The smooth-bore is one in whose essence the mind
Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can find;
You feel as in nightmares sometimes, when you
slip

Down a steep slated roof where there's nothing to grip,

You slide and you slide, the blank horror in

creases,

You had rather by far be at once smashed to

pieces,

You fancy a whirlpool below white and frothing,
And finally drop off and light upon-nothing.
The screw-bore has twists in him, faint predilec-

tions

For going just wrong in the tritest directions; When he's wrong he is flat, when he's right he can't show it,

He'll tell you what Snooks said about the new poet,*

Or how Fogrum was outraged by Tennyson's Prin

cess;

He has spent all his spare time and intellect since

his

Birth in perusing, on each art and science,

Just the books in which no one puts any reliance,
And though nemo, we're told, horis omnibus sapit,
The rule will not fit him, however you shape it, .
For he has a perennial foison of sappiness;
He has just enough force to spoil half your day's
happiness,

And to make him a sort of mosquito to be with,
But just not enough to dispute or agree with.

These sketches I made (not to be too explicit)

*(If you call Snooks an owl, he will show by his looks
That he's morally certain you're jealous of Snooks.)

From two honest fellows who made me a visit, And broke, like the tale of the Bear and the Fiddle,

My reflections on Halleck short off by the middle; I shall not now go into the subject more deeply, For I notice that some of my readers look sleep❜ly, I will barely remark that, 'mongst civilized nations, There's none that displays more exemplary pa

tience

Under all sorts of boring, at all sorts of hours,
From all sorts of desperate persons, than ours.
Not to speak of our papers, our State legislatures,
And other such trials for sensitive natures,
Just look for a moment at Congress,-appalled,
My fancy shrinks back from the phantom it called;.
Why, there's scarcely a member unworthy to

frown

'Neath what Fourier nicknames the Boreal crown; Only think what that infinite bore-pow'r could do If applied with a utilitarian view;

Suppose, for example, we shipped it with care
To Sahara's great desert and let it bore there,
If they held one short session and did nothing
else,

They'd fill the whole waste with Artesian wells.
But 'tis time now with pen phonographic to follow
Through some more of his sketches our laughing
Apollo:-

"There comes Harry Franco, and, as he draws

near,

You find that's a smile which you took for a sneer;
One half of him contradicts t'other, his wont
Is to say very sharp things and do very blunt;
His manner's as hard as his feelings are tender,
And a sortie he'll make when he means to sur-

render;

He's in joke half the time when he seems to be sternest,

When he seems to be joking, be sure he's in earnest;

He has common sense in a way that's uncommon, Hates humbug and cant, loves his friends like a

woman,

Builds his dislikes of cards and his friendships of oak,

Loves a prejudice better than aught but a joke,
Is half upright Quaker, half downright Come-

outer,

Loves Freedom too well to go stark mad about her,
Quite artless himself is a lover of Art,

Shuts you out of his secrets and into his heart,
And though not a poet, yet all must admire
In his letters of Pinto his skill on the liar.

"There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,

Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,

Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters, In a way to make people of common-sense damn

metres,

Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,

But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind,

Who-but hey-day! What's this? Messieurs Mathews and Poe,

You mustn't fling mud-balls at Longfellow so,

Does it make a man worse that his character's such As to make his friends love him (as you think) too much?

Why, there is not a bard at this moment alive More willing than he that his fellows should thrive;

While you are abusing him thus, even now
He would help either one of you out of a slough ;
You may say that he's smooth and all that till
you're hoarse,

But remember that elegance also is force;
After polishing granite as much as you will,
The heart keeps its tough old persistency still;
Deduct all you can that still keeps you at bay,—
Why, he'll live till men weary of Collins and Gray;
I'm not over-fond of Greek metres in English,
To me rhyme's a gain, so it be not too jinglish,
And your modern hexameter verses are no more
Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is like
Homer;

As the roar of the sea to the coo of a pigeon is,
So, compared to your moderns, sounds old Mele-

sigenes;

I may be too partial, the reason, perhaps, o't is That I've heard the old blind man recite his own rhapsodies,

And my ear with that music impregnate may be, Like the poor exiled shell with the soul of the sea, Or as one can't bear Strauss when his nature is

cloven

To its deeps within deeps by the stroke of Beethoven;

But, set that aside, and 'tis truth that I speak,
Had Theocritus written in English, not Greek,
I believe that his exquisite sense would scarce
change a line

In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral Evangeline.

That's not ancient nor modern, its place is apart Where time has no sway, in the realm of pure Art, 'Tis a shrine of retreat from Earth's hubbub and

strife

As quiet and chaste as the author's own life.

"There comes Philothea, her face all a-glow, She has just been dividing some poor creature's

woe

And can't tell which pleases her most, to relieve
His want, or his story to hear and believe;
No doubt against many deep griefs she prevails,
For her ear is the refuge of destitute tales;
She knows well that silence is sorrow's best food,
And that talking draws off from the heart its black
blood,

So she'll listen with patience and let you unfold
Your bundle of rags as 'twere pure cloth of gold,
Which, indeed, it all turns to as soon as she's
touched it,

And, (to borrow a phrase from the nursery,) muched it,

She has such a musical taste, she will go

Any distance to hear one who draws a long bow; She will swallow a wonder by mere might and main

And thinks it geometry's fault if she's fain

To consider things flat, inasmuch as they're plain; Facts with her are accomplished, as Frenchmen would say,

They will prove all she wishes them to either

way,

And, as fact lies on this side or that, we must try, If we're seeking the truth, to find where it don't

lie;

I was telling her once of a marvellous aloe

That for thousands of years had looked spindling and sallow,

And, though nursed by the fruitfullest powers of mud,

Had never vouchsafed e'en so much as a bud, Till its owner remarked, (as a sailor, you know, Often will in a calm,) that it never would blow,