thing):

Then fumbled at, and stumble out of, door,

I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat;
And in vestibulo, i' the entrance-hall,
Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes,

And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,

One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,

And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o' rain, I flopped forth, 'sbudddikins! on my own ten toes,

(I do assure you there be ten of them),

And went clump-clumping up-hill and down-dale To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D.

That's proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling-having i' fact a lot-
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de-
What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fat-
chaps, eh?)

O' the boy, a barelegged beggarly son of a gun,
For one and fourpence. Here we are again.

Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminousjawed;

Investigates and reinvestigates.

Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) vice versa all the coin,
Per juris operationem, vests

I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom
(In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum;

I think I hear the Abate mouth out that),

To have and hold the same to him and them...
Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.
Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,
And all that appertaineth thereunto,

Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should,

(Subaudi cætera-clap we to the closeFor what's the good of law in a case o' the kind?) Is mine to all intents and purposes.

This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. He says a gen'l'man bought a pebble of him,

Faugh!

Aie, aie, aie, aie ! ὀτοτοτοτοτοί,

('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty,

now

And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack and Gill,

Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square,
And carry it off per saltum, jauntily,
Propria quæ maribus, gentleman's property now
(Agreeable to the law explained above),
In proprium usum, for his private ends.
The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit
I' the face the shilling: heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by,
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door),
Then abiit-what's the Ciceronian phrase?-
Excessit, evasit, erupit-off slogs boy;
Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far,
So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male—
Where was I? who said what of one in a
quag?

I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
Verbum personale, a verb personal,
Concordat-ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps-cum
Nominativo, with its nominative,
Genere, i' point o' gender, numero,
O' number, et persona, and person.
Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sur, et, and,
Montes umbrantur, snuffs out mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.
You see the trick on 't though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse ad labitum.

Ut,

It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at:
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

GEMINI AND VIRGO.

SOME vast amount of years ago,

Ere all my youth had vanished from me, A boy it was my lot to know, Whom his familiar friends called Tommy.

I love to gaze upon a child;

A young bud bursting into blossom; Artless, as Eve yet unbeguiled, And agile as a young opossum:

EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON is a son of Bulwer the novelist (Lord Lytton), and was born November 8, 1831. He was educated first by private tutors, was then sent to Harrow, and afterward studied in Rome. In 1849 his uncle Sir Henry Bulwer (afterward Baron Dalling and Bulwer) was appointed British Minister at Washington, and Robert accompanied him as private secretary. Sir Henry was transferred to Florence in 1852; and after going thither with him, Robert was an attaché successively of the British legations at The Hague, Vienna, Lisbon, Madrid, Copenhagen, and Paris. He succeeded to his father's title and estates in January, 1873, and in March, 1876, was appointed GovernorGeneral of India.

He published in 1856, "Clytemnestra, and other Poems," the title-piece being a drama in the Greek form; in 1859, "The Wanderer, a Collection of Poems in Many Lands;' in 1860, "Lucile," a novel in verse; in 1861, "Serbski Pesme," a collection of Servian songs; in 1868, "Chronicles and Characters," consisting largely of legendary tales; and in 1869, "Orval, or the Fool of Time," a dramatic poem based on "The Undivine Comedy" of Count Sigismund Krasinski. The late Martha Walker Cook pub

lished a literal translation of this drama in the "Continental Monthly," of which she was editor, in 1864, and her translation appeared in book form in Philadelphia in 1875. Bulwer had said in the preface of "Orval" that he had never seen the Polish poem, that he did not know the name of its author, and that he had simply used an analysis of it which he found in the Revue des Deux Mondes. Mrs. Cook, in a long communication to the "New York Times," accused Bulwer of knowing more than he acknowledged of the Polish poem, and of borrowing quite too liberally from Krasinski, and cited numerous parallel passages. Years before, the singular resemblance between his "Bird at Sunset" and Bryant's "Lines to a Waterfowl" had been commented upon. That he has occasionally borrowed from other poets, consciously or unconsciously, is not to be disputed; nevertheless he is so truly a poet that he has little need of borrowing, and is entitled to the best construction which it is possible to put upon any such resemblances. His only prose work is "The Ring of Amasis," a novel, published in 1863. All of his works have appeared under the nom de plume of "Owen Meredith," this being a family name on his mother's side.

NIGHT.

FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE WANDERER.

NURSE of an ailing world, beloved Night!

Our days are fretful children, weak to bear A little pain: they wrangle, wound, and fight Each other, weep, and sicken, and despair. Thou, with thy motherly hand that healeth care, Stillest our little noise: rebukest one,

Soothest another: blamest tasks undone : Refreshest jaded hope; and teachest prayer. Thine is the mother's sweet hush-hush, that stills The flutterings of a plaintive heart to rest. Thine is the mother's medicining hand that fills Sleep's opiate: thine the mother's patient breast:

Thine, too, the mother's mute reproachful eyes,

That gently look our angry noise to shame When all is done: we dare not meet their

blame:

They are so silent, and they are so wise.

