In some outlandish place, the city Rome,

In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long ;
Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look,
Nor lifted nose from lapstone; let the world
Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in
The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up.
Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay,
And took his praise from government, you see;
For something like two dollars every week,
He'd engage tell you some one little thing
Of some one man, which led to many more,
(Because one truth leads right to the world's end,)
And make you that man's master-when he dined
And on what dish, where walked to keep his health
And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus
His sense out, like an anteater's long tongue,
Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassible,

And when 't was crusted o'er with creatures-slick,
Their juice enriched his palate. "Could not Sludge!"

I'll go yet a step further, and maintain,
Once the imposture plunged its proper depth
In the rotten of your natures, all of you,-
(If one 's not mad nor drunk, and hardly then)
It 's impossible to cheat-that 's, be found out!
Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine,

All to-day's tale, how you detected Sludge,
Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess,
And so has come to grief! You'll find, I think,
Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face.

There now, you've told them! What's their prompt

66

reply?

Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me,

I'd disbelieve him. He may cheat at times;

That's in the medium '-nature, thus they 're made,

Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch.
And so all cats are; still, a cat 's the beast
You coax the strange electric sparks from out,
By rubbing back its fur; not so a dog,

Nor lion, nor lamb: 'tis the cat's nature, sir!

Why not the dog's? