The chaise in which poor brother Bill Used to be drawn to Pentonville,

Stood in the lumber room:

I wiped the dust from off the top,
While Molly mopped it with a mop,
And brushed it with a broom.

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes,
Came in at six to black the shoes
(I always talk to Sam):

So what does he, but takes and drags
Me in the chaise along the flags,

And leaves me where I am.

My father's walls are made of brick, But not so tall, and not so thick

As these; and, goodness me! My father's beams are made of wood, But never, never half so good

As these that now I see.

What a large floor! 'tis like a town! The carpet, when they lay it down,

Won't hide it, I'll be bound: And there's a row of lamps; my eye! How they do blaze! I wonder why

They keep them on the ground. At first I caught hold of the wing, And kept away; but Mr Thing

Umbob, the prompter man, Gave with his hand my chaise a shove, And said, 'Go on, my pretty love; Speak to 'em, little Nan.

You've only got to curtsey, whisper, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp,

And then you're sure to take:
I've known the day when brats not quite
Thirteen got fifty pounds a-night,

Then why not Nancy Lake?'

But while I'm speaking, where's papa?
And where's my aunt? and where's mamma?
Where's Jack? Oh, there they sit!
They smile, they nod; I'll go my ways,
And order round poor Billy's chaise,
To join them in the pit.

And now, good gentlefolks, I go
To join mamma, and see the show;
So, bidding you adieu,

I curtsey, like a pretty miss,
And if you'll blow to me a kiss,

I'll blow a kiss to you.

[Blows kiss, and exit.

Tale of Drury Lane.-By W. S. [Scott.]

*

As chaos which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,

Started with terror and surprise,

When light first flashed upon her eyes:
So London's sons in nightcap woke,

In bedgown woke her dames,

For shouts were heard mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke,

The playhouse is in flames.'

And lo! where Catherine Street extends,
A fiery tail its lustre lends

To every window-pane :
Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport,

A bright ensanguined drain;
Meux's new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell:

The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The Ticket Porters' house of call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's hotel.

Nor these alone, but far and wide
Across the Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields the blaze was borne;
And daisy white and hoary thorn,
In borrowed lustre seemed to sham
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am.

To those who on the hills around Beheld the flames from Drury's mound, As from a lofty altar rise;

It seemed that nations did conspire, To offer to the god of fire Some vast stupendous sacrifice! The summoned firemen woke at call, And hied them to their stations all. Starting from short and broken snoose, Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes; But first his worsted hosen plied, Plush breeches next in crimson dyed, His nether bulk embraced; Then jacket thick of red or blue, Whose massy shoulder gave to view The badge of each respective crew,

In tin or copper traced.

The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.

E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo Heads below!'

Nor notice give at all:
The firemen, terrified, are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,

For fear the roof should fall.
Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof!
Whitford, keep near the walls!
Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down in thunder falls!

An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,

Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
At length the mist awhile was cleared,
When lo! amid the wreck upreared,
Gradual a moving head appeared,
And Eagle firemen knew

'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in signs of wo,
A Muggins to the rescue, ho!'

And poured the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggled all in vain,
For rallying but to fall again,

He tottered, sunk, and died!
Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they loved so well!
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)
His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire

Served but to share his grave! 'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams, Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,

A tree grew in Java, whose pestilent rind
A venom distilled of the deadliest kind;
The Dutch sent their felons its juices to draw,
And who returned safe, pleaded pardon by law.
Face-muted, the culprits crept into the vale,
Advancing from windward to 'scape the death-gale;
How few the reward of their victory earned!
For ninety-nine perished for one who returned.

Britannia this Upas-tree bought of Mynheer,
Removed it through Holland, and planted it here;
'Tis now a stock-plant of the genus wolf's-bane,
And one of them blossoms in Marybone Lane.

The house that surrounds it stands first in the row,
Two doors at right angles swing open below;
And the children of misery daily steal in,
And the poison they draw they denominate Gin.

There enter the prude, and the reprobate boy,
The mother of grief, and the daughter of joy,
The serving-maid slim, and the serving-man stout,
They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out.

Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect,
Apparently baffling its deadly effect;
But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives,
And ninety-nine perish for one who survives.

Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy tradeThen say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
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,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develope, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen, How the world looked when it was fresh and young, And the great deluge still had left it green; Or was it then so old, that history's pages Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But prithee tell us something of thyself; Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What hast thou seen-what strange adventures numbered?

They enter at this door, they go out at that; Some bear off their burden with riotous glee, But most sink in sleep at the foot of the tree.

Tax, Chancellor Van, the Batavian to thwart, This compound of crime at a sovereign a quart; Let gin fetch per bottle the price of champagne, And hew down the Upas in Marybone Lane.

Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition.
[By HORACE SMITH.]

And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous!

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dumby;

Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune; Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame! Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread, O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

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,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled:
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that
face?

What was thy name and station, age and race!

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quit'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its
warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.*

*Originally published in the New Monthly Magazine.

433

70

JOHN WILSON.

PROFESSOR WILSON, the distinguished occupant of the chair of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, earned his first laurels by his poetry.

Professor Wilson.

He was born in the year 1788, in the town of Paisley, where his father had carried on business, and attained to opulence as a manufacturer. At the age of thirteen, the poet was entered of Glasgow university, whence in due time he was transferred to Magdalenc college, Oxford. Here he carried off the New digate prize from a vast number of competitors for the best English poem of fifty lines. Mr Wilson was distinguished in these youthful years by his fine athletic frame, and a face at once handsome and expressive of genius. A noted capacity for knowledge and remarkable literary powers were at the same time united to a singular taste for gymnastic exercises and rural sports. After four years' residence at Oxford, the poet purchased a small but beautiful estate, named Elleray, on the banks of the lake Windermere, where he went to reside. He married-built a house and a yacht enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes-wrote poetry-and cultivated the society of Wordsworth. These must have been happy days. With youth, robust health, fortune, and an exhaustless imagination, Wilson must, in such a spot, have been blest even up to the dreams of a poet. Some reverses however came, and, after entering himself of the Scottish bar, he sought and obtained his moral philosophy chair. He connected himself also with Blackwood's Magazine, and in this miscellany poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and taste-displaying also the peculiarities of his sanguine and impetuous temperament. The most valuable of these contributions have been collected and published (1842) in three volumes, under the title of The Recreations of Christopher North. The criticisms on poetry understood to be from the pen of Wilson, are often highly eloquent, and conceived in a truly kindred spirit. A series of papers on Spenser and Homer are equally remarkable for their discrimination and imaginative luxuriance. In reference to these golden spoils' of criticism, Mr Hallam has characterised the professor as a living writer of the most ardent and enthusiastic genius,

whose eloquence is as the rush of mighty waters.' The poetical works of Wilson have been collected in two volumes. They consist of the Isle of Palms (1812), the City of the Plague (1816), and several 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.

[A Home among the Mountains.] [From the City of the Plague."] MAGDALENE and ISABEL.

returns

Magdalene. How bright and fair that afternoon When last we parted! Even now I feel Its dewy freshness in my soul! Sweet breeze! That hymning like a spirit up the lake, Came through the tall pines on yon little isle Across to us upon the vernal shore The unseen musician floating through the air, With a kind friendly greeting. Frankfort blest And smiling, said, 'Wild harper of the hill! So mayst thou play thy ditty when once more This lake I do revisit. As he spoke, Away died the music in the firmament, And unto silence left our parting hour. No breeze will ever steal from nature's heart So sweet again to me.

Whate'er my doom,
It cannot be unhappy. God hath given me
The boon of resignation: I could die,
Though doubtless human fears would cross my soul,
Calmly even now; yet if it be ordained
That I return unto my native valley,
And live with Frankfort there, why should I fear
To say I might be happy-happier far
Than I deserve to be. Sweet Rydal lake!
Am I again to visit thee? to hear
Thy glad waves murmuring all around my soul!
Isabel. Methinks I see us in a cheerful group
Walking along the margin of the bay,
Where our lone summer-house-

Magd. Sweet mossy cell!
So cool-so shady-silent and composed!
A constant evening full of gentle dreams!
Where joy was felt like sadness, and our grief
A melancholy pleasant to be borne.
Hath the green linnet built her nest this spring
In her own rose-bush near the quiet door?
Bright solitary bird! she oft will miss

Address to a Wild Deer.

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

Were we at home. Nature can work no wrong.
The very weeds how lovely! the confusion
Doth speak of breezes, sunshine, and the dew.

Magd. I hear the murmuring of a thousand bees

In that bright odorous honeysuckle wall
That once enclosed the happiest family
That ever lived beneath the blessed skies.
Where is that family now? O Isabel,
I feel my soul descending to the grave,
And all these loveliest rural images
Fade, like waves breaking on a dreary shore !
Isabel. Even now I see a stream of sunshine bathing
The bright moss-roses round our parlour window!
Oh! were we sitting in that room once more!

Magd. Twould seem inhuman to be happy there,
And both my parents dead. How could I walk
On what I used to call my father's walk,
He in his grave! or look upon that tree,
Each year so full of blossoms or of fruit,
Planted by my mother, and her holy name
Graven on its stem by mine own infant hands!

A Sleeping Child.

