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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE OF OXFORD.
 
 fg§T The Poem entitled " Charles XII." was incapacitated 
 by a rule which renders ineligible the essays of candi- 
 dates who have exceeded a certain term of residence 
 at the University.
 
 CHARLES XII. 
 
 &n incapacitated IJocm, 
 
 ON ONE OF THE NEWDTGATR- PRIZE SUBJECTS 
 
 WITH (EXPLET1VEIT) 
 
 SUNDRY METRICAL PUERILITIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 SGjp 
 
 AN UNDERGRADUATE OF OXFORD. 
 
 
 LONDON 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 (FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.) 
 1843.
 
 • 
 
 I 
 A c It 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 ClI\RLE8 THE TWELFTH 3 
 
 inimical ^Ducriltttcs. 
 
 Lines ou a Lighthouse 39 
 
 The Jungfrau at Sunset 41 
 
 A Hiero-litho-logical Phsyco-draniatic Epigram .... 43 
 
 An Epoch of the Heart 45 
 
 One Sleepless Night 48 
 
 Farewell Lines to a Lady in Ill-Health 49 
 
 A Simile, in Blank 53 
 
 Verses, from Gray's " Eeligio Loci" 55 
 
 The " Amina" of Persiani 58 
 
 Monody upon the Defunct Bucephalus of a Reverend Friend 02 
 
 Certain Conceits upon Photography G5 
 
 An Acknowledgment of a Saturnalian Present .... 09 
 
 Persius' Prologue 72 
 
 ^
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 ^Translations, ^fragments, Sec. 
 
 Translation of the Simile " Ac Veluti Saxum Montis de 
 
 Vertice," &c 77 
 
 A Latin Sentiment 78 
 
 Sensibility 79 
 
 Wit 79 
 
 Despair 80 
 
 Evening, Sacred to Memory 81 
 
 Lines Idly Scribbled in a Green-coloured Page of an Album, 
 
 the only one Previously Unoccupied 82 
 
 To Mine Handmaiden 85 
 
 Upon being Requested by a Certain Pretty Person to 
 
 write " Something" in Her Album s7 
 
 Epicurean Happiness — Sustained Gratification .... 88 
 
 Upon Hearing the Expression, " The Spark of Life" . . 89 
 
 The Light of Life 90 
 
 A Defensive Answer to the Lady's Complaint Melodized in 
 
 Moore's Ballad of " The Favoured Guest" .... 91 
 
 " Life's Dark Ocean" 94 
 
 A Simile to Lake Lucerne U6 
 
 Sonnet 97 
 
 Random Rhymes 98 
 
 Parody upon an Ode to the Island of St. Helena . . . 106 
 
 Bints to Brother Authors Ill 
 
 Portrait of a " Sainte" HO
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH.
 
 AN ANALYSIS OF THE POEM. 
 
 Sunset, village scene — A picture of Peace — Its reverse — 
 War arrayed in some of its more obvious horrors — The sub- 
 ject introduced — Allusion to the descent of the Swedes from 
 a Gothic tribe which powerfully contributed to the downfall 
 of the Roman Empire — Their greatest King — The disposition 
 of Charles as evinced in childhood — His early aversion to the 
 inactive pleasures of Peace — His military ardour first excited 
 at a Review of the troops, when he expresses a wish to reign 
 in order to command them — His latent character undeveloped 
 until the threatened invasion of his country stimulates him to 
 action — Subsequent warlike and energetic habits — Victories 
 and career of triumph, until a too rash confidence in the invin- 
 cible prowess of his arms is the cause of his fall — Defeat at 
 Pultowa — Sustaining firmness in adversity — Intrigues at the 
 Ottoman Porte, and mad exploit at Bender — Brief epitome of 
 the salient traits of his character — Its better points and errors 
 — The peaceful policy preferable — Allusion to the mystery 
 which to this day involves the Conqueror's death — Its imme- 
 diate cause, then, being unknown, with what humility we must 
 attribute it, as all else " beyond the reaches of our souls," 
 to the inscrutable dispensations of a Great Cause, in whose 
 hands are alike the fortunes of men, and the dominion of 
 empires.
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH 
 
 " L'alto valor ed i chiari gesti suoi, 
 Yi faro udir, se voi mi date orrechio." 
 
 Ariusto, Orlando, Canto lmo. 
 
 "In vvv Kaff odop, n)v Ka\\ioTr)i>, 
 
 E I p i) V 1) V TlflCjVTlQ. 
 
 Euripides, Orest. 1 698. 
 Deep in the gorgeous west the light of day, 
 In floods of crimson, ebbs itself away; 
 And, slowly as the lucid tide recedes, 
 In rich'ning glory bathes the purpled meads, 
 Pours on each height which breaks its living fire. 
 And plays refracted IVoin yond' glittering spire, 
 
 * " Sa vie doit apprendre aux horames combien un gou- 
 vernement pacifique et heureux est au dessus de tant de 
 gloire." — Voltaire, Charles XII. 
 
 Such is the moral, deduced from the contemplation of the 
 life of Charles in all its bearings, with which the philosopher 
 points his biography ; and this lesson the poem, in its opening 
 lines, and elsewhere, attempts to colour. 
 
 It
 
 4 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 That peers, an index, o'er the sylvan scene, 
 Of hamlet sunk in shadowy depths of green — 
 Precincts of peace ! in guardian foliage shrined, 
 Where Sol falls faintly through the shades 
 
 combined, 
 With Nature's tresses twines His tangled rays, 
 And clings, enamoured, in the trembling maze ; 
 For nought, in all His long career of air. 
 Beheld that wand'ring orb, more calm, more fair; 
 Nor, all reluctant, at His fading flight 
 Yielded aught lovelier to th' embrace of Night. 
 
 Yes ; tranquil as the worldling's dream thou wert, 
 Refuge of Peace, far fortress of the heart; 
 The briary bank, whose sole encircling mound — 
 Thy fosse — the streamlet, babbling round ; 
 Girt by qo gloom of towers, bul aol the less 
 Secure, for Mercy walls defenoelessness — 
 Tranquil as tho' earth's weary ones of care, 
 
 From cities scared, had found obliviou there;
 
 CHARLES THE TWT.I.JT1I . 5 
 
 There couched secure from the wild world's 
 
 alarms, 
 Where lawny verdure spreads her ample charms; 
 Where smiling flow rets, innocently gay. 
 Beguile the passing stranger of his way; 
 And ivy, mantling round the holy tower. 
 Like Faith, clings trusting to its church for 
 
 power. 
 Each quiet feature, every murmur teems 
 With joy; and there, in mirror'd glow, it beams, 
 Embrowned in health upon each rustic brow, 
 Th' ensign of a mind at peace — our heav'n here 
 
 below! 
 
 Such once the bowery favourite of the plain, 
 The home of happiness — contentment's fane — 
 An imaged Eden of the blest above, 
 A beauteous impress of eternal love ! 
 
 B 2
 
 6 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 There all was hush'd. — How still is toil-bought 
 
 sleep ! 
 List ! not a breath perturbs the silent deep, 
 Save the low plashings of the distant mill, 
 In deep timed cadence to the rippling rill; 
 Or where lorn Philomel, the boughs among, 
 Hymns her late vesper's solitary song. 
 
 Ha! whence those glaring flames in distance 'rise, 
 Fire the reel vault, and stream along the skies? 
 Whence that low murmur of contused sound 
 That booms, portentous, through the calm 
 
 around ? 
 'Tis from afar the wild note of alarm — 
 The mournful wail of warning on the storm ; 
 It is — the din, the roar of reckless men — 
 Destruction's bowlings o'er its shatter'd den. 
 Distincl and nearer, hark ! a measured tread, 
 As though approaching masses onward sped,
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. > 
 
 Grows on the anxious sense — till, sharp and 
 
 clear, 
 The clank of anus rings on the startled ear. 
 A long, dead pause succeeds — the must'ring stand 
 Of columns forming at the low command ; 
 And now the trumpets bray the note of doom, 
 The flaunting banners mock the midnight gloom; 
 While brandished high, in many a bloodstained 
 
 hand, 
 Refracted lightnings flings the flashing brand, 
 Caught from the smoky torches' lurid light, 
 With horrors bursting the still dream of night; 
 While blend the frantic shriek and quivering civ. 
 With Triumph's scoff, insulting agony ! 
 In vain the voice of Mercy's piercing prayer, 
 To hearts, stone-cased, that never knew to spare : 
 Blood of the guiltless dyes the reeking sod- 
 A damning witness in the courts of God ! 
 'Tis o'er: there brief destruction's come and gone ; 
 Thence, thunder- charged, the iron storm rolled 
 
 on.
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 'Tis morn ! and heaven's young breathings 
 waft the tale, 
 In orphan's sob, and widow's wildest wail ; 
 And the bleak dawn unveils the scene of woe, 
 Cold as the once-warm hearts around laid low ; 
 While birds of carnage, plunied in Death's array, 
 With fearful screams hang hovering o'er their prey, 
 While ruin's flakes around the mourners come, 
 Strewn by the breeze — the ashes of their home. 
 
 And who be they that impious 'wake to mar 
 The boon of Heav'n with desolating war ? 
 And who the Chief, whose hate or vaulting pride 
 Relentless pours the crimson deluge wide ?* 
 
 * The wars of Charles, which are thus introduced " kut' 
 tEr>Y')i'," are, perhaps, the most remarkable in the annals of 
 Europe, at least in point of their conception — viz., the attempt
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 9 
 
 That hardy race, the nursling of the North, 
 The firsl to spurn the slave's anhonour'd hearth — 
 When proud Dominion had the earth o'ergrown. 
 
 And Conquest claimed the world for her own. 
 To swords transformed the plough-share and 
 
 the spade 
 Till Slavery forged in links the useless blade : 
 When vanquished Europe bent the subject 
 
 knee, 
 And men, born slaves, ne'er learned to be free ; 
 They — Freedom's sires ! then a barbarous band, 
 The rugged people of that cavern'd land. 
 Whose mountain arms enfold the cradled deep 
 Of Baltic's* waters in their tideless sleep — 
 
 of one sovereign, not to aggrandize his own dominion, not to ex- 
 tend his territories, but to constitute himself, individually, the 
 arbiter of European sovereignty, [" de s'eriger en arbitre de 
 l'Europe ;"] and who, with this design, conquered for con- 
 quest's sake, and subdued kingdoms that their thrones might 
 be in his gift. 
 
 * The Baltic is not subject to the fluctuations of tide.
 
 10 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 They, in their pine-clad hills, disdained the 
 
 yoke, 
 Resistless thence in swarthy torrents broke — 
 Led by the Fates of Empire, seized the hour 
 When Rome sank, gorged with conquest and 
 
 with power, 
 Wrenched from her nerveless grasp the iron 
 
 rod — 
 That erst had awed the world — the scourge of 
 
 God— 
 And in the dust her pride, her purple, trod : 
 Back through its scathed bed in fiery foam, 
 Till refluent Ruin sought its fountain home ! 
 
 Hut now their cause? — enough that he's 
 
 decreed — 
 Enough th;ii In-, their hero-monarch, lead. 
 But whence such purpose ? — who that monarch ? 
 
 One 
 By wildest motives singled out alone —
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 1 1 
 
 The meteor of the North, the soldier Swede. 
 The champion offspring of his country's need. 
 Till lost lie trode the mountain-paths of fame, 
 From the brighl summit to the vale of shame, 
 And lives a wonder of the storied page, — 
 A warning beacon o'er the depths of age. 
 That men survey, through mists of time alar. 
 Less as a warrior than the demon — War. 
 
 Glory,* the toy of ev'n his infant years. 
 Could bend the purpose, check the wayward 
 
 tears, — 
 Alone could soothe each wilful passion wild : 
 And that which moved the man constrained the 
 child. 
 
 Maturer, soon, the rash, impetuous boy, 
 Eager for action, burning to destroy, 
 
 • " Dans son enfance, avec le mot de gloire on obtenait 
 tout de lui." Voltaire, Charles XII. 3. 
 
 B 3
 
 12 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Read, glowed, and envied Philip's fiery son, 
 And hoped the laurelled grave the conqueror 
 
 won; 
 Or played the Csesar of the boyish fray, 
 And was a Csesar then, in all save power to slay ! 
 
 In youth lethargic, sunk in listless ease, 
 He loathed th' enervate, tame pursuits of peace. 
 The pensive life, and all its vivid joy, 
 Unmixed with coarser sense or earth's alloy — 
 Th' ideal world by peopling fancy wrought — 
 The quick creation of electric thought, 
 With all its rosy shades and baseless tow'rs, 
 The social phantoms of our lonely hours. — 
 Such knew not Charles: he ever thought in 
 
 deeds, 
 And deemed it vital death the dreamer leads ; 
 Nor cared the sceptre's edgeless weight to wield. 
 
 Til] hark! — the trumpet's summons to the 
 
 Beld.
 
 CIIAUI.Ks TJIK TWELFTH. 18 
 
 See! mimic Wax,* with ;ill its glittering tram 
 Of marshalled thousands, throng the painted 
 
 plain ; 
 See the close columns, in their trooped array, 
 Sweep past in all the splendour of display ; 
 The flashing brass, the bayonets bristling wide — 
 The gay plumes floating o'er the human tide — 
 Th<' neighing chargers, all in wild disdain 
 To own the thraldom of the hroidered rein ; 
 While th' iron-earr'd artillery, rolling round. 
 In heavy circles print the rattling ground ; 
 And, high o'er all. in many a blazoned fold. 
 The nation's emblem droops with quartered gold. 
 
 But see ! they break, and adverse bands unite — 
 Charge — wheel — retire, and weave the sembled 
 
 tight,— 
 
 * It was at a review of the troops that Charles first ex- 
 pressed his desire to assume the reins of government himself, 
 in order to command " ces braves gens."
 
 14 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 The dense battalions now the assault sustain. 
 Now, scattered widely, scour the sprinkled plain ; 
 Or, threat'ned by the swift-horsed squadrons 
 
 near, 
 Close up the ranks, and for the shock prepare 
 A living tower's impenetrable square ; 
 And, as repulsed the headlong foe retire, 
 With deadly aim direct the harmless fire ; 
 While music's voice the breath of battle pours, 
 And in wild bursts of blending clamour soars. 
 Then the peal'd drum, the trumpet's brazen 
 
 throat, 
 Found in his bosom a responsive note, 
 In thrilling accents to his spirit spoke, 
 And in its depths the deepest chord awoke. 
 
 He felt that scene in all its gilded charms — 
 The pomp, the brilliant pageantry of arms — 
 And felt how noblei when a nation's might 
 Goes forth in power t' assert a nation's right.
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 15 
 
 Bearing her flag to strew her honoured pall, 
 Or float in triumph o'er (IT oppressor's wall. 
 Then, while they pass, and every subject's sword 
 Droops to his Prince, in martial homage low'red, 
 The prayer's half-muttered — "Be it his proud 
 
 boast 
 To lead to glory that resplendent host, 
 Whose every thought, whose every heart and 
 
 hand 
 Lived but to follow — die — at his command;" 
 Then glowed in him that worthy of the trust — 
 Then flushed the wish to reign, and forth resist- 
 less burst. 
 
 But now that peace condemns to changeless rest, 
 That sullen spirit slumbered in its breast. 
 The ermined purple's loose and languid flow 
 Was thraldom to the hardy limbs below; 
 The banquet cloyed, when regal luxury poured 
 Its full profusion on the groaning board,
 
 16 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 For thro' the costly fare Satiety crawls, 
 A loathsome guest, where more than plenty jjalls. 
 Ill could his spirit brook form's cold parade, 
 That with dull pomp the tardy deed delayed, 
 While hoary councils quibble and intrigue, 
 Keeping the womb of state with nothings ever 
 
 big. 
 Oh ! for a noble, for a righteous cause, 
 To burst the leaden fetters of such dead'ning 
 
 pause ! 
 
