ner.

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the poor youth neither stopped nor Hapless Maxilian! hard was the stayed, till he had reached and pass- struggle between the tears that were ed into the shade of the alley of trees swelling into his eyes and the manly that leads to the gardens-his original shame that would fain restrain them. destination, as he sallied forth from Whitsunday was the high holiday of his own unlightsome rooms. And the year for him, the family festival scarcely, even now, did he venture to from which he had counted and chrolook up, or around him. The erup- nicled his years from childhood uption from the basket, the air-dance of wards. With this vision before him, cakes and apples, continued still be- he had confined himself for the last fore his eyes. In the sounds of distant four or five weeks to those feasts of glee he heard but a vibration of the hope and fancy, from which the guest inhuman multitudinous horse-laugh is sure to rise with an improved ap(åvápa@ceov 752@opea) at the street cor- petite: and yet had put into his purse

Yea, the restrained smile, or a larger proportion of his scanty althe merry glance of pausing or pass- lowance than was consistent with the ing damsel, were but a dimmer reflec- humblest claims of the months ention of the beldam's huggish grin. suing. But the Whitsunday, the alba He was now at the entrance gate. dies, comes but once a-year-to keep Group after group, all in holiday at- it, to give it honour due,ếhe had tire, streamed forward. The music pinched close, and worked hard. Yes, of the wind instruments sounded from he was resolved to make much of himthe gallery ; and louder and thicker self, to indulge his genius, even to a came the din of the merry-makers bottle of claret,

,-a plate of French from the walks, alcoves, and saloon. Olives,-or should he meet, as was not At the very edge of the rippling tide, improbable, his friend, Hunshman, I once saw a bag-net lying, and a poor the Professor of Languages-i. e. á fascinated haddock with its neb through middle-aged German, who taught one of the meshes : and once from the French and Italian : excellent, moregarrison at Villette, I witnessed a bark over, in pork, hams, and sausages, of Greece, a goodly Idriote, tall, and though the anti-judiac part of the lustily manned ; its white dazzling concern, the pork shop, was ostencotton sails all filled out with the sibly managed by Mrs Hunshman, breeze, and even now gliding into the and since her decease, by Miss Lusagrand port, (Porto Grande, forced tia, his daughter-or should he fall to turn about and beat round into in with the Professor, and the fair the sullen harbour of quarantine.- Lusatia, why then, a bowl of Arrack Hapless Maxilian ! the havens of plea- punch, it is the ladies' favourite, he sure have their quarantine, and re- had heard the Professor say, adding pel with no less aversion the plague with a smile, that the French called it of poverty. The Prattique boat hails, contradiction) --Yes, a bowl of punch, and where is his bill of health ? In a pipe-his friend, a townsman and the possession of the Corsair. Then maternal descendant of the celebrated first he recovered his thoughts and Jacob Behmen, had taught him to senses sufficiently to remember that smoke, and was teaching him Theohe had given away-to comprehend sophy-coffee, and a glass of Inniskiland feel the whole weight of his loss. len to crown the solemnity. In this And if a bitter curse on his malig- broken and parenthetic form did the nant star gave a wildness to the vexa- bill of fare ferment in the anticipator's tion, with which he looked upward,

brain : and in the same form, with

some little interpolation, by way of Let us not blame him : for against such gloss, for the Reader's information, chances

have we, sacrificing elegance of style to The heartiest strife of manhood is scarce faith of History, delivered it. proof.

Maxilian was no ready accountant; We may read constancy and fortitude To other souls but had ourselves been but he had acted over the whole exstruck,

penditure, had rehearsed it in detail, Even in the height and heat of our keen from the admission to the concluding wishing,

shilling and pence thrown down with It might have made our heart-strings jar, an uncounting air for the waiter. Volike his !

luptuous Youth!

Old Play. But, ah! that fatal incursion on the VOL. XI.

B

grew wild.”

apple-basket-alf was lost! The brim- The pang was too recent, the blow too ming cup had even touched his lips sudden. Fretfully striking the fireit left its froth on them, when it was spark into the nitred sponge, with dashed down, un tasted, from his hand. glazed eye idly fixed, he transferred The music, the gay attires, the trip- the kindled fragment to his pipe. True ping step and friendly nod of woman, it is, and under the conjunction of the volunteer service, the rewarding friendlier orbs, when, like a captive smile-perhaps, the permitted pres- king, beside the throne of his youthful sure of the hand felt warm and soft conqueror, Saturn had blended his sulwithin the glove-all shattered, as so len shine with the subduing influences many bubbles, by that one malignant of the star of Jove, often had Maxilian shock! In fits and irregular pulses of experienced its truth-that locomotion, hurrying yet lingering, he forced himself alongside the gate, and

The poet in his lone yet genial hour

Gives to his eye a magnifying power : with many a turn, heedless whither

Or rather he emancipates his eyes he went, if only he left the haunts and

From the black shapeless accidents of houses of men behind hiin, he reached

size. at length the solitary banks of the

In unctious cones of kindling coal, streamlet that

pours

itself into the bay Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's south of the Liffey. Close by, stood

trim bole, the rude and massy fragment of an

His gifted ken can see inclosure, or rather the angle where

Phantoms of sublimity. the walls met that had once protected

MSS. a now deserted garden,

But the force and frequence with “ And still where many a garden-flower

which our student now commingled its successive volumes, were better suit

ed, in their effects, to exclude the acHere, beneath a bushy elder-tree, that tual landscape, than to furnish tint or had shot forth from the crumbling ruin, canvas for ideal shapings. Like Dissomething higher than midway from content, from amid a cloudy shrine of the base, he found a grassy couch, a her own outbreathing, be at length sofa or ottoman of sods, overcrept with gave vent and utterance to his feelings wild-sage and camomile. Of all his in sounds more audible than articuproposed enjoyments, one only remain- late, and which at first resembled notes ed, the present of his friend, itself al- of passion more nearly than parts of most a friend—a Meerschaum pipe, speech, but gradually shaped themwhose high and ample bole was filled selves into words, in the following soand surmounted by tobacco of Lusa- liloquy: tian growth, made more fragrant by “ Yes! I am born to all mishap folded leafits of spicyor balsamic plants. and misery!--that is the truth of For a thing was dear to Maxilian, not it!-Child and boy, when did it for what it was, but for that which it fall to my lot to draw king or bishop represented or recalled to him: and on Twelfth Night? Never! Jerry often, while his eye was passing, Sneak or Nincompoop, to a dead cer" O'er hill and dale, thro' CLOUDLAND,

tainty! When did I ever drop my

bread and butter--and it seldom got gorgeous land !"

to my mouth without some such cirhad his spirit clomb the heights of cuit-but it fell on the buttered side? Imaus, and descended into the vales of When did I ever cry, Head! but it Iran, on a pilgrimage to the sepulchre fell tail ? Did I ever once ask, Even of Hafiz, or the bowers of Mosellara.

or odd, but I lost? And no wonder; Close behind him plashed and mur, for I was sure to hold the marbles so mured the companiable stream, beyond awkwardly, that the boy could count which the mountains of Wicklow hung them between my fingers! But this floating in the dim horizon : while full is to laugh at! though in my life I before him rose the towers and pinna- could never descry much mirth in any cles of the metropolis, now softened laugh I ever set up at my own vexaand airy-light, as though they had tions, past or present. And that's anbeen the sportive architecture of air other step-dame trick of Destiny! My and sunshine. Yet Maxilian heard not, shames are all immortal! I do believe, saw not-or, worse still,

