“ O’er heaven’s pure azure sheds her sacred light;
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll;
And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole.
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain’s head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
Parody
As when an alderman just dubb’d a knight,
Doth his fat comrades to a feast invite ”

“ Truths take live forms that make a hope for labour,
Though rare,
When life seems sweeter with each bright hope’s neighbour—
Dreams fair.
Progress had not been crushed nor lost its spell
For men,
Had Rousseau never found the tyrant’s knell,
His pen.
Had Gladstone’s self ne’er poured the words that burn
For token,
The voice of Right for myriads who earn
Had spoken.
13
And yet these truths which show to us immortal
To-day,
When swart Injustice sees through its last portal
Decay;
The joy these truths can give to heart and soul,
And pour
Glory on prophets gone who filled the roll
Of yore ”

“ Pollio, with flame like thine, my verse inspire,
So shall the Muse from smoke elicit fire.
Coxcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff;
Yet all their claim to wisdom is—a puff:
Lord Fopling smokes not—for his teeth afraid:
Sir Tawdry smokes not—for he wears brocade.
Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon;
They love no smoke, except the smoke of town;
But courtiers hate the puffing tribe,—no matter,
Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter!
Its foes but shew their ignorance; can he
Who scorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree? ”

“ At last the eager multitude fall back, and dawn of day discovers the happy occupant within, with the elements still pouring their fury upon the devoted driver in an eternity of hail and rain, as on and on he goes into the far suburbs, with his dim lamps burning, and the fare inside asleep and snoring, as if there were no tempest trying every chink and cranny of the shaky vehicle, and no half-drowned cabby outside with only a moist billycock on his head, and sleepily yawning so wide that the spirits of the air, if they could exist on such a night, might look into the unfathomable depths below. ”

“ A Young Poet’s Advice.
You should study the bards of to-day
Who in England are now all the rage;
You should try to be piquant and gay;
Your lines are too solemn and sage. 65
You should try to fill only a page,
Or two at the most with your lay;
And revive the quaint verse of an age
That is fading forgotten away.
Study Lang, Gosse, and Dobson, I pray—
That their rhymes and their fancies engage
Your thought to be witty as they.
You must stand on the popular stage. ”

“ Hang the grace of Wordsworth, leaving nothing to unsay!
Let the Poet’s shriek go forth falsetto—Rail away!
By the grace of trust in reason dolts have lived and died
By the fear of noisy folly tongues have oft been tied,
By the strength of rabid ranting reason’s now defied.
Lest perchance your reckoning, with good manners mar your verse
Halt and hearken lords of language, who would plump your purse
Be not tied by taste’s restrictions; learn to howl and curse!
Where we stand of slang to come, scarce falls a sprinkling spray
But the wave of Billingsgate that’s coming who shall stay? ”

“ And lit up into life a cigar.
And then, as its sweet breath came forth with good-will,
The sky didn’t look half so gruff;
’Till I felt like a player or poet, who still
Gets more happy at every puff.
And said I to myself, since mere vapour thus soothes,
Why should men their bliss ever mar?
Life’s cold spots it warms, and its rough places smoothes,
And each pleasure is but a cigar! ”

“ The world is always large. Society is small. But Tom Harry and Miss Lade were in the world. They were not in Society! He had to seek her out of Society. Endeavour to catch a globule of mercury in a drawer. It flies—it escapes—it separates into atoms—it joins again and rolls away—it is lost—it is found—it is never secured! It eludes you—it is a demon—a wild spirit that vanishes as you think you grasp it! So was Miss Lade to Tom Harry! ”

“ Is it the Portrait merely or the Man himself that ye have come out for to see? Be you friend or foe to him, is there not in this counterfeit presentment of him—this wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting (not on trees only) man—something which almost attaches you? Is it not the attitude and face of a man who hath said to Cant, ‘Begone!’ to Dilettantism, ‘Here canst thou not be!’ and to Truth, ‘Be thou in place of all—ay, of ‘place’ itself to me!’—a man who hath manfully defied the ‘Time-Prince’ or Devil to his face, by all weapons, in all places, at all times? ”

“ Jack Harris before his Conversion.
Come down to me, cling to me, lay thy red lips on me, love,
Let me drown in thy bountiful beauty, O glorious consecrate dove,
Made fit for the vigil of Venus, made fair by the Cyprian dame,
Made fair in the form of a maiden, a medley of music and flame;
For the world grows giddy around us, and swoons, and the pale souls preach
Poor fables of sorrow and virtue, and all that the grey gods teach,
But we clasp and we bite and we madden, and I worship your throat and your hair. ”

“ The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as dry as starch.
Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its gales that parch.
What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest winds that blow?
Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for blinding snow?
No, no, your lips are eloquent, Algernon, set in Apollo’s own genuine arch;
But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that setteth your figures aglow,
Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind of March!
Punch. ”