Art thou a thing of mortal birth,
Whose happy home is on our earth?
Does human blood with life imbue
Those wandering veins of heavenly blue
That stray along thy forehead fair,
Lost 'mid a gleam of golden hair?
Oh! can that light and airy breath
Steal from a being doomed to death;
Those features to the grave be sent
In sleep thus mutely eloquent?

Or art thou, what thy form would seem,
The phantom of a blessed dream!
Oh! that my spirit's eye could see
Whence burst those gleams of ecstacy!
That light of dreaming soul appears
To play from thoughts above thy years.
Thou smil'st as if thy soul were soaring
To heaven, and heaven's God adoring!
And who can tell what visions high
May bless an infant's sleeping eye!
What brighter throne can brightness find
To reign on than an infant's mind,
Ere sin destroy or error dim
The glory of the seraphim?
Oh! vision fair! that I could be
Again as young, as pure as thee!
Vain wish! the rainbow's radiant form
May view, but cannot brave the storm:
Years can bedim the gorgeous dyes
That paint the bird of Paradise,
And years, so fate hath ordered, roll
Clouds o'er the summer of the soul.
Fair was that face as break of dawn,
When o'er its beauty sleep was drawn
Like a thin veil that half-concealed
The light of soul, and half-revealed.
While thy hushed heart with visions wrought,
Each trembling eyelash moved with thought,
And things we dream, but ne'er can speak,
Like clouds came floating o'er thy cheek,
Such summer-clouds as travel light,
When the soul's heaven lies calm and bright;
Till thou awok'st-then to thine eye
Thy whole heart leapt in ecstacy!
And lovely is that heart of thine,
Or sure these eyes could never shine
With such a wild, yet bashful glee,
Gay, half-o'ercome timidity!

In the pride of thy spirit pursuing thy flight;
For what hath the child of the desert to dread,
Wafting up his own mountains that far beaming head;
Or borne like a whirlwind down on the vale!
Hail! king of the wild and the beautiful!-hail!
Hail! idol divine!-whom nature hath borne
O'er a hundred hill tops since the mists of the morn,
Whom the pilgrim lone wandering on mountain and

moor,

As the vision glides by him, may blameless adore:
For the joy of the happy, the strength of the free,
Are spread in a garment of glory o'er thee,
Up! up to yon cliff! like a king to his throne!
O'er the black silent forest piled lofty and lone--
A throne which the eagle is glad to resign
Unto footsteps so fleet and so fearless as thine.
There the bright heather springs up in love of thy
breast,

Lo! the clouds in the depths of the sky are at rest;
And the race of the wild winds is o'er on the hill!
In the hush of the mountains, ye antlers lie still!—
Though your branches now toss in the storm of delight,
Like the arms of the pine on yon shelterless height,
One moment-thou bright apparition-delay!
Then melt o'er the crags, like the sun from the day.
His voyage is o'er-as if struck by a spell,
He motionless stands in the hush of the dell;
There softly and slowly sinks down on his breast,
In the midst of his pastime enamoured of rest.
A stream in a clear pool that endeth its race-
A dancing ray chained to one sunshiny place-
A cloud by the winds to calm solitude driven-
A hurricane dead in the silence of heaven.
Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee:
Magnificent prison enclosing the free;
With rock wall-encircled-with precipice crowned-
Which, awoke by the sun, thou canst clear at a bound.
'Mid the fern and the heather kind nature doth keep
One bright spot of green for her favourite's sleep;
And close to that covert, as clear to the skies
When their blue depths are cloudless, a little lake lies,
Where the creature at rest can his image behold,
Looking up through the radiance as bright and as bold.
Yes: fierce looks thy nature e'en hushed in repose-
In the depths of thy desert regardless of foes,
Thy bold antlers call on the hunter afar,
With a haughty defiance to come to the war.
No outrage is war to a creature like thee;
The buglehorn fills thy wild spirit with glee,
As thou bearest thy neck on the wings of the wind,
And the laggardly gaze-hound is toiling behind.
In the beams of thy forehead, that glitter with death,
In feet that draw power from the touch of the heath-
In the wide raging torrent that lends thee its roar—
In the cliff that once trod, must be trodden no more--
Thy trust-'mid the dangers that threaten thy reign:
-But what if the stag on the mountain be slain?
On the brink of the rock-lo! he standeth at bay,
Like a victor that falls at the close of the day-
While the hunter and hound in their terror retreat
From the death that is spurned from his furious feet;
And his last cry of anger comes back from the skies,
As nature's fierce son in the wilderness dies.

Lines written in a Lonely Burial Ground in the
Highlands.

How mournfully this burial ground
Sleeps 'mid old Ocean's solemn sound,
Who rolls his bright and sunny waves

All round these deaf and silent graves!

