POETS,

men.

the stanzas in his poem on Chigwell displays his In Holywell Street, St Pancras, he was bred
philosophic composure at this period of his life :- (At number twenty-seven, it is said),

Facing the pump, and near the Granby's head.
World, in thy ever busy mart

He would have bound him to some shop in town,
I've acted no unnoticed part-

But with a premium he could not come down :
Would I resume it? oh no!

Pat was the urchin's name, a red-haired youth,
Four acts are done, the jest grows stale; Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.
The waning lamps burn dim and pale,

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,
And reason asks-Cri bono?

The muse shall tell an accident she saw.
He held it a humiliation to be ill, and never com- But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat;

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat;
plained or alluded to his own sufferings. He died Down from the gallery the beaver flew,
on the 24th December 1839, aged 65. Lady Bles- And spurned the one, to settle in the two.
sington said, “If James Smith had not been a witty How shall he act! Pay at the gallery door
man, he must have been a great man.'. His extensive Two shillings for what cost when new but four ?
information and refined manners, joined to an in- Or till half price, to save his shilling, wait,
exhaustible fund of liveliness and humour, and a And gain his hat again at half-past eight?
happy uniform temper, rendered him a fascinating Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,
companion. The writings of such a man give but John Mullins whispers, Take my handkerchief.
a faint idea of the original; yet in his own walk of Thank you, cries Pat, but one won't make a line;
literature James Smith has few superiors. Anstey Take mine, cried Wilson ; and, cried Stokes, take mine.
comes most directly into competition with him; yet A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
it may be safely said that the Rejected Addresses' Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
will live as long as the New Bath Guide.'

Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted hue, The surviving partner of this literary duumvirate Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue, -the most constant and interesting, perhaps, since Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new. that of Beaumont and Fletcher, and more affec- George Green below, with palpitating hand, tionate from the relationship of the parties—has Loops the last ’kerchief to the beaver's band; distinguished himself by his novels and historical Upsoars the prize; the youth, with joy unfeigned, romances, and by his generosity to various literary Regained the felt, and felt what he regained,

Mr Horace Smith has also written some while to the applauding galleries grateful Pat copies of verses, one of which, the Address to the Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat. * * Mummy, is a felicitous compound of fact, humour, and sentiment, forcibly and originally expressed. The Baby's Debut.-By W. W. [Wordsworth.]

[Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of The Theatre.-By the Rev. G. C. [Crabbe.]

age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by

Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.] 'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six,

My brother Jack was nine in May, Our long wax candles, with short cotton wicks,

And I was eight on New Year's Day; Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,

So in Kate Wilson's shop Start into light, and make the lighter start:

Papa (he's my papa and Jack's) To see red Phoebus through the gallery pane

Bought me, last week, a doll of wax, Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane,

And brother Jack a top. While gradual parties fill our widened pit,

Jack's in the pouts, and this it is,
And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit. *

He thinks mine came to more than his,
What various swains our motley walls contain !

So to my drawer he goes,
Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane;

Takes out the doll, and, oh my stars ! Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,

He pokes her head between the bars,
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;

And melts off half her nose!
From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain,
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane;

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg,
The lottery cormorant, the auction shark,

And tie it to his peg top's peg,
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk;

And bang, with might and main,
Boys who long linger at the gallery door,

Its head against the parlour door:
With pence twice fire, they want but twopence more,

Off flies the head, and hits the floor,
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares,

And breaks a window-pane.
And sends them jumping up the gallery stairs.

This made him cry with rage and spite;
Critics we boast who ne'er their malice baulk,

Well, let him cry, it serves him right.
But talk their minds, we wish they'd mind their talk;

A pretty thing, forsooth!
Big worded bullies, who by quarrels live,

If he's to melt, all scalding hot,
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;

Half my doll's nose, and I am not
Jews from St Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,

To draw his peg top's tooth !
That for old clothes they'd even axe St Mary;
And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,

Aunt Hannah heard the window break,
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait;

And cried, “O naughty Nancy Lake,
Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse

Thus to distress your aunt:
With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

No Drury Lane for you to-day!'
Yet here, as elsewhere, chance can joy bestow,

And while papa said, ' Pooh, she may!'
Where scowling fortune seemed to threaten wo.

