TWELVE years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art
Esteemed you a perfect specimen
Of those fine spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends,
To teach us colder English how a friend's
Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave,
and plain,
Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain;
But nothing further had the gift to espy.
Sudden you re-appear. With wonder I
Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart.
Almost without the aid language affords,
Your piece seems wrought. That huffing
medium, words,
(Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play
We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws
Our tears on credit: and we find the cause
Some two hours after, spelling o'er again
Those strange few words at ease, that wrought
the pain.
Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns,
Still snatch some new old story from the urns
Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before
Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you
PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL.
LET hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask
Under the vizor of a borrow'd name;
Let things eschew the light deserving blame :
No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task.
"Marcian Colonna " is a dainty book;
And thy "Sicilian Tale" may boldly pass;
Thy "Dream"
Verse-honouring Phoebus, Father of bright Days,
Must needs bestow on you both good and
Who, building trophies of his Children's praise,
Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book—trust me, friend
Hone-
The title only errs, he bids me say:
For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown,
He swears, 'tis not a work of every day.
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ.
ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS.
CONSUMMATE Artist, whose undying name
With classic Rogers shall go down to fame,
Be this thy crowning work! In my young days
'bove all, in which, as in a How often have I, with a child's fond gaze,
Pored on the pictur'd wonders* thou hadst done:
On the great world's antique glories we may Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison !
look.
No longer then, as "lowly substitute,
Factor, or PROCTER, for another's gains,"
Suffer the admiring world to be deceived;
Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved,
Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains,
And heavenly tunes piped through an alien
flute.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY
BOOK."
I LIKE you, and your book, ingenuous Hone!
In whose capacious all-embracing leaves
The very marrow of tradition's shown;
And all that history—much that fiction-
By every sort of taste your work is graced.
Vast stores of modern anecdote we find,
With good old story quaintly interlaced-
The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint-
Yet kindly, that the half-turn'd Catholic
Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint,
And cannot curse the candid heretic.
All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view;
I saw, and I believed the phantoms true.
But, above all, that most romantic tale +
Did o'er my raw credulity prevail,
Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things,
That serve at once for jackets and for wings.
Age, that enfeebles other men's designs,
But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines.
In several ways distinct you make us feel-
Graceful as Raphael, as Watteau genteel.
Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise;
And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE.
WHAT makes a happy wedlock? What has fate
Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate?
Good sense-good humour;-these are trivial
things,
Dear M, that each trite encomiast sings.
But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt
From every low-bred passion, where contempt,
Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found
A harbour yet; an understanding sound;
Just views of right and wrong; perception full
Of the deform'd, and of the beautiful,
In life and manners; wit above her sex,
Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks;
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth,
page;
To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth;
Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased be- A noble nature, conqueror in the strife hold,
And, proudly conscious of a purer age,
Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Of conflict with a hard discouraging life,
* Illustrations of the British Novelists.
+ Peter Wilkins.
Strengthening the veins of virtue, past the power
Of those whose days have been one silken hour,
Spoil'd fortune's pamper'd offspring; a keen sense
Alike of benefit, and of offence,
With reconcilement quick, that instant springs
From the charged heart with nimble angel wings;
While grateful feelings, like a signet sign'd
By a strong hand, seem burn'd into her mind.
If these, dear friend, a dowry can confer
Richer than land, thou hast them all in her;
And beauty, which some hold the chiefest boon,
Is in thy bargain for a make-weight thrown.
[In a leaf of a quarto edition of the "Lives of the Saints, written in Spanish by the learned and reverend father, Alfonso Villegas, Divine, of the Order of St.
Dominick, set forth in English by John Heigham, Anno 1630," bought at a Catholic book-shop in Duke-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, I found, carefully inserted, a painted flower, seemingly coeval with the book itself; and did not, for some time, discover that it opened in the middle, and was the cover to a very humble draught of a St. Anne, with the Virgin and Child; doubtless the performance of some poor but pious Catholic, whose meditations it assisted.]
O LIFT with reverent hand that tarnish'd flower, That shrines beneath her modest canopy Memorials dear to Romish piety;
Dim specks, rude shapes, of Saints! in fervent hour
The work perchance of some meek devotee,
Who, poor in worldly treasures to set forth
The sanctities she worshipp'd to their worth,
In this imperfect tracery might see
Hints, that all Heaven did to her sense reveal.
Cheap gifts best fit poor givers. We are told
Of the lone mite, the cup of water cold,
That in their way approved the offerer's zeal.
True love shows costliest, where the means are
scant;
And, in their reckoning, they abound, who want.
THE SELF-ENCHANTED.
I HAD a sense in dreams of a beauty rare,
Whom Fate had spell-bound, and rooted there,
Stooping, like some enchanted theme,
Over the marge of that crystal stream,
Where the blooming Greek, to Echo blind,
With Self-love fond, had to waters pined,
Ages had waked, and ages slept,
And that bending posture still she kept :
For her eyes she may not turn away,
'Till a fairer object shall pass that way-
'Till an image more beauteous this world can
Than her own which she sees in the mirror below.
Pore on, fair Creature! for ever pore,
Nor dream to be disenchanted more :
For vain is expectance, and wish in vain,
Till a new Narcissus can come again.
