delineate the deep stillness and repose of the night that witnessed the assault : Drowsy Tyber lagging laves The city walls, its winking waves With low-breathing hushing gushing, Till the whole stream, with muffled head, "The best place it could possibly have chosen," cried Jibe. "Zooks! Sir, you must have written that passage under the direct inspiration of Morpheus, and ought to be crowned for it with a wreath of poppies. You were full of your subject when you set about it. It is a perfect soporific-an absolute opiate, so somnolent and lulling that-yaw-aw-aw!-excuse me, but I cannot pay you a greater compliment than by showing how completely I sympathise with its influence:-Yaw-aw-aw." Mr. Quill took up this note as soon as it was relinquished by Mr. Jibe; Mr. Snake succeeded; Mr. Ferrett followed, and Mr. Briggs had recommenced half a dozen lines with the words"Dread omens," and been as often interrupted by an audible gape, before he could proceed with his recitation. "Dread omens, inauspiciously reveal'd, Announce her fate-the city's doom is seal'd." "This is nothing," resumed the minstrel, "nothing whatever to my description of the clash of swords, the clank of armour, the rolling of the machines, the groans of the wounded, the cymbals and shouts of the victors. Talk of music-of the Siege of Belgrade, or Steibelt's Storm! I will give any man one of Tomkinson's grand pianos with three pedals, and will undertake to beat him by language alone, so stimulating the imagination through the ear, that the whole scene shall become as visible to the eye as if I had painted it upon a white wall. I do paint, in fact, only dipping my tongue in picturesque words instead of my brush in representative colours-that's the whole secret!But you shall hear the effect of my explosion when Alaric sets fire to the train of gunpowder." 66 "Gunpowder!" ejaculated several voices at once; surely that's an anachronism: have you not got the start of Friar Bacon some five hundred years or so? and will not the critics blow you up with your own combustibles ?"—"I little thought," replied Briggs with a complacent smile, " that such a company, fit audience though few,' would have forgotten that Milton introduces artillery some thousands of years sooner."-" Egad," quoth Jibe, "so he does, and Alaric doubtless took the hint from the blind bard. You see, gentlemen, 'It is not Homer nods, but we that dream.' Now for the explosion, but prythee have mercy upon our persons." "Pray observe," resumed the Poet, "the gradual rolling down of the thick walls, the écroulement, as the French call it "The ponderous walls that circum-rock (how do you like that compound epithet to express rocky solidity?) The ponderous walls that circum-rock the town, Slow crumbling, stumbling, tumbling, rumble jumble down.” "Now mark the difference when a lofty tower falls with a sudden velocity and clutter. Heaved by the writhing earth the towers creak, crack, Then with a crash slap-dash, smash helter-skelter whack!” The tide of risibility which now "burst its continents," overwhelmed the astonished bard. In vain did he attempt to proceed; every effort was quashed by a quotation of his own last line, repeated in every possible variety of accent, gesture, and intonation; and when Jibe procured a momentary silence, he undertook the defence of his friend with an irony so solemn in appearance, and at the same time so ludicrous in intention and effect, that the merriment became more ob streperous than ever. As their host repeatedly emptied his glass in the heat of his poetical furor, some of his company as regularly re-filled it, until he alternately hugged his defender with a maudlin fondness, and hurled defiance at the others with all the vociferation of an irritated and punch-inflamed poet. Jibe fostered his animosity by burlesquely arraigning the bad taste and delinquency of his assailants, and a scene ensued upon which we deem it prudent to drop the curtain, contenting ourselves with stating, in the concluding lines of a well-known song, "Then a quarrel arose, some reflections were cast, But for decency's sake we'll not mention what past, Derry down, down, down, derry down." THE SHRIEK OF PROMETHEUS. SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN THE SECOND BOOK OF APOLLONIUS RHODIUS. FRESH was the breeze, and the rowers plied The island of Mars with its palmy coves, The Sacred Mount, and Aretia's strands, And Philyra's Isle with its linden groves, And Ophir's flood with its shelly sands,— Swiftly they past-till, stretching far, On their right Bechiria's coast appears, Where painted Sapirians, fierce in war, Bristle the beech with bows and spears. At distance they saw the sun-beams quiver As it flung from its rocky mouth the flood. The Argonauts gaze with hungry eyes On the land enrich'd by the Golden Fleece,Already in fancy they grasp the prize, And hear the shouts of applauding Greece. Jason look'd out with a proud delight, While fierce Meleager unsheath'd his brand. Laocöon bade the rowers check Their oars as the sun to the waters slanted, For Orpheus sate with his harp on the deck, And sweetly the hymn of evening chanted, While the heroes round, at each pause of sound, Stretch'd their right hands to the god of day, And fervently join'd in the choral lay. THE HYMN OF ORPHEUS. Twin-born with Dian in the Delos isle, CHORUS. When thou'rt dim, our harp and hymn Hail to thee, Apollo ! God of the art that heals the shatter'd frame, And poetry that soothes the wounded mind, Ten thousand temples, hour'd with thy name, Attest thy ceaseless blessings to mankind. CHORUS. When thou'rt dim, our harp and hymn Hail to thee!-hail to thee! Hail to thee, Apollo ! Thy golden bow emits a gushing strain Of music when the Pythian serpent dies: His eyes flash fire his writhings plough the plain ; Hissing he leaps aloft-then lifeless lies. |