Mamma said, 'No, she shan't!'
John Richard William Alexander Dwyer

Well, after many a sad reproach,
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;

They got into a hackney coach,
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues,

And trotted down the street.
Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes.

saw them go : one horse was blind;
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy

The tails of both hung down behind;
Up as a corn cutter-a safe employ;

Their shoes were on their feet.

431

1 POETS.

Where Muggins broke before.

Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?
But sulphury stench and boiling drench Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Ilomer?
Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite;
He sunk to rise no more.

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden
Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,

By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade-
His whizzing water-pipe he waved ;

Then say, what secret melody was hidden
“Whitford and Mitford ply your pumps ;

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played ?
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps ;

Perhaps thou wert a priest—if so, my struggles
Why are you in such doleful dumps?

Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
A fireman, and afraid of bumps!
What are they feared on? fools-'od rot 'em!'

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Were the last words of Higginbottom.

Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
The Upas in Marybone Lane.

Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,

A torch at the great Temple's dedication.
[By JAMES Smith.]
A tree grew in Java, whose pestilent rind

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
A venom distilled of the deadliest kind;

Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
The Dutch sent their felons its juices to draw,

For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalıned,
And who returned safe, pleaded pardon by law.

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled :

Antiquity appears to have begun
Face-muffled, the culprits crept into the vale, Long after thy primeval race was run.
Advancing from windward to 'scape the death-gale;
How few the reward of their victory earned !

Thou couldst develope, if that withered tongue
For ninety-nine perished for one who returned.

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,

How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
Britannia this Upas-tree bought of Mynheer,

And the great deluge still had left it green;
Removed it through Holland, and planted it here; Or was it then so old, that history's pages
Tis now a stock-plant of the genus wolf's-bane, Contained no record of its early ages?
And one of them blossoms in Marybone Lane.

Still silent, incommunicative elf !
The house that surrounds it stands first in the row, Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;
Two doors at right angles swing open below;

But prithee tell us something of thyself;
And the children of misery daily steal in,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house ;
And the poison they draw they denominate Gin. Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,

What hast thou seen --what strange adventures num-
There enter the prude, and the reprobate boy,

bered?
The mother of grief, and the daughter of joy,
The serving-maid slim, and the serving-man stout, Since first thy form was in this box extended,
They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out. We have, above ground, seen some strange muta-

tions;
Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect,

The Roman empire has begun and ended,
Apparently baffling its deadly effect;

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations,
But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives,

And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
And ninety-nine perish for one who survives.

Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.
They cautious advance with slouched bonnet and hat, Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
They enter at this door, they go out at that ;
Some bear off their burden with riotous glee,

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
But most sink in sleep at the foot of the tree.

Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,

O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
Tax, Chancellor Van, the Batavian to thwart, And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
This compound of crime at a sovereign a quart; When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?
Let gin fetch per bottle the price of champagne,
And hew down the Upas in Marybone Lane.

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,

The nature of thy private life unfold :

A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast, Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition. And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled : (By HORACE SMITH.)

Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that

face?
And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!) What was thy name and station, age and race ?

la Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead !
And time had not begun to overthrow

Imperishable type of evanescence !
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous !

And standest undecayed within our presence,

Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby;

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;

warning
Thou’rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

If its undying guest be lost for ever?
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features. Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Tell us-for doubtless thou canst recollect-

Although corruption may our frame consume,
To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame? The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.*
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect
Of either pyramid that bears his name?

* Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine.

433

70

JOHN WILSON.

whose eloquence is as the rush of mighty waters."

The poetical works of Wilson have been collected PROFESSOR Wilson, the distinguished occupant of in two volumes. They consist of the Isle of Palms the chair of moral philosophy in the university of (1812), the City of the Plague (1816), and several Edinburgh, earned his first laurels by his poetry. smaller pieces. The broad humour and satire of