TO LOUISA M—, WHOM I USED TO CALL "MONKEY." LOUISA, serious grown and mild, I knew you once a romping child, Obstreperous much and very wild. Then you would clamber up my knees, And strive with every art to tease, When every art of yours could please. Those things would scarce be proper now, But they are gone, I know not how, And woman's written on your brow. Time draws his finger o'er the scene; But I cannot forget between The Thing to me you once have been; Each sportive sally, wild escape,— The scoff, the banter, and the jape,And antics of my gamesome Ape.
FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE.
WHERE seven fair Streets to one tall Column * draw,
To ploughing ships give way, the ship being past,
They re-unite, so these unite as fast.
The older Songstress hitherto hath spent
Her elocution in the argument
Of their great Song in prose; to wit, the woes
Two Nymphs have ta'en their stand, in hats of Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor owesstraw;
Their yellower necks huge beads of amber grace,
And by their trade they're of the Sirens' race:
With cloak loose-pinn'd on each, that has been
red,
But long with dust and dirt discoloured
Belies its hue; in mud behind, before,
From heel to middle leg becrusted o'er.
One a small infant at the breast does bear;
And one in her right hand her tuneful ware,
Ah! " Wandering He!"-which now in loftier
Pathetic they alternately rehearse.
All gaping wait the event. This Critic opes
His right ear to the strain. The other hopes
To catch it better with his left. Long trade
It were to tell, how the deluded Maid
A victim fell. And now right greedily
All hands are stretching forth the songs to buy,
That are so tragical; which She, and She,
Which she would vend. Their station scarce is Deals out, and sings the while; nor can there be taken,
A breast so obdurate here, that will hold back
When youths and maids flock round. His stall His contribution from the gentle rack
Forth comes a Son of Crispin, leathern-capt,
Prepared to buy a ballad, if one apt
To move his fancy offers. Crispin's sons
Have, from uncounted time, with ale and buns,
Cherish'd the gift of Song, which sorrow quells;
And, working single in their low-rooft cells,
Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night
With anthems warbled in the Muses' spight.-
Who now hath caught the alarm? the Servant
Maid
Hath heard a buzz at distance; and, afraid
To miss a note, with elbows red comes out.
Leaving his forge to cool, Pyracmon stout
Thrusts in his unwash'd visage. He stands by,
Who the hard trade of Porterage does ply
With stooping shoulders. What cares he? he sees
The assembled ring, nor heeds his tottering
knees,
But pricks his ears up with the hopes of song.
So, while the Bard of Rhodope his wrong
Bewail'd to Proserpine on Thracian strings,
The tasks of gloomy Orcus lost their stings,
And stone-vext Sysiphus forgets his load.
Hither and thither from the sevenfold road
Some cart or waggon crosses, which divides
The close-wedged audience; but, as when the
tides
The tales of ghosts which old wives' ears drink up,
The drunkard reeling home from tavern cup,
Nor prowling robber, your firm soul appal;
Arm'd with thy faithful staff, thou slight'st
them all.
But if the market gard'ner chance to pass,
Bringing to town his fruit, or early grass,
The gentle salesman you with candour greet,
And with reit'rated "good mornings" meet.
Announcing your approach by formal bell,
Of nightly weather you the changes tell;
POOR Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie,
That wont to tend my old blind master's steps,
His guide and guard; nor, while my service |
lasted,
Had he occasion for that staff, with which
He now goes picking out his path in fear
Over the highways and crossings, but would plant
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,
Whether the Moon shines, or her head doth A firm foot forward still, till he had reach'd
steep
In rain-portending clouds. When mortals sleep
In downy rest, you brave the snows and sleet
Of winter; and in alley, or in street,
Relieve your midnight progress with a verse.
What though fastidious Phoebus frown averse
On your didactic strain-indulgent Night
With caution hath seal'd up both ears of Spite,
And critics sleep while you in staves do sound
The praise of long-dead Saints, whose Days
abound
In wintry months; but Crispin chief proclaim :
Who stirs not at that Prince of Cobblers' name?
Profuse in loyalty some couplets shine,
And wish long days to all the Brunswick line!
To youths and virgins they chaste lessons read;
Teach wives and husbands how their lives to
Maids to be cleanly, footmen free from vice;
How death at last all ranks doth equalise;
And, in conclusion, pray good years befall,
With store of wealth, your "worthy masters
all."
For this and other tokens of good will,
On boxing-day may store of shillings fill
Your Christmas purse; no householder give less,
When at each door your blameless suit you
press:
And what you wish to us (it is but reason)
Receive in turn-the compliments o' th' season!
ON A SEPULCHRAL STATUE OF AN
INFANT SLEEPING.
BEAUTIFUL Infant, who dost keep
Thy posture here, and sleep'st a marble sleep,
May the repose unbroken be,
Which the fine Artist's hand hath lent to
thee,
While thou enjoy'st along with it
That which no art, or craft, could ever hit,
Or counterfeit to mortal sense,
The heaven-infused sleep of Innocence !
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers-by in thickest confluence flow'd:
To whom with loud and passionate laments
From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd.
Nor wail'd to all in vain: some here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequious slept;
Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive
At his kind hand my customary crumbs,
And common portion in his feast of scraps;
Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and
spent
With our long day and tedious beggary.
These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook,
And sever'd from my sightless master's side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost,
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus rear'd,
Cheap monument of no ungrudging hand,
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and lasting union to attest,
The virtues of the Beggar and his Dog.
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