Chapter IX: Introduction (8)

Mrs. H. did not like that her daughters should be novel-readers; and _all novels_ in _prose_ were indiscriminately prohibited; but _any_ thing in _verse_ was as indiscriminately allowed.

Probably a Quaker would be startled at any one’s using the very _words_ of the prophets, “Thus saith the Lord:” yet he says the same things in the words, “The Spirit moveth me to say so and so.” And some, again, who would be shocked at _this_, speak of a person,—adult or _child_,—who addresses a congregation in extempore prayers and discourses, as being under the _influence of the Holy Spirit_; though in neither case is there any miraculous _proof_ given. And they abhor a claim to _infallibility_; only they are _quite certain_ of being under the guidance of the Spirit in whatever they say or do.

Quakers, again, and some other dissenters, object to a _hired_ ministry, (in reality, an _un_hired;) but their preachers are to be _supplied_ with all they need; like the father of Molière’s Bourgeois, who was no _shopkeeper_, but kindly chose _goods_ for his friends, which he let them have for money.

COMPOUND EPITHETS.

The custom of using hard compounds furnished Ben Jonson opportunities of showing his learning as well as his satire. He used to call them “words un-in-one-breath-utterable.” Redi mentions an epigram against the sophists, made up of compounds “a mile long.” Joseph Scaliger left a curious example in Latin, part of which may be thus rendered into English:—

Loftybrowflourishers,
Noseinbeardwallowers,
Brigandbeardnourishers,
Dishandallswallowers,
Oldcloakinvestitors,
Barefootlookfashioners,
Nightprivatefeasteaters,
Craftlucubrationers;
Youthcheaters, Wordcatchers, Vaingloryosophers,
Such are your seekersofvirtue philosophers.

The old naturalist Lovell published a book at Oxford, in 1661, entitled _Panzoologicomineralogia_. Rabelais proposed the following title for a book:—_Antipericatametaparhengedamphicribrationes_. The reader of Shakspeare will remember Costard’s _honorificabilitudinitatibus_, in Love’s Labor Lost, v. 1. There was recently in the British army a major named _Teyoninhokarawen_. In the island of Mull, Scotland, is a locality named _Drimtaidhorickhillichattan_. The original Mexican for country curates is _Notlazomahnitzteopixcatatzins_. The longest Nipmuck word in Eliot’s Indian Bible is in St. Mark i. 40, _Wutteppesittukqussunnoowehtunkquoh_, and signifies “kneeling down to him.”

OUR VERNACULAR IN CHAUCER’S TIME.

But rede that boweth down for every blaste
Ful lyghtly cesse wynde, it wol aryse
But so nyle not an oke, when it is caste
It nedeth me nought longe the forvyse
Men shall reioysen of a great emprise
Atchewed wel and stant withouten dout
Al haue men ben the longer there about.—_Troylus_, ii.

Tall Writing.

DEFINITION OF TRANSCENDENTALISM.

The spiritual cognoscence of psychological irrefragibility connected with concutient ademption of incolumnient spirituality and etherialized contention of subsultory concretion.

Translated by a New York lawyer, it stands thus:—

Transcendentalism is two holes in a sand-bank: a storm washes away the sand-bank without disturbing the holes.

THE DOMICILE ERECTED BY JOHN.

_Translated from the Vulgate._

Behold the Mansion reared by dædal Jack.

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan’s bivouac.

Mark how the Rat’s felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid.

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides,—
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce _rodent_
Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent.

Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe’s assault,
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall
That rose complete at Jack’s creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn,
Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,
Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew
The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through
The textile fibers that involved the grain
Which lay in Hans’ inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw
Struck the weird rat in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt that erst in Juan’s courts we saw,
Robed in senescent garb that seems in sooth
Too long a prey to Chronos’ iron tooth.

Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
Full with young Eros’ osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden whose lact-albic hands
Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
The old mordacious Rat that dared devour
Antecedaneous Ale in John’s domestic bower.

Lo, here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous locks, the Priest who linked
In Hymen’s golden bands the torn unthrift,
Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
Who let auroral effluence through the pelt
Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghae comes at last,
Whose shouts arouse the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament,
To him who, robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
The emulgator of that horned brute morose,
That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that _kilt_
The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.

FROM THE CURIOSITIES OF ADVERTISING.

TO BE LET,

To an Oppidan, a Ruricolist, or a Cosmopolitan, and may be entered upon immediately:

The House in §Stone Row§, lately possessed by §Capt. Siree§. To avoid Verbosity, the Proprietor with Compendiosity will give a Perfunctory description of the Premises, in the Compagination of which he has Sedulously studied the convenience of the Occupant. It is free from Opacity, Tenebrosity, Fumidity, and Injucundity, and no building can have greater Pellucidity or Translucency—in short, its Diaphaneity even in the Crepuscle makes it like a Pharos, and without laud, for its Agglutination and Amenity, it is a most Delectable Commorance; and whoever lives in it will find that the Neighbors have none of the Truculence, the Immanity, the Torvity, the Spinosity, the Putidness, the Pugnacity, nor the Fugacity observable in other parts of the town, but their Propinquity and Consanguinity occasion Jocundity and Pudicity—from which, and the Redolence of the place (even in the dog-days), they are remarkable for Longevity. For terms and particulars apply to §James Hutchinson§, opposite the §Market-House§.—_Dub. News._

FROM THE CURIOSITIES OF THE POST-OFFICE.