 It comes ! The Powers are banded to divide 
 The easy spoils of youthful Sweden's pride — 
 It comes ! Uprise the mighty of the earth: 
 And lo ! the stranger seeks the strong one's 
 
 hearth ; 
 With heedless steps the hunters go to dare 
 The lion monarch in his mountain lair. 
 l>iit, as the indignant sovereign of the waste 
 In eonseious strength uprears his shaggy erest.
 
 CHAHLES TIIK TWELFTH. I ' 
 
 A moment stain Is, his red eye glaring round, 
 And feels each muscle ere the fatal hound : 
 Thus in liis might the imperial Swede arose 
 To hurl his hoarded fury on the foes. 
 But o'er himself of triumphs gained the first 
 And best of all that slaked his conquest thirst ; 
 Each fonder frailty of the man repressed, 
 Till all was steel within the hero's breast ; 
 Where, in the strength of solitude apart. 
 Throned o'er life's waters, reigned the haughty 
 
 heart, 
 To whose wild will, each nerve, in concord strung, 
 Responsive echoes through the firm frame flung — 
 A frame no toil could hinder to fulfil 
 The stern commands of that exacting will ; 
 Thus iron-cast in nature's strongest mould 
 T" obey a mind that sway'd, inspired, controll'd. 
 
 Such was the man, thus formed to be great — 
 Such was the Swede that held his country's fate :
 
 18 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 That country called — exulting at the word, 
 Forth from its scabbard sprung the patriot sword. 
 That country called — nor was her voice in vain ; 
 Attest it, humbled Hafnia* of the Dane ; 
 How great his prowess, conscious Narva, say, 
 Who saw'st the trium])h of that direful day, 
 When, damm'd with slaughter'd heaps, thy 
 
 shivering flood 
 In curdling rills ran red with Russian blood, 
 And the proud fortunes of the boasting Czar 
 Bent to the might of his ascendant star. 
 Such tales could Riga, such could Clissau tell — 
 But fields like these in memory's annals dwell. 
 
 That vengeful arm, once lifted, what could stay'.' 
 The sword was drawn — he'd flung the sheath 
 
 away. 
 Once felt, once known Adventure's trilling ties, 
 The buoyant sense, the life n I' enterprise; 
 
 * The ancient name for Copenhagen.
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 19 
 
 Thence for itself he loved the rapturous glow, 
 
 The pride of danger, Danger's children know ; 
 
 In harshest sympathy attuned his ear 
 
 To the shrill shower of bullets whistling near, 
 
 Heard a stern music in the cannon's roar. 
 
 For breath to him their clouds of thunder bore; 
 
 And deem'd the war-horse, bounding through 
 
 the fray, 
 A living throne of most exulting sway! 
 Not his the flatt'ry of the courtier- slave — 
 Away ! — the sword's the sceptre of the brave ! 
 For it he empire, ease, love, all resigned — 
 To deeds of strife each energy consigned; 
 Left his own sea-girt Venice* of the North, 
 From his ancestral halls for aye went forth, 
 To follow glory through each clime and soil. 
 Through days of danger, and through years of 
 
 toil ; 
 
 * Stockholm is built upon seven islands.
 
 20 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Stepped from a throne to court a soldier's 
 
 grave, 
 And share the chequer d fortunes of the brave. 
 Thence to that brow the helm's bright horrors 
 
 clung, 
 Where erst the crown he deemed defenceless 
 
 cumbrance hung ; 
 Thence, ever thence for battle roughly dight, 
 Girt for the march and harnessed for the fight, 
 He slept, impatient of the numb delay — 
 Life's death, the soul's dull tribute to her clay ; 
 Through every rigour of the changing sky. 
 The heath his couch, the night his canopy, 
 Or the chill vesture of his roving tent. 
 Whene'er the camp a soldier's palace lent: 
 His simple fare the coarsest earth supplies, 
 Its wholesome savour earned by exercise j 
 His drink — where leaps the sparkling mountain 
 
 rill. 
 Thence was he wont his grateful cups to fill,
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 21 
 
 And quaff t lie pureness of the limpid bowl, 
 Fraught with no charm to film the tainted 
 soul. 
 
 Thus by ambition disciplined and led, 
 Thence Charles pursued the sceptred brigand's 
 
 trade ; 
 O'er prostrate thrones his holts of vengeance 
 
 ImiTd, 
 And Hew his eagles at a hostile world, 
 Pouring his lawless legions through the rents 
 Of equal Nature's border-battlements, 
 From earth's fair brow to tear her circling 
 
 towers, 
 Genim'd with the symbols of th' anointed 
 
 Powers — 
 Till taught, by lust of conquest lured too far, 
 Imperial Justice holds the palm of war, 
 Deserts the standard reared but to oppress — 
 Alone Her champion garlands with success.
 
 22 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Yes, Patriot Powers, uphold the Patriot's 
 cause, 
 Defend their altars, shield their hallow'd laws ; 
 Round Freedom's banners wing their guardian 
 
 flight. 
 Marshal her ranks, inspire the sacred fight, 
 And teach th' invader's myriads whom to flee — 
 Friends of the Just, the Fearless, and the Free ! 
 
 Him, to whom all, save triumph, was un- 
 known ; 
 Twas Victory vanquish'd, by success o'erthrown ; 
 Twas trophied Memory marr'd hopes too elate ; 
 Twas Fortune's smiles that lured him to his fate, 
 Who, faithless ever, leads but to beguile, 
 And gilds each step to ruin with a smile; 
 Frail as the beam that yond' pale cloudlet kissed, 
 While radiant evening wanned the painted mist; 
 But, dark as doom, denied one snuggling ray 
 To cheer the gloom of dark Pultowa's day
 
 CHARLES THE TWEL] III. 23 
 
 The die is cast ! the victors, taught to yield, 
 In straggling flighl desert the luckless field. 
 All round portrays dismay — in ever} face 
 Despair's fall'n features. Fear's wild wanness 
 
 trace. 
 But where the King ? — borne wounded from the 
 
 plain, 
 A few worn followers for his scanty train; 
 His proud anus worsted, foiled each cherished 
 
 aim, 
 Elack'd by the torture of the shatter'd frame. 
 Approach the litter where that prostrate form, 
 Fall'n, hut unbending.to the adverse storm, 
 Reluctant flies; and see the Conqueror there! 
 No trace of suffering marks his marbled air: 
 Tis pale and cold, hut 'tis defiance now 
 O'erbreathes the silent tablets of a brow 
 Instinct with that which owns not earth's con- 
 trol — 
 The unsubdued — indomitable soul..
 
 24 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Singling the hero from his minions — See ! 
 Whence 'mid them all, alone unconquer'd, He ! 
 
 Like some lone arch* that 'mid the ruin rears 
 A last stern relic o'er the spoil of years ; 
 There, though all else in crumbling fragments lie. 
 Worn by the tooth of ages from on high — 
 There, scath'd and blacken'd by the lightning's 
 
 flame, 
 Looms the dark outline of the oriel frame, 
 Embowcd by skilful architect to stand 
 Enduring triumph of the plastic hand. 
 What though of yore th' assailing tempest 
 
 stormed ; 
 What though above the weight of winters 
 
 formed — 
 What though around die eating ivy spread. 
 And toppling roofs sank pending on its head: 
 
 • The peculiar properties of resistance which the arch 
 possesses suggest it as no inapt symbol of moral inflexibility.
 
 en mLES mi. Twi.i.i lit. 28 
 
 Each 1 1 1 ■ w incumbenl terror did but serve 
 To lend fresh vigour to th' unyielding curve — 
 But knit it eloser in its mystic grasp, 
 And deeper, firmer, locked the stony clasp; — 
 Type of the high, tin' haughty human will. 
 Amid tlic wreck of things, unbow'd, unbending 
 still! 
 
 And such was his — ay, e'en to Bender. Mark! 
 How thronged th.u test with phantom'd daring 
 
 dark ! 
 Not that a mind upon the past to dwell, 
 Or to the marvelling crowd strange stories 
 
 tell, 
 How bays were reaped from fields disputed 
 
 well, 
 Prizing the circling vulgar's senseless praise — 
 The abjeel incense of the vacant gaze. 
 No — there, ambition, still unchecked and wild, 
 The towering Future's air-built structure pil'd ;
 
 26 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 And Titan thought flung mountain scheme on 
 
 scheme, 
 In formless fabric like some fev'rish dream. 
 Lo ! in the visions of that calm retreat 
 His rival sues, his conqueror's at his feet ; 
 Once more his flag floats peerlessly unfurled, 
 While Fancy carves the sceptre of the world ; 
 Nay, there, perchance, Kevenge, with prescient 
 
 gaze, 
 Read Poland's doom — saw Moscow's funeral 
 
 blaze. 
 Nor unemploy'd the present: deep at work. 
 Dark, subtle plots of empire stirred the Turk, 
 Th' imperious captive's cause to vindicate. 
 Wild cured not, would not see his subject stale. 
 Save as the laurell'd <>!' triumphant war, 
 With princes chained around his conquering 
 
 car : 
 Till foiled in counsel, reckless, desperate, 
 Rather in Bportive madness than in hale.
 
 CHARLES mi rWELFTH 27 
 
 II. <l.i red a host, and slew, till round him lay 
 In heaps the victims of his maniac play. 
 
 Such deeds were his : but deeds like these require 
 A holder minstrel and a loftier lyre — 
 Deeds, which with fabled legends almost vie, 
 The wild exploits of olden chivalry. 
 But not to me those sounding strains belong, 
 The nobler numbers of the epic song ; 
 Nor yields the theme to bard of softer power, 
 Of Love's young conquests, deigned in Beauty's 
 
 bower : 
 The soldier's breast ignored the gentle joy, 
 For thence with fiery thoughts War drove the 
 
 downy Boy. 
 
 Yet not all rugged was that sturdy mind — 
 Still round the oak some softer tendrils twined. 
 How few, with gen'ral brotherhood imbued, 
 Upraise the fall'n, succour the subdued ;
 
 28 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 How few whose breasts a fellow pity know 
 For the man, humbled in the prostrate foe? 
 But Charles, though stern and ruthless in the 
 
 field, 
 Was ever courteous where the valiant yield — 
 Ave did the vanquish'd find in him a sheltering 
 
 shield. 
 For ever prompt and foremost to bestow. 
 His generous pity ne'er was locked to woe ; 
 Xay, oft her tale could, from that flashing eye. 
 Hail the warm gems of the heart's charity ; 
 Nor dims his actions' sheen self's sullying 
 
 stain. 
 Or headlong lust that owns not reason's rein. 
 Whate'er the motives, his an honour'd meed ; 
 And still the land whose hosts he lived to 
 
 lead, 
 [lis memory balms, neath whom she scaled the 
 
 height — 
 The zenith of her empire and her might,
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 5'.) 
 
 And with each lamv] "I nmember'd fame, 
 Still grateful Sweden wreathes her Chari. 1 
 name. 
 
 But where we'd others praise, we censure 
 him — 
 
 His splendid faults were virtues in extreme ; 
 Excess in all, he aye o'erleaped the verge 
 Where worthy deeds in brilliant errors merge. 
 His dazzled eye, on glory ever bent. 
 Wrapt in the end, upon the goal intent, 
 Marked not the path that to his wishes 
 
 led, 
 Saw not the barriers towering round them 
 
 spread ; 
 linked not the zones perennial winters throw 
 The torpid bulwarks of eternal snow; 
 Nor deigned a glance where, whitening to the 
 
 day. 
 His soldiers' relics tracked his reckless way ; 
 
 c 2
 
 30 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 Unsought the boons that bounteous Peace can 
 
 bring, 
 And in the Conqueror thus forgot the King. 
 
 A greater he, whose higher, nobler aim, 
 
 Slights the false tinsel of the bauble, Fame, 
 
 That glittering thing, so fondly, madly sought— 
 And spurns the toy by woes of millions 
 
 bought ; 
 While pride, the tyrant knows not, he can 
 
 feel- 
 To see his sceptre through a nation's weal — 
 Each polish'd art, each blessing to improve, 
 And rule, the father of a people's love, — 
 The narrow realms of Happiness t' expand — 
 Content to bless, he craves no broader land : 
 Nor, for the paltry idol men adore, 
 Cements a pedestal with human gore — 
 Nor cares to 'grave, commingl( id upon Time, 
 A name of glory with a name of crime.
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 31 
 
 But each and all, howe'er they seem to tend, 
 Tread, wisdom- guided, to a destined end — 
 All instruments adapted to fulfil 
 The just conceptions of Omniscient Will; 
 Fashion'd by that which sways with nice control 
 August Creation's boundless, faultless whole. 
 Some, like the winged chariots* of the deep, 
 Are framed to ripple where the tempests sleep; 
 But some to brave the storms of turbid life, 
 The troubled waters of ensanguined strife : 
 Those, sapped by Time's salt, ceaseless tear 
 
 away, 
 Sink on the wrinkled strands of slow decay : 
 These, when their proud — their mountain march 
 
 is o'er, 
 Find at a bound where billows cease to roar. 
 But leave around their deep, sepulchral home. 
 The circling surge, a monument of foam ! 
 
 * NrtVoi/ oxiii-Ki — apfia Qa\a<To->ic — a common Grecian 
 image.
 
 32 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 But be — Leviathan of battle's wave, 
 What mounds of carnage closed bis yawning 
 
 grave ? 
 He whose life bounded in the stormy hour. 
 When red Death rode the battle-cloud in power: 
 In vapoury blood and wreaths of darkness furl'd — 
 Ambition's incense round Her altar curl'd — 
 Whose element was life's tempestuous gloom — 
 What wrecks of empires mark his towering tomb ? 
 None : dark his fate, and far the lowly spot. 
 Its humble site — its name were else forgot ; 
 Obscure his death ; but in it centres all 
 That memory holds of trophied Frederickshall. 
 His end was answered, and his course was run, 
 His sun went down in darkness and at noon. 
 
 In vain, before each despe rale chance assailed,'' 
 Flashed the swift steel, the Leaden shower hailed ; 
 <ianist all he seemed in proof of wizard safetj 
 mailed. 

