Chapter I: MET a traveller from an antique land,

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
_Percy Bysshe Shelley._

CUI BONO?

WHAT is hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet.
’Tis not here--still yonder, yonder;
Never urchin found it yet.

What is life? A thawing iceboard
On a sea with sunny shore.
Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;
We are sunk, and seen no more.

What is man? A foolish baby;
Vainly strives, and fights, and frets;
Demanding all, deserving nothing,
One small grave is what he gets!
_Thomas Carlyle._

FATHER-LAND AND MOTHER-TONGUE

OUR Father-land! And would’st thou know
Why we should call it Father-land?
It is, that Adam here below
Was made of earth by Nature’s hand;
And he, our father, made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on ev’ry hand,
And we, in memory of his birth,
Do call our country “Father-land.”

At first, in Eden’s bowers, they say,
No sound of speech had Adam caught,
But whistled like a bird all day,
And may be ’twas for want of thought.
But Nature, with resistless laws,
Made Adam soon surpass the birds;
She gave him lovely Eve, because,
If he’d a wife, they must have words.

And so, the native land, I hold,
By male descent is proudly mine;
The language, as the tale hath told,
Was given in the female line.
And thus, we see, on either hand,
We name our blessings whence they’ve sprung;
We call our country Father-_land_;
We call our language Mother-_tongue_.
_Samuel Lover._

FATHER MOLLOY

OR, THE CONFESSION

PADDY McCABE was dying one day,
And Father Molloy he came to confess him;
Paddy pray’d hard he would make no delay,
But forgive him his sins and make haste for to bless him.
“First tell me your sins,” says Father Molloy,
“For I’m thinking you’ve not been a very good boy.”
“Oh,” says Paddy, “so late in the evenin’, I fear,
’Twould throuble you such a long story to hear,
For you’ve ten long miles o’er the mountains to go,
While the road _I’ve_ to travel’s much longer, you know.
So give us your blessin’ and get in the saddle;
To tell all my sins my poor brain it would addle;
And the docther gave ordhers to keep me so quiet--
’Twould disturb me to tell all my sins, if I’d thry it,
And your Reverence has tould us, unless we tell _all_,
’Tis worse than not makin’ confession at all.
So I’ll say in a word I’m no very good boy--
And, therefore, your blessin’, sweet Father Molloy.”

“Well, I’ll read from a book,” says Father Molloy,
“The manifold sins that humanity’s heir to;
And when you hear those that your conscience annoy,
You’ll just squeeze my hand, as acknowledging thereto.”
Then the father began the dark roll of iniquity,
And Paddy, thereat, felt his conscience grow rickety,
And he gave such a squeeze that the priest gave a roar.
“Oh, murdher,” says Paddy, “don’t read any more,
For, if you keep readin’, by all that is thrue,
Your Reverence’s fist will be soon black and blue;
Besides, to be throubled my conscience begins,
That your Reverence should have any hand in my sins,
So you’d betther suppose I committed them all,
For whether they’re great ones, or whether they’re small,
Or if they’re a dozen, or if they’re fourscore,
’Tis your Reverence knows how to absolve them, astore;
So I’ll say in a word, I’m no very good boy--
And, therefore, your blessin’, sweet Father Molloy.”

“Well,” says Father Molloy, “if your sins I forgive,
So you must forgive all your enemies truly;
And promise me also that, if you should live,
You’ll leave off your old tricks, and begin to live newly.”
“I forgive ev’rybody,” says Pat, with a groan,
“Except that big vagabone Micky Malone;
And him I will murdher if ever I can--”
“Tut, tut,” says the priest, “you’re a very bad man;
For without your forgiveness, and also repentance,
You’ll ne’er go to heaven, and that is my sentence.”
“Poo!” says Paddy McCabe, “that’s a very hard case--
With your Reverence and heaven I’m content to make pace;
But with heaven and your Reverence I wondher--_Och hone_--
You would think of comparin’ that blackguard Malone.
But since I’m hard press’d, and that I _must_ forgive,
I forgive, if I die--but as sure as I live
That ugly blackguard I will surely desthroy!
So, _now_ for your blessin’, sweet Father Molloy!”
_Samuel Lover._

GAFFER GRAY

(From “Hugh Trevor.”)

HO! why dost thou shiver and shake,
Gaffer Gray?
And why does thy nose look so blue?
“’Tis the weather that’s cold,
’Tis I’m grown very old,
And my doublet is not very new,
Well-a-day!”

Then line thy worn doublet with ale,
Gaffer Gray!
And warm thy old heart with a glass.
“Nay, but credit I’ve none,
And my money’s all gone;
Then say how may that come to pass?
Well-a-day!”

Hie away to the house on the brow,
Gaffer Gray,
And knock at the jolly priest’s door.
“The priest often preaches
Against worldly riches,
But ne’er gives a mite to the poor,
Well-a-day!”