some of his prose papers form a contrast to the delicacy and tenderness of his acknowledged writingsparticularly his poetry. He has an outer and an inner man-one shrewd, bitter, observant, and full of untamed energy; the other calm, graceful, and meditative — all conscience and tender heart.' He deals generally in extremes, and the prevailing defect of his poetry is its uniform sweetness and feminine softness of character. ‘Almost the only passions,' says Jeffrey, 'with which his poetry is conversant, are the gentler sympathies of our naturetender compassion, confiding affection, and guiltless sorrow. From all these there results, along with a most touching and tranquillising sweetness, a certain monotony and languor, which, to those who read poetry for amusement merely, will be apt to appear like dulness, and must be felt as a defect by all who have been used to the variety, rapidity, and energy of the popular poetry of the day.' Some of the scenes in the City of the Plague are, however, exquisitely drawn, and his descriptions of lake and mountain scenery, though idealised by his imagination, are not unworthy of Wordsworth. The prose descriptions of Wilson have obscured his poetical, because in the former he gives the reins to his fancy, and, while preserving the general outline and distinctive features of the landscape, adds a number of subsidiary

charms and attractions. He was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley, where his father had carried on business, and at

[A Home among the Mountains.] tained to opulence as a manufacturer. At the age

[From the City of the Plague'] of thirteen, the poet was entered of Glasgow univer

MAGDALENE and 18ABEL. sity, whence in due time he was transferred to

Magdalene. How bright and fair that afternoon Magdalene college, Oxford. Here he carried off the

returns Newdigate prize from a vast number of competitors When last we parted! Even now I feel for the best English poem of fifty lines. Mr Wilson Its dewy freshness in my soul! Sweet breeze! was distinguished in these youthful years by his That hymning like a spirit up the lake, fine athletic frame, and a face at once handsome Came through the tall pines on yon little isle and expressive of genius. A noted capacity for Across to us upon the vernal shore knowledge and remarkable literary powers were at the same time united to a singular taste for The unseen musician Hoating through the air,

With a kind friendly greeting. Frankfort blest gymnastic exercises and rural sports. After four And smiling, said, “Wild harper of the hill! years' residence at Oxford, the poet purchased a So mayst thou play thy ditty when once more small but beautiful estate, named Elleray, on the This lake I do revisit. As he spoke, banks of the lake Windermere, where he went to Away died the music in the firmament, reside. He married—built a house and a yacht. And unto silence left our parting hour. enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of No breeze will ever steal from nature's heart the lakes—wrote poetry—and cultivated the society So sweet again to me. of Wordsworth. These must have been happy days.

Whate'er my doom, With youth, robust health, fortune, and an exhaust- It cannot be unhappy. God hath given me less imagination, Wilson must, in such a spot, have The boon of resignation : I could die, been blest even up to the dreams of a poet. Some Though doubtless human fears would cross my soul, reverses however came, and, after entering himself Calmly even now; yet if it be ordained of the Scottish bar, he sought and obtained his That I return unto my native valley, moral philosophy chair. He connected himself also And live with Frankfort there, why should I fear with Blackwood's Magazine, and in this miscel- To say I might be happy-happier far lany poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, Than I deserve to be. Sweet Rydal lake! and taste—displaying also the peculiarities of his Am I again to visit thee! to hear sanguine and impetuous temperament. The most Thy glad waves murmuring all around my soul? valuable of these contributions have been collected Isabel. Methinks I see us in a cheerful group and published (1842) in three volumes, under the title Walking along the margin of the bay, of The Recreations of Christopher North. The criti- Where our lone summer-housecisms on poetry understood to be from the pen of Magd. Sweet mossy cell! Wilson, are often highly eloquent, and conceived So cool—so shady-silent and composed ! in a truly kindred spirit. A series of papers on A constant evening full of gentle dreams ! Spenser and Homer are equally remarkable for Where joy was felt like sadness, and our grief their discrimination and imaginative luxuriance. A melancholy pleasant to be borne. In reference to these golden spoils' of criticism, Mr Hath the green linnet built her nest this spring Hallam has characterised the professor as 'a living In her own rose-bush near the quiet door ! writer of the most ardent and enthusiastic genius, Bright solitary bird ! she oft will miss

Her human friends : our orchard now must be
A wilderness of sweets, by none beloved.

Address to a Wild Deer.
Isabel

. One blessed week would soon restore its beauty, Magnificent creature ! so stately and bright! Were we at home. Nature can work no wrong. The very weeds how lovely! the confusion

In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight; Doth speak of breezes, sunshine, and the dew.

For what hath the child of the desert to dread, Magd. I hear the murmuring of a thousand bees

Wafting up his own mountains that far beaming head; In that bright odorous honeysuckle wall

Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale ! That once enclosed the happiest family

Hail! king of the wild and the beautiful !hail! That ever lived beneath the blessed skies.