 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 33 
 
 'I 1 ! i us while the swains, when autumn crowns the 
 
 year, 
 claim the ripe burden of the golden ear — 
 Now high, now low their flails, now here, now 
 
 there, 
 In whirling circles cleave the ambient air ; 
 Hurl'd round their heads, the wooden horrors fly, 
 Baffling the swiftness of the following eye : 
 Till the safe weapons give the gaze relief. 
 And light securely on the writhing sheaf. 
 So, heretofore, round him, all harmless, played 
 The glancing death-bolt and the vivid blade, 
 Till but here truth Time's shadowy clouds 
 
 o'ercast, 
 And livid doubts, that fold their grey wings 
 
 o'er the past. 
 No hostile hand, tis said, the missile sped — 
 Not by its quarry struck, the eagle bled ; 
 Nay, still there be, mysteriously who say 
 That, on the contest of that Qnal day,
 
 34 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 
 
 No mortal arm e'er dealt the fatal blow, 
 No mortal weapon laid the hero low ; 
 But that a mandate, 'mid the raging fight, 
 Swift through the death- storm, winged its view- 
 less flight, 
 Launched by an arm, that errs not, to its goal, 
 And in its crimes required that blood stained 
 
 soul. 
 Whate'er the means, how vain a Power to scan, 
 Whose ways are mysteries to the thought of man ; 
 Of yore, who nerved the pebble with his wrath, 
 In ponderous armour, shook the boast of Gath. 
 And bade the stripling's slender arm deride, 
 And quell the giant in his hour of pride ; 
 Whom when the bold Assyrian dared defy, 
 Heard the shrill voice of leaguer'd Salem's cry — 
 Men. horses, chariots, heaped in mingling death, 
 Strewed by the tempest of His angel's breath ; 
 But led the scoffer back, reserved to feel 
 The bitter weapon of a child's keen steel :
 
 CHARLES THE TWELFTH. 35 
 
 Who foiled the hard Egyptian's raving wrath. 
 But for His people clove the wave-wall'd path ; 
 And led them ou1 from bondage and the sword, 
 Robed in the cloud, their Lender and their Lord: 
 Who. when rebelled Belshazzar's impious power. 
 Sent forth, while laughed the banquet's wanton 
 
 hour, 
 The mystic band which, pointing to the tomb. 
 In lightning traced his warrant, and the doom 
 Which gave his regal heritage below — 
 His kingdom, to the stranger and the foe. 
 He that could stay the rolling worlds of light, 
 T' illume the carnage of avenging might — 
 A power that mocks the creature's puny boasts ; 
 Of kings the Monarch He, and Lord of Hosts ! 
 
 c 8
 
 METRICAL PUERILITIES. 
 
 " Dum relego, scripsisse pudet."
 
 39 
 
 LINES ON A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 WRITTEN AT A VERT EARLY AGE. 
 
 Crowned is Ilfra's rocky height 
 
 With her beaming beacon light, 
 
 Which, ever watchful, ever bright, 
 
 Keeps her vigils of the night, 
 
 Peering from her lonely cliff, 
 
 Guardian of the wave-toss'd skiff: 
 
 And ever, though the storm howl round her. 
 
 Though gleam the lightning, peal the thunder, 
 
 Though o'er her fly the foaming surge, 
 
 Groaning its deep, prophetic dirge, 
 
 Still she twinkles o'er the wave.
 
 40 LINES ON A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 Her restless eye 's still o'er the billow — 
 Still she yearns her charge to save 
 From its yawning watery grave, 
 And smoothes with hope the seaman's pillow ; 
 Cheering him on his pathless way 
 To brighter climes and nights of cloudless ray. 
 Or, like yond' pale, phosphoric star, 
 Aurora's herald from afar, 
 Up heaven's dark dome that trod, 
 To tell of light and gladness near, 
 Whispering in joyous Nature's ear 
 The advent of her God : 
 Thus to the exile's wistful gaze 
 That light along the water plays, 
 Where glooms his parent earth ; 
 Thus, fraught with bliss, those beamlets burn, 
 To greet the mariner's return 
 In safety to his hearth ; 
 
 And warmly instinct with approaching home, 
 Light the glad signal — "Wanderer, cease to 
 roam."
 
 11 
 
 THE JUNGFRAU AT SUNSET. 
 
 WRITTEN IN 1838. 
 
 " The most remarkable change which takes place in the 
 colour of the snow after sunset on the higher ridges of the 
 Alps has not, I think, been either poetized, or ever described 
 in prose ; while the eye is feasting on the rich tints which 
 succeed the bright light of day, the rose dies away, and its 
 place is taken by a dead white, fearfully resembling that of a 
 corpse," &c. &c. 
 
 Capt. B. Hall's Patchwork, (published in 1841.) 
 
 Like the hue that tinges the butterfly's wing, 
 Or the warble that floats on the breeze of spring — 
 Like the iris-beam, the gorgeous ray- 
 That dances in light on the torrent's spray, 
 Dwells the sun ere he set on yon mountain of 
 
 snow ; 
 For a moment 'tis flushed with the transient 
 
 glow,—
 
 42 THE JUNGFRAU AT SUNSET. 
 
 For one moment the peaks their roses throw- 
 Back on the shadowed vale below ; 
 And — 'tis gone — 'tis fled, and the altered brow 
 Of the high, pale mass looks ghastly now ; 
 As though the soul had passed away, 
 And left nought behind, save th' inanimate clay ; 
 As chiselled, as clear in the coming gloom, 
 As the features of the lost, for whom 
 Is hollowed out the early tomb : 
 Ere fades the last, cold glimmer gray — 
 The twilight of life's lingering day — 
 A mountain -shade in its snowy shroud, 
 As heavenward soaring, wing'd with cloud. — 
 What wraps yond stranger ? — a fixed glaze 
 O'ergrows th' intentness of his gaze — 
 He starts — he turns — for the pall 
 Of gathering night has buried all.
 
 48 
 
 A IIIERO-LITIIO*-LOGICAL rilSYCO- 
 DRAMATIC EPIGRAM. 
 
 Scene. — Chan trey's exquisite monument of the infant 
 sleepers, in Lichfield Cathedral. 
 
 Hour. — Honest noon. 
 
 Loquitur Didascylus. 
 
 Come, saint and sceptic, infidel, divine, 
 
 Here one conviction must your creeds combine ' 
 
 Kacb will the truth of other tenets own. 
 
 Nor, by th' admission, find his own o'erthrown. 
 
 Hence, then, all cant of schools — all revelation! 
 
 We'll simply take these babes for illustration. 
 
 You {turning to the clayists) hold these- bodies 
 
 matter are alone — 
 You're right, here's nothing but material stone : 
 
 * Allusive, possibly, to the ' Sermons in Stones.' — Ed.
 
 44 EPIGRAM. 
 
 But you, divines, that they're immortal say, 
 And slumber till the dawn of never-ending day. 
 Lo ! Sleep itself! — you're also right, 'twould 
 
 seem — 
 List to their breathing ! — hush ! they lisp — they 
 
 dream ! 
 Eternal are they, and who dares deny ? 
 In this immortal marble could they die ! 
 
 ** A note by the Editor, who thinks the text not suffi- 
 ciently orthodox : — 
 
 TO THE PAGAN READER. 
 
 What ! and shall he who 'graves his mind on time, 
 
 Perish, mere instrument of works sublime — 
 
 The master-spirit of what wants decay, 
 
 Itself but dust, — a potter's mould of clay — 
 
 That which can round transfuse eternal breath, 
 
 Less than the atom that it 'balms from death ? 
 
 Reason, forbid ! another lot is his — 
 
 Ay, a high orbit in the spheres of bliss. 
 
 On earth a nobler servant proved to be — 
 
 Of subtler spirit, finer and more free, 
 
 And, 'mid the angel-hosts, archangel he 1 
 
 Yes, Chantrey, while religion stands, thou art — 
 
 Thy chisel's hewn thy altar in its heart.
 
 15 
 
 AX I'.POCH OF THE HEART. 
 
 I ,\i>v. ah ! turn not thus away, 
 
 spurn not a heart like this ; 
 I >eign but one smile — one soul-caught ray, 
 
 And all its pangs were bliss. 
 
 Oh ! there to thee an altar glows 
 
 With incense as sincere 
 As ere to heaven of old arose, 
 
 The Holy to revere. 
 
 Thee, thro' the world, that yearning heart 
 
 Sought — its ideal home — 
 Ah ! from the desert where thou wert, 
 
 It ne'er had sigh'd to mam.
 
 46 AN EPOCH OF THE HEART. 
 
 And niy gaze roved through Fashion's throng, 
 
 Threading its wastes for thee ; 
 Yet that it found thee not among 
 
 The herd I hate, 'tis joy to me. 
 
 We met ! and yet no outward show, 
 
 Of that within, expressed — 
 The fires of Hecla sleep in snow — 
 
 The burnings of the breast. 
 
 To speak but to thee oft I've sighed — 
 To touch that hand, and yet forborne ; 
 
 As all mrworth" that not denied 
 To those I could but scorn. 
 
 I see them not — absorbed — alone 
 With thee — and 'tis enough — 
 
 That breath to mix with thine is gone — 
 On».' air engirds us both.
 
 AN EPOCH OJ Nil. HEART. 47 
 
 Yes, when near thee, I feel a charm 
 
 [•'lung round me to dispel 
 Earth's Hire, as though no thing of harm 
 
 Could pierce that gentle spell. 
 
 Then be my angel genius, thou — 
 Now sorrows — fiends, come on! — 
 
 1 hi ! see ! they cow'r hefore that brow — 
 My lovely one, my own ! 
 
 A dream ! and now a dream gone by ; 
 
 Feelings long torpid grown — 
 The ceaseless tear can petrify, 
 
 And case the heart in stone. 
 
 Away ! the wither' d rose of fate ! 
 
 Love to the winds I fling. 
 But shun this friendless bosom's hate 
 
 Dread the crushed reptile's sting
 
 48 
 
 ONE SLEEPLESS NIGHT. 
 
 The fever'd gasp, the twanging pulse, 
 
 And the sick sense of numb debility. 
 
 The throbbing head, and the false eye. 
 
 Peopling with horrors vacancy. 
 
 The languid frame of agony convulse 
 
 And desecrate the altar of repose. 
 
 Into a rack that, else, perdition only knows
 
 19 
 
 FARE W E L L. 
 
 LINES TO A I.ADV IN ILL-HEALTH, FROM WHOM THE WRITER 
 WAS COMPELLED DE s'eLOIGNER SANS ADIEUX. 
 
 " Xaipovai aXXot." — Euripides. 
 I cannot say ' farewell.' " — P. B. Shelley, Cenci. 
 
 Tiikv would not let me say "Farewell," 
 
 Lest it should give thee pain ; 
 'Tis a mournful sound — it breathes a knell. 
 That word of wail — 'tis the passing bell, 
 
 As soul from soul is ta'en. 
 
 For thus we dread, with selfish fear. 
 Absence — the living death :
 
 50 FAREWELL. 
 
 For when we see not — feel not near 
 Those we esteem and cherish here, 
 Then not for us they breathe. 
 
 Yet, like existence' self we prize 
 
 The presence of the few ; 
 And deepens love in parting sighs. 
 As life seems fairest as it flies 
 
 In sorrow from our view. 
 
 In vain the heart's warm tendrils cling 
 
 To Memory's ruins then. 
 Joys, that but mock'd with passing wing 
 Have left the Present's keenest sting — 
 
 The happy Past is pain. 
 
 The rosiest phantoms but beguile ! 
 
 To cherish is to fear — 
 Fear for the fond deceit the while, 
 And nurse, in every fatal smile. 
 
 The germ of a tear.
 
 FAREWELL. 51 
 
 The best of bliss shrinks consciously, 
 
 Marr'd by its end so near ; 
 Till all affection's misery 
 Whets the keen word of agony 
 
 Which severs all that's dear 
 
 'Tis o'er — the lost in peace repose, 
 
 The parted are afar ; 
 But Hope round them her halo throws. 
 And ease the wounded bosom knows. 
 
 For Time's half salved the scar. 
 
 Yes, musing through the joyous Past, 
 
 I'll hope it o'er again — 
 Ay ! morrows brighter than the last, 
 By not one quivering shade o'ercast 
 
 Of sorrow or of pain. 
 
 D
 
 52 FAREWELL. 
 
 And, should for me thy mental wand 
 
 Its thoughtful trac'ry twine, 
 Thine image, from the gentle hand, 
 Would flush at Fancy's fond command, 
 And — all I ask were mine.
 
 53 
 
 A SIMILE, IN BLANK. 
 
 The mind of man. by fitful passion ruled, 
 
 Is like the ocean's undulating breast, 
 
 Which ever and anon by Boreas' blast, 
 
 Or sweeping Austers' cutting, wintry breeze, 
 
 Aloft is raised to heaven's high starred dome. 
 
 And now to Tartarus' black gulph impell'd 
 
 In valleys vast : till soothing Zephyr's breath, 
 
 Soft whispering, calms the agitated wave, 
 
 And lulls the stormy raging of the deep 
 
 With mild command. Thus lovely woman's smile 
 
 Man'sfurrowed brow unfolds, and quells his soul's 
 
 Dark rage, and in a syllable of time 
 
 The rough and billow' d surface of his thoughts. 
 
 D 2
 
 54 A SIMILE, IN BLANK. 
 
 As by the imperial trident, she o'erawes ; 
 And as the crystal tablet of her charms, 
 She renders one unruffled, bright serene, 
 With gentle sway.
 
 r,r, 
 
 V E R S E s, 
 
 FROM GRAY'S RELIGIO LOCI (AS THE THEME), WITHOUT 
 BEING AN ATTEMPT TO RENDER THE INIMITABLE. 
 
 Hail to thee, ;i\ve-imbued 
 
 Spirit of Solitude ! 
 
 That consecrat'st a shrine 
 
 The heart holds most divine, 
 
 Where nature's stern and rude. — 
 
 Hail to thy hallowed fane, 
 
 Deep-hewn of purest thought. 
 
 That springs, by hands unwrought. 
 
 Within thy silent reign ; # 
 
 Where, naked and alone, 
 
 With th' omnipresent One, 
 
 We tremble as we feel 
 
 His breath around us steal, 
 
 Whom earth and heav'n reveal.
 
 56 VERSES. 
 
 [Yes, we own Nature's God 
 
 'Mid wilds by man untrod ; 
 
 We hear Him in the roar 
 
 Of headlong torrent's pour ; 
 
 He haunts the midnight shade 
 
 By drooping branches made, 
 
 And ocean's lonely shore ; 
 
 Not where the giddy throng repair — 
 
 Not in the pompous temple, where 
 
 Sculpture and gaudy gilding glare.] 
 
 Calm Power, whate'er thy name, 
 
 A world-worn youth would claim 
 
 Of thee thy hallow'd ease : 
 
 But, should invidious "Fate 
 
 Deny, as all too great, 
 
 The privilege of Peace, 
 
 And merge the struggling strength of life 
 
 In storms of civil strife, — 
 
 O be't, al least, allow'd, 
 
 At age's evening hour,
 
 VKRSES. 07 
 
 Far from the noisy, jostling crowd. 
 Id some deep, tranquil bower 3 
 Forgetful as forgot, 
 To lead my lonely lot : 
 And, o'er the great in fame or pelf, 
 Down-gazing from the crest of thought. 
 To calmly know, with wisdom fraught. 
 The dignity of self.
 
 58 
 
 THE "AMINA" OF PERSIAN!. 
 
 A RHAPSODY. 
 
 " What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 " The footsteps of faint Melody." 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 I. 
 Inspired dreamer — although dream 's a word 
 Too earthly for that charm of subtle art 
 Which weaves the thraldom of the soul, once 
 
 heard — 
 Electric joy-streams that in flashes dart 
 Though the quick sense — the lightning of the 
 
 heart ! —
 
 THE " \\II\ \" OF PERS1 \M. 59 
 
 Spells, as of spirits peopling haunted air 
 Willi faery strains, of power to impart 
 Bliss to the sigh, and draw the rapture-tear — 
 Dream — but of the blest that round us hover 
 near! 
 
 ii. 
 
 Enthusiast sleeper — ah ! for aye sleep mi. 
 And to cold stillness may we wake no more ! 
 Still let the spirit, from our lull'd clay flown, 
 With thee on wings of music wildly soar; 
 Cleave now the calm of feeling, now the roar 
 Of passion, sounding all our nature knows ; 
 Till nature's self reigns trilling to the eon . 
 Bounds in each pulse, in every veinlel Hows. 
 And through the burning brain the lava glad- 
 ness glows. 
 
 in. 
 