The lawyer lives under the hill,
Gaffer Gray;
Warmly fenced both in back and in front.
“He will fasten his locks,
And will threaten the stocks,
Should he ever more find me in want,
Well-a-day!”

The squire has fat beeves and brown ale,
Gaffer Gray;
And the season will welcome you there.
“His beeves and his beer,
And his merry New Year,
Are all for the flush and the fair,
Well-a-day!”

My keg is but low, I confess,
Gaffer Gray;
What then? While it lasts, man, we’ll live.
“The poor man alone,
When he hears the poor moan,
Of his morsel a morsel will give,
Well-a-day!”

_Thomas Holcroft._

COCKLE _V._ CACKLE

THOSE who much read advertisement and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle’s pills,
Call’d Anti-bilious,
Which some physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these,
Viz., quacks and pills--save ducks and pease.
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,
And friends portended was preparing for
A human _pâté périgord_;
She was, indeed, so very far from well,
Her son, in filial fear, procured a box
Of those said pellets to resist bile’s shocks,
And, tho’ upon the ear it strangely knocks,
To save her by a Cockle from a shell!
But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,
Who very vehemently bids us “throw
Bark to the Bow-wows,” hated physic so,
It seem’d to share “the bitterness of death”:
Rhubarb, magnesia, jalap, and the kind,
Senna, steel, asafœtida, and squills,
Powder or draught; but least her throat inclined
To give a course to boluses or pills.
No, not to save her life, in lung or lobe,
For all her lights’ or liver’s sake,
Would her convulsive thorax undertake
Only one little uncelestial globe!

’Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,
If she put by the pill-box in a place
For linen rather than for drugs intended;
Yet, for the credit of the pills, let’s say,
After they thus were stow’d away,
Some of the linen mended.
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint,
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-turmeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother;
Who took them--in her cupboard--like the other.
“Deeper and deeper still,” of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W., newly come from Rome,
Acting the selfsame filial, pillial part,
To cure mamma, another dose brought home
Of Cockles--not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store.
And then some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, “night and morning”;
Till, wanting room at last for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d
The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks.
A little Barber of a bygone day,
Over the way,
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble--that is, John--
Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls, with crops.
Little Dame W. thought, when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.
They might as well have addled been, or rattled,
For long before the night--ah, woe betide
The pills!--each suicidal Bantam died,
Unfatted!

Think of poor Burrell’s shock,
Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam’s small ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last cackle!
To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,
Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff:
“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
Just when I’d bought a coop,
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!”
After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw--
“Pison’d by goles!”

To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour.
Lord! how he rail’d at her, declaring how,
He’d bring an action ere next term of Hilary;
Then, in another moment, swore a vow
He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream:
“Here’s Mr. Burrell, ma’am, with all his farmyard!”
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very hard, for ev’ry feather,
Charging, of course, each Bantam as a Dorking.
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame, unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry “going down ten couple.”
Now birds by poison slain,
As venom’d dart from Indian’s hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.’s thrift--
She had a thrifty vein--
Destined one pair for supper to make shift--
Supper, as usual, at the hour of ten.
But ten o’clock arrived, and quickly pass’d--
Eleven--twelve--and one o’clock at last,
Without a sign of supper even then!
At length, the speed of cookery to quicken,
Betty was called, and with reluctant feet,
Came up at a white heat:
“Well, never I see chicken like them chicken!
My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in ’em!
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that,
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat
Those Anti-biling Pills! there is no bile in ’em!”
_Thomas Hood._

OUR VILLAGE

OUR village, that’s to say, not Miss Mitford’s village, but our
village of Bullock’s Smithy,
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two
elders, and a withy;
And in the middle there’s a green, of about not exceeding an acre
and a half;
It’s common to all and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies,
three horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs and a calf!
Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a sort of common law
lease,
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead
dogs, four drowned kittens, and twelve geese.
Of course the green’s cropt very close, and does famous for bowling
when the little village boys play at cricket;
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass, is sure to come
and stand right before the wicket.
There’s fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops,
and pig-sties, and poultry huts, and such-like sheds,
With plenty of public-houses--two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch
of Grapes, one Crown, and six King’s Heads.
The Green Man is reckoned the best, as the only one that for love
or money can raise
A postillion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and
a ramshackle “neat post-chaise!”
There’s one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be
their ranks in life or their degrees,
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing cold, little Methodist
Chapel of Ease;
And close by the churchyard, there’s a stone-mason’s yard, that
when the time is seasonable
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims,
very low and reasonable.
There’s a cage comfortable enough; I’ve been in it with Old Jack
Jeffery and Tom Pike;
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or anything
else you like.
I can’t speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the
upright post;
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob’s horse as
is always there almost.
There’s a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in
his way, Old Joe Bradley,
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses
very badly.
There’s a shop of all sorts that sells everything, kept by the
widow of Mr. Task;
But when you go there it’s ten to one she’s out of everything
you ask.
You’ll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about
the old sugary cask:
There are six empty houses and not so well papered inside as out.
For bill-stickers won’t beware, but stick notices of sales and
election placards all about.
That’s the Doctor’s with a green door, where the garden pots in
the window is seen;
A weakly monthly rose that don’t blow, and a dead geranium, and
a tea plant with five black leaves, and one green.
As for hollyhocks at the cottage doors, and the honeysuckles and
jasmines, you may go and whistle;
But the Tailor’s front garden grows two cabbages, a dock, a
ha’porth of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle!
There are three small orchards--Mr. Busby’s the schoolmaster’s
is the chief--
With two pear trees that don’t bear; one plum, and an apple that
every year is stripped by a thief.
There’s another small day-school too, kept by the respectable
Mrs. Gaby,
A select establishment for six little boys, and one big, and four
little girls and a baby;
There’s a rectory with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys
that never smokes,
For the Rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort
of folks;
There’s a barber once a week well filled with rough black-bearded,
shock-headed churls,
And a window with two feminine men’s heads, and two masculine
ladies in false curls;
There’s a butcher, and a carpenter’s, and a plumber, and a small
green grocer’s, and a baker,
But he won’t bake on a Sunday; and there’s a sexton that’s a coal
merchant besides, and an undertaker;
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare
with the London shops;
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls,
and the other sells malt and hops.
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy, not to be a bit behind her
betters,
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a
cobbler, lives in it herself, and it’s the post-office for
letters.
Now I’ve gone through all the village--ay, from end to end, save
and except one more house,
But I haven’t come to that--and I hope I never shall--and that’s
the village Poor House!
_Thomas Hood._

THE DEVIL AT HOME

THE Devil sits in his easy chair,
Sipping his sulphur tea,
And gazing out, with a pensive air,
O’er the broad bitumen sea;
Lulled into sentimental mood
By the spirits’ far-off wail,
That sweetly, o’er the burning flood,
Floats on the brimstone gale!
The Devil, who can be sad at times,
In spite of all his mummery,
And grave--though not so prosy quite
As drawn by his friend Montgomery--
The Devil to-day has a dreaming air,
And his eye is raised, and his throat is bare;
His musings are of many things,
That, good or ill, befell,
Since Adam’s sons macadamized
The highways into hell:
And the Devil--whose mirth is _never_ loud--
Laughs with a quiet mirth,
As he thinks how well his serpent-tricks
Have been mimicked upon earth;
Of Eden, and of England soiled,
And darkened by the foot
Of those who preach with adder-tongues,
And those who eat the fruit;
Of creeping things, that drag their slime
Into God’s chosen places,
And knowledge leading into crime
Before the angels’ faces;
Of lands, from Nineveh to Spain,
That have bowed beneath his sway,
And men who did his work, from Cain
To Viscount Castlereagh!
_Thomas Kibble Hervey._
From “The Devil’s Progress.”

HOW TO MAKE A NOVEL

TRY with me, and mix what will make a novel,
All hearts to transfix in house or hall or hovel:
Put the caldron on, set the bellows blowing;
We’ll produce anon something worth the showing.

Never mind your plot--’tisn’t worth the trouble;
Throw into the pot what will boil and bubble.
Character’s a jest--what’s the use of study?
All will stand the test that’s black enough and bloody.

Here’s the _Newgate Guide_, here’s the _Causes Célèbres_;
Tumble in, besides, pistol, gun, and sabre;
These police reports, those Old Bailey trials,
Horrors of all sorts, to match the Seven Vials.

Down into a well, lady, thrust your lover;
Truth, as some folks tell, there he may discover;
Step-dames, sure though slow, rivals of your daughters.
Bring, as from below, Styx and all its waters.

Crime that breaks all bounds, bigamy and arson,
Poison, blood, and wounds, will carry well the farce on;
Now it’s just in shape; yet, with fire and murder,
Treason, too, and rape might help it all the further.

Or, by way of change, in your wild narration,
Choose adventures strange of fraud and personation;
Make the job complete; let your vile assassin
Rob, and forge, and cheat, for his victim passin’.

Tame is virtue’s school; paint, as more effective,
Villain, knave, and fool, with always a detective;
Hate for love may sit; gloom will do for gladness;
Banish sense and wit, and dash in lots of madness.

Stir the broth about, keep the furnace glowing;
Soon we’ll pour it out, in three bright volumes
flowing:
Some may jeer and jibe; we know where the shop is
Ready to subscribe for a thousand copies.