“ He has nothing to gain by it all, they say; he does not make money, like the forger of a cheque; he can seldom sell his forgery to advantage, as the latest biblical forger, Shapira, of the sham manuscript gospel, discovered. He merely poisons the very wells of history and throws doubt on all original “sources.” People who reason thus forget that every artist takes joy in his art, and that all art is imitation. The art of the forger is to imitate ancient manuscripts and inscriptions. L’Art pour l’art is his motto. He revels in his own cleverness and power of deceiving others. ”

“ Hither come chattering voices from the stalls, pit, and recesses of the theatre, where the chairs remain sole occupants of the place, and seem to say, “Ah, ha, here we are, snug for the night!”
Here in the eagerness of regained liberty, they storm and push each other, while the tempest falls in sheets of water, and howls above them. On and on in countless crowds they rush, like human billows. Men and women, hats, bonnets, and umbrellas, draggled dresses in one rushing wet mass. ”

“ My good young people, this is pre-eminently the foolishest—yes, quite the foolishest—notion that you can get into your empty little egg-shells of heads; that you can be a Titian, or a Raphael, or a Phidias; or that you can write like Seneca. But because you cannot be great, that is no reason why you should not aspire to greatness. In joy, humility, and humbleness, work together. Only don’t study art because it will pay, and do not ask for payment because you study art. Art will make you all wiser and happier, and is worth paying for. ”

“ Here was to be seen, in variegated garb, such a galaxy of beauty as Shropshire seldom sees, assembled to render homage to the great Lawn-Tennis Champion, and to witness the feats of some of England’s doughtiest players.
Here were to be seen the eagle-eyed volleyer, the deft half-volleyer, the swift server, and the nimble net-player; while here, too, the quick cut, the treacherous twister, and the brilliant back-hander were exhibited on all sides in their purest perfection.
“Advantage, we win,” repeated Sphairistikos. ”

“ She is dying. But, O kindly Mother of the Dead, thou sendest through the Portal of Ivory a gentle Dream. Through the closing eyes of Alphonsine that Dream looks forth, and its look falls upon that glowing censer, which glares like the eye of a Demon. Full into that Demon-eye looks the Dream, unscared, and what sees it there? Alphonsine dreams that a mighty and a pitying Voice hath come forth from the Treasure-house of Fate, and hath said unto that fiery charcoal, Be as thou wert wont to be. ”

“ So, O man, when in the darkness of thine own chamber, thou passeth thine hand along the furry spine of this feline phantom of the back yard, the electric sparks dart forth, and a flash of lightning fuses together the fingers and the fur.
Exquisite antithesis of Nature! The fireside embraces the ocean. The hearthstone is paved with seashells. The monsters of the deep disport, reflected in the glowing embers. The infinite Abroad is brought into amalgamation with the finite at Home.
The ocean roars.
The cat only purrs.
The billows rise and culminate and break. ”

“ A noble creature is the camel. Compared with that Caucasian of beasts, the shapeless quadruped of the Northern, is but an ass!
Ever and anon, through the moist perfumed twilight, steals a delicious breeze. Delicious, but melancholy. For in that breeze floats a prophet’s sigh. The cypress moans as it passes; and the palm-tree bows its proud head in honour to it, as it flies along! On the holy barrenness of the saintly brow of Lebanon, the moon’s rays fall reverently, and Lebanon looks holier under their light.
In the court in front of the counting-house of an Emir, sits De Tankard. ”

“ Fountain of bards who have conquered Time;
(Others must do with inferior tanks)
This is the era of run-mad rhyme.
Cold though their verse as the sea-shore shingle,
Common and cheap as the nails in the planks,
Empty as frothiest blather of Fingal,
Pointless as ends of the cats of the Manx,
Still the mere fact that their lines are not “blanks”
Helps them the Mount of Parnassus to climb,
Strengthens their unwinged Pegase’s shanks:
This is the era of run-mad rhyme.
Who shall reign over us sole and single? ”

“ He, since Kean, most fully realises the author’s idea of the style of man best suited to fill the part—‘a man of sable hue, and one in whose soul there’s something o’er which his melancholy sits and broods.’ But the secret of Irving’s success lies in his fine annihilation of self—a rare quality among players—combined with an originality which triumphs over tradition. There is a marked naturalness about his acting of this character, bottomed on enthusiasm. Like genius, he seems at times to have the power of kindling his own fire into any degree of intensity. ”

“ Through that we feel, with bliss,
That, whatever worlds come after,
A jolly old world is this.
Come to me, O! my meerschaum,
And whisper to me here,
If you like me better with coffee
Than grog, or the bitter beer.
Oh! what are our biggest winnings
If peaceful content we miss?
Though fortune may give us an innings,
She seldoms conveys us bliss.
You’re better than all the fortunes
That ever were made or broke;
For a penny will always fill you,
And buy me content with a smoke.
Wrongfellow.
The Pipe and the Quid.
An imitation of Longfellow’s
“The Arrow and the Song.” ”

