, in his very 
 pleasantly written volume on proverbs, has entered 
 fully into the natm-e of these floating darts, that, 
 like the downy seeds of the thistle, are blown about 
 by the breath of public opinion far from their birth- 
 place. 
 
 " And what are proverbs but the people's voice, 
 Coined first and current made by public choice ? " 
 
 He has drawn attention to the deep and poetic 
 meaning concealed in many of these vagrant children 
 of literature, and thrown light upon one or two that 
 were rather dark sayings. But there is one which 
 he has omitted to notice, and which deserves a 
 better fate. "There is a skeleton in every house." 
 There is a gloomy stern imagery in it, taking it in
 
 252 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 
 
 its original meaning (i. e., that there is a sorrow 
 or a sin in every house). There is one dark closet 
 in the mansion, one gloomy chamber of the heart, 
 which could reveal a terrible tenant. They may be 
 cheerful airy homes, surrounded by everything that 
 is beautiful in nature, looking over verdant lawns 
 or wooded hills, and filled with every luxury that 
 wealth can purchase ; but, depend upon it, there is 
 a skeleton somewhere — either a sorrow or a sin. 
 There is Lord Argent's beautiful park, one of the 
 finest in the county, with its noble trees and 
 dappled deer ; but the only son and heir lies far 
 away in his own little freehold plot of earth, and 
 Alma and Balaclava are forbidden names to utter 
 in his father's home. Here is INIrs. Beaulieu's elegant 
 country seat, with conservatories, fountains, and 
 gardens, only that her husband has mortgaged it to 
 the Jews, to pay heavy gambling debts. Peep into 
 No. 10, Paradise Place, Stepney or Hackney, and 
 you will see the broker taking an inventory for that 
 vinegar-faced female, the late housekeeper and present 
 heir of the defunct miser. That thin half-starved- 
 lookiug girl -was his orplian niece, who is to-day 
 turned penniless on the world. 
 
 J
 
 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 253 
 
 You may interpret the skeleton as the visible 
 representation or symbol of Death, as we may see 
 the grim King of Shadows pom-trayed in the famous 
 " Dance of Death," that most wonderful of all human 
 allegories. It is also a favourite subject with the 
 German artists, where you may behold the " Ter- 
 minator of Delights and the Separator of Com- 
 panions" (that being his state title among the 
 euphuistic natives of the East) fiddling or dancing. 
 As, for instance, in a very graceful sketch by Richter, 
 there is a young maiden looking up from her spin- 
 ning, through a lattice of roses and leaves, to a 
 youth above her, who, goblet in hand, is evidently 
 singing some musical "trinklied." Connected with 
 them by a giuceful tendril is a ripe poppy-head, on 
 which, as on a cushion, sits Death, playing on a 
 pipe. The utter abandon of the whole of his atti- 
 tude, the long bony crossed legs, and the pert raven 
 perched on his shoidder, are very piquante and 
 attractive. 
 
 "The grim musician 
 Leads all men througb the mazes of that dance 
 To different sounds in different measures moving." 
 
 Taking the skeleton to be used in this manner
 
 254 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 
 
 as symbolic of death, we might parapliivase oui- 
 
 proverb in the words of Longfellow, and say, — 
 
 " There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 But one dead lamb is there ; 
 There is no fire-side, howsoe'er defended, 
 But holds one vacant chair." 
 
 Be it however imderstood as the type of sorrow, 
 sin, or its wages death, the " grisly shape of bone " 
 is generally regarded with shuddering and disgust, 
 the inheritance of mortality. We have uncomfort- 
 able perceptions of the air and scent of a charnel- 
 house, and vivid visions (I la Alonzo the Brave, 
 and do not at all covet a fm-ther investigation into 
 the banquet-halls of the revolting creatures described 
 in the ballad with such disagreeable accuracy. 
 There are, of com*se, exceptions to this nde, as in 
 the case of the barbai'ians of old, who used the 
 skull of thch' enemies as a drinking-cup, filling it 
 with wme and crowning it with flowers ; or the more 
 utihtarian, but less poetical, usage of some of the 
 old monks, who turned the empty casket of the 
 brain into a flat candlestick. You will also occa- 
 sionally find a lui-king tendency that way in young 
 medical students, who are givcu to rough practical 
 jokes with their specimens of ossification, whence
 