_Lord Charles Neaves._

TWO CHARACTERS

THAN Lord de Vaux there’s no man sooner sees
Whatever at a glance is visible;
What is not, he can never see at all.
Quick-witted is he, versatile, seizing points,
He’ll see them all successively, distinctly,
But never solving questions. Vain he is;
It is his pride to see things on all sides;
Which best to do he sets them on their corners.
Present before him arguments by scores,
Bearing diversely on the affair in hand,
Yet never two of them can see together,
Or gather, blend, and balance what he sees
To make up one account; a mind it is
Accessible to reason’s subtlest rays,
And many enter there, but none converge;
It is an army with no general,
An arch without a key-stone. Then the other,
Good Martin Blondel-Vatre: he is rich
In nothing else but difficulties and doubts.
You shall be told the evil of your scheme,
But not the scheme that’s better. He forgets
That policy, expecting not clear gain,
Deals ever in alternatives. He’s wise
In negatives, is skilful at erasures,
Expert in stepping backward, an adept
At auguring eclipses. But admit
His apprehensions, and demand, what then?
And you shall find you’ve turned the blank leaf over.
_Henry Taylor._

THE SAILOR’S CONSOLATION

ONE night came on a hurricane,
The sea was mountains rolling,
When Barney Buntline turned his quid,
And said to Billy Bowling:
“A strong nor’-wester’s blowing, Bill--
Hark! don’t ye hear it roar now?
Lord help ’em! how I pities all
Unhappy folks on shore now!

“Foolhardy chaps who live in town--
What danger they are all in,
And now are quaking in their beds,
For fear the roof should fall in.
Poor creatures! how they envies us,
And wishes, I’ve a notion,
For our good luck, in such a storm
To be upon the ocean.

“But as for them who’re out all day,
On business from their houses,
And late at night are coming home,
To cheer the babes and spouses,
While you and I, Bill, on the deck
Are comfortably lying,
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!

“And very often have we heard
How men are killed and undone
By overturns of carriages,
By thieves and fires in London.
We know what risks all landsmen run,
From noblemen to tailors;
Then, Bill, let us thank Providence
That you and I are sailors!”
_William Pitt._

VERSES ON SEEING THE SPEAKER ASLEEP IN HIS CHAIR DURING ONE OF THE DEBATES OF THE FIRST REFORMED PARLIAMENT

SLEEP, Mr. Speaker; ’tis surely fair,
If you mayn’t in your bed, that you should
in your chair;
Louder and longer still they grow,
Tory and Radical, Aye and No;
Talking by night and talking by day.
Sleep, Mr. Speaker--sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; slumber lies
Light and brief on a Speaker’s eyes;
Fielden or Finn in a minute or two
Some disorderly thing will do;
Riot will chase repose away.
Sleep, Mr. Speaker--sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; Sweet to men
Is the sleep that cometh but now and then;
Sweet to the weary, sweet to the ill,
Sweet to the children that work in the mill.
You have more need of repose than they.
Sleep, Mr. Speaker--sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker; Harvey will soon
Move to abolish the sun and the moon;
Hume will no doubt be taking the sense
Of the House on a question of sixteen pence;
Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray.
Sleep, Mr. Speaker--sleep while you may!

Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time,
When loyalty was not quite a crime;
When Grant was a pupil in Canning’s school,
And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool.
Lord, how principles pass away!
Sleep, Mr. Speaker--sleep while you may!
_Winthrop M. Praed._

PELTERS OF PYRAMIDS

A SHOAL of idlers, from a merchant craft
Anchor’d off Alexandria, went ashore,
And mounting asses in their headlong glee,
Round Pompey’s Pillar rode with hoots and taunts,
As men oft say, “What art thou more than we?”
Next in a boat they floated up the Nile,
Singing and drinking, swearing senseless oaths,
Shouting, and laughing most derisively
At all majestic scenes. A bank they reach’d,
And clambering up, play’d gambols among tombs;
And in portentous ruins (through whose depths,
The nightly twilight of departed gods,
Both sun and moon glanced furtive, as in awe)
They hid, and whoop’d, and spat on sacred things.

At length, beneath the blazing sun they lounged
Near a great Pyramid. Awhile they stood
With stupid stare, until resentment grew,
In the recoil of meanness from the vast;
And gathering stones, they with coarse oaths and gibes
(As they would say, “What art thou more than we?”)
Pelted the Pyramid! But soon these men,
Hot and exhausted, sat them down to drink--
Wrangled, smok’d, spat, and laugh’d, and drowsily
Curs’d the bald Pyramid, and fell asleep.

Night came. A little sand went drifting by,
And morn again was in the soft blue heavens.
The broad slopes of the shining Pyramid
Look’d down in their austere simplicity
Upon the glistening silence of the sands,
Whereon no trace of mortal dust was seen.
_Richard Hengist Horne._

THE ANNUITY