Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies;

With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles,
And children whirling in their roundabouts;

With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes,
And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd
Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons
Grimacing, writhing, screaming,-him who grinds
The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves,
Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum,
And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks,
The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel,
Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys,
Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.—
All moveables of wonder, from all parts,

Are here-Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs,
The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig,
The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire,
Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl,
The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes,
The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft
Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows,
All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things,
All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts
Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats
All jumbled up together, to compose

i

A Parliament of Monsters.

Tents and Booths

Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill,

Are vomiting, receiving on all sides,

Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.

Oh, blank confusion! true epitome

Of what the mighty City is herself,

To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
Living amid the same perpetual whirl

Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences

That have no law, no meaning, and no end-
Oppression, under which even highest minds
Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.
But though the picture weary out the eye,
By nature an unmanageable sight,

It is not wholly so to him who looks

In steadiness, who hath among least things
An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts
As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.
This, of all acquisitions, first awaits

On sundry and most widely different modes

Of education, nor with least delight

On that through which I passed. Attention springs,

And comprehensiveness and memory flow,

From early converse with the works of God.
Among all regions; chiefly where appear
Most obviously simplicity and power.

Think, how the everlasting streams and woods,
Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt
The roving Indian, on his desert sands:

What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant show
Of beauty, meets the sun-burnt Arab's eye:
And, as the sea propels, from zone to zone,
Its currents; magnifies its shoals of life
Beyond all compass; spreads, and sends aloft
Armies of clouds,-even so, its powers and aspects

Shape for mankind, by principles as fixed,

The views and aspirations of the soul
To majesty. Like virtue have the forms
Perennial of the ancient hills; nor less

The changeful language of their countenances
Quickens the slumbering mind, and aids the thoughts,

However multitudinous, to move

With order and relation. This, if still,
As hitherto, in freedom I may speak,
Not violating any just restraint,
As may be hoped, of real modesty,-
This did I feel, in London's vast domain.
The Spirit of Nature was upon me there ;

The soul of Beauty and enduring Life

Vouchsafed her inspiration, and diffused,

Through meagre lines and colours, and the press Of self-destroying, transitory things,

Composure, and ennobling Harmony.