And yet, O gentlest angel of the Lord!
Thou leadest by the hand the artisan
Away from work. Thou bringest, on ship.
board,

When gleam the dead-lights, to the lonely

man

That turns the wheel, a blessed memory

Of apple-blossoms, and the mountain-vales
About his little cottage in green Wales,
Miles o'er the ridges of the rolling sea.

Thou bearest divine forgiveness among men.
Relenting Anger pauses by the bed
Where Sleep looks so like Death. The absent
then

Return; and Memory beckons back the dead. Thou helpest home (thy balmy hand it is!)

The hard-worked husband to the pale-cheeked wife,

And hushest up the poor day's household strife,

On marriage-pillows, with a good-night kiss.

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Thou comest, with a touch of scorn, to me, That o'er the broken wine-cup of my youth Sit brooding here, and pointest silently

To thine unchanging stars. Yes! yes! in truth,

They seem more reachless now than when of yore

Above the promised land I watched them shine,

And all among their cryptic serpentine Went climbing Hope, new planets to explore.

Not for the flesh that fades-although decay

This thronged metropolis of sense o'erspread: Not for the joys of youth, that fleet away

When the wise swallows to the south are fled; Not that, beneath the law which fades the flower,

An earthly hope should wither in the cells Of this poor earthly house of life, where dwells Unseen the solitary Thinking-Power;

But that where fades the flower the weed should flourish;

For all the baffled efforts to achieve The imperishable from the things that perish, For broken vows, and weakened will, I grieve. Knowing that night of all is creeping on

Wherein can no man work, I sorrow most For what is gained, and not for what is lost; Nor mourn alone what's undone, but what's done.

What light, from yonder windless cloud released,

Is widening up the peaks of yon black hills? It is the full moon in the mystic east,

Whose coming half the unravished darkness

fills;

Till all among the ribbed light cloudlets pale, From shore to shore of sapph'rine deeps divine, The orbed splendor seems to slide and shine Aslope the rolling vapors in the vale.

Abroad the stars majestic light is flung,

And they fade brightening up the steps of Night.

Cold mysteries of the midnight! that, among The sleeps and pauses of this world, in sight, Reveal a doubtful hope to wild Desire;

Which, hungering for the sources of the suns, Makes moan beyond the blue Septentrions, And spidery Saturn in his webs of fire;

Whether the unconscious destinies of man

Move with the motions of your sphered lights, And his brief course, foredoomed ere he began, Your shining symbols fixed in reachless heights,

Or whether all the purpose of his pain

Be shut in his wild heart and feverish will, He knows no more than this:-that you are still,

But he is moved: he goes, but you remain.

Fooled was the human vanity that wrote

Strange names in astral fire on yonder pole. Who and what were they-in what age remoteThat scrawled weak boasts on yon sidereal scroll?

Orion shines.

But Sirius burns as brightly as of yore. There is no shade on Berenice's hair.

You that outlast the pyramids, as they

Outlast their founders, tell us of our doom! You that see Love depart, and Error stray, And Genius toiling at a splendid tomb, Like those Egyptian slaves: and Hope deceived: And Strength still failing when the goal is

near:

And Passion parched: and Rapture clasped to Fear:

And Trust betrayed: and Memory bereaved!

Vain question! Shall some other voice declare What my soul knows not of herself? Ah, no!

Dumb, patient monster, grieving everywhere, Thou answerest nothing which I did not know.

The broken fragments of ourselves we seek

In alien forms, and leave our lives behind. In our own memories our graves we find. And when we lean upon our hearts, they break.

I seem to see 'mid yonder glimmering spheres Another world-not that our prayers record, Wherein our God shall wipe away all tears,

And never voice of mourning shall be heard; But one between the sunset and moonrise: Near night, yet neighboring day: a twilit land,

And peopled by a melancholy bandThe souls that loved and failed-with hopeless

eyes;

More like that Hades of the antique creeds ;A land of vales forlorn, where Thought shall

roam

Regretful, void of wholesome human deeds,
An endless, homeless, pining after home,
To which all sights and sounds shall minister
In vain :-white roses glimmering all alone
In an evening light: and, with his haunting
tone,

The advancing twilight's shard-born trumpeter.

A world like this world's worst come back again;

Still groaning 'neath the burden of a fall: Eternal longing with eternal pain,

Want without hope, and memory saddening all.

All congregated failure and despair

Shall wander there, through some old maze

of wrong:

Ophelia drowning in her own death-song, And first-love strangled in his golden hair.

Ah, well, for those that overcome, no doubt
The crowns are ready; strength is to the
strong.

But we but we-weak hearts that grope about
In darkness, with a lamp that fails along
The lengthening midnight, dying ere we reach
The bridal doors! Oh, what for us remains,
But mortal effort with immortal pains?
And yet-God breathed a spirit into each!

Than all the marvels that it looks upon. And we are kings whose heritage was before The spheres, and owes no homage to the sun. In my own breast a mightier world I bear Than all those orbs on orbs about me rolled;

Nor are you kinglier, stars, though throned on gold,

And given the empires of the midnight-air.