Nature stole me from my proper home, He saw them all, how excellently fair- and made a hlight of me, that I might He saw, not felt, how beautiful they were. not be owned again! For I never get older. Shut my eyes, and I can find as forgivingly as I did with that sworn no more difference between eighteen familiar of hers, and Usher of the me and eight me, than between to-day Black Rod, my old schoolmaster, who and yesterday! But I will not remem- used to read his newspaper, when I ber the miseries that dogged my ear- was horsed, and flog me between the lier years, from the day I was first paragraphs! I would forgive her, I breeched ! (Nay, the casualties, tears, say, if, like him, she would have taken and disgraces of that day I never can leave of me at the School Gate. But forget.) Let them pass, however- now, vir et togatus, a seasoned acadeschool-tide and holiday-tide, school mic-that now, that still, that everhours and play hours, griefs, blunders, more, I should be the whipping-stock and

mischances. For all these I might of Destiny, the laughing-stock of Forpardon my persecuting Nemesis! Yea, tune.” I would have shaken hands with her,

*

[We must take Mr COLERIDGE as he chooses to offer himself. We certainly expected to have had a great deal more of this article for the present Number, when we sent the MS. to our Printer ; but we suppose it may very safely be taken for granted that nobody will complain of us for opening our monthly sheets with a fragment indeed—but such a fragment as we are sure nobody but Mr Coleridge could have written.

In case there should be any reader of ours unfortunate enough never to have read Mr Coleridge's FRIEND, we strongly advise him to betake himself to that singular Storehouse of scattered genius, and make himself master of the beautiful letters in which the early history of Idoloclastes Satyrane's mind is displayed. He will then come with infinitely more advantage to the Historie and Gests of Maxilian, and their rich Prologomena.

Mr Coleridge will be behaving himself “something amiss," if we have not the continuation of these “ Select Chapters" ere next month.

C. N.]

SONNET

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Hast thou, in feverish and unquiet sleep,

Dreamt that some merciless dæmon of the air

Raised thee aloft, and held thee by the hair,
Over the brow of a down-looking steep,
Gaping below into a chasm so deep,

That by the utmost straining of thine eye,

Thou canst no base, no resting-place descry;
Not even a bush to save thee, should'st thou sweep
Adown the black descent-that then the hand

Suddenly parted thee, and left thee there,

Holding but by the finger-tips, the bare
And jugged ridge above-that seems as sand,

To crumble 'neath thy touch ?-If so, I deem
That thou hast had rather an ugly slream.

THE NIGHT-BLOWING STOCK.

“Come! look at this plant, with its narrow pale leaves,

And its tall, slim, delicate stem, Thinly studded with flowers-yes, with flowers- there they are, Don't you see, at each joint there's a little brown star?

But in truth, there's no beauty in them.”

“So, you ask, why I keep it, the little mean thing!

Why I stick it up here just in sight? 'Tis a fancy of mine.”—“A strange fancy!" you say, “No accounting for tastes-In this instance you may,

For the flower—but I'll tell you to-night..

“ Some six hours hence, when the Lady Moon

Looks down on that bastion'd wall, When the twinkling stars dance silently On the rippling surface of the sea,

And the heavy night dews fall,

“ Then meet me again in this casement niche,

On the spot where we're standing now,
Nay, question not wherefore-perhaps with me
To look out on the night, and the bright broad sea,

And to hear its majestic flow.”

“ Well, we're met here again ; and the moonlight sleeps

On the sea and the bastion'd wall;
And the flowers there below-how the night wind brings
Their delicious breath on its dewy wings!"
“ But there's one,” say you,

sweeter than all !”

“ Which is it? the myrtle or jessamine,

Or their sovereign lady, the rose ?
Or the heliotrope, or the virgin's bower?
What! neither!"-" Oh no, 'tis some other flower,

Far sweeter than either of those.”

“ Far sweeter! and where, think yon, groweth the plant

That exhaleth such perfume rare?” “Look about, up and down, but take care, or you'll break With your elbow that poor little thing that's só weak."

“ Why, 'tis that smells so sweet, I declare !” “ Ah ha! is it that?-have you found out now

Why I cherish that odd little fright?
All is not gold that glitters, you know;
And it is not all worth makes the greatest show,

In the glare of the strongest light.