 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 255 
 
 their name in vulgar parlance " Sawbones." A few 
 old people could still remember the days when the 
 resurrection fever was at its height, and a skeleton 
 carried by a fiu'ious mob through a public thorough- 
 fare in a large town in the country ended in the 
 demolition of the hospital furniture, the fright of 
 the inmates, and the smash of all the red lamps 
 in the place. It was rather a ticklish thing, in 
 those days, for a surgeon to possess what is populai'ly 
 called a " nottomy " among the apparatus of his 
 surgery. 
 
 Even in our days, some ob'servant doctors and 
 nurses could speak of a peculiar idiosyncrasy that 
 is occasionally developed in diseased and deformed 
 children — viz., a great liking for drawing grotesque 
 skeletons. 
 
 But as I said befoi-e, these are exceptions to the rule, 
 for the live warm flesh rarely comes willingly in con- 
 tact with the hard rattling dry bones. I suppose they 
 are a sort of memento mori, quite as effectual and far 
 more striking than the Macedonian king's, and whose 
 touch is pecviliarly repugnant to the warm living 
 flesh and blood that is chilled so easily to " goose- 
 skin." A skeleton — a grisly shape — the bai'e bleached
 
 256 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 
 
 relics of mortality, from which the fleshly garment 
 has long mouldered away in kindred dust. These hor- 
 ribly vacant sockets once bore bright eyes, the lamps 
 of the soul within, through which it looked out on the 
 green world, that is now a calm green resting-place for 
 these rattling bones. Those gxinning jaws were once 
 covered with soft rosy flesh, dimpled with smiles or 
 dewed with tears ; and that brown polished skull may 
 have borne long silken tresses of hair, braided with 
 flowers or crowned with jewels. And now, as Hamlet 
 says, " Get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let 
 her paint an inch thick, to this favoiu- she must come; 
 make her laugh at that ! " Many besides Hamlet 
 have moralised wisely and well over these dry bones ; 
 and none more so than good old Jeremy Taylor. In 
 the edition of 1G86, of his "Holy Dying," you may 
 find a quaint pictvu'c of a grave divine leading a lady 
 attired in the height of fashion, to a mii-ror which 
 gives back her shadow, not as she is now in her gay 
 attire and jewelled hah", but as she shall be when the 
 gi'im king has had her in his keeping, and has changed 
 her to his own semblance. A homily that would be 
 deemed utterly vulgar and profane by our fanciful fine 
 ladies and pet preachers now.
 
 THERE IS \ SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 257 
 
 And yet it remains for this curious, inconsistent 1 9th 
 century, to add another, and a more literal interpre- 
 tation to oiir proverb. Could we penetrate to that 
 apartment, appropriately sacred to the heathen Graces, 
 a modern lady's dressing-room, we might lind among 
 its varied array of colours and cosmetics, pastes and 
 perfumes, dyes and washes, hidden in a closet, a real 
 boiid fide skeleton ! A complicated apparatus of 
 whalebones and steel springs, that would be really inge- 
 nious applied to a better purpose, than for distending 
 the already exaggerated skirts of our fashionable 
 population to balloon-like magnitude. Verily the 
 antiquarians of 1957, may some day engage in erudite 
 discussions on what will appear to them, a curious and 
 inexplicable engine of tortiu-e similar to the scold's 
 bridle. There is little doubt but that Fashion, like 
 other diseases, is of a periodical natvu-e, and is subject 
 to violent accessions of strength at regular intervals, 
 and this seems to be one of her frenzy fits. She has 
 been for some time mildly breaking out in scarlet 
 eruptions in stockings, succeeded by inflamed petti- 
 coats, and is now evidently suffering from a fit similar 
 to that of the frog in the fable. 
 
 Mothers and Fathers of Great Britain — afflicted
 
 2oS THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 
 
 Parents of England — there is a skeleton in all your 
 houses, a Iiideous framework of bones, which, if you 
 are amenable to advice, you will quietly and decently 
 inter in the earth in yoiu* own gardens, as no cemetery 
 however spacious could contain them. If you like to 
 put up a neat little headstone, inscribe on it, " Vani- 
 tas vanitatis, omnia vanitas ! " and preach therefrom a 
 sermon on the text of old Jeremy Taylor, to yoin- 
 blooming tribe of girls. Pray remind them that they 
 cannot now earn endless fame and a husband, by hiding 
 a Jacobite lover under their hoop — like the fair ances- 
 tress of an old family in the West. I would also advise 
 you to point out one of the great inconveniences of 
 these absm-d apj^endages. From some inherent defect 
 in the mechanism, or some awkwardness in the adjust- 
 ment, they are exceedingly apt to escaj^e from their 
 fair wearers altogether. And even supposing we 
 possessed so chivalrous and gallant a king now, as our 
 Third Edward, it would be impossible to create a new 
 order of knighthood on such a queer foundation. Only 
 fancy the sang froid a lady must reqxiire, when such 
 an accident occurs in dancing a quadrille ! Imagine 
 licr gravely accosting her ins a I'is, " May I beg you 
 to hand me my skeleton ! "
 
 THERE IS A SKELETON IN EVERY HOUSE. 259 
 
 No, fliir ladies, — reform it altogether, — discard these 
 ugly and useless incumbrances. Our native English 
 gentlewomen, true ladies in every sense of the word, 
 do not need to borrow the fantastic freaks of a 
 foreign Court. It is neither pleasant nor agreeable 
 to your dignity, to think that instead of yom- lover's 
 estimating the space you occupy in his heart, he is 
 calculating the square feet you will take up in his 
 house. 
 
 Manoeuvring mammas ! — picture to youi'selves the 
 chances you will lose of advantageous establishments 
 for your precious Claras and Marias, by Adolphus dis- 
 covering that she is ten inches too large for his small 
 dining-room. And finally recollect that our motley 
 monitor " Punch " has ably and sufficiently chronicled 
 all your vagaries in di-ess. He has handed down to 
 posterity yom- wide-awakes, jackets, paletots, brown 
 hats, &c., (fee. ; let the bony apparatus he has also 
 commemorated so well, go out of date with the rest. 
 Leave Mr, Trench to illustrate the proverb from 
 other sources, by doing away with the reproach that 
 there really is " a skeleton in every house ! "
 
 "ONLY A WOMAN." 
 
 " ' I have loved,' she said, 
 ' Man is weak, — God is dread, 
 Yet the weakest man dies with his spirit at ease. 
 Having poured such an oil of love, but once at the Saviour's feet, 
 As I lavished on these.' " 
 
 E.Barrett Browning. 
 
 See the long tress as it slips through his fingers, 
 
 Ring after ring is it slowly uncurled, 
 All that is left of the woman who loved him 
 
 Better than anything else in the world. 
 Better than happiness, honom-, and riches, — 
 
 Better than even her womanly fame ; 
 What are the words he inscribes on the ringlet, — 
 
 What arc his thoughts as he utters her name ? — 
 
 " Onlv a woman ! " 
 
 " Only a woman ! " — who worshipped him fondly. 
 Till all her youth and her hopes had gi-own dim, 
 
 " Only a woman," who spent half a lifetime 
 In thinking and caring for no one but him.
 
 " ONLY A WOMAN." 261 
 
 How could he say it, — when knowing and feeling 
 The last link was severed that bound her so 
 fast, 
 The loving heart silent, — the quick pulses throbbing 
 So eagerly for him, were quiet at last ; — 
 
 " Only a woman ! " 
 
 Sadly prophetic the laurels she planted 
 
 (A womanly fancy), whenever he came ; 
 Pulseless her hand lies, — yet still do they flourish,- 
 
 Cold, hard, and glossy, and he is the same. 
 Had'st thou but offered that heart's adoration. 
 
 Before thy Creator, the love thou didst pour 
 On one of His creatures, who coldly received it. 
 
