Oh, your sweet eyes, your low replies: be: But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose you. Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in hall: your The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, "Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: You pine among your halls and towers: The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these. Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, about your lands? Nor any poor Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, And let the foolish yeoman go. BARBARA S BY CHARLES LAMB. ON the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget which it was, just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S, with her accustomed punctuality, ascended the long rambling staircase, with awkward interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few of our readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much that Barbara had to claim. This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had given an air of womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You would have taken her to have been at least five years older. Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already drawn tears in young VOL, II, E |