“ Oho! for the days when Endymion
Thro’ love o’er Diana did reign!
These, these were Elysian, St. Simeon,
Our Patron of Pain!”
“We’ll crown us with myrtle and laurel,
We’ll wreathe us in Paphian flowers,
To be and make others immoral,
We’ll ply our poetical powers;
Our worship shall be Aphrodite’s,
To woman the wine we will drain,
O, loveless and lonely Stylites,
Our Patron of Pain!” ”

“ In a spacious room—richly furnished—but dim—dim—as her aching soul. Gorgeous curtains shut out the light—the blessed light! It fell on all alike—that day—on the infant in his cradle—on the dead man in his coffin. On the kennel—on the palace—on Dombey straying away from Ball’s-pond—on Perch looking after him fruitlessly (in public houses) . On Mr. and Mrs. Gay, and the Captain and Gills—all on the steamer’s deck going to eat the marriage feast at a pleasant suburban tavern called the Red House, Battersea—on Toots in the patent safety—on Carker with the teeth, in a cell of Newgate. ”

“ Oh! no doubt, every year some man gets the Newdigate; but not every year does Newdigate get an Oscar. Since then—barely three years, but centuries to such as I am—I have stood upon the steps of London Palaces—in South Kensington—and preached Æsthetic art. I have taught the wan beauty to wear nameless robes, have guided her limp limbs into sightless knots and curving festoons, while we sang of the sweet sad sin of Swinburne, or the lone delight of soft communion with Burne-Jones. ”

“ Benonia (for it was indeed he!) sneered. “Have you ever seen a Mediterranean white squall, or a whirlwind in the Desert?” he asked.
“Alas, no!” was the reply. “I must soon visit the glorious East, the parent of religion, civilization, science, and art,” and the dark eyes of De Tankard glowed with Eastern fire.
“Ah, you are young,” exclaimed Benonia, with enthusiasm. “Glorious youth! By youth have all great deeds been accomplished. Ransack the history of ages. The fact is stamped on every line. ”

“ The interest excited by the other appointments sinks into nothing compared with that which must be felt in the promotion of Lord R. Churchill to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House of Commons. There is, doubtless, much that may be said against the appointment to so responsible a position of one who has had so brief an experience of official life, and who has hitherto been more remarkable for brilliancy than discretion. On the other hand, Lord Randolph Churchill possesses the debating power and the dauntless spirit which are indispensable to a successful leader. ”

“ And now that the rage of your rhythmical rapture, your revel of rhyming has finished its flow,
Oh, incontinent Algernon Charles, what the dickens you mean by such rubbish I should like to know.
How, how can you love and rejoice, you, leader and lord of the lyrists of curses and scorn,
In a beast of a month that half drives one to madness, and makes a man wish he had never been born? ”

“ Was it woe for a woman who jilted,
Or dread of your debts or a dun?
Or was it your nose was tip-tilted,
Or a frivolous fancy for fun?
Did duty, dark despot, decide you,
That fame to the dogs must be hurled
Or was it a whim, woe betide you,
To worry the world?
Five shillings ye fine the frail freshmen,
Five shillings, which cads call a crown,
Men caught in your merciless mesh, men
Who care not for cap or for gown. ”

“ The listening crowd admire the lofty sound;
“A present deity!” they shout around;
“A present deity!” the vaulted roofs rebound.
Chorus.
With ravish’d ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the God,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musican sung,
Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young!—
The jolly god in triumph comes!
Sound the trumpets! beat the drums!
Flush’d with a purple grace,
He shows his honest face,
Now give the hautboys breath! he comes! he comes!
Bacchus ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain:
Chorus. ”

“ There are who say that Barry Sullivan is the leading legitimate actor of the British stage—a big distinction, which few will, perhaps, be disposed to deny him. But the difference between Sullivan and Irving is, I take it, this: Sullivan has the toga virilis, and the old and obvious canons of his art; Irving is an actor less by tradition than instinct. Sullivan’s rich baritone, with its harmonious and not-without-skill-delivered periods, stirs the whole house like the sound of a trumpet: Irving’s shriller pipe is fuller of Nature’s own rhetoric for a finer few. Sullivan may fill the theatre ”

“ Broken down in health and fortune, men forgot her very name,
Till the news that she was dying woke the echoes of her fame;
And the papers in their gossip mentioned how an “actress” lay
Sick to death in humble lodgings, growing weaker every day.
One there was who read the story in a far-off country place,
And that night the dying woman woke and looked upon his face.
Once again the strong arms clasped her that had clasped her long ago,
And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast of Ostler Joe. ”