 Only to scorn and neglect thee the more ! 
 Thee, — " Only a woman ! " 
 
 Ah ! when that proud mind grew heavy and clouded, 
 And the deeds of the past were beyond his control, 
 
 And the faith he disgraced, and the hopes he 
 derided, 
 Gleamed stern in the distance, but not to console.
 
 ^62 " ONLY A WOMAN." 
 
 Say, came her memory, gentle and tender, 
 
 Free from life's doubt and its jealous mistrust. 
 And the heart he had wronged, and the love he had 
 wasted. 
 Were valued at last when she lay in the dust ; — 
 Still,—" Only a woman ! " 
 
 May He who accepted a w^oman's oblation, — 
 
 The best that she had, and He took it as such, 
 Whose first risen greeting was given to Maiy, 
 
 Her sins all forgiven, because she loved much : 
 Beholding that broken heart's agony bitter, 
 
 That gazed so desjDairingly over the past ; 
 Ah ! may He judge thee more tenderly — truly, 
 
 Than he who misled thee, and scorned thee at 
 last, — 
 
 Thougli, — " Only a woman ! "
 
 A PRAYER. 
 
 I CAN bear to think of thee, 
 
 Gently laid to rest, 
 Like a wearied bird that creeps 
 
 To its parent nest : 
 Earth should all her treasures shower, 
 Every bright-hued bud and flower, 
 
 O'er thy quiet breast. 
 
 And the green earth cover thee 
 
 Lightly, — ah, so light ; 
 Over thee the happy stars 
 
 Keep their watching bright. 
 Softly should thine eyelids close, 
 Gently as a folding rose, 
 
 'Neath the kiss of night !
 
 264 
 
 A PRATER. 
 
 Though this l)right and joyous earth 
 
 Veiy lone would be, 
 When one heart had from it passed, 
 
 That was the world to me. 
 Love, o'ermastering vain regret, 
 Would prove its faith of meeting yet. 
 
 To part no more from thee. 
 
 But I could not see thee chano-e, — 
 Change in heart and mind ; 
 
 By a worldly teaching gi-own 
 Heartless, cold, and blind. 
 
 False to honour and to truth. 
 
 To the honest faith of youth, 
 Traitor to thy kind. 
 
 Changed, to mete thine actions out 
 
 By the world's applause. 
 Ruling all things I'igidly 
 
 By narrow creeds and laws. 
 Scorning what is pure and high, 
 Nature's true nobility. 
 
 For a meaner cause.
 
 A PRATER. 265 
 
 E'er such moral death be thine, 
 
 May a slumber deep 
 Close these eyes, that o'er thy grave 
 
 Quiet tears could weep : 
 E'er such anguish they should see, 
 Dust and ashes o'er them be, 
 
 Closed in dreamless sleep !
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF LIFE. 
 
 When the pi;lse of man begins to fail, 
 And his voice is faint and low, 
 
 The light of his eager eye grown dim. 
 And his restless footsteps slow. 
 
 He sees the course of this busy life, 
 And knows that his race is run, — 
 
 That a gi-eater morn will be dawning soon. 
 And another life begun. 
 
 Then he leaves the gi'cat world's vanities 
 To the moth and to the rust ; 
 
 Each after each, lays down the folds 
 That clothe his feeble dust. 
 
 Then there cometh solemn memory, 
 And the long closed book imseals ; 
 
 And by the light of brighter hopes 
 The dark sad past reveals.
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF LIFE. 267 
 
 Thrice blessed is he, who humbly waits 
 
 To see that glorious dawn ; 
 To whom the valley's darksome shades 
 
 Ai-e passages to morn. 
 
 Whose earthly lamps long since are quenched 
 
 Amid the shades of night, 
 He watches through the twilight gray, 
 
 For glimpses of the light. 
 
 And 'mid the din of earthly things 
 
 Doth close his soul from all, — 
 Before the calm death-angel bows, 
 
 And turns him to the wall.
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 TO MT BROTHER. 
 
 To one equally dear to us both, I have dedicated 
 this little firstling ; but I cannot launch it forth on its 
 perilous voyage without inscribing to you a few words 
 at the finish, to serve as a sort of Irish bull of a pre- 
 face, at the end instead of the beginning. 
 
 Truly, the* "dash of ink in the blood " seems trans- 
 mitted — like other hereditary diseases, even to the 
 third generation. One imaginative old lady has even 
 profanely suggested that we were fed on ink, out of a 
 quill, like young birds, — pinafored in proof sheets, — and 
 tucked up in blotting-paper, — but this, I need hardly 
 say, is quite a myth. However, in very early days the 
 " cacoethes scribendi " was manifested pretty strongly. 
 Our first essay, in such precocious authorship, was 
 when we two alone, formed the whole stafl^ of editor, 
 
 * See " Literary Remiaiscences ; " "Hood's Own."
 
 l'envoi. 269 
 
 contributors, reviewer, artist, printer, and publisher, to 
 a small " family magazine " of a far more harmless 
 kind than the felonious pill-box, full of gunpowder, of 
 some of our contemporaries. 
 
 Pleasant days were they, when we were sure of the 
 toleration of our most indulgent, and not too critical 
 public. Since then, the dearly loved, besetting sin 
 has been a sadder one ; and we must now appear before 
 a more discriminating audience, whose smiles are more 
 difficult to win, than those dear ones that were ever 
 ready at om* wish, and that now can only be ranked 
 among our most precious memories. 
 
 All our greatest literary enjoyments have been 
 shared together, from om* pinafore days when we 
 devoured Shakespeare, our midnight vigil over " Tha- 
 laba," our tribute of honest grief for " Paul and 
 Virginia," down to oiu* Roman fever over Macavilay's 
 " Lays." The chain is even complete up to the pre- 
 sent time, as our favom-ite books, scored with a liberal 
 pencil, and marked with our joint comments, could 
 testify. Very humble bees of literature have we 
 been, not pursuing the airy track of our more orderly 
 members, but flying hither and thither and revelling 
 a little in all. Now dreaming over the delicacy and
 
 270 l'envoi. 
 
 grace of Gell's Pompeii, and now dipping into the 
 grand and gloomy mythology of the North. 
 
 Like others, our debt to literatm'e is indeed great, 
 — " a debt so immense," says the author of the Song 
 of the Shirt, "as not to be cancelled, like that of 
 natui'e, by death itself" The happiest days of our 
 lives have been those when we were engrossed in some 
 fascinating book, and absent to all the world beyond. 
 And even now, when life and its attendant cares and 
 anxieties has dra^svaa nearer to us, the power of enjoy- 
 ment in that respect is as fresh as ever, — a pleasure 
 that never pains, — a recreation that never grows old. 
 Not perhaps quite so demonstrative as formerly, when 
 we once sat the whole morning rapt in Robinson 
 Crusoe, till coming to the terrible eyes in the dark 
 cave, we electrified the whole house, by rushing with a 
 loud yell of nervous terror from our solitude, to the 
 welcome light and cheerful faces. 
 
 Even now the sight of fresh uncut leaves, with that 
 peculiar but pleasant odom* of damp paper, that much 
 I)ei'\'ades the atmosphere of Paternoster Row, drives 
 away all thoughts sober or serious to the winds. 
 Long may it be so, and may we enjoy many such 
 wholesome mental feasts together, — or launch our tiny
 
 l'envoi. 271 
 
 cockle-shell boats on the bosom of the troubled pool, 
 guiding and watching our frail flotilla with a common, 
 joint interest, and however widely we may be severed 
 by the chances and changes of the world, never for- 
 getting our fellow-travelling on the same path, — 
 
 ' ' Both warbling of one song, both in one key ; 
 As if oui' hands, our sides, voices and minds, 
 Had been incorporate. So we grew together, 
 Like to a double cherry, seeming parted ; 
 
 But yet a union in partition . 
 
 ****** 
 
 So with two seeming bodies, but one heart. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBfBV AND EVANS, PRIKTEES WHITEFRIAKS
 
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