 Earth fades. We wander on as in a trance. 
 Through scenes of song — a garden of sweet 
 sound, 
 
 d 3
 
 60 THE "amina" of persiani. 
 
 Where varied beauties greet the ear's swift glance, 
 For the heart's iris tints that airy ground, 
 And fancy's warmest rose-flakes, shower' d around. 
 It passes faint — the soul borne, rapt, along, 
 Starts on the verge of silence' void expanse ; 
 Yet in the soft reflection, echo long 
 Lingers — it was so frail, that dimly dying song ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 But thou, the chauntress, when each breast found 
 
 vent, 
 Waked not in thee the swelling sense of pride ? 
 When forth the voice of praise in freedom went, 
 When voice to voice and hand to hand replied, 
 As to Cecilia's self the incense vied — 
 Those lips, too, laud, to aught save genius, 
 
 curled, 
 Blend with the gale and swell the tribute tide — 
 Resistless roar, from earth to heaven hurled — 
 A nation's votive peal — the thunder of a world !
 
 THE "AMINA" OF I'KnsiANI. 61 
 
 V. 
 
 i 
 
 And was it all a dream ? and thus pass, 
 
 A 
 
 Shed on the winds, and transient as fair. 
 Like Beauty, lavish'd on th' oblivious glass '. 
 This to inscribe thy poetry on air, 
 And trust breathed sculpture to a truant's care? 
 No. What to space breath, being, love hath 
 
 given, 
 Embalmed in memory, Doom itself must span 
 And, crumble earth with fiery ruin riven, 
 Lives! lives, entwined with all we fondly know 
 
 of heaven!
 
 62 
 
 MONODY UPON THE DEFUNCT BUCEPHALUS 
 OF A KEVEREND FRIEND. 
 
 " Your sorrow is not dead. 
 
 So sinks the day star in the ocean bed, 
 And yet anon repairs its drooping head, 
 Tricks out its beams, and with new spangled ore, 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky." 
 
 Milton, Lycidas. 
 
 "Ail oci\ Qeu Qevl I wail as good a hack 
 As ere to church bore parson on his back . 
 For canter, amble, gallop, jog, or trot, 
 
 In A B his equal there was not. 
 
 No knee of his, o' limb he was so sound, 
 Save when he went t<> prayers,* e'er touched the 
 ground. 
 
 * All bis faux pas having, — strange to relate ! — occurred 
 while in the act of performing his hebdomadal crusade to 
 his parish church.
 
 MONODY. fi3 
 
 Then for hi^ Lungs — as I (not//' i have sinned — 
 
 No bellows ever blew more steady wind ; 
 
 Ami 'mid the largest " fields" where steeds are 
 
 denser, 
 The best was but a. foil to such a " fencer." 
 Thai • sensible warm motion" of a frosty day. 
 Could it not keep from thee Death's ice away ? 
 No, ili edict went. — One morn the stable's boast, 
 And all his gifts to us, for aye, were lost — 
 Yet 'tis not strange he died — no — by the rood! 
 But that he lived so long, he was so good,* 
 And though his earthly race, alas! is run. 
 His Heavenly course is only just begun — 
 Apollo took him off, a wheeler for the Sun ! 
 Patience ! Say not " he may be at the poles, 
 Since I can't use him now in saving souls." 
 What though the god have left us in the lurch, 
 And but " Shank's mare" remains to go to clrirch, 
 
 * " Ita frugi ut vitale putes."— Hor., Sat. II. vii.
 
 64 MONODY. 
 
 To tired sinews it is no relief, 
 Nor aught avails the indulgence of our grief; 
 Then never selfish mourn, but rather say, 
 Whene'er you spy the well-horsed car of day, — 
 " Oh, bless'd exchange ! my dipt, immortal bay, 
 Now shewing fire thou ne'er display'dst below, 
 To light us fools ' the dusty way' we go ; 
 And though all else be ' dark' thou canst not 
 
 be, — 
 So thus Eclipse himself s eclipsed by thee" — 
 Though not a brighter, lights a lighter load, 
 Through space, than B on the London 
 
 road.
 
 M 
 
 CERTAIN CONCEITS, 
 
 which were started by the novel. notion of 
 photographic portraiture, 
 
 Done into metre. 
 
 Looking abroad in these inventive times, 
 One sees "rum dodges," worthy of rum rhymes ; 
 For every boy of this illumined age 
 Could " tip a wrinkle" to the oldest sage. 
 What would poor Plato think of one — to wit, 
 That men now to the sun for portraits sit? 
 Or what the Persian, that we make a crayon — 
 A very cat's-paw, of the sacred rayon ? 
 Yes, here they all were clearly "in the dark." 
 And " quite at sea," like Noah in the ark ; 
 Nor in one heathen or inspired prophet, 
 Can 1 discover type or mention of it;
 
 66 CERTAIN CONCEITS. 
 
 Nav, t'other day, in Genesis I saw, 
 
 Among some others, this most glaring flaw — 
 
 Of solar use it surely ought to say, 
 
 " God gave the greater light — his heaven, his 
 
 ray, 
 To take our miniatures, and rule the day !" 
 No— it was never dreamt by honest Moses 
 That Sol would e'er descend to sketch men's 
 
 noses, 
 Or point his radiant pencils* of the skies 
 To shinet thick jaws, or glaret lack lustre eyes; 
 And vet this shews what gospel says is right — 
 That all transgress, yea, e'en the "things of 
 
 light." 
 
 'Tis writ — "unto thyself no likeness take ;" 
 That law Heaven's self now grants the means to 
 break ; 
 
 * " Pencils of rays" — a term of optics, 
 f Verbs no longer neuter only.
 
 CERTAIN CONCEITS. 67 
 
 And. wicked, works upon a plate of tin 
 With all its might, and countenances sin. 
 Vi i of inventions since the world began, 
 None half so literally enlightens man. — 
 But Joshua's feat was harder. 
 
 Not a whit ; 
 A greater task, is thus that we should sit* 
 While frowning Phoebus vents his tardy rage 
 
 all on 
 Us, as if we had cramp 'd his course at Ajalon. 
 
 Prometheus manned an image ! 
 
 The tale ran, 
 But, by like theft, in truth we image man. 
 Yes. What all potent magic ne'er essayed. 
 The very emblem of what Hits we've stayed. 
 Richard might spy his shadow in the shade, t 
 
 * Clearly ; since we move not 0oi/3oc, who finds it doubt- 
 less easier to ' stand still,' than we to sit so, while he operates. 
 
 f " Shine out, fair sun, that I may see my shadow," &c. 
 
 Richard III.
 
 68 CEETAIN CONCEITS. 
 
 And Hermes be dismissed, so little riot 
 
 Kick up " the shades" we thus can keep quite 
 
 quiet. 
 We'll next arrest old Time — nay, no denial, 
 Can we not nail his finger to the dial ? 
 One word unto "the Preacher," then I've done — 
 Here's one "new thing" must be beneath the sun !
 
 G9 
 
 AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 OF A SATURNALIAS PRESENT, IN THE SHAPE OF A 
 BASKET OF POULTRY. 
 
 " Sportula celebretur." — Juvenal. 
 
 RECETrr in full for larder " stocks" — 
 
 Pearls of the wicker casket — 
 The " box" — nay, was there ever box 
 
 Like such a Christmas basket ! 
 
 " For what we have received," I saj 
 
 More piously, because 
 At " Grace before," the thoughts would stray, 
 
 Even 'neath the "parson's nose."
 
 70 AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF 
 
 'TVas o'er — the silver veil's away ! 
 
 When, like a winged dream, 
 Two victims, robed in white array, 
 
 Glared through the incense steam. 
 
 Muse, lest such gifts should silent be — 
 Stop ! — they've a tongue from Bonham,* 
 
 Else on such wings we'd soar, did we 
 Not grow too fat upon them. 
 
 Thrice at the sight my heart relented, 
 Thrice dropt the knife and fork ; 
 
 And scarce at length consented 
 To carve such chisell'd work. 
 
 Sculpture itself the day must yield 
 
 To such a pair, with loss — 
 E'en Chantrey's chickens at Lichfield 
 
 Are cold, and want white sauce. 
 
 * A comparative-anatomic linguist of gastronomic notoriety.
 
 \ SATURNALIAN PRESENT. 71 
 
 Thus, in high life, which taste imparts, 
 
 Your men of sense combine 
 To dul> the finest of " Fine Arts" 
 
 The art by which we dine. 
 
 Now, appetite's firsl rage represt,* 
 •• A toast!" the root's resound ; 
 
 So, plates being piled with grateful breast 
 '• Votre saute" s ate all round. 
 
 Day'sbest hour wanes — cliek forth thy knells, 
 Sharp plectra, tooth and gum-picks ; 
 
 The Moor ne'er bade the drum farewells, 
 Doleful as I the drum-sticks. 
 
 Yet stop ! — " the greatest is behind"' — 
 Nor indigest tl trough sorrow — 
 
 The TURKEY, though to-day we've dined, 
 We'll eat and sing to-morrow. 
 
 • Vide Homer, passim.
 
 72 
 
 PERSIUS' PROLOGUE. 
 
 DONE INTO PARAPHRASTIC SLANG. 
 
 We ne'er remember to have been 
 
 At the famed horse-pond, Hippocrene, 
 
 At school nor ever to have made us 
 
 Parnassian pillow of a Gradus, 
 
 That thus we should come out a Poet — 
 
 1 wish the indulgent world to know it : 
 
 For, sans diploma, uninspired, 
 
 My lore by hoine-spun thought acquired, 
 
 I'm here, despite of all the rules 
 
 Of Critics, Doctors, Dons, or Schools. 
 
 Yet, be no laboured couplrt mine, 
 
 From out the brail) wrung line by line:
 
 PERSIUS* PROLOGUE. 73 
 
 The deadly bays I shrink to seek 3 
 
 That shade the pale, the hollow cheek. 
 
 But perhaps \mi 11 ask me for the reason 
 
 Of th' ahove literary treason ? 
 
 No common Preface mine— false blushes. 
 
 While through the pain! presumption flushes ; 
 
 But, being truly maiden, she 
 
 Will answer ye right honestly. 
 
 You ask, then, why, like Hogg, have I 
 
 Abjured the duties of the sty '.' 
 
 Whence has yond' parrot found a tongue? — 
 
 The poor man's magpie's chatter sprung? — 
 
 A gnawing tutor, who — d'ye see? — 
 
 Makes like ventri-loquest* of me; 
 
 Nor is't so hard, if you know Words' worth, f 
 
 * Ventriloqucst is compounded of two Latin words, mean- 
 ing " to speak from, or for, the estomac." 
 
 f We are extremely sorry that a large " W" should have 
 here accidentally found its way into the type. The mistake 
 must, however, be allowed to be a capital one ; for the author,
 
 74 PERSIUS' PROLOGUE. 
 
 To put such chirp iuto a bird's mouth. 
 Let but the beams of gold inspire — 
 That's your true Phoebeau fire — 
 And then we asses paw the gilded lyre. 
 
 meaning to express " verbal value," has thus innocently in- 
 troduced the name of the most inoffensive of our bards. The 
 same magnanimity which prompted that great man to slight 
 the thunder-bolt of Poet Whackly, will, however, doubtless 
 extend his serene forbearance to our literary tyro, nor 
 overwhelm him with the obvious retaliation of a " Tit quoque" 
 making a double double you (\V) of it. — Printer's Devil.
 
 TRANSLATIONS, FRAGMENTS, 
 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONG THE COBWEBBED TENANTS OF AN OLD 
 WRITING-DESK. 
 
 ©- They are printed because, in the rough but endearing 
 originality of first scrawls, it would have cost their scribbler 
 as many pangs to burn as his friends to read them. 
 
 1
 
 77 
 
 TRANSLATION OF THE SIMILE "AC VELl'Tl 
 SAXUM MONTIS DE VERTICE," ETC- 
 JEneid, lib. xii. 684. 
 
 As when the rock, from mountain summit riv< n 
 By swollen torrent, or the gales of heaven ; 
 Or, by the crumbling tooth of ages slow 
 Wean'd from its flinty parent, sinks below ; 
 Fierce, with a mighty impulse headlong huiTd. 
 As from its own lost sphere an erring world, 
 Down toppling hounds it, reckless of control, 
 And with it woods, flocks, men, weak victims, roll, 
 And, like the captives of a hapless war, 
 Swell the proud triumph of the conquerors car. 
 Till, grown the tyrant's slaves, they crush again, 
 And help to heap oppression on the plain 
 
 E 2
 
 78 
 
 A LATIN SENTIMENT. 
 
 How rare to find, among th' unnumber'd whole, 
 Search as we may, our own, one kindred soul ; 
 And should kind Fortune crown the yearning 
 
 prayer. 
 Some fateful hour comes, fraught with endless 
 
 care, 
 To pluck this sun from out our blissful sphere 
 And leave for aye a black blot low'ring there.
 
 70 
 
 SENSIBILITY. 
 
 " Mellissima corda 
 Humano generi dare se natura fatetur, 
 Qua; lachrymas dedit — luce nostra pars optima sensus." 
 
 Heaven's burglar, with th' immortal firebrand, 
 
 stole 
 A well of tears, and sunk it in the soul ; 
 To throw lymphatic cold the faggot's fire on, 
 And quench in depths of dew ire's hissing iron. 
 Moist Sensibility ! thou stand'st confest, 
 Like some nude Niob of the melting breast, 
 A natural nymph in wat'ry diamonds dresl ! 
 
 WIT. 
 
 The punster's smirks proclaim the pointless jest, 
 And all can see 'twas of his memory's besl ; 
 Your true wit makes the roaring echoes ring, 
 Himself as grave as though he'd said the tamest 
 thing.
 
 80 
 
 DESPAIR. 
 
 There is a sullen pleasure in despair — 
 
 A sense of might, whate'er may hap, to dare ; 
 
 A feel of proofness 'gainst all further woe, 
 
 Which he who's aught to lose can never know. 
 
 Despair, while scaring Hope away, 
 
 Nerves the strong niind to spurn her faithless ra\ , 
 
 And Fear falls foil'd, against its torpor spent, 
 
 The leaden armour of that cold content. 
 
 By precipice, where chance of safety lies, 
 The Alp-lost traveller oft in apprehension dies ; 
 Tarpeia's culprit, reckless of a tomb, 
 Finds at a bound a surer, easier doom.
 
 SJ 
 
 EVENING, SACRED TO MEMORY. 
 
 With dreams of passion, this the haunted hour 
 But ehiefly Memory owns its silent power. 
 Hope in the struggling day-spring laughs, 
 And treads the zenith by her gilded paths ; 
 Hope takes the wings of morning for her flight, 
 Bounds with the young breeze, and careers in 
 
 light ;— 
 But evening glows in retrospect alone, 
 And Memory claims the twilight for her own. 
 The gaudy noon, that, while it shineth, shone, 
 Emblems man's present joys scarce come ere 
 
 gone — 
 But who beholdeth not in eve's calm hours, 
 Types of those days alone we can call ours ?
 
 82 
 
 LINES 
 
 IDLY SCRIBBLED IN A GREEN-COLOURED PAGE OF AN 
 ALBUM, THE ONLY ONE PREVIOUSLY UNOCCUPIED. 
 
 But, verdant leaflet, why art thou pass'd o'er — 
 Say, why's the pallid type of Winter hoar, 
 More favour' d than thy joyous tint of Spring, 
 Where, bird-like, bards their tuneful lines should 
 
 string ? 
 But, since thy pastoral scene the painter slights, 
 Ami poets elsewhere wing their warbling flights, 
 My lowly Muse, unplumed in pride, will rain 
 The shower of song thro' thy neglected plain ; 
 And warbling 'mid its fadeless frondage, twine 
 A trifling tribute — this light lay of mine, 
 Waking the leafy waste with quavering quill. 
 '['In- feather (I creature of the darkling rill.
 
