I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled or 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 develop, 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 prythee tell us something of thyself,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house!

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

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen we have lost old nations.
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Camby'ses,
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 throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown thy dusty 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 quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,

THE DOCTOR AND HIS APPRENTICE.

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?
O, 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!

295

HORACE SMITH.

XXI. - THE DOCTOR AND HIS APPRENTICE.

A PUPIL of the Esculapian school, ambitious to get on a little faster in physic, asked (if not against the rule) that he might pay a visit with his master to his next patient. The master gave consent, so off they went; and now, before the day had fled, behold them at a sick man's bed.

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and smelt again, and

maneuvers that for Make ready and pre

The master-doctor solemnly perused the patient's face, and o'er his symptoms mused; looked wise, said nothing—an unerring way, when people nothing have to say; then felt his pulse and smelt his cane and paused, and blinked, went through all the customary motions, Death's platoon are meant; a kind of a sent," before the fell discharge of pills and At length the patient's wife he thus addressed: your husband's danger's great, and (what will never his complaint, abate) the man's been eating oysters, I perceive." you 're a witch, I verily believe!" madam replied, and to the truth confessed.

potions.

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Madam,

66 Dear!

Skill so prodigious Bobby, too, admired, and home returning of the sage inquired how these same oysters came into his head. "Psha! my dear Bob, the thing was plain; sure that can ne'er distress thy brain; I saw the shells lie underneath the bed."

So, wise by such a lesson grown, next day Bob ventured forth alone, and to the self-same sufferer paid his court. But soon, with haste and wonder out of breath, returned the stripling minister of death, and to his master made this dread report: Why, sir, we ne'er can keep that patient under! Zounds! such

a maw I never came across! The fellow must be dying, and no wonder, for hang me if he has n't eat a horse!"

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A horse!" the elder man of physic cried, as if he meant his pupil to deride. "How came so wild a notion in your head?" "How! think not in my duty I was idle; like you, I took a peep beneath the bed, and there I saw a saddle and a bridle!"

ANON. (altered).

XXII. THE MODERN PUFFING SYSTEM.

FROM AN EPISTLE TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

UNLIKE those feeble gales of praise
Which critics blew in former days,
Our modern puffs are of a kind
That truly, really, "raise the wind;
And since they 've fairly set in blowing,
We find them the best "trade-winds" going.

What steam is on the deep — and more—
Is the vast power of Puff on shore;
Which jumps to glory's future tenses
Before the present even commences,

And makes "immortal" and "divine" of us
Before the world has read one line of us.

In old times, when the god of song
Drove his own two-horse team along,
Carrying inside a bard or two

-

Booked for posterity "all through," -
Their luggage, a few closed-packed rhymes
(Like yours, my friend, for after-times), –
So slow the pull to Fame's abode,
That folks oft slumbered on the road;
And Homer's self, sometimes, they say,
Took to his night-cap on the way.

But, now,

how different is the story
With our new galloping sons of glory,

Who, scorning all such slack and slow' time,
Dash to posterity in no time!

Raise but one general blast of Puff
To start your author that 's enough!

In vain the critics, set to watch him,
Try at the starting-post to catch him :
He's off- the puffers carry it hollow-
The critics, if they please, may follow.
Ere they 've laid down their first positions,
He's fairly blown through six editions!

In vain doth Edinburgh* dispense
Her blue-and-yellow pestilence

* An allusion to the Edinburgh Review, the Edinburgh edition of which has blue covers, backed with yellow.

PREACHING VERSUS PRACTICE.

(That plague so awful, in my time,
To young and touchy sons of rhyme);
The Quarterly, at three months' date,
To catch the Unread One, comes too late;
And nonsense, littered in a hurry,

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Becomes immortal," spite of Murray.*

297

MOORE.

LAUGH on, fair cousins, for to you all life is joyous yet;
Your hearts have all things to pursue, and nothing to regret;
And every flower to you is fair, and every month is May;
You've not been introduced to Care,- laugh on, laugh on, to-day!
Old Time will fling his clouds ere long upon those sunny eyes;
The voice, whose every word is song, will set itself to sighs;
Your quiet slumbers, hopes and fears will chase their rest away;
To-morrow you'll be shedding tears, - laugh on, laugh on, to-day!
O, yes; if any truth is found in the dull schoolman's theme,
If Friendship is an empty sound, and Love an idle dream, —
If Mirth, youth's playmate, feels fatigue too soon on life's long way,
At least he'll run with you a league, laugh on, laugh on, to-day!
Perhaps your eyes may grow more bright as childhood's hues depart;
You may be lovelier to the sight, and dearer to the heart;
You may be sinless still, and see this earth still green and gay;
But what you are you will not be, - laugh on, laugh on, to-day!
O'er me have many winters crept, with less of grief than joy;
But I have learned, and toiled, and wept, I am no more a boy!
I've never had the gout, 't is true; my hair is hardly gray;
But now I can not laugh like you, laugh on, laugh on, to-day!

I used to have as glad a face, as shadowless a brow;

I once could run as blithe a race as you are running now;
But never mind how I behave, don't interrupt your play,
And, though I look so very grave, laugh on, laugh on, to-day!

A YOUNGSTER at school, more sedate than the rest,

Had once his integrity put to the test;

His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob,
And asked him to go and assist in the job.

PRAED.

He was shocked, sir, like you, and answered, "O, no!
What! rob our good neighbor? I pray you, don't go !
Besides, the man's poor, his orchard's his bread;
Then think of his children, for they must be fed."

*Murray, the publisher of the London Quarterly Review.

"You speak very fine, and you look very grave,
But apples we want, and apples we'll have:
If you will go with us, why, you'll have a share;
If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear."

They spoke, and Tom pondered-"I see they will go :
Poor man! what a pity to injure him so!

Poor man! I would save him his fruit, if I could,
But my staying behind will now do him no good.

"If the matter depended alone upon me,

His apples might hang till they dropped from the tree;
But since they will take them, I think I'll go, too;
He will lose none by me, though I get a few.'
His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease,
And went with his comrades the apples to seize;
He blamed and protested, but joined in the plan;
He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man.

O! THE old, old clock, of the household stock,
Was the brightest thing and neatest;
Its hands, though old, had a touch of gold,
And its chime rang still the sweetest.

COWPER.

'T was a monitor, too, though its words were few,
Yet they lived, though nations altered;

And its voice, still strong, warned old and young,
When the voice of friendship faltered!

"Tick, tick," it said; "quick, quick, to bed,
For ten I've given warning;

Up, up, and go, or else you know

You'll never rise soon in the morning!

A friendly voice was that old, old clock,
As it stood in the corner smiling,

And blessed the time with a merry chime,
The wintry hours beguiling;

But a cross old voice was that tiresome clock,

As it called at daybreak boldly,

When the dawn looked gray o'er the misty way,

And the early air blew coldly.

Tick, tick," it said; "quick out of bed,

For five I've given warning;

You'll never have health, you'll never get wealth,

Unless you 're up soon in the morning."

CHARLES SWAIN.