Hail! idol divine !-whom nature hath borne Where is that family now? O Isabel,

O'er a hundred hill tops since the mists of the morn, I feel my soul descending to the grave,

Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and And all these loveliest rural images

moor, Fade, like waves breaking on a dreary shore !

As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore : Isabel. Even now I see a stream of sunshine bathing For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free, The bright mo89-roses round our parlour window!

Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee, Oh! were we sitting in that room once more !

Up! up to yon cliff! like a king to his throne ! Magd. 'Twould seem inhuman to be happy there,

O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone And both my parents dead. How could I walk

A throne which the eagle is glad to resign On what I used to call my father's walk,

Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine. He in his grave! or look upon that tree,

There the bright heather springs up in love of thy Each year so full of blossoms or of fruit,

breast, Planted by my mother, and her holy name

Lo! the clouds in the depths of the sky are at rest ; Graven on its stem by mine own infant hands!

And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill!

In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers lie still! A Sleeping Child.

Though your branches now toss in the storm of delight,

Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height, Art thou a thing of mortal birth,

One moment—thou bright apparition-delay! Whose happy home is on our earth!

Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day. Does human blood with life imbue

His voyage is o'er—as if struck by a spell, Those wandering veins of heavenly blue

He motionless stands in the hush of the dell; That stray along thy forehead fair,

There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast, Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?

In the midst of his pastime enamoured of rest. Oh! can that light and airy breath

A stream in a clear pool that endeth its race Steal from a being doomed to death;

A dancing ray chained to one sunshiny place Those features to the grave be sent

A cloud by the winds to calm solitude driven-
In sleep thus mutely eloquent?

A hurricane dead in the silence of heaven.
Or art thon, what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream?

Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee :

Magnificent prison enclosing the free; Oh! that my spirit's eye could see

With rock wall-encircled-with precipice crowned Whence burst those gleams of ecstacy!

Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound. That light of dreaming soul appears

'Mid the fern and the heather kind nature doth keep To play from thoughts above thy years.

One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep; Thou smil'st as if thy soul were soaring

And close to that covert, as clear to the skies To heaven, and heaven's God adoring!

When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies, And who can tell what visions high

Where the creature at rest can his image behold, May bless an infant's sleeping eye!

Looking up through the radiance as bright and as bold. What brighter throne can brightness find To reign on than an infant's mind,

Yes: fierce looks thy nature e'en hushed in repose Ere sin destroy or error dim

In the depths of thy desert regardless of foes, The glory of the seraphim!

Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar,

With a haughty defiance to come to the war. Oh! vision fair! that I could be

No outrage is war to a creature like thee; Again as young, as pure as thee!

The buglehorn fills thy wild spirit with glee, Vain wish! the rainbow's radiant form

As thou bearest thy neck on the wings of the wind, May view, but cannot brave the storm :

And the laggardly gaze-hound is toiling behind. Years can bedim the gorgeous dyes

In the beams of thy forehead, that glitter with death, That paint the bird of Paradise,

In feet that draw power from the touch of the heathAnd years, 80 fate hath ordered, roll

In the wide raging torrent that lends thee its roarClouds o'er the summer of the soul.

In the cliff that once trod, must be trodden no more Fair was that face as break of dawn,

Thy trust—'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign : When o'er its beauty sleep was drawn

-But what if the stag on the mountain be slain? Like a thin veil that half-concealed

On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay, The light of soul, and half-revealed.

Like a victor that falls at the close of the day-
While thy hushed heart with visions wrought, While the hunter and hound in their terror retreat
Each trembling eyelash moved with thought, From the death that is spurned from his furious feet;
And things we dream, but ne'er can speak, And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
Like clouds came floating o'er thy cheek, As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.
Such summer-clouds as travel light,
When the soul's heaven lies calm and bright; Lines written in a Lonely Burial Ground in the
Till thou awok'st—then to thine eye

Highlands.
Thy whole heart leapt in ecstacy!
And lovely is that heart of thine,

How mournfully this burial ground
Or sure these eyes could never shine

Sleeps 'mid old Ocean's solemn sound, With such & wild, yet bashful glee,

Who rolls his bright and sunny waves Gay, half-o'ercome timidity!

All round these deaf and silent graves !

435