 LINES. 83 
 
 Whose mystic waters, as old Poets tell, 
 Gloom'd from the Muses' high and haunted well. 
 From such a fount, thee, field of freshest hue, 
 With dark Castalia's waters, I bedew, 
 And through thy verdure pour the liquid hymn 
 Of Fancy, sparkling o'er its bony brim, 
 In streams not smooth, but tumbling rugged by, 
 For roughest channels wake most melody — 
 Not turned by art, but such as lace the land. 
 From the free fountains of the flowing hand, 
 In playful ripplings which half seem to hide. 
 Th' ideal spirits that beneath them glide, 
 The mental tenants of the sable tide 
 
 And eke right well preserved ! — what eye dost 
 
 think, 
 i <>uld ever thread that winding maze of ink '.' 
 Or who will say he's one idea caught. 
 Or fished from out its muddy depths a 
 
 thought ? 
 
 i 3
 
 84 LINES. 
 
 Yet not all vain — the genius of the page 
 Approves the labour, and accepts the gage : 
 The scribbler in the task has found its boon, 
 For dinner he was near, and full half hour too 
 soon.
 
 86 
 
 TO MINE HANDMAIDEN 
 
 WRITTEN AT THE MATURE AND AMATORY VGE OF 
 THIRTEEN YEARN. 
 
 " Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori," &c. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 When modest mom, in shadowy russet drest, 
 
 And dewy sandal, steals along the lea, 
 Then in thine own — thy slave's enamoured 
 
 breast, 
 Dawns with the day the rosy thought of thee. 
 
 When Phoebus with meridian glory's crown'd — 
 From flower to flower, when flits the buoyant 
 bee; 
 
 Like him, when all with ardent life abound 
 Among gay scenes the heart will turn to thee.
 
 86 TO MINE HANDMAIDEN. 
 
 When Night its sable mantle folds around 
 O'er the dim earth, and solitary me, — 
 
 When vacant Silence lisps its stilly sound, 
 Then, my fond Cloe, — then I long for thee !
 
 ^7 
 
 UPON BEING REQUESTED BY A CERTAIN 
 PRETTY PERSON TO WRITE " SOME- 
 THING" IN HER ALBUM. 
 
 Howbeit uncouth the ha in I that dares to stra\ 
 In mystic mazes, thro' this milky way, — 
 Howbeit imskiU'd to spread the liquid lace, 
 Weave the sad veil and cloud the thoughtless 
 
 lace — 
 With finest art to lead the hair-drawn link, — 
 The penman's pride, — the poetry of ink. 
 Yet, all ungifted by the murky muse, 
 I'd risk a blot before I'd thee refuse ; — 
 Thou saidst " A rhyme — one line — 'twas all the 
 
 same, 
 Write something — anything — at least thy name !'
 
 88 
 
 Ah ! lady, were that gentle " hand" but mine, 
 In such light links e'en my poor self I'd twine. 
 " My name ?" — with joy ! — ah ! would I migh* 
 
 impart, 
 The trifle, too, where I've enroll'd my heart ! 
 
 EPICUREAN HAPPINESS — SUSTAINED 
 GRATIFICATION. 
 
 What is that hard thing, happiness ? 
 I think it's neither more nor less, 
 Than what one likes at once to do, 
 While th' appetite is keen and true, 
 Changing — for change makes old things new.
 
 69 
 
 UPON HEARING THE EXPRESSION, "THE 
 SPARK OF LIFE." 
 
 Yet from this spark may man a torch illume, 
 To beam for ages from his hallow' d tomb, 
 And silver o'er with chastening radiance all 
 That Time had else involv'd in dusky pall ; 
 Until each letter of his splendid name, 
 Refulgent, mirror its immortal flame 
 And from his ashes, Phoenix-like, arise 
 A dazzling meteor of th' astonish'd skies. 
 Such fuel smoulders in our clay confined, 
 Such the volcano of the mountain mind '
 
 90 
 
 THE LIGHT OF LIFE. 
 
 " To <pioc ev rr) (TKorla (paivti." 
 
 As the glow-worm shines in the midnight hour, 
 As the lightning gleams when the heavens low'r. 
 As the star of morn dispels the gloom of night. 
 Immortal Hope to woe beams ever bright. 
 Still, as the shadows wear a darker dye ; 
 We hail the omen, for the dawn is nigh. 
 Thus, as earth fades, a light beyond the sky 
 Breaks thro', and fires the Christian's glazing 
 
 rye, 
 Rending the Mil around Eternity.
 
 91 
 
 A DEFENSIVE ANSWER TO THE LADY'S 
 COMPLAINT MELODIZED IN MOORE'S 
 BALLAD OF "THE FAVOURED GUEST." 
 
 I. 
 And couldst thou harbour, cruel one, 
 
 The thought ! — there's wrong in every word ; 
 They said, I could not be alone, — 
 
 They said, I woo'd the trifling herd : 
 Twas true ; but thence I madly sought 
 A bitter antidote tu thought. 
 
 ii. 
 At painted pleasure's masquerade 
 
 I donn'd joy's ghastly counterfeit; 
 And haply well my part 1 play'd, 
 
 For every nerve in the deceit 
 1 task'd, to lull each toil-numb'd sense, 
 By efforts of sustain'd pretence.
 
 92 A DEFENCE. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ne'er mayst thou know the thoughts unblest, 
 
 Thro' vacant follies, that impel 
 Dark souls to shun the fiends of rest, 
 
 And self, their ever- gaping hell. 
 The man must he of happier mood, 
 That shudders not at solitude. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Accents of mirth are of the tongue ; 
 
 Wit sparkles, ice-like, from the brain ! 
 Blest fools ! they deem'd my mournful song 
 
 The semblance of another's pain : 
 For strange, tho' blithe and light the lay, 
 The strain — I could not make it gay. 
 
 v. 
 And still the fiery bowl I quaff, 
 
 To lull the shades of what hath been ; 
 And strive to drown, with loudest laugh, 
 
 The hollow whisper from within — 
 In vain — I see, I hear but thee, 
 And only feel thou'rt far from me !
 
 A DEFENCE. 93 
 
 VI. 
 While Pride and Beauty woo my gaze, 
 
 With Love and thee, the heart afar, 
 ( )wds, beneath Fashion's zenith blaze, 
 
 Th' influence of its guiding star : 
 And trembling turns, where'er it roam, 
 True to its own eternal home
 
 94 
 
 "LIFE'S DARK OCEAN." 
 
 O'er mountain waves careering, 
 
 The bounding vessel flies ; 
 Her stately bulwarks rearing, 
 
 In daring to the skies. 
 
 But hark ! the thunder peals. 
 
 Destruction strides the blast ; 
 Her quivering timbers gape — she reels — 
 
 That shudder was her last ! 
 
 And the depths her death -groans smother 
 In their dark sepulchral womb ; 
 
 And the waters glass above her, 
 A smooth, unsculpturcd tomb.
 
 " life's daek OCEAN. ' !l. r > 
 
 Thus proud ambitioD rides 
 
 The turbid wastes of life, 
 And stems the crimson tides 
 
 Of dark and stormy strife. 
 
 Now dazzling distance wide, 
 
 A sunlit structure rears; 
 Bright hopes thro' glittering wavelets guide, 
 
 Swift to — a tomb of tears. 
 
 Woe to th' adventurer who sails 
 
 Upon that treacherous sea ; 
 The sport of Fortune's fitful gales, 
 
 A dangerous course holds he ! 
 
 Now from the wave-top's beetling post. 
 
 Around in pride he peers ; 
 That billow now has lnuTd him — lost 
 
 Upon the reef of years.
 
 90 "life's dark ocean." 
 
 See him once more — now, storm what will, 
 
 That man of sorrow 's there 
 To stem the tide, unstooping still — 
 
 The stranded wreck of Care. 
 
 No heart within its hollow breast, 
 
 No thing its lot to share — 
 Abandon'd to the changeless rest 
 
 Of desolate despair. 
 
 Unblest with the sweet pow'r to bless. 
 What balm may yet remain ? 
 
 Stern Misery's last, hard happiness, 
 Its callousness to pain. 
 
 A SIMILE TO LAKE LUCERNE. 
 
 Faik bike, bright smiles thine upward face. 
 
 Wooing th' o'erbending crags above, — 
 
 In their rude arms look'd, like the lady of love 
 
 K.iliiinl in tin- folds of lit-r Vulcan's embrace.
 
 97 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Bright Truth, the gold of that dark mine the 
 
 Past, 
 The deeply-hidden and long-labour'd ore 
 Of observation, in the cave of yore, 
 Experience coins, time-purified, and cast 
 In moulds sign-stamp'd with things — until at last, 
 From the rich mints of mind, the current lore 
 Circles, bright hoard of Wisdom's sterling store, 
 By use made weightier, where diffused, amass'd.* 
 That magic wealth, unlike the viler pelf, 
 Iron Ambition blunts, and where it find 
 The lead of sense, the base alloy of self, 
 All it refines — blest touchstone of the mind ! — 
 Rendering our thoughts pure treasures, which 
 
 can buy 
 A crown of ever-living beams on high. 
 
 * " Consuetudine, enim, beneficentire hujus, homines para- 
 tiores et tamquam exercitatiores erunt." 
 
 Cicero, Offices, ii. xv
 
 98 
 
 RANDOM RHYMES.* 
 " De nullis rebus et quibusdani minoribus." 
 
 It was Rochester's song ; 
 
 Of which " naught" was the theme,- 
 But he found out, ere long, 
 
 That the thing was a dream ; 
 For in his last minutes, 
 
 Biographers say, 
 He took orthodox tenets, 
 
 Flinging " nothing" awaj 
 
 * The following melodious moralities are warranted to run 
 glibly to the tune of Moore's " Remember whenever your 
 ijnhle.i" &c, possessing over that composition the super-emi- 
 nence of the double rhyme
 
 RANDOM RHYMES. 99 
 
 A circle is naught. 
 
 Which compasses sin ; 
 And itllesse hath wrought 
 
 Many demons within : 
 In it there's a spell 
 
 To waul off all good. 
 But peopled by hell 
 
 With a blue-devil brood ; 
 And in its dread blank 
 
 The poison of joys 
 Can diffuse vapours dank 
 
 To tarnish life's toys ; — 
 Life is but a toy-shop, 
 
 To rummage whose store, 
 If we're let, we ne'er stop 
 
 Till there's nought to explore. 
 
 It's useless to prattle, 
 
 We're children all — 
 They must have their rattle 
 
 Their coral, or ball, 
 
 F
 
 100 RANDOM RHYMES. 
 
 Or, peevish, they fret 
 
 For the moon in the sky, 
 And scratch nurse, if they're let, 
 
 They know not well why. 
 In like maimer, the child. 
 
 Somewhat larger in stature, 
 With some theory wild, 
 
 Impugns worthy Nurse Nature; 
 And when he grows older, 
 
 He wrangles for pelf, 
 Or, waxing still bolder, 
 
 For glory itself, 
 Which, as soon as he's got. 
 
 He begins to despise, 
 But for which, have he hot, 
 
 He frets on till he dies, 
 Bui shew him a crown, 
 
 Or a coronet, or mitre. 
 < )r from these down 
 To rewards even lighter —
 
 RANDOM RHYMES. Hi 
 
 The proud privy seals, 
 
 Or the great sack of wool, 
 And every man feels 
 
 He's enough of a fool, 
 His enjoyment and health 
 
 For such fine things to barter; 
 Nay, he e'en prefers wealth, 
 
 Or a badge, or a garter, 
 Or the wit's dear-bought bays, 
 
 To his ease and his leisure, 
 Holding dearer men's praise 
 
 Than the heart's sacred treasure. 
 
 Yet, by'r Lady o' Grace, 
 
 Perhaps he's not so far wrong, 
 For, when running a race, 
 
 The way seems less long ; 
 And then, sir, besides, 
 
 On the very same grounds, 
 f 2
 
 102 RANDOM RHYMES. 
 
 How much blither one rides 
 
 When one's following the hounds. 
 
 As the fox, then, is caught for 
 " The run" — worthless brute — 
 
 So other things sought for 
 Are best in pursuit. 
 
 Now this that I write 
 
 I'm aware is not new, 
 But that it is trite 
 
 Is a proof that it's true ; 
 And I harp on this string, 
 
 For a notable fact 'tis 
 Men know many a thing 
 
 They don't put into practice; 
 And I think, by arraying 
 
 In sauce-piquante measuiv 
 A hash'd-up old Baying, 
 
 They may boll the tough treasure, 
 Gulping saws thai may cure 
 
 Them many a time,
 
 RANDOM KIIVMI 103 
 
 Disguised — lucky lure ! — 
 In a savoury rhyme.* 
 
 Now this my Muse teaches — 
 
 And trust her, 'tis true — 
 He's the worst of all wretches 
 
 Who's nothing to do. 
 Say not, " I wont toil, 
 
 For I have great possessions, 
 And I hate the turmoil, 
 
 So — a fig for professions ! 
 Besides, I'm too upright 
 
 To struggle with cheats 
 hi the mean civil fight, 
 
 Where the cnnningest beats. 
 Look at each honour'd trade — 
 
 Slaughter, Justice, Devotion — 
 From the wig to the blade 
 
 All's for place or promotion — 
 
 * Vide Tasso Gerusali'imne Liberata, canto lino, stanza iii.
 
 104 RANDOM RHYMES. 
 
 Your red warriors, who burn 
 
 Not so much to contend 
 With the foe, as inurn 
 
 A senior friend ! 
 There's your theft- scourging thief- 
 
 [I should like to be terse, 
 But the " long suit" and " brief" 
 
 Won't be pack'd in brief verse.] 
 The parson comes next 
 
 Whose debauch'd face is wont 
 To evince his best text, 
 
 Would be, 'Do as I don't !' "— 
 
 Stop ! you talk like a tabby, 
 
 You make one quite yawn — 
 Don't you know that " L' habit 
 
 Nefait pas U moine V 
 This fact do lay stress on — 
 
 These faults, which you find 
 Are not those of profession, 
 
 Bui belong to mankind
 
 RANDOM RHYMES. I 11 " 1 
 
 View the vagrant of wealth ! 
 
 Behold him ! — how worse ! 
 On his all — peace, joy, health, 
 
 Mark the brand of the cui'm 1 ' 
 For few mil ids have power 
 
 To govern themselves, 
 Or scare from the bower 
 
 The blue, empty elves. 
 And, have yours that influence, 
 
 You may safely obey, 
 For with me and plain sense 
 
 The same thing 'twill aye say ; 
 Let these whispers, though low, 
 
 To vour mental car's drum cling, 
 And that voice — do you know ? — 
 
 That still voice will say " SOMETHING
 
 106 
 
 PARODY, 
 
 UPON AN ODE TO THE ISLAND OF ST. HELENA, ATTRI- 
 BUTED TO LORD BTRON, BEGINNING " PEACE TO 
 THEE, ISLE OF THE OCEAN." 
 
 [That poem is here adapted to a certain tranquil nation not 
 many thousand miles west of England, that would be 
 politically, as it is geographically, isolated.] 
 
 I. 
 
 War to thee, isle of potatoes — 
 Land of shillalah and cratur. 
 
 To whom privilege, justice, and what not the 
 state owes, 
 
 Nor seconds the rich gifts of nature ! 
 
 Oh! the fig-leaf of glory shall memory weave thrc. 
 
 Whose green veil shall hide all thy barbarous 
 limine, 
 
 When thy tyrants lie low — is it England out- 
 live thee ? 
 
 Nn, no ! — time will find you as bluffly the same
 
 PARODY. 107 
 
 As the waves of old Atlas which meet with 
 
 some dam' shocks 
 From the cliffs the winds tell him are nothing 
 
 but sham-rocks. 
 
 n. 
 
 Bloom to the " flower of the earth. 
 
 Such as in old times she has seen ; 
 And may senators rise of indigenous worth, 
 To tread down Her moss-grown " Green 
 D/sry be the "praties" that free hands shall 
 
 rear thee, 
 When stands not one rascally stick of a steeple, t 
 And sturdy the arms for which realms shall 
 
 revere thee, 
 When the black-thorn sceptre grows wild for 
 
 the people — 
 
 * College Green, a very academical and sequestered lawn, 
 in the capital of this island Utopia, where stands, the Bank, 
 sometime Parliament House. 
 
 f Steeple — the differential emblem of Protestant places of 
 worship, and hence of religions. 
 
 i 3
 
 108 PARODY. 
 
 Then — then, be'st thou travelling for truth or 
 
 " bay-herring," 
 You'll not rind a conip'rable country to Err-in. 
 
 in. 
 
 Sheen to the saa's brightest jewel, 
 
 And the ginis of her liveliest water* — 
 Water ! — fire of life — veritable soul's fuel — 
 Be the sequel or laughter or slaughter. 
 Many a gay star's at her black bottle's deep, 
 Which, when set in the head, make a heaven of 
 
 earth — 
 Pure chips of the emerald ! planets, that keep 
 Their bright vigils o'er the fall'n angels of mirth, 
 By whom one only feeling of earth am be 
 
 found — 
 These fair visions of heaven are inclined to go 
 
 round. 
 
 * Gallici', " Eau de vie d'Irelande."
 
 PARODY. 109 
 
 IV. 
 
 Bail to the chief, who nought would. 
 
 Save for the right of" The Mil/ion" — * 
 •' His tribute to Freedom, the dear juice of blood, 
 [scariots for lucre will lye on." 
 So say Tories ; but Time to his memory will cling, 
 Well-thatched "castles" disputing with proud 
 
 Derrynane, 
 As the birthplace of Liberty's mendicant-king, 
 With his Banquo, tail-royal — a dust-crawling 
 
 train ; 
 For why at his door should each murder and 
 
 riot lie, 
 S/mre he always cried " Fight boys, but paceful 
 
 and quietly." 
 
 v. 
 Then, hurrah for the Association ! 
 
 More power to the boys of repaal ! 
 
 ' The writer is aware that the malevolent might construe 
 this passage thus — £10000(0); he, however, desires to disclaim 
 at once the malignant aspersion and the vile pun.
 
 110 PARODY. 
 
 Vaga-" bondsmen" no more when they've settled 
 
 the nation, 
 And silenced the eloquent oil-spurts* of orange - 
 
 Paal. 
 No, the night is far spent, and the day is at 
 
 hand — 
 'Ay, a zenith resplendent, though "Grey" be 
 
 the dawn, 
 When no more shall the knowledge- tree cumber 
 
 the land, 
 Which each Gentile must cede to the great tribe 
 
 of Dan ; 
 While shillalahs of flame whirl from th' east to 
 
 the west, 
 To keep Liberty's crab-tree in th' Isle of the 
 
 Blest. 
 
 • The rind of the orange contains an oily acid, extracts of 
 which are often ordered by quack doctors as a tonic when 
 the constitution is in a low state.
 
 ' I 
 
 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 
 
 Oh ! would we'd lived when Time was young. 
 
 Ere all things had been said and sung; 
 
 For in these days, although one do 
 
 Think now and then a thing or two. 
 
 Which memory flatters one are new. 
 
 In the first page I open, I 
 
 Am sure to see it told a lie ; 
 
 For there, by .love! I always find 
 
 The last pet youngling of my mind — 
 
 A book, perhaps, read for the first time ; 
 
 Yet, there it is — my thought — my rhyme ! 
 
 Come now, lean poets all, attend 
 
 Unto the precepts of a friend, 
 
 A wholesome lesson 1 will read ye — 
 
 You know they say. " Experto crede."
 
 112 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 
 
 If any scribbler, then, regard 
 
 Self- estimation as a bard, 
 
 My precepts only let him follow, 
 
 And he'll believe himself Apollo. 
 
 Firstly, my Piso, I'd have you — 
 
 Since writers can't be readers too — 
 
 Ne'er waste your time, nor your brains bother, 
 
 With the stale couplets of another, 
 
 Whate'er his fame — whoe'er he be — 
 
 Sure you can think as well as he. 
 
 And for self-pleasure wouldst thou hear 
 
 Lines which will most delight thine ear ; 
 
 Though bards blush falsehoods, believe mc. 
 
 No verses flow so pleasingly, 
 
 With half so strong — so smooth a tone 
 
 To poet's taste, as do his own. 
 
 And as for knowledge, you will find 
 
 The thing so stuff and clog the mind. 
 
 That, thus oppress'd, 'twill never mon 
 
 On wings of thought sublimely soar 
 
 In freedom, as it did before.
 
 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS L 13 
 
 Tis pleasantei to reap than sow 
 And easier far to teach than know . 
 
 And is't not quite a different thing 
 To read writ music, and to sing ? 
 Wherefore let thy numbers be, 
 Like feather' d warbler's, wild and free ; — 
 TIT uncrotchetted melodious tale 
 Of Nature's untaught nightingale. 
 Shun, then, the sage's midnight taper — 
 Enough for yon, pen, ink, and paper ! 
 Leave dusty tomes upon their shelf. 
 And read no writer but yourself. 
 
 The next tiling, Sir, I recommend, 
 
 Is — fly each damn'd, good-natured Mend 
 
 The walking journal, who distracts 
 
 With his well-meant, infernal facts. 
 
 As thus — " Grand thought ! but let me tell w, 
 
 " I met the very same in Shelley. 
 
 " Although I think yon never ope 
 
 " His works — this surely is from Pope ! —
 
 114 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 
 
 " I know for worlds you would not borrow — 
 
 " The place I'll find you by to-morrow. 
 
 " The style of this is most like Byron ; 
 
 " And yet I fear its length will tire one. 
 
 " Oh ! by the bye, of course you've seen 
 
 " The last N — M — thly Magazine ? 
 
 " What ! — not ? Why all the world besides, 
 
 " At your expense, have split their sides. 
 
 " Myself, I shouldn't care a bit, 
 
 " And yet the thing's not badly writ." 
 
 The quick of vanity such probe 
 Worse than the mind- doctors of Job ; 
 And then the smart they seek to soothe, 
 With that most bitter tonic, Truth. 
 Prithee, take heed ! avoid such men, 
 And eke all brethren of the pen. 
 Such will peruse your finest lines, 
 Passing unpraised whatever shines; 
 But, pouncing on each feebler verse, 
 Thev'l] scratch, and change ii for a worse,
 
 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 115 
 
 And afterwards inform the town. 
 The best ideas are their own. 
 
 Thirdly, I warn you of the dangers 
 
 A bard encounters among strangers. 
 
 Ah me ! what perils minstrels meel 
 
 Who venture forth into the street; 
 
 How many a sewer and gaping sink 
 
 Yawns for the musing man of ink ; 
 
 Or, as he cross, inspired rover, 
 
 The Muses shield, or he's run over ! 
 
 And, as his faculties, intent 
 
 Upon some high abstraction bent. 
 
 Have just the one expression caught. 
 
 And memory 'graves the happy thought. 
 
 While gloating o'er the valued verse — 
 
 A pickpocket abstracts his purse. 
 
 Unconscious of it, by-and-bye 
 
 A brilliant shop attracts bis eve 
 
 Whose plate-glazed gewgaws tempt to buy .
 
 116 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 
 
 He yields, nor finds out till too late, 
 The horrors of his trustless fate. 
 He feels, unfelt for, vows in vain 
 His purse must furtively be ta'en. 
 In vain he offers his next poem, 
 None value it, nor seem to know him : 
 In fine, he's civilly kick'd thence — 
 Though rhymes may jingle, they're not pence 
 
 Ex uno discite — and then 
 Think of the herd of vulgar men ; 
 Whose grovelling souls can't comprehend, 
 Unless your cloud-capp'd brains you bend, 
 To hear their penny tongue-trump prattle 
 The little, busy neighbourhood's tattle. 
 Or, hiiving well discuss'd the weather 
 Proceed to moot the question, whether 
 The pending party-rncasure wise is 
 At such a dang'rous national crisis ;
 
 IIIMS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 117 
 
 Or, hinting dry-rot's 'mongst the flocks, 
 End with the threatened fall in " stocks." 
 It's thus that minds wax low and coarse; 
 Slum such profanest intercourse. 
 
 Much, too, abroad, one's forced to see, 
 
 Most fatal to one's vanity. 
 
 Newspapers, magazines, reviews. 
 
 Full of the methodized abuse 
 
 Of hungry critics, who are hired 
 
 To laud or damn as they're desired. 
 
 Besides, my friend, at ev'ry turn, 
 
 You'll find yourself compell'd to learn 
 
 Thai other human things think too, 
 
 And very little think of you. 
 
 Such is the fate of those that roam ; 
 
 So take my caution — stay at home : 
 
 There, in your whitewashed garret dwell — 
 
 Ant please you, your " Muse-haunted cell ;'
 
 118 HINTS TO BROTHER AUTHORS. 
 
 There you may scorn, with bolted door, 
 And high contempt, from the fourth floor, 
 The silent critic's distant roar ; 
 There you may stalk and stamp on high, 
 And rave with proud impunity; 
 And boldly flourish the white feather, 
 Or shoe your Pegasus with leather, 
 Thought-cobbling* with your plumed stitch- 
 ing awl, 
 Thus mayst thou hug thyself — original. 
 
 * " Employs a pen, and cobbles for the Muse." — English 
 Bards, tyc.
 
 PORTRAIT OF A " SA1NTE," 
 
 INTKNDEI) 
 
 FOR AN ALTAR-PIECE.
 
 POBTEAIT OF A "SAINTE," 
 
 (AFTER TITIAN.) 
 
 TAKEN ON HOLY GROUND, AND INTENDED FOR AN ALTAR- 
 PIECE.* 
 
 CIjc dFrame. 
 
 Tuo' of your stanchest Protestants, 
 I think even we have ghostly wants ; 
 For, tho' our church be of the best, 
 The service — it must be confest — 
 Has little human interest, 
 By many a clue of earthly love, 
 To guide the erring mind above, 
 
 * The writer begs to state, in limine, that he has lately 
 abjured the heterodox opinions and loose sentiments of this 
 early effusion ; it was, in truth, written while at the Uni- 
 versity, where, in the venerable and beautiful chapel of 
 
 College, the scene is laid.
 
 122 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE. 
 
 Clasp'd in fond Faith's eternal ties — 
 Nature's most holy sympathies. 
 
 Once stood I 'mid the misty aisles 
 
 Of one of Rome's monastic piles : — 
 
 It was a dim and fretted fane, 
 
 Dark with Time's majestic stain ; — 
 
 Where every object warped the soul, 
 
 Responsive to th' harmonious whole : 
 
 The arches' far and lessening length — 
 
 The massy roofs high-pillar d strength — 
 
 The shafted window's gotliic height, 
 
 With stained figures saintly (light, — 
 
 Rich with a slow and solemn ray — 
 
 High portals of the purpled day ! 
 
 The ranged banners drooping spread, 
 
 Tin' grandeur of the humble dead. 
 
 The chapell'd nooks, where reign'd in grace 
 
 The pictured spirits of the place; 
 
 Or maids «.l' Hcav'n, in beauty smiling, 
 
 Like those of earth, but unbeguiUng—
 
 hum i;\i i in \ •• sain i i 123 
 
 Like those of earth, that, glancing by. 
 Live bul in memory's yearning eye ; 
 Save thai not one unfading trace 
 Could Time destroy or Death efface 
 Of those pure features we might love. 
 Nor forfeit endless bliss above. 
 Oh ! for the holy shadows casl 
 By the strong radiance of the past — 
 The rarlv heart's refulgent rays. 
 The living warmth of bygone days! 
 
 Each pulse informed, Idled every see 
 With grandeurs silent eloquence, 
 I stood entranced — all, all recalled 
 The past — the past my spirit thralled. 
 I saw the dungs which erst had been — 
 Old glories thronged that sacred scene ; 
 The orisons of clays gone by, 
 With all their pious pageantry, 
 Arose before m\ peopled gaze — 
 The pomp, the poetry of praise. — 
 
 G
 
 124 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 
 
 Priests, in long- ordered array, 
 
 Sweep winding thro' the cloisters grey ; 
 
 Slow to the gorgeous altar wending, 
 
 With meek arms crost, devoutly bending, 
 
 Absolve the awful mysteries due — 
 
 [Shield them from a layman's view !] — 
 
 And, girt with all the church's state, 
 
 Their most high service celebrate ; 
 
 Oft tracing many a mystic sign, 
 
 In emblem of the cross divine : 
 
 While wreaths the high-swung censers fling, 
 
 For the glad soul to spread her wing, 
 
 And spurn the low, terrestrial crowd, 
 
 Poised on the aromatic cloud ; 
 
 While Music Bills the haunted air, 
 
 And wraps her in the breath of prayer. — 
 
 The deep-mouthed organ's thousand throats. 
 
 Breathe through the aisles their swelling 
 
 notes — 
 I lark to the silver, trembling strain. 
 That vibrates thro' the quivering lane.
 
 IR1 K.\[ I OF A •• S\l\ ! I 2 
 
 Adown the pillar'd arches steals, — 
 Till deep-toned, loud hosanna-peals, 
 
 Kull-volumed, roll the roofs among, 
 And swell the sounding storm of song! — 
 Along, the white-robed choral bund, 
 Priests of the vocal incense, stand, 
 Give to the loud mass meaning's traits. 
 And shape the thunder into praise. 
 
 ■3ft tPS* 3(p 3p 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Full often since I've knelt within 
 The precincts of that air-drawn scene, 
 I've seen it at the vesper prayer — 
 ['ve seen it in the noon's full glare — 
 ['ve seen it thronged with living men — 
 I've seen — but newer felt as then. 
 For daily since, my footsteps due 
 Seek the accustomed oaken pew . 
 And there, with formal repetition, 
 Fulfil a solemn imposition ; 
 
 G 2
 
 126 POETRAIT OF A " SAINTE. 
 
 While some ungodly, surpliced drone 
 Mumbles its mutter' d monotone. — 
 Gods ! when one hears them jog along, 
 Upon the leaden hoof of song, 
 Thro' heaven's high road, the Common Prayer, 
 (The end, they think, that blessed place — 
 At least you'd deem so by the pace ;) 
 One cannot wonder, I declare, 
 So high the patience-toll they levy, 
 (¥4/ That good folk's eyesore it wax heavy, 
 
 Who thus fall out by the way side, 
 And lose the straight road thro' their guide 
 At least I feel, I will confess, 
 A plenteous lack of wakefulness, 
 Whose powers down iu\ eyelids weigh, 
 Crushing the will to watch or pray. 
 So, knowing whal C've to expect 
 From iiiv starch brethren, stiffly neck'd, 
 My seat no sooner do 1 gain. 
 Than, a strict vigil to maintain,
 
 PORTRAIT OF A " KAIVI I 12"3 
 
 I, in my sleeve, with all my might, 
 Pray for some quick " sainte " opposite. 
 
 One eve — 'tis years, long yens ago — 
 But I reiiu'iiilicr it as now ; 
 Tho' Time, expunging, much has swept 
 That memory's faithless tablets kept — 
 Upon that eve, beneath that roof, 
 • I ust where the altar stands aloof, — 
 Massive — a sculptured work of Eld — 
 'Twas there and then I first beheld — 
 
 CIic picture. 
 
 A blaze of beauty, which, when first 
 
 Upon the dazzled eyes it burst . 
 
 So marred those shrinking orbs of mine, 
 
 They scarce could scan the human shrine 
 
 Of blent divinity, or dare 
 
 To single each perfection rare,
 
 128 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 
 
 With mingling glory overdyed, 
 
 Like some pale star at eventide, 
 
 Ere yet it sparkle from on high, 
 
 Set in the night's clear ebony ; — 
 
 So veiled in light the dear abode, 
 
 From whence that fair effulgence flowed ! 
 
 I knew but one absorbing sense, 
 
 Of overwhelming presence ; 
 
 Till, as I gazed, the vision grew 
 
 Into a thing of shape and hue. — 
 
 A creature so surpassing fair, 
 
 She looked a very child of air ; 
 
 Some kindly spirit of the blest, 
 
 By earthy trammels unoppress'd, — 
 
 A soul in the translucent dress 
 
 Of consecrated 1<>\ eliness ; 
 
 Whence the loud IUiicy sought to sue 
 
 The angel wing droop 3 feathety — 
 
 Nay, half there glimmer'd on the sight 
 
 Thai circlet of exhaling light —
 
 PORTRAIT OF A " s.\l\'l I.. ' 129 
 
 The coronet of holy birth, 
 I'lmi plays around the Pure on earth. — 
 Set, gazing on her as she stood, 
 Full of most tender womanhood. 
 The judgment in much doubt was lost. 
 Which nature she partook of most; 
 In her so seemed they to combine — 
 she was so human — so divine! 
 
 Full in its fineness, each limb light, 
 So clearly turned, so roundly slight — 
 Say, could their simplest gesture be, 
 Save in proportion's harmony : — 
 A chord of sweet sound to the eye, 
 Its every feature melody. 
 Such concord as can but be seen : — 
 These are the silent strains, 1 ween. 
 With which the angel choir on high 
 Adore their Maker's majesty ; 
 And from each sacred charm unveiled, 
 The music of their beauty yield.
 
 130 PORTRAIT OF A"SAINTE." 
 
 By heaven ! such feetlets, you would swear, 
 
 Meant but to tread the yielding air, 
 
 Or skirn the light wave's sparkling crest, 
 
 Or walk the cloud's unhurden'd breast. — 
 
 Thence, from light shafts of slenderest span, 
 
 Sprung the full charms too dear to scan. 
 
 Which soaring boldness would invite — 
 
 The visible so exquisite — 
 
 But Mercy veils them from faint eyes, 
 
 To be revered as mysteries. — 
 
 Nor yet was coldly all concealed, 
 
 For blushing Pity half revealed 
 
 The pliant iv'ry of a breast, 
 
 That beat against the swelling vest, 
 
 Which bound those milk-white wavelets 
 
 warm, — 
 The heavings of Love's gentle storm. — 
 A neck like the yet formless foam — 
 Celestial Beauty's embryo home — 
 A pearly pillar, proudly bent. 
 Of Nature's purest element ;
 
 P01M i: in OF \ " SAIN1 i. 131 
 
 < »r like some fountain ii might be 
 Of falling tresses trirklingly : — 
 Its texture thai which aature weavi s 
 To clothe the lily's tenderesl leaves, 
 'Neath which strayed veins of violet, 
 Like to a wintry rivulet, 
 Now lust beneath the drifted snow, 
 Now glancing upward in its How. 
 Stained with a soft, cserulean dye, 
 Like molten azure of the sky. 
 
 That chisell'd form, severely chaste. 
 With playful life was all imprest; 
 For, thro' the garb of Phidian art, 
 You felt the woman's fluttering heart, 
 And saw each coarser pulse subdued 
 By th' innate majesty of good, 
 Ami that which tests each thought, refined 
 Nice tact, the touchstone of the mind. 
 Yet was each easy action free 
 A.s Nature's own simplicil j 
 
 g 3
 
 132 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 
 
 Hers was a mind that never dreams 
 Of the world's formal mockery "seems ; — " 
 In pureness arni'd, it scorn'd pretence, 
 Bold in its own bright innocence. 
 Thence flow'd the grace, that nameless ease, 
 That makes the slightest act to please ; 
 Thence th' artless bearing free from thrall, 
 So modest, yet so arch withal — 
 Beware ! — such looks o'ercome, retiring, 
 Like shafts of flying Parthian, firing — 
 In vain reluctant Keason fights, 
 Assail'd by those resistless flights ! 
 
 But how convey the various grace 
 
 That lurk'd along that meutal face, 
 
 Where, chequering through each pensive shade 
 
 The flush of feeling's pulses play'd, 
 
 Painting the silent thoughts that speak 
 
 In blushes on the changing cheek. 
 
 Now bathed in a gush of lire — 
 
 The dictate of some warm desire ;
 
 PORTRAIT 01' \ "SAINTE." 138 
 
 Xow iii the tint which morning throws 
 
 I 'pun the glaciers' virgin snows ; 
 
 Or, haply, now transparent pale, 
 
 Blanch'd by some thrilling, breathless tale — 
 
 Pale as the brow that o'er it hung, 
 
 And down the sad reflection Hung, 
 
 A dome of vaulted ivory wrought — 
 
 Meet temple of eternal Thought — 
 
 On arches reared of silken jet, 
 
 In sweeping bends of beauty set. 
 
 O'er eyes of vestal fire, enshrined 
 
 In lasliy cloisters intertwined. 
 
 Twas not that these traits matchless were — 
 'Twas not that each was faultless fair — 
 Oh no ! — 'twas something holier there — 
 A kindly warmth — the heart's own light — 
 As the Day's fountain 's, infinite — 
 Streaming from those pure brighl ey< - 
 Tinted like the Loving skies,
 
 134 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 
 
 As if in their mild depths of blue 
 
 The Heav'n within were smiling through ! 
 
 Bright being, thus for ever stay ! 
 Here could I ever beg and pray ; — 
 Beg at those lips of love, coy girl, 
 Those ruby lintels, hasp'cl with pearl ; 
 The easy bolts* which smiles display, 
 How vain if meant to lock the way 
 To bliss, or keep, with beauty barrel. 
 The fruit such tempting portals guard ! — 
 For such, who would not welcome all 
 The gather'd woe that loads the Fall ! 
 
 CIjc ftotorv dFvnmc. 
 
 None ever prayed as then I pray'd: 
 I saw th' invisible array'd ; 
 
 I owned the Maker in tlic made ! 
 
 * " Your lips, love, are only St. Peter, 
 
 And keep but the keys to your heaven."— Little.
 
 POUI RAJ l 01 \ •• SAIVI I 135 
 
 She was the end of prayer to me — 
 
 Oh ! call it not idolatry — 
 
 There, there my every sense converged — 
 
 In that full presence all was merged. — 
 
 Movelessly marbled, I gazed on 
 
 A statue of most quick perception : 
 
 I t'lt I'd never lived before — 
 
 Earth held an image to adore. 
 
 Thus Adam in the world's dull morn. 
 
 Ere yet were Eve and beauty born, 
 
 Athro' the bowers of Eden stray'd ; 
 
 Or, 'neath the idle branches laid. 
 
 Loathing the long and loveless day. 
 
 lie dreamed the vacant hours away, 
 
 Feeling Creation was not good, 
 
 Which dooni'd him thus to solitude ; 
 
 Until one lucky afternoon, 
 
 I laving enjoyd ennui's best boon. 
 
 He 'woke and found his side was a.-hing, 
 
 As tho' some -phut had thence been taken :
 
 136 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE. 
 
 But soon the pain was put to flight 
 By — that which I'm about to write. 
 Before him stood, new-born, mature, 
 A mistress-piece of artist Nature. 
 Such form before ne'er met his eyes 
 Among the beasts of Paradise ; 
 The shape most like it he'd seen glass'd 
 In the smooth streamlet as it pass'd, 
 While o'er its willow' d marge he leant — 
 He liked that form, and often went ; — 
 But this — how differingly the same — 
 Of how more delicate a frame, 
 Each lovely limb, unknowing why, 
 Suffused with native modesty ! 
 Invited by such tender grace, 
 He rushed into th' unshunn'd embrace, 
 And found the fair no shade, or other 
 Than thatmosi yielding maid — our mother, 
 From that day forth In- sleep forswore. 
 Thought l'.den livelier than before,
 
 PORTRAIT OF A " BAINTE." 137 
 
 Ami owned the old terrestrial ball 
 No such bad quarters after all. 
 
 On that most like occasion, I 
 Felt with my first "paternity. 
 It seemed one pulse of Time — no more — 
 The prayers — th' unheeded prayers were o'er; 
 Yet still I stood unconsciously, 
 Nor joined the usual bustle by, 
 When back impatient scholars hurry 
 To the relinquish' d port and sherry ; 
 Having self-communed low — but that's 
 Betwixt men's conscience and their hats — 
 Nor round one lavished glance I cast 
 Upon the antique sights that pass'd : — 
 The mild, sleek tutor,* slinking by. 
 Looking a meek incarnate lie ; 
 
 * The "Don" I mean, once referred a freshman to the 
 " Gradus ad I'arnassum," in order to discover whether his 
 journey homewards for the vacation were long ", or short ".
 
 138 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 
 
 Nor mark'd the jolly, ribless Head,* 
 
 A paunchy, well-stuff d feather bed, 
 
 Of learn'd stupidity, which shews, 
 
 " OucSev ixxQrtcns inv y.t\ vovs." 
 
 Elected as in bullock breeding. 
 
 He got the votes by shewing feeding. -\ 
 
 Having been reared for his vocation 
 
 By th' educating education, 
 
 When (as the malignant say) 
 
 He taught his scanty brains away. 
 
 Sure 'tis, that Head had lost its wit 
 
 Which sparing nature put in it. 
 
 But gain'd, from teaching boys to parse. 
 
 First ciownship in the cloister'd farce. — 
 
 Of pompous port and burly mien — 
 
 A very Falstaff of the scene ; 
 
 * The introduction of these grotesque characters, the writer 
 begs to submit, are quite in keeping with the portrait frame, 
 corresponding exactly to the fantastic figures of old oak carving. 
 
 t A literal fact; the principal of the college to which I 
 allude, was chosen as being " of fair round belly," and in 
 appearance a " credit to the society."
 
 PORTRAIT OF A " SAINTE." 130 
 
 Adapt iii form, mind, manners, heart. 
 
 To act the licensed bully's part. 
 
 And now to him each cap flies off, 
 
 Ev'n your gold-tuft dependents doff, 
 
 Till with the court elate he grows 
 
 As the vain nothing whence he rose. — 
 
 Si ill morally — scholastic God ! — 
 
 "Nihil non arrogat to rod;" 
 
 For, tighten'd till they snap, he strains 
 
 The yielding disciplinal reins, 
 
 Abusing, in no slight degree, 
 
 His little brief authority. — 
 
 Like Cerberus posted o'er the gate — * 
 
 Without a sopt who enters late ! — 
 
 * The warden's lodgings are generally situated near the 
 gateways of colleges. I suppose, from the name, that their 
 occupants were originally intended only to discharge the 
 more menial duties of porter, for which office some of the 
 modern representatives are, perhaps, by nature more adapted. 
 
 f Flattery is the master-key of other locks besides those 
 of Hell.
 
 140 PORTRAIT OF A " SATNTE." 
 
 Double-fac'd, upstart, pamper d cur, 
 Low, over-bearing schoolmaster, 
 That eve I saw ye not ; for one 
 Absorbed my every thought, alone. 
 Nor marked I then the learned throng 
 That flutter' d the fall aisle along : — 
 The simple, starched Puseyites, 
 Your finical Church- exquisites ; 
 Nor saw the brother Hampdenite, 
 So like and yet so opposite — 
 Sects unto each other dear, 
 As Puritan to Cavalier: 
 Nor heeded wisdom's young recruits, 
 Who pluck the tree of life's raw fruits, 
 Discovering not the crab of knowledge 
 Within the Edens of a college, — 
 Men whose mosl biblic dreams portray 
 Nimrod in spurs, and '•Cutaway!" 
 Mark ! for the dons each meekly stops, — 
 Lest 'neatb. the gown they spy his " tops,"
 
 PORTRAIT OF A '• BAINTE." 141 
 
 Tho' inly eager to conclude 
 The Bacchanalian interlude. — 
 Not I — so oft I'd seen tliem all, 
 Such comic sights had 'gun to pall ; 
 Besides my being deeply quaffd 
 A subtle poison's nectar'd draught : — 
 I saw not — moved not — but dream'd on, 
 And 'woke to find the phantom gone : — 
 Rapt in the dense folds of the crowd. 
 She'd vanish'd in a surplice cloud.* 
 
 * The imperfections which will, doubtless, be observed in 
 this work of art and its setting, are entirely attributable to 
 the ringer of Time, which has been busy with both the can- 
 vass and oak-work of this relic of antiquity, whose ancient 
 date the subject itself sufficiently attests, taken, as it must 
 have been, from a state of society widely different from that 
 which now exists. Where, for instance, do we behold now- 
 a-days such feminine beauty as the artist has attempted to 
 depict? And as for the grim accessories of the piece — O! 
 
 " nous avons change tout ca." The Principal of College 
 
 is, doubtless, as competent, learned, gentlemanly, and im- 
 partial as that of those days was — as drawn. " Let the galled 
 jade wince !"
 
 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 P. P. C. 
 
 AN KPILOQUIAL EPISTLE, EXHIBITING, AMONG OTHER 
 CURIOSITIES, A PROSAIC " FAREWELL TO THE NINE." 
 
 The poet presents his compliments to their 
 Chastities of Parnassus. That neither the regu- 
 lation sonnet, the correct couplet, or the ortho- 
 dox stanza harmonizes one cygnet-strain of 
 dying song, winging their praises through th< 
 world on the plume of Poesy, they being the 
 inspirers: — that, in short, their humble servant 
 is at this moment "prosing it" in very neat sel 
 phrase explicitly enough indicates his apostasj 
 Yes; their poor priesl hangs his resigned cloak 
 of inspiration, a votive offeri tg at their shrine,
 
 144 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 having, before the deities of Prudence and 
 Common Sense, registered a vow that his 
 homely thoughts shall no more flaunt in the 
 jingling trappings of rhyme, a finery which 
 inconsists with their humble poverty. Not his 
 the " mens divinior," the " os magna sonans," 
 " nee, si quis scribat ut Me, putes hunc esse 
 Poetam." 
 
 This to avoid the imputation of tacit preten- 
 sion to that sacred name, while the writer cur- 
 sorily glances at " things as they are," or the 
 Eythmetics v. the Arithmetics of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The attempt to define poetry. Dr. Johnson 
 observes, only exposes the narrowness of the 
 ,1, linn's mind. And yet. what is and is not 
 poetry is so instantaneously perceptible to the 
 
 mind, that it seems strange that its resolution 
 int.. elements should be a task of such vanity.
 