“ There are human flowers, full many, I trow,

I
As unlovely as that by your side,
That a common observer passeth by,
With a scornful lip, and a careless eye,

In the hey-day of pleasure and pride.

which gave a certain cynical anima. But always bear in mind, my lads, that tion to his manner, altogether over- this great indulgence I will only allow whelming and unpleasing. While Ed- to good steady men in harbour; for no ward was coolly revolving in his mind person whatever shall escape the most the apparent accuracy of the reported rigorous punishment I can think of at character of his commander, to the li- sea. ving figure before him, the clerk of “ Now, my lads, although I know the cheque came on board, and the that it is not common for officers like boatswain immediately piped Al hands me, commanding his Majesty's vessels to muster, hoy!

of war, to condescend to explain to their No sooner was the clerk gone, than crew their motives for either. thi or the Captain, ordering all hands aft the that punishment, I will yet be so homainmast, took his station at the cap- nest with you as to tell you, that I stan, and began the following speech:- have very weighty reasons for punish“ It has pleased the Lords Commis- ing both these crimes severely. We sioners of the Admiralty, my lads, to sail to-morrow, please God, for the bestow the command of this hooker on North Sea station; and when you me; and as we are to be together in know that it is one which requires the future, I hope we shall agree well, and utmost steadiness, good conduct, and be good friends. I must, however, say, sobriety, both from the variableness of that I am determined to have nothing the climate, and the intricacy of its from you but strict, steady, good dis- occasional navigation, I am certain you cipline. I hold in my hands the Arti- cannot fail of perceiving my reasons cles of War, which are to be, in future, for the punishment of drunkenness ; the rules of every man's conduct; and since it principally proceeds on a deit shall be my fault if they are not termination I have long ago formed, strictly enforced; but as most of you that every man, while God grants him already know them, I shall refrain health, shall always keep himself in a from; reading them at this time, cer- state fit for duty, and not trundle his tain as I am, that those among you labour on the shoulders of some other who have never heard them, will, very poor fellow, who has no manner of bulikely, think they hear them soon siness with it ; while he, forsooth, is enough. Two things, however, I must either pigging it below, under his mention ; for, by the sacred Power mess-table, or else scampering the that made me, I am determined to en- decks like a fool and a madman, creforce them with the utmost strictness, ating confusion, disorder, and mutiny and to punish all aggressors without wherever he comes. Again, when you mercy. The first of these things is, I recollect how very short most of you never will forgive a thief; and the se- are in the necessary rigging for a North cond, I never will forgive a drunkard. Sea winter, you certainly can neither Now, pay attention, my lads; I say I think me harsh nor cruel, in severely never will forgive e'er a one of you who punishing the scoundrel who would turns out to be either a thief or a deprive e'er a one of you of the most drunkard. No-so help me God, I trifling article of wearing apparel. I will punish a thief in the severest man- would ill perform my own duty were ner wherever I catch him ; ay, though I to do otherwise ; and it's a long look I should leave my cott, and burn an forward before pay-day appears, inch of candle at it. Regarding drunk- “ You now know my mind, my enness, my lads, I will take another lads, on the two principal points I ever way. You all know it to be a low, lub- mean to quarrel with you on. I am berly, beastly crime, to which, God going on 'shore to take leave of my knows, we are all liable enough at friends; and as some of your old times I mean, therefore, to make messmates may wish to see you before this one exception to its universal pu- we go, I mean you all to be as merry nishment. If it is committed by any as myself; and I shall accordingly

you, while we are in harbour, leave orders for you to receive a double I pledge you my honour, I will be at allowance of grog to-day, with which some pains in considering the offend- you may drink his Majesty's health, er’s general character ; and, as he per- and a good cruize to us—if you have forms his duty at sea, so shall he have any left after that is done, you may every reasonable allowance given him. add my health, and the rest of your

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