The following is a genuine epistle, sent by an emigrant country schoolmaster to a friend at home:—

§Mr M. Connors§

With congruous gratitude and decorum I accost to you this debonnaire communication. And announce to you with amicable Complacency that we continually enjoy competent laudable good health, thanks to our omnipotent Father for it. We are endowed with the momentous prerogatives of respectable operations of a supplement concuity of having a fine brave and gallant youthful daughter the pendicity ladies age is four months at this date, we denominated her Margaret Connolly.

I have to respond to the Communication and accost and remit a Convoy revealing with your identity candor and sincerity. If your brother who had been pristinely located and stationed in England whether he has induced himself with ecstasy to be in preparation to progress with you. I am paid by the respectable potent loyal nobleman that I work for one dollar per day. Announce to us in what Concuity the crops and the products of husbandry dignify, also predict how is John Carroll and his wife and family. My brother and Myself are continually employed and occupied in similar work. Living and doing good. Dictate how John Mahony wife and family is.

Don’t you permit oblivion to obstruct you from inserting this. Prognosticate how Mrs Harrington is and if she accept my intelligence or any convoy from either of Her 2 progenies since their embarkation for this nation. If she has please specify with congruous and elysian gratitude with validity and veracity to my magnanimous self.

I remit my respects to my former friends and acquaintances.

I remain

§D. Connolly§.

P.S. Direct your Epistle to Pembroke, State of Maine.

Dear brother-in-law

I am determined and candidly arrive at Corolary, as I am fully resolved to transfer a sufficient portion of money to you to recompense your liabilities from thence to hence. I hope your similar operations will not impede any occurrence that might obstruct your progression on or at the specified time the 17 of March next.

SPANISH PLAY-BILL,

_Exhibited at Seville, 1762._

To the Sovereign of Heaven—to the Mother of the Eternal World—to the Polar Star of Spain—to the Comforter of all Spain—to the faithful Protectress of the Spanish nation—to the Honor and Glory of the Most Holy Virgin Mary—for her benefit and for the Propagation of her Worship—the Company of Comedians will this day give a representation of the Comic Piece called—

NANINE.

The celebrated Italian will also dance the Fandango, and the Theatre will be respectably illuminated.

* * * * *

In a medical work entitled The _Breviarie of Health_, published in 1547, by Andrew Borde, a physician of that period, is a prologue addressed to physicians, beginning thus:—

Egregious doctors and masters of the eximious and arcane science of physic, of your urbanity exasperate not yourselves against me for making this little volume.

THE MAD POET.

McDonald Clarke, commonly called the _mad poet_, died a few years ago in the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island, New York. He wrote those oft-quoted lines,—

Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star.

In his wilder moments he set all rules at defiance, and mingled the startlingly sublime and the laughably ridiculous in the oddest confusion. He talks thus madly of Washington:—

Eternity—give him elbow room;
A spirit like his is large;
Earth, fence with artillery his tomb,
And fire a double charge
To the memory of America’s greatest man:
Match him, posterity, if you can.

In the following lines, he sketches, with a few bold touches, a well-known place, sometimes called a _rum-hole_:—

Ha! see where the wild-blazing grogshop appears,
As the red waves of wretchedness swell;
How it burns on the edge of tempestuous years,
The horrible light-house of hell!

FOOTE’S FARRAGO.

The following droll nonsense was written by Foote, the dramatist, for the purpose of trying the memory of Macklin, who boasted that he could learn any thing by heart on hearing it once:—

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and, at the same time, a great she-bear coming up the street pops its head into the shop—What! no soap? So he died; and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblilies, and the Garyulies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top. And they all fell to playing the game of “catch as catch can,” till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots!

BURLESQUE OF THE STYLE OF DR. JOHNSON.

While I was admiring the fantastical ramifications of some umbelliferous plants that hung over the margin of the Liffey, the fallacious bank, imperceptibly corroded by the moist tooth of the fluid, gave way beneath my feet, and I was suddenly submerged to some fathoms of profundity. Presence of mind, in constitutions not naturally timid, is generally in proportion to the imminence of the peril. Having never learned to move through the water in horizontal progression, had I desponded, I had perished; but, being for a moment raised above the element by my struggles, or by some felicitous casualty, I was sensible of the danger, and immediately embraced the means of extrication. A cow, at the moment of my lapse, had entered the stream, within the distance of a protruded arm; and being in the act of transverse navigation to seek the pasture of the opposite bank, I laid hold on that part of the animal which is loosely pendent behind, and is formed by the continuation of the vertebræ. In this manner I was safely conveyed to a fordable passage, not without some delectation from the sense of the progress without effort on my part, and the exhilarating approximation of more than problematical deliverance. Though in some respects I resembled the pilot of Gyas, _Jam senior madidaque fluens in veste_, yet my companions, unlike the barbarous Phrygian spectators, forbore to acerbitate the uncouthness of embarrassment by the insults of derision. Shrieks of complorance testified sorrow for my submersion, and safety was rendered more pleasant by the felicitations of sympathy. As the danger was over, I took no umbrage at a little risibility excited by the feculence of my visage, upon which the cow had discharged her gramineous digestion in a very ludicrous abundance. About this time the bell summoned us to dinner; and, as the cutaneous contact of irrigated garments is neither pleasant nor salubrious, I was easily persuaded by the ladies to divest myself of mine. Colonel Manly obligingly accommodated me with a covering of camlet. I found it commodious, and more agreeable than the many compressive ligaments of modern drapery. That there might be no violation of decorum, I took care to have the loose robe fastened before with small cylindrical wires, which the dainty fingers of the ladies easily removed from their dresses and inserted into mine, at such proper intervals as to leave no aperture that could awaken the susceptibility of temperament, or provoke the cachinnations of levity.[11]

Footnote 11:

The peculiar stateliness and dignity of Johnston’s style, when applied
to the smaller concerns of life, makes, as will be seen from the above
caricature, a very ludicrous appearance. A judicious imitation of his
phraseology on trifling subjects was a favorite manner of attack among
the critics. Erskine’s account of the Buxton baths is one of the most
amusing. When several examples of this sort were shown to Johnson, at
Edinburgh, he pronounced that of Lord Dreghorn the best: “but,” said
he, “I could caricature my own style much better myself.”

NEWSPAPER EULOGY.

The following alliterative eulogy on a young lady appeared, many years ago, in a newspaper:—

If _b_oundless _b_enevolence _b_e the _b_asis of _b_eatitude, and _h_armless _h_umanity a _h_arbinger of _h_allowed _h_eart, these _C_hristian _c_oncomitants _c_omposed her _c_haracteristics, and _c_onciliated the esteem of her _c_otemporary a_c_quaintances, who _m_ean to _m_odel their _m_anners in the _m_ould of their _m_eritorious _m_onitor.

CLEAR AS MUD.

In a series of _Philosophical Essays_ published many years ago, the author[12] gives some definitions of human knowledge, the following of which he considers “least obnoxious to comprehension:”—

Footnote 12:

Ogilvie.

A coincidence between the association of ideas, and the order or succession of events or phenomena, according to the relation of cause and effect, and in whatever is subsidiary, or necessary to realize, approximate and extend such coincidence; understanding, by the relation of cause and effect, that order or succession, the discovery or development of which empowers an intelligent being, by means of one event or phenomenon, or by a series of given events or phenomena, to anticipate the recurrence of another event or phenomenon, or of a required series of events or phenomena, and to summon them into existence, and employ their instrumentality in the gratification of his wishes, or in the accomplishment of his purposes.

INDIGNANT LETTER.

Addressed to a Louisiana clergyman by a Virginia correspondent.

§Sir§:—You have behaved like an impetiginous acroyli—like those inquinate orosscrolest who envious of my moral celsitude carry their mugacity to the height of creating symposically the fecund words which my polymathic genius uses with uberity to abligate the tongues of the weightless. Sir, you have corassly parodied my own pet words, as though they were tangrams. I will not conceroate reproaches. I would obduce a veil over the atramental ingratitude which has chamiered even my undisceptible heart. I am silent on the foscillation which my coadful fancy must have given you when I offered to become your fanton and adminicle. I will not speak of the liptitude, the ablepsy you have shown in exacerbating me; one whose genius you should have approached with mental discalceation. So, I tell you, Sir, syncophically and without supervacaneous words, nothing will render ignoscible your conduct to me. I warn you that I will vellicate your nose if I thought your moral diathesis could be thereby performed. If I thought that I should not impigorate my reputation by such a degladiation. Go tagygraphic; your oness inquinate draws oblectation from the greatest poet since Milton, and draws upon your head this letter, which will drive you to Webster, and send you to sleep over it.

“Knowledge is power,” and power is mercy; so I wish you no rovose that it may prove an external hypnotic.

INTRAMURAL ÆSTIVATION.

In candent ire the solar splendor flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!

To me, alas! no verdurous visions come,
Save yon exiguous pool’s conferva-scum;
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,—
Depart,—be off,—excede,—evade,—erump!
_Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table._

A CHEMICAL VALENTINE.

I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,
Our mutual flame is like the affinity
That doth exist between two simple bodies.
I am Potassium to thy Oxygen;
’Tis little that the holy marriage vow
Shall shortly make us one. That unity
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
Oh! would that I, my Mary, were an Acid—
A living Acid; thou an Alkali
Endowed with human sense; that, brought together,
We both might coalesce into one Salt,
One homogeneous crystal. Oh that thou
Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen!
We would unite to form olefiant gas,
Or common coal, or naphtha. Would to heaven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime,
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret!
I’d be content to be Sulphuric Acid,
So that thou mightst be Soda. In that case,
We should be Glauber’s Salt. Wert thou Magnesia
Instead, we’d form the salt that’s named from Epsom.
Couldst thou Potassa be, I Aquafortis,
Our happy union should that compound form,
Nitrate of Potash—otherwise Saltpetre.
And thus, our several natures sweetly blent
We’d live and love together, until death
Should decompose this fleshly Tertium Quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity
Amalgamated! Sweet, thy name is Briggs,
And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not we
Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs?
We will! the day, the happy day is nigh,
When Johnson shall with beauteous Briggs combine.

THE ANATOMIST TO HIS DULCINEA.

I list as thy heart and ascending aorta
Their volumes of valvular harmony pour;
And my soul from that muscular music has caught a
New life ’mid its dry anatomical lore.

Oh, rare is the sound when thy ventricles throb
In a systolic symphony measured and slow,
When the auricles answer with rhythmical sob,
As they murmur a melody wondrously low!

Oh, thy cornea, love, has the radiant light
Of the sparkle that laughs in the icicle’s sheen;
And thy crystalline lens, like a diamond bright,
Through the quivering frame of thine iris is seen!

And thy retina, spreading its lustre of pearl,
Like the far-away nebula, distantly gleams
From a vault of black cellular mirrors that hurl
From their hexagon angles the silvery beams.

Ah! the flash of those orbs is enslaving me still,
As they roll ’neath the palpebræ, dimly translucent,
Obeying in silence the magical will
Of the oculo-motor—pathetic—abducent.

Oh, sweet is thy voice, as it sighingly swells
From the daintily quivering chordæ vocales,
Or rings in clear tones through the echoing cells
Of the antrum, the ethmoid, and sinus frontales!

ODE TO SPRING.

WRITTEN IN A LAWYER’S OFFICE.

Whereas on sundry boughs and sprays
Now divers birds are heard to sing,
And sundry flowers their heads upraise—
Hail to the coming on of Spring!

The birds aforesaid, happy pairs!
Love midst the aforesaid boughs enshrines
In household nests, themselves, their heirs,
Administrators, and assigns.

The songs of the said birds arouse
The memory of our youthful hours.
As young and green as the said boughs,
As fresh and fair as the said flowers.

O busiest term of Cupid’s court!
When tender plaintiffs actions bring;
Season of frolic and of sport,
Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring!

PRISTINE PROVERBS PREPARED FOR PRECOCIOUS PUPILS.

Observe yon plumed biped fine!
To effect his captivation,
Deposit particles saline
Upon his termination.

Cryptogamous concretion never grows
On mineral fragments that decline repose.

Whilst self-inspection it neglects,
Nor its own foul condition sees,
The kettle to the pot objects
Its sordid superficies.

Decortications of the golden grain
Are set to allure the aged fowl, in vain.

Teach not a parent’s mother to extract
The embryo juices of an egg by suction:
That good old lady can the feat enact,
Quite irrespective of your kind instruction.

Pecuniary agencies have force
To stimulate to speed the female horse.

Bear not to yon famed city upon Tyne
The carbonaceous product of the mine.

The mendicant, once from his indigence freed,
And mounted aloft on the generous steed,
Down the precipice soon will infallibly go,
And conclude his career in the regions below.

It is permitted to the feline race
To contemplate even a regal face.

Metric Prose.

_Quid tentabam scribere versus erat._—§Ovid.§

COWPER’S LETTER TO NEWTON.

The following letter was written to Rev. John Newton, by William Cowper, in reference to a poem _On Charity_, by the latter:—

My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there’s nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not;—by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before?

I have writ “Charity,” not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the “Reviewer” should say to be sure, the gentleman’s muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the tastes and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, ’tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construction; she has baited her trap, in the hope to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; ’tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all I have done, although I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far as from hence to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here another year.

I have heard before of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and suchlike things, with so much art in every part, that when you went in, you were forced to begin a minuet pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of a state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and, as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to an end of what I have penned, which that you may do, ere madam and you are quite worn out with jigging about, I take my leave, and here you receive a bow profound, down to the ground, from you humble me—W. C.

EXAMPLE IN IRVING’S NEW YORK.

The following remarkable instance of involuntary poetic prose occurs in Knickerbocker’s humorous history of New York, near the commencement of the Sixth Book:—

The gallant warrior starts from soft repose, from golden visions and voluptuous ease; where, in the dulcet “piping time of peace,” he sought sweet solace after all his toils. No more in beauty’s siren lap reclined, he weaves fair garlands for his lady’s brows; no more entwines with flowers his shining sword, nor through the livelong summer’s day chants forth his love-sick soul in madrigals. To manhood roused, he spurns the amorous flute, doffs from his brawny back the robe of peace, and clothes his pampered limbs in panoply of steel. O’er his dark brow, where late the myrtle waved, where wanton roses breathed enervate love, he rears the beaming casque and nodding plume; grasps the bright shield and ponderous lance, or mounts with eager pride his fiery steed, and burns for deeds of glorious chivalry.

In D’Israeli’s _Wondrous Tale of Alroy_, are remarkable specimens of prose poetry. For example:—

Why am I here? are you not here? and need I urge a stronger plea? Oh,
brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival! Our walls
are hung with flowers you love; I culled them by the fountain’s side;
the holy lamps are trimmed and set, and you must raise their earliest
flame. Without the gate my maidens wait to offer you a robe of state.
Then, brother dear, I pray you come and mingle in our festival.

NELLY’S FUNERAL.

In Horne’s _New Spirit of the Age_,—a series of criticisms on eminent living authors,—we find an admirable example of prose poetry thus noticed:—

A curious circumstance is observable in a great portion of the scenes of tragic power, pathos, and tenderness contained in various parts of Mr. Dickens’s works, which it is possible may have been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not even subsequently conscious of it. It is that they are written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, and Shelley, and some other poets, have occasionally adopted. Witness the following description from _The Old Curiosity Shop_.

And now the bell—the bell
She had so often heard by night and day
And listened to with solid pleasure,
E’en as a living voice—
Rung its remorseless toll for her,
So young, so beautiful, so good.

Decrepit age, and vigorous life,
And blooming youth, and helpless infancy,
Poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength
And health, in the full blush
Of promise—the mere dawn of life—
To gather round her tomb. Old men were there
Whose eyes were dim
And senses failing—
Granddames, who might have died ten years ago,
And still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame,
The palsied,
The living dead in many shapes and forms,
To see the closing of this early grave!
What was the death it would shut in,
To that which still would crawl and creep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now;
Pale as the new-fallen snow
That covered it; whose day on earth
Had been so fleeting.
Under that porch where she had sat when Heaven
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,
She passed again, and the old church
Received her in its quiet shade.

Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words have been omitted—_in_ and _its_; “granddames” has been substituted for “grandmothers,” and “e’en” for “almost.” All that remains is exactly as in the original, not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same to a comma. The brief homily that concludes the funeral is profoundly beautiful.

Oh! it is hard to take
The lesson that such deaths will teach,
But let no man reject it,
For it is one that all must learn
And is a mighty universal Truth.
When Death strikes down the innocent and young,
For every fragile form from which he lets
The parting spirit free,
A hundred virtues rise,
In shapes of mercy, charity, and love,
To walk the world and bless it.
Of every tear
That sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves,
Some good is born, some gentler nature comes.

Not a word of the original is changed in the above quotation, which is worthy of the best passages in Wordsworth, and thus, meeting on the common ground of a deeply truthful sentiment, the two most unlike men in the literature of the country are brought into close proximation.

The following similar passage is from the concluding paragraph of _Nicholas Nickleby_:—

The grass was green above the dead boy’s grave,
Trodden by feet so small and light,
That not a daisy drooped its head
Beneath their pressure.
Through all the spring and summer time
Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands,
Rested upon the stone.

NIAGARA.

The same rhythmic cadence is observable in the following passage, copied verbatim from the _American Notes_:—

I think in every quiet season now,
Still do those waters roll, and leap, and roar,
And tumble all day long;
Still are the rainbows spanning them
A hundred feet below.
Still when the sun is on them, do they shine
And glow like molten gold.
Still when the day is gloomy do they fall
Like snow, or seem to crumble away,
Like the front of a great chalk cliff,
Or roll adown the rock like dense white smoke.

But always does this mighty stream appear
To die as it comes down.
And always from the unfathomable grave
Arises that tremendous ghost of spray
And mist which is never laid:
Which has haunted this place
With the same dread solemnity,
Since darkness brooded on the deep
And that first flood before the Deluge—Light
Came rushing on Creation at the word of God.

To any one who reads this we need not say that but three lines in it vary at all from the closest requisitions of an iambic movement. The measure is precisely of the kind which Mr. Southey so often used. For the reader’s convenience, we copy from _Thalaba_ his well remembered lines on Night, as an instance:—

How beautiful is Night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air,
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
Breaks the serene of heaven.
In full orbed glory yonder Moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is Night!

INVOLUNTARY VERSIFICATION IN THE SCRIPTURES.

The hexametric cadence in the authorized translation of the Bible has been pointed out in another portion of this volume. It is very noticeable in such passages as these, for example, from the Second Psalm:—

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? Kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together.

The anapæstic cadence prevalent in the Psalms is also very remarkable:—

That will bring forth his fruit in due season.—v. 6.

Whatsoever he doth it shall prosper.—v. 4.

Away from the face of the earth.—v. 5.

Be able to stand in the judgment.—v. 6.

The way of th’ ungodly shall perish.—v. 7.

Couplets may be drawn from the same inspired source, as follows:—

Great peace have they that love thy law:
And nothing shall offend them.—Psalm, cxix. 165.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
Whose mind is stayed on thee.—Isaiah, xxvi. 3.

When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves,
Ye know that the summer is nigh.—Matthew, xxiv. 32.

UNINTENTIONAL RHYMES OF PROSERS.

The delicate ear of Addison, who would stop the press to add a conjunction, or erase a comma, allowed this inelegant jingle to escape his detection:—

What I am going to _mention_, will perhaps deserve your _attention_.

Dr. Whewell, when Master of Trinity College, fell into a similar trap, to the great amusement of his readers. In his work on _Mechanics_, he happened to write _literatim_ and _verbatim_, though not _lincatim_, the following tetrastich:—

There is no force, however great,
Can stretch a cord, however fine,
Into a horizontal line,
Which is accurately straight.

A curious instance of involuntary rhythm occurs in President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:—

Fondly do we hope,
Fervently do we pray,
That this mighty scourge of war
May speedily pass away:
Yet if be God’s will
That it continue until—

but here the strain abruptly ceases, and the President relapses into prose.

In the course of a discussion upon the involuntary metre into which Shakspeare so frequently fell, when he intended his minor characters to speak prose, Dr. Johnson observed;

“Such verse we make when we are writing prose;
We make such verse in common conversation.”

Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, from their habit of committing to memory and reciting dramatic blank verse, unconsciously made their most ordinary observations in that measure. Kemble, for instance, on giving a shilling to a beggar, thus answered the surprised look of his companion:—

“It is not often that I do these things,
But _when_ I do, I do them handsomely.”

And once when, in a walk with Walter Scott on the banks of the Tweed, a dangerous looking bull made his appearance, Scott took the water, Kemble exclaimed:—

“Sheriff, I’ll get me up in yonder tree.”

The presence of danger usually makes a man speak naturally, if anything will. If a reciter of blank verse, then, fall unconsciously into the rhythm of it when intending to speak prose, much more may an habitual writer of it be expected to do so. Instances of the kind from the table-talk of both Kemble and his sister might be multiplied. This of Mrs. Siddons,—

“I asked for water, boy; you’ve brought me beer,——”

is one of the best known.

The Humors of Versification.

THE LOVERS.

IN DIFFERENT MOODS AND TENSES.

Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught,
And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher, who praught!
Though his enemies called him a screecher, who scraught.

His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk;
And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk;
While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk.

He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed,
For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed,
And what he was longing to do, then he doed.

In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke,
To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke;
So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.

He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode,
They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode,
And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode.

Then homeward he said let us drive, and they drove,
And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove;
For whatever he couldn’t contrive, she controve.

The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole;
At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole;
And he said, “I feel better than ever I fole.”

So they to each other kept clinging, and clung,
While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung;
And this was the thing he was bringing and brung:

The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught—
That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught—
Was the one she now liked to scratch, and she scraught.

And Charley’s warm love began freezing and froze,
While he took to teasing, and cruelly toze
The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze.

“Wretch!” he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left,
“How could you deceive, as you have deceft?”
And she answered, “I promised to cleave, and I’ve cleft.”

A STAMMERING WIFE.

When deeply in love with Miss Emily Pryne,
I vowed if the lady would only be mine,
I would always be ready to please her;
She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass
Said never a word except “You’re an ass—
An ass—an ass—iduous teazer!”

But when we were married, I found to my ruth
The stammering lady had spoken the truth;
For often, in obvious dudgeon,
She’d say—if I ventured to give her a jog
In the way of reproof—“You’re a dog—dog—dog—
A dog—a dog—matic curmudgeon!”

And once, when I said, “We can hardly afford
This immoderate style with our moderate board,”
And hinted we ought to be wiser,
She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue,
And fretfully cried, “You’re a Jew—Jew—Jew—
A very ju-dicious adviser!”

Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk
Some rather unpleasant and arduous work,
I begged her to go to a neighbor,
She wanted to know why I made such a fuss,
And saucily said, “You’re a cuss—cuss—cuss—
You were always ac—cus—tomed to labor!”

Out of temper at last with the insolent dame,
And feeling the woman was greatly to blame,
To scold me instead of caressing,
I mimicked her speech, like a churl as I am,
And angrily said, “You’re a dam—dam—dam—
A dam-age instead of a blessing.”

A SONG WITH VARIATIONS.

[§Scene.§—Wife at the piano; brute of a husband, who has no more soul
for music than his boot, in an adjoining apartment, making his
toilet.]

Oh! do not chide me if I weep!—
Come, wife, and sew this button on.
Such pain as mine can never sleep!—
Zounds! as I live, another’s gone!
For unrequited love brings grief,—
A needle, wife, and bring your scissors.
And Pity’s voice gives no relief—
The child! good Lord! he’s at my razors!
No balm to case the troubled heart,—
Who starched this bosom? I declare
That writhes from hate’s envenomed dart!—
It’s enough to make a parson swear!
When faith in man is given up—
How plaguey shiftless are some women!
Then sorrow fills her bitter cup—
I’ll have to get my other linen.
And to its lees the white lips quaff—
Smith says he’s coming in to-night,
While Malice yields her mocking laugh!—
With Mrs. S., and Jones and Wright.
Oh! could I stifle in my breast—
And Jones will bring some prime old sherry.
This aching heart, and give it rest,—
We’ll want some eggs for Tom-and-Jerry
Could Lethe’s waters o’er me roll,—
These stockings would look better mended!
And bring oblivion to my soul,—
When-will-you-have-that-ditty-ended?
Then haply I, in other skies,—
We’d better have the oysters fried.
Might find the love that earth denies!
There! now at last my dickey’s tied!

THOUGHTS WHILE SHE ROCKS THE CRADLE.

What is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful thing, no doubt,
Unwritten history!
Unfathomable mystery!
But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks,
And curious riddles, as any sphinx!
Warped by colic and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two years;
And he’ll never know
Where the summers go:
He need not laugh, for he’ll find it so!

Who can tell what the baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links
By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shores of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,
Into the light of day?
Out from the shores of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony!
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls—
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide!
And what does he think of his mother’s eyes?
What does he think of his mother’s hair?
What of the cradle roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother’s breast—
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight—
Cup of his joy and couch of his rest?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell
With a tenderness she can never tell,
Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds—
Words she has learned to murmur well?
Now he thinks he’ll go to sleep!
I can see the shadow creep
Over his eyes, in soft eclipse,
Over his brow, and over his lips,
Out to his little finger tips,
Softly sinking, down he goes!
Down he goes! down he goes!
[_Rising and carefully retreating to her seat._]
See! he is hushed in sweet repose!

A SERIO-COMIC ELEGY.

WHATELY ON BUCKLAND.

In his “Common-Place Book,” the late Archbishop Whately records the following Elegy on the late geologist, Dr. Buckland:

Where shall we our great professor inter,
That in peace may rest his bones?
If we hew him a rocky sepulchre
He’ll rise and break the stones,
And examine each stratum which lies around,
For he’s quite in his element underground.

If with mattock and spade his body we lay
In the common alluvial soil,
He’ll start up and snatch these tools away
Of his own geological toil;
In a stratum so young the professor disdains
That embedded should lie his organic remains.

Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring,
His carcase let stalactite cover,
And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring,
When he is encrusted all over;
There, ’mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf,
Let him stand as a monument raised to himself.

A REMINISCENCE OF TROY.

FROM THE SCHOLIAST.

It was the ninth year of the Trojan war—
A tedious pull at best:
A lot of us were sitting by the shore—
Tydides, Phocas, Castor, and the rest—
Some whittling shingles and some stringing bows,
And cutting up our friends, and cutting up our foes.

Down from the tents above there came a man,
Who took a camp-stool by Tydides’ side,
He joined our talk, and, pointing to the pan
Upon the embers where our pork was fried,
Said he would eat the onions and the leeks,
But that fried pork was food not fit for Greeks.

“Look at the men of Thebes,” he said, “and then
Look at those cowards in the plains below:
You see how ox-like are the ox-fed men;
You see how sheepish mutton-eaters grow.
Stick to this vegetable food of mine:
Men who eat pork grunt, root and sleep like swine.”

Some laughed, and some grew mad, and some grew red:
The pork was hissing; but his point was clear.
Still no one answered him, till Nestor said,
“One inference that I would draw is here:
You vegetarians, who thus educate us,
Thus far have turned out very small potatoes.”

THE POET BRYANT AS A HUMORIST.

Those who are familiar with Mr. Lowell’s _Fable for Critics_, will remember the lines:—

There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified,
As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified,
Save when by reflection ’tis kindled ’o nights
With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights.
He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation;
(There’s no doubt he stands in supreme ice-olation,)
Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on,
But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on—
He’s too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on;
Unqualified merits, I’ll grant, if you choose, he has ’em,
But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm;
If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul,
Like being stirred up by the very North Pole.

The Cambridge wit has either misjudged the character of Bryant’s genius, or he has sacrificed a man to an epigram, and subordinated fact to a _jeu d’esprit_. Though “quiet and dignified,” Mr. Bryant possesses a rare vein of humor, but its bubbling fancies are not generally known or suspected for the reason that he unbends anonymously. Only one of the diversions of his muse appears in his published works—and that is his invocation “To a Mosquito,” which begins thus:—

Fair insect! that with thread-like legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about,
In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins would bleed,
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need.

One day, when Mr. Bryant discovered in a fresh number of the _Atlantic Monthly_ a so-called poem, which struck him as uncommonly absurd, he sat down and produced a travesty of it, which was much more effective in its ridicule than any sharper criticism could have been made. Here are the two in conjunction:—

THE “ATLANTIC” POEM.

Bellying earth no anchor throws
Stouter than the breath that blows;
Night and sorrow cling in vain;
It must toss in day again.

Hospital and battle-field,
Myriad spots where fate is sealed,
Brinks that crumble, sins that urge,
Plunge again into the surge.

How the purple breakers throw
Round me their insatiate glow.
Sweep my deck of hideous freight,
Pour through fastening and grate.

BRYANT’S TRAVESTY.

Squint-eyed bacchanals at play,
Keep a Lybian holiday,
Leading trains of solemn apes,
Tipsy with the blood of grapes.

Forty furies—thirty more
Than old Milton had before—
Scattering sparkles from their hair,
Swing their censers in the air.

Toss the flaming goblet off,
Heed not ocean’s windy scoff;
Let him dash against the shore,
Gape and grin, and sweat and roar.

Since which time nothing has been heard of the Atlantic poet! Only those who were “behind the scenes,” in the office of the _Evening Post_, in the year 1863, knew the authorship of the burlesque—and the burlesque itself will never appear in the poet’s “collected works.”

ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE.

I lifted off the lid with anxious care,
Removed the wrappages, stripe after stripe,
And when the hidden contents were laid bare,
My first remark was: “Mercy, what a pipe!”

A pipe of symmetry that matched its size,
Mounted with metal bright—a sight to see—
With the rich umber hue that smokers prize,
Attesting both its age and pedigree.

A pipe to make the Royal Friedrich jealous,
Or the great Teufelsdröck with envy gripe!
A man should hold some rank above his fellows
To justify his smoking such a Pipe!

What country gave it birth? What blest of cities
Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal?
What happy artist murmured, “_Nunc dimittis_,”
When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl?

Has it been hoarded in a monarch’s treasures?
Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war?
Did the great Khalif in his “House of Pleasures”
Wager, and lose it to the good Zaafar?

It may have soothed mild Spenser’s melancholy,
While musing o’er traditions of the past,
Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter Raleigh
Ere sage King Jamie blew his _Counterblast_.

Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern,
Escape that monarch’s pipoclastic ken?
Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern,
Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben?

Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creations
Loom through its smoke—the spectre-haunted Thane,
The Sisters at their ghastly invocations,
The jealous Moor and melancholy Dane.

’Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets
Titania may have led her elfin rout,
Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets,
Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out.

Vain are all fancies—questions bring no answer;
The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains;
He were indeed a subtle necromancer
Could read their records in its cloudy stains.

Nor this alone: its destiny may doom it
To outlive e’en its use and history—
Some plowman of the future may exhume it
From soil now deep beneath the Eastern sea—

And, treasured by some antiquarian Stultus,
It may to gaping visitors be shown,
Labeled, “The symbol of some ancient Cultus,
Conjecturally Phallic, but unknown.”

Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel
’Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things?
Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral,
ὥς ψύλλων γενεή, as Homer sings?

For this: Some links we forge are never broken;
Some feelings claim exemption from decay;
And Love, of which this pipe was but the token,
Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away.

THE HUMAN EAR.

A sound came booming through the air—
“What is that sound?” quoth I.
My blue-eyed pet, with golden hair,
Made answer presently,
“Papa, you know it very well—
That sound—it was Saint Pancras Bell.”

My own Louise, put down the cat,
And come and stand by me;
I’m sad to hear you talk like that,
Where’s your philosophy?
That sound—attend to what I tell—
That sound was _not_ Saint Pancras Bell.

“Sound is the name the sage selects
For the concluding term
Of a long series of effects,
Of which that blow’s the germ.
The following brief analysis
Shows the interpolations, Miss.

“The blow which, when the clapper slips,
Falls on your friend the Bell,
Changes its circle to ellipse,
(A word you’d better spell),
And then comes elasticity,
Restoring what it used to be.

“Nay, making it a little more,
The circle shifts about.
As much as it shrunk in before
The Bell, you see, swells out;
And so a new ellipse is made,
(You’re not attending, I’m afraid).

“This change of form disturbs the air,
Which in its turn behaves
In like elastic fashion there,
Creating waves on waves;
Which press each other onward, dear,
Until the outmost finds your ear.

“Within that ear the surgeons find
A _tympanum_, or drum,
Which has a little bone behind,—
_Malleus_, it’s called by some;
But those not proud of Latin Grammar
Humbly translate it as the hammer.

“The wave’s vibrations this transmits
On to the _incus_ bone,
(_Incus_ means anvil, which it hits),
And this transfers the tone
To the small _os orbiculure_,
The tiniest bone that people carry.

“The _stapes_ next—the name recalls
A stirrup’s form, my daughter—
Joins three half-circular canals,
Each filled with limpid water;
Their curious lining, you’ll observe,
Made of the auditory nerve.

“This vibrates next—and then we find
The mystic work is crowned;
For then my daughter’s gentle Mind
First recognizes sound.
See what a host of causes swell
To make up what you call ‘the Bell.’”

Awhile she paused, my bright Louise,
And pondered on the case;
Then, settling that he meant to teaze,
She slapped her father’s face.
“You bad old man, to sit and tell
Such gibberygosh about a Bell!’”

SIR TRAY: AN ARTHURIAN IDYL.

The widowed Dame of Hubbard’s ancient line
Turned to her cupboard, cornered anglewise
Betwixt this wall and that, in quest of aught
To satisfy the craving of Sir Tray,
Prick-eared companion of her solitude,
Red-spotted, dirty white, and bare of rib,
Who followed at her high and pattering heels,
Prayer in his eye, prayer in his slinking gait,
Prayer in his pendulous pulsating tail.
Wide on its creaking jaws revolved the door,
The cupboard yawned, deep-throated, thinly set
For teeth, with bottles, ancient canisters,
And plates of various pattern, blue or white;
Deep in the void she thrust her hooked nose
Peering near-sighted for the wished-for bone,
Whiles her short robe of samite, tilted high,
The thrifty darnings of her hose revealed;—
The pointed feature travelled o’er the delf
Greasing its tip, but bone or bread found none
Wherefore Sir Tray abode still dinnerless,
Licking his paws beneath the spinning-wheel,
And meditating much on savoury meats.

Meanwhile the Dame in high-backed chair reposed
Revolving many memories, for she gazed
Down from her lattice on the self-same path
Whereby Sir Lancelot ’mid the reapers rode
When Arthur held his court in Camelot,
And she was called the Lady of Shalott
And, later, where Sir Hubbard, meekest knight
Of all the Table Round, was wont to pass,
And to her casement glint the glance of love.
(For all the tale of how she floated dead
Between the city walls, and how the Court
Gazed on her corpse, was of illusion framed,
And shadows raised by Merlin’s magic art,
Ere Vivien shut him up within the oak.)
There stood the wheel whereat she spun her thread;
But of the magic mirror nought remained
Save one small fragment on the mantelpiece,
Reflecting her changed features night and morn.

But now the inward yearnings of Sir Tray
Grew pressing, and in hollow rumblings spake,
As in tempestuous nights the Northern seas
Within their cavern cliffs reverberate.
This touched her: “I have marked of yore,” she said,
“When on my palfry I have paced along
The streets of Camelot, while many a knight
Ranged at my rein and thronged upon my steps,
Wending in pride towards the tournament,
A wight who many kinds of bread purveyed—
Muffins, and crumpets, matutinal rolls,
And buns which buttered, soothe at evensong;
To him I’ll hie me ere my purpose cool,
And swift returning, bear a loaf with me,
And (for my teeth be tender grown, and like
Celestial visits, few and far between)
The crust shall be for Tray, the crumb for me.”
This spake she; from their peg reached straightway down
Her cloak of sanguine hue, and pointed hat
From the flat brim upreared like pyramid
On sands Egyptian where the Pharaohs sleep,
Her ebon-handled staff (sole palfry now)
Grasped firmly, and so issued swiftly forth;
Yet ere she closed the latch her cat Elaine,
The lily kitten reared at Astolat,
Slipped through and mewing passed to greet Sir Tray.