The cold wan light that glimmers here, The sickly wild flowers may not cheer; If here, with solitary hum,

The wandering mountain-bee doth come,
'Mid the pale blossoms short his stay,
To brighter leaves he booms away.
The sea-bird, with a wailing sound,
Alighteth softly on a mound,
And, like an image, sitting there
For hours amid the doleful air,
Seemeth to tell of some dim union,
Some wild and mystical communion,
Connecting with his parent sea
This lonesome stoneless cemetery.
This may not be the burial-place
Of some extinguished kingly race,
Whose name on earth no longer known,
Hath mouldered with the mouldering stone.
That nearest grave, yet brown with mould,
Seems but one summer-twilight old;
Both late and frequent hath the bier

Been on its mournful visit here;
And yon green spot of sunny rest
Is waiting for its destined guest.
I see no little kirk-no bell

On Sabbath tinkleth through this dell;
How beautiful those graves and fair,
That, lying round the house of prayer,
Sleep in the shadow of its grace!

But death hath chosen this rueful place
For his own undivided reign!
And nothing tells that e'er again
The sleepers will forsake their bed-
Now, and for everlasting dead,
For Hope with Memory seems fled!
Wild-screaming bird! unto the sea
Winging thy flight reluctantly,
Slow floating o'er these grassy tombs
So ghost-like, with thy snow-white plumes,
At once from thy wild shriek I know
What means this place so steeped in wo!
Here, they who perished on the deep
Enjoy at last unrocking sleep;
For ocean, from his wrathful breast,
Flung them into this haven of rest,
Where shroudless, coffinless, they lie-
'Tis the shipwrecked seaman's cemetery.
Here seamen old, with grizzled locks,
Shipwrecked before on desert rocks,
And by some wandering vessel taken
From sorrows that seem God-forsaken,
Home bound, here have met the blast
That wrecked them on death's shore at last!
Old friendless men, who had no tears
To shed, nor any place for fears
In hearts by misery fortified,
And, without terror, sternly died.
Here many a creature moving bright
And glorious in full manhood's might,
Who dared with an untroubled eye
The tempest brooding in the sky,
And loved to hear that music rave,
And danced above the mountain-wave,
Hath quaked on this terrific strand,
All flung like sea-weeds to the land;
A whole crew lying side by side,
Death-dashed at once in all their pride.
And here the bright-haired fair-faced boy,
Who took with him all earthly joy,
From one who weeps both night and day
For her sweet son borne far away,
Escaped at last the cruel deep,
In all his beauty lies asleep;
While she would yield all hopes of grace
For one kiss of his pale cold face!

Oh! I could wail in lonely fear,
For many a woful ghost sits here,
All weeping with their fixed eyes!
And what a dismal sound of sighs
Is mingling with the gentle roar
Of small waves breaking on the shore;
While ocean seems to sport and play
In mockery of its wretched prey!

And lo! a white-winged vessel sails
In sunshine, gathering all the gales
Fast freshening from yon isle of pines
That o'er the clear sea waves and shines.
I turn me to the ghostly crowd,

All smeared with dust, without a shroud,
And silent every blue-swollen lip!
Then gazing on the sunny ship,
And listening to the gladsome cheers
Of all her thoughtless mariners,
I seem to hear in every breath
The hollow under-tones of death,
Who, all unheard by those who sing,
Keeps tune with low wild murmuring,
And points with his lean bony hand
To the pale ghosts sitting on this strand,
Then dives beneath the rushing prow,
Till on some moonless night of wo
He drives her shivering from the steep,
Down-down a thousand fathoms deep.

[The Shipwreck.]

[From the Isle of Palms."]

But list! a low and moaning sound
At distance heard, like a spirit's song,
And now it reigns above, around,
As if it called the ship along.

The moon is sunk; and a clouded gray
Declares that her course is run,
And like a god who brings the day,
Up mounts the glorious sun.

Soon as his light has warmed the seas,

From the parting cloud fresh blows the breeze;
And that is the spirit whose well-known song
Makes the vessel to sail in joy along.
No fears hath she; her giant form

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm would go

'Mid the deep darkness white as snow!
But gently now the small waves glide
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain's side.
So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and aye.
Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast ;-
Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last.
Five hundred souls in one instant of dread

Are hurried o'er the deck;
And fast the miserable ship

Becomes a lifeless wreck.

Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,

Her planks are torn asunder,

And down come her masts with a reeling shock,
And a hideous crash like thunder.

Her sails are draggled in the brine,

That gladdened late the skies,

And her pendant, that kissed the fair moonshine,
Down many a fathom lies.

Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues
Gleamed softly from below,

And flung a warm and sunny flush

O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,
To the coral-rocks are hurrying down,
To sleep amid colours as bright as their own.
Oh! many a dream was in the ship

An hour before her death;
And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleeper's long-drawn breath.