 THE AUTHOB ro Mil: MUSE. I 1 5 
 
 Everybody thinks himself competent to pro- 
 aounce judgment upon imaginary works, and 
 in all ages the onpoetical public have; awarded 
 or denied their writers the garland of fame, 
 and generally with discrimination, and yet the 
 legitimate end, the duties, the " eqyov" of the art 
 is still left vague and undetermined. The 
 effort to accomplish this, the learned critic, 
 above cited, pointedly pronounces idle, an epi- 
 thet which the writer, who stands in much awe 
 of the ponderous Doctor and his modern dis- 
 ciples, would fain avoid, and yet Fancy will 
 amuse herself by sketching air-drawn bound- 
 aries, to protect her legitimate province from the 
 Yankeelike encroachments of false neighbours. 
 who have of late invaded her landmarks, inso- 
 much, that a certain sagacious Coroner declares 
 Poesy to be so necessarily tinged with the 
 sublime, that he cannot distinguish between it 
 and the ridiculous.
 
 146 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 Now, it is to be said for the acumen of the 
 right honourable gentleman, that much pseuclo- 
 stuff has attained the name of poetry, and yet 
 to shew the vanity of its pretensions upon 
 abstract principles may almost be to assert 
 truisms. It would seem, par example, self- 
 evidently obvious to assert that in language, 
 however musical — however ornate, Poetry is not. 
 Words are but the hues by which thought con- 
 veys to the mind's eye its images, and in them 
 no more consists the beauty of imaginary com- 
 position than a paint-box of colours may be 
 said to contain the chef-d'oeuvre of a Claude. 
 Nor does poetry busy itself about truths, how- 
 ever' instructive — facts generalized into lessons 
 arc the differential province of philosophy, qo! 
 of poetry primarily. True poetry does indi- 
 rectly teach — teach, by enlarging the mind, and 
 intensifying its perceptions of the Just and the 
 True, but iis immediate office is not instruction.
 
 THK AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. I 17 
 
 Philosophy tells us what we should do; poetry 
 entices us to imitate the objects of sublimity 
 
 ami beauty which it presents to our imagi- 
 nation. Philosopby mines for the lead with 
 which tlie poet shades the sketches of bis 
 imagination. — His the blossoms of the Tree of 
 Knowledge — His to wreathe the wild flowers 
 that bloom along the mountain-paths of Wisdom, 
 in the silken artifices of rhetoric, to adorn his 
 idol, Nature. His " metier" is not to paint 
 broadly the coarse features of the Real, but to 
 seize and transfer to his canvass the subtler 
 beauty of the True — the expression, as it were, of 
 the countenance of Truth — the ever varyingplay 
 of Her aspect. Now Truth [for the benefit of 
 Pilate and others] is a refined abstraction of 
 reality, existing only in the human mind; for 
 reality, whether l'.ishop Berkely be right or not. 
 has of itself no sensible existence. — Creation's 
 consciousness is in the mind of man. whose 
 
 H
 
 148 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 every individual breast is a mirror of the ex- 
 ternal universe : it is from Nature thus mir- 
 rored, that the poet must draw. — Human per- 
 ception must be the medium, because it is the 
 end of hi 1 art. The poet, then, does not enjoy 
 the standard of reality — of immutable fact ; he 
 must paint Nature not as she is, but as she 
 appears to his generation to be; he must 
 mould his own to the universal mind, consulting 
 the opinions, prejudices, and bias of his age. 
 
 Having thus attempted to shew that the 
 poetical success must depend upon its adapt- 
 ation to the existing constitution of society, at 
 once its source and its ocean, we arrive — how- 
 I" it, soinewliai abruptly — at the " materiel and 
 encouragement which th<' nineteenth century 
 holds out to the aspirer. 
 
 The spirit of romance, with all its enthusiastic 
 devotion, its keen appetite lor adventure — its
 
 i ill. JtUTHOB TO HIE MUSE. I 19 
 
 chivalrous gallantry— its Love of the marvellous 
 — its superstitious consciousness of the presence 
 of the ideal world, is extinguished. The ages 
 which it actuated arc pronounced "dark;" and 
 
 [>rav what docs the light, which has since dawned. 
 illumine? Whal is the idol of theday? — What 
 In n Wealth ! The great struggle iu the arena of 
 life is for that prize. Nature instinctively con- 
 tends for it to live — ambition as the means 
 of greatness. But does its attainment imply 
 surpassing mind ; intellect used originatively, 
 or even inventive powers of a high order? 
 No. Prudence and industry, or, at highest, a 
 knack of mechanical adaptation; for, even 
 mechanically, this is not an original age — 
 it's a mere cobbler — stretching and fitting 
 the old slippers of science to the feet of art. 
 Now mark the practical effect of this universal 
 motive upon the various grades of society; 
 observe how this all-engrossing pursuit works 
 
 h 2
 
 150 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 upon the mental habits of the mass ! Look at 
 the lower orders — the " hewers of wood, and 
 drawers of water," of the community, — their every 
 energy, their every resource as rational beings, 
 from the cradle to the grave, tasked to the 
 uttermost to support an existence which is — 
 toil. The class above them — the flourishing 
 middle classes — we find actuated by a different 
 modification of the same influence : they toil, 
 not to shun want, but to attain riches, and the 
 credit of riches; they know "quantum num- 
 niorum quisque servat in arcu, tan turn fidei 
 lialiet," and relax not their exertions while 
 another is wealthier than they — " Occupat ex- 
 ternum scabies!" On! on! — to the grave. 
 But is there not a large body of independent 
 thinkers — amateur men of letters who are un- 
 fettered by want, undazzled by gain, and 
 unconfined to the jostling race-course of pro- 
 fession? Yes ; but the minds of the few must
 
 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 15] 
 
 accommodate themselves to the tastes of the 
 many ; and, alas, our authors of the presenl 
 day have not disdained to pander to the vitiated 
 cravings of a morhid literary appetite, or to 
 dilute their minds to cover the shallow surface 
 of prevailing taste! And how often do we find 
 writers, degenerating into mere bibliopoiists, 
 trading upon the reputation which, perhaps, one 
 or two early productions of thought and fame 
 have acquired for them ! 
 
 Among which of these ranks are we, then, to 
 look for the Poet, whose task would be emi- 
 nently difficult, in proportion as the materials 
 afforded him by society as it exists, from whence 
 he must mine for his inspiration, are difficult 
 and unmalleable ? — " Quam in paucis spes, 
 quam in paucioribus facultas, quam in multis 
 sit audacia videmus."* No; rationalism ami 
 
 * Cicero—" De Oratore."
 
 152 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 utilitarianism are not the soils in which the bay 
 luxuriates. We may hope for poetry, perhaps, 
 from the south and east, but the moral atmo- 
 sphere of the bleak north-west is too withering, 
 now-a-days, for the sensitive plant — genius. — 
 The world without is at enmity with the 
 world within, and the latter ethereal bubble, 
 however variegated with the hues of fancy and 
 of feeling, must burst when antagonized to the 
 ball of clay. Sisyphus, with all his cunning, 
 would now find it an infernal task to keep his 
 footing on the slippery sides of Parnassus, 
 whose very base is guarded by that most " un- 
 amiable dragon" — the venomous "demon of 
 the threshold," Criticism ; — that stern Saturn, 
 who will not allow the poet's to be an art of 
 gradual attainment, bul expects him. Minerva- 
 like, to spring into the world in all the vigour 
 of niaturit y and perfection. By the undue rigour 
 gf this monster. Ii<»w many a giant of literature —
 
 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. L58 
 
 how many a "mute, inglorious Milton,'' has 
 been crushed in the infancy of his powers ! 
 
 In truth, there is little temptation, now-a- 
 days, to coin the quicksilver of the mind, or — 
 
 " with incessant care, 
 
 To strictly meditate the thankless muse." 
 
 The laurel is a deadly evergreen, and the 
 labour of its attainment, certainly " nil tanti." 
 "Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle;" being inter- 
 preted, " the ku$o; wont pay for the midnight 
 wax." The adage about house building, "mu- 
 tatis mutandis" well applies to the structure of 
 the " lofty rhyme :" " fools write books, wise 
 men read them !" What modern foe does not 
 echo Job's sigh, "Behold, I said, Oh! thai 
 mine adversary had written a book!"* No; a 
 ledger is the only book the poor man should 
 compose; and for the rich one, a book on the 
 
 • Book of Job, chap, xxxi., 35th verse.
 
 154 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 " Leger" is a much less troublesome, and pos- 
 sibly more lucrative work. Poetry is " gone out," 
 and justly so, by the test of utility. What good 
 does it do ? — What does it clothe ? — " piper et 
 quiclquid chartis amicitur !" Whom doth it feed ? 
 None ; not even the poet himself. Thus is Pe- 
 gasus outstripped, in the flight of intellect, by 
 steam — and the pallid Cynthia — nay, Apollo 
 himself eclipsed by the Budean luminaries of 
 triumphant mechanics. And soon (hear an 
 insane — "versus facit!" — prophet!) will high 
 Helicon itself share the fate of the Shakesperian 
 cliff, and be tunnelled for the public to attain 
 the bathos, if not the heights of inspiration, as 
 easily as patent springs can bear them, assisted 
 by those little solid circles of current metal, 
 Fortunes golden wheels, that, greased with 
 the " oil of gladness," whirl the axletree of 
 Prosperity smoothly o'er all the roughnesses of 
 Life.
 
 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 155 
 
 It is, however, time that the writer, having 
 terminated his comprehensive and will-digested 
 treatise upon the times and its poetics, — a 
 treatise which he believes calculated to super- 
 sede those of Aristotle, and the learned Panas- 
 tius — drop into himself, and descend to the 
 contents of the preceding pagines. It is the 
 fact that they give him no claim to the "vision 
 and faculty divine" which he has assumed as a 
 privilege, to talk about poetry as an unbiassed 
 reviewer of the pursuit of others. "But," 
 somebody will say, " if you entertain such a just 
 opinion of your own deficiency, why print ?" 
 My dear Somebody, you are a most unreasonable 
 person, to expect reasons for indulging, at this 
 time of day, in so universally prevalent a vice, — 
 " docti indoctique scribimus." — All animals en- 
 dowed with reason write — to write is to print ; 
 therefore, Mr. Somebody,, your humble servant 
 will content himself with the strong negative
 
 156 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 reason that there is no reason why he should 
 not ; or if you mil insist upon a positive 
 motive, since it is too much trouble to make a 
 new one, take that of an old scribbler — " I 
 write through idleness, and print to avoid the 
 imputation." Now, the applicability of the 
 excuse, and the fact that these " nugae canorre" 
 have been really the amusements of idle mo- 
 ments, and not the occupation of their dreamer, 
 is, he imagines, sufficiently evinced by their ap- 
 pearance in their present form. A man who in- 
 tended to make poetry his trade, would have 
 suppressed such incipient efforts, just as a writ- 
 ing master would not produce his first pothooks 
 and hangers as a specimen of his skill. 
 
 A word or two as to the separate compart- 
 ments which form this gigantic tome. The 
 poem written on one of the university prize sub- 
 jects was, ;is the title-page will have said, in- 
 eligible, from the Length of Btanding of the
 
 THE AUTHOll TO THE MUSE. 157 
 
 writer. It was, however, composed far more 
 •■ pour faire passer" some dull hours, than with 
 a view to the prize, and all its questionable 
 eclat. It will, nevertheless, be found not to 
 have escaped the crabbedness and essaical- 
 ness which are essential characteristics of 
 these compositions. Au reste, the shorter 
 pieces will be found to be the imitative produc- 
 tions of boyhood, displaying, at best, new com- 
 binations of the materials which memory fur- 
 nished. Vacuna has been no less the mother of 
 these perpetrations, than of that more ponderous 
 foetus, the prize. Indeed, both owe their exist- 
 ence to sundry occasional musings, indulged not 
 under the most inspiring circumstances — viz., in 
 steam-carriages, boats, inns, proctors' anterooms, 
 and other somewhat anti-poetical situations. It 
 is better not to talk of inspiration in this sceptical 
 siecle. Even Herr Dobler was wise enough to 
 call his magic " natural ;" so the writer thinks
 
 158 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 it more prudent at once to disclaim inspiration, 
 and confess, that he is not in the habit of visit- 
 ing church-yards at midnight, or hill-tops at 
 sunrise, — a natural operation, which, by the 
 way, he did once witness, but it was compul- 
 sorily, and he then remembers to have felt so 
 mystified, as to be incapable of wedding the 
 phenomenon to immortal verse. Indeed, for 
 the benefit of those who revere genius, he 
 thinks it may be gratifying to state, that in 
 exterior he is by no means an Empedocles — 
 his nails are well pared, his beard not 
 philosophic, and that Truefit periodically cur- 
 tails any capillary indications of Samsonian 
 intellect. The author thinks these interest- 
 ing personal facts may be acceptable to the 
 many admirers he is, doubtless, destined to 
 enjoy; but should he be mistaken — should he 
 find thai — as happened to the disappointed 
 author in "The Vicar of Wakefield"— « the
 
 i 111. \i 1 HOE TO I 111. Ml I 59 
 
 learned world says nothing to bis paradoxes — 
 nothing ;it all!" — that his "fond creation. Ins 
 soul's child,'' is held not worthy even of abuse 
 — experiencing that most i\cr}< of damnations, 
 silent neglect, passing the hoary ordeal of 
 Wisdom, like the guilty Cataline that of the 
 Senate, " gravissimo judicio taciturnitatis op 
 pressus," then the indignant poet involves him- 
 self in his Chesterfield and his amour propre, 
 and seeks the internal rewards of failure : " Tout 
 travail merite une salaire ; or, le salaire d'un 
 bon ecrivain est dans les applaudissements qu'il 
 rec,oit : mais, le salaire manquant au mechanl 
 6crivain, il est juste qu'il trouve le sien dans 
 les applaudissements qu'il se donne dsoi mime." 
 Now to him of rhyme such salary is alread\ 
 secured ; for, though the ecrivain be aware of the 
 justness of his doom, and there be no self- 
 applaudissements in the future, yet, while in 
 the act of composition, he experienced a pleasure
 
 160 THE AUTHOR TO THE MUSE. 
 
 which no other pursuit could have occasioned 
 him, arising partly, perhaps, from the delightful 
 illusions, the " mentis gratissimi errores" that 
 each idea, each line, as it flushed from his pen, 
 was divine. Alas ! when the thought grows 
 cold, how different does it seem ! — (n'importe ! | 
 In this instance, the scribbler looks back with 
 much pleasure upon the light labours these 
 ranks of rhyme have cost him in drilling, and 
 it is no small consolation that he has succeeded 
 by their assistance — lubberly recruits though 
 they be — in occasionally exterminating a heavy 
 sub -division of the old enemy, Time. 
 
 Now it may seem strange to the writer's 
 divine correspondents. Whom, by theway, their 
 slave had almost forgotten, that They are thus 
 informed of many things, with which, in Their 
 wisdom, They were familiar before pens were ; 
 but, in good sooth, there are other ears less 
 acute — other eyes more horny, to whose intel-
 
 THE A.UTH0R TO THE MUSE. L6J 
 
 ligence the author is moved, by some infatuation, 
 a monomania of which the climax is leaden — 
 nnt bullets — type, to submit these secrets: and 
 with this intent, [having learned the silent re- 
 sen of the Gods abort', f'rum Fenclon.* who 
 was, doubtless, behind the scenes in those 
 matters,] to a more communicative God below, 
 he, hereby, duly consigns these, his scribblifi- 
 cations, supplicating at His hand — not Wealth, 
 nnt Fame, not Publicity, but that reasonable 
 boon, which Nature, it would seem, has denied 
 his own — Legibility. 
 
 * " Les dieux superieurs cachent aux inferieurs tout ce 
 qu'il leur plait." — Telemaq; e, 1st book. 
 
 T. C. Savill, Printer, St. Martin's I.ano.
 
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