When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan ' Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man, His was the thunder-his the avenging rod, The wrath-the delegated voice of God!
Which shook the nations through his lips-and blazed Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.
And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm The gay creations of his spirit charm, The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit, Which knew not what it was to intermit; The glowing portraits, fresh from life that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought To fulness by the fiat of his thought, Here in their first abode you still may meet, Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat; A halo of the light of other days, Which still the splendour of its orb betrays. But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing wisdom yields a base delight, Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know That what to them seem'd vice might be but woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy, The foe the fool-the jealous-and the vain, The envious who but breathe in others' pain, Behold the host! delighting to deprave, Who track the steps of glory to the grave, Watch every fault that daring genius owes Half to the ardour which its birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the pyramid of calumny! These are his portion-but if join'd to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, If the high spirit must forget to soar, And stoop to strive with misery at the door, To soothe indignity-and face to face Meet sordid rage-and wrestle with disgrace, To find in hope but the renew'd caress, The serpent-fold of further faithlessness,-- If such may be the ills which men assail, What marvel if at last the mightiest fail? Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from heaven, Black with the rude collision, inly torn,
By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne, Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch-and
But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be-if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanish'd beam-and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight.
1 See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr Sheridan's speech on the charges exhibited against Mr Hastings in the House of Commons, Mr Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, to give time for a calmer cousideration of the question than could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration
Ye orators! whom yet our council yield, Mourn for the veteran hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three!! Whose words were sparks of immortality! Ye bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your master-emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence! He was your brother-bear his ashes hence! While powers of mind almost of boundless range, Complete in kind-as various in their change, While eloquence-wit-poesy and mirth, That humbler harmonist of care on earth, Survive within our souls-while lives our sense Of pride in merit's proud pre-eminence, Loug shall we seek his likeness-long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!
Ere the Daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave, And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide, LO! GEORGE the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long cherish'd Isle which he loved like his-bride.
True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone, The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betray'd not, or crush'd not, or wept not her
True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags, The castle still stands, and the senate's no more, And the famine, which dwelt on her freedomless crags, Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.
To her desolate shore-where the emigrant stands For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth; Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands, For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth. But he comes! the Messiah of royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan roll'd from the waves! Then receive him as best such an advent becomes, With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves! He comes in the promise and bloom of three-score, To perform in the pageant the sovereign's part- But long live the Shamrock which shadows him o'er! Could the Green in his hat be transferr'd to his heart!
Could that long-wither'd spot but be verdant again, And a new spring of noble affections arise- Then might Freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain, And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies. Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now? Were he God-as he is but the commonest clay, With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow- Such servile devotion might shame him away. Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride— Not thus did thy GRATTAN indignantly flash His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.
their glory, much about the same time; of these the comet only has disappeared; the other three continue to astonish us still. PRINTER'S DEVIL.
Note 9. Page 504, line 44. Amongst others a new ninepence-a creditable coin now forthcoming, worth a pound, in paper, at the fairest calculation.
Note 10. Page 504, line 51.
«Oh that right should thus overcome might!» Who does not remember the « delicate Investigation» in the « Merry Wives of Windsor?»
«Ford. Pray you come near: if I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me; then let me be your jest; I deserve it. How now? whither bear you
« Mrs Ford. What have you to do whither they bear it?-you were best meddle with buck-washing »
Note 11. Page 504, line 56.
The gentle, or ferocious reader, may fill up the blank as he pleases-there are several dissyllabic names at his
service (being already in the R――t's): it would not be fair to back any peculiar initial against the alphabet, as every month will add to the list now entered for the sweepstakes-a distinguished consonant is said to be the favourite, much against the wishes of the knowing
Note 12. Page 504, line 74
« We have changed all that,» says the Mock Doctor, «'t is all gone-Asmodeus knows where. After all, it is of no great importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone-only to be opened by force-and when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation of being venomous.»
Note 13. Page 504, line 94.
In Turkey a pertinent-here an impertinent and superfluous question-literally put, as in the text, by a Persian to Morier, on seeing a waltz in Pera.- Fide Morier's Travels.
Ar Ferrara (in the library) are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto; and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the cotemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto—at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated; the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.
LONG years-It tries the thrilling frame to bear And eagle-spirit of a Child of song- Long years of outrage, calumny and wrong; Imputed madness, prison'd solitude,
And the mind's canker in its savage mood, When the impatient thirst of light and air Parches the heart; and the abhorr'd grate, Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain With a hot sense of heaviness and pain; And bare, at once, captivity display'd Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gate, Which nothing through its bars admits, save day
And tasteless food, which I have eat alone Till its unsocial bitterness is gone; And I can banquet like a beast of prey, Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave Which is my lair, and—it may be-my grave. All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, But must be borne. I stoop not to despair; For I have battled with mine agony, And made me wings wherewith to overfly The narrow circus of my dungeon wall, And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall; And revell'd among men and things divine, And pour'd my spirit over Palestine, In honour of the sacred war for him, The God who was on earth and is in heaven, For he hath strengthen'd me in heart and limb. That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, I have employ'd my penance to record
How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored.
But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done: My long-sustaining friend of many years! If I do blot thy final page with tears,
Know that my sorrows have wrung from me none. But thou, my young creation! my soul's child! Which ever playing round me came and smiled, And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, Thou too art gone-and so is my delight: And therefore do I weep and inly bleed With this last bruise upon a broken reed. Thou too art ended-what is left me now? For I have anguish yet to bear-and now? I know not that-but in the innate force Of my own spirit shall be found resource. I have not sunk, for I had no remorse,
And look like heralds of eternity:
They pass like spirits of the past,--they speak Like sybils of the future; they have power- The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will, And shake us with the vision that 's gone by, The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so? Is not the past all shadow? What are they? Creations of the mind?-The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. I would recal a vision which I dream'd Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought, A slumbering thought, is capable of years, And curdles a long life into one hour.
I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd, Not by the sport of nature, but of man: These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing-the one on all that was beneath Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young, yet not alike in youth. As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge, The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him; he had look'd Upon it till it could not pass away; He had no breath, no being, but in her's; She was his voice; he did not speak to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight, For his eye follow'd her's, and saw with her's, Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all : upon a tone,
A touch of her's, his blood would ebb and flow, And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share : Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother-but no more; 't was much, For brotherless she was, save in the name Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him; Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why? Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparison'd: Within an antique oratory stood
The boy of whom I spake;-he was alone, And pale, and pacing to and fro; anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 't were With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear What he had written, but he shed no tears. And he did calm himself, and fix his brow Into a kind of quiet: as he paused, The lady of his love re-entered there; She was serene and smiling then, and yet She knew she was by him beloved, she knew, For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd From out the massy gate of that old hall, And mounting on his steed he went his way; And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt With strange and dusky aspects; he was not Himself like what he had been; on the sea And on the shore he was a wanderer; There was a mass of many images Crowded like waves upon me, but he was A part of all; and in the last he lay Reposing from the noon-tide sultriness, Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, While many of his tribe slumber'd around: And they were canopied by the blue sky, So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The lady of his love was wed with one Who did not love her better:-in her home, A thousand leagues from his,-her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy, Daughters and sons of beauty,-but behold! Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be!-she had all she loved, And he who had so loved her was not there To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. What could her grief be?—she had loved him not, Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand Before an altar-with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made The starlight of his boyhood;-as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock That in the antique oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then- As in that hour-a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reel'd around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been- But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, And the remember'd chambers, and the place, The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, All things pertaining to that place and hour, And her who was his destiny, came back, And thrust themselves between him and the light: What business had they there at such a time?
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The lady of his love;-oh! she was changed As by the sickness of the soul; her mind Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes, They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth; she was become The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts Were combinations of disjointed things; And forms impalpable and unperceived Of others' sight familiar were to her's. And this the world calls phrensy; but the wise Have a far deeper madness, and the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift; What is it but the telescope of truth? Which strips the distance of its phantasies, And brings life near in utter nakedness, Making the cold reality too real!
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The wanderer was alone as heretofore, The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compass'd round With hatred and contention; pain was mix'd In all which was served up to him, until Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, ' He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived Through that which had been death to many men, And made him friends of mountains: with the stars
And the quick spirit of the universe He held his dialogues; and they did teach To him the magic of their mysteries; To him the book of night was open'd wide, And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd A marvel and a secret-Be it so.
My dream was past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one
To end in madness-both in misery.
Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?-any thing but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers-as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam, That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. Oh! agony-that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song,
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas-and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, And mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death, When faintness, the last mortal birth of pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning
Of the cold staggering race which death is winning, Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away; Yet so relieving the o'ertortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath,
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain;— And then he talks of life, and how again He feels his spirits soaring-albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek; And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him—and the dizzy Chamber swims round and round-and shadows busy At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, And all is ice and blackness,—and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.
There is no hope for nations!-Search the page Of many thousand years—the daily scene, The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting to be which hath been, Hath taught us nought or little: still we lean On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air; For 't is our nature strikes us down: the beasts Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order-they must go
Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes,
A blindfold bondage where your hire is blows. What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the real; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your sires have left you, all that time, Bequeaths of free, and history of sublime, Spring from a different theme!-Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd, Gushing from freedom's fountains-when the crowd, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud, And trample on each other to obtain The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain, T was not for them, their necks were too much bow'd, And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:- Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds Which they abhor, confound not with the cause Those momentary starts from nature's laws, Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth With all her seasons to repair the blight With a few summers, and again put forth Cities and generations-fair, when free- For, tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!
Glory and empire! once upon these towers With freedom-god-like triad! how ye sate? The league of mightiest nations, in those hours When Venice was an envy, might abate, But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled-with the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship;-even her crimes
Were of the softer order-born of love, She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead, But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread; For these restored the cross, that from above Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy crescent, Which, if it waned and dwindled, earth may thank The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creeking in the ears of those who owe The name of freedom to her glorious struggles; Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And call'd the « kingdom» of a conquering foe,- But knows what all—and, most of all, we know— With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!
The name of commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, For tyranny of late is cunning grown, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeath'd-a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Full of the magic of exploded science- Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime, Above the far Atlantic!-She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheeply earn'd with blood. Still, still, for ever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:-better be Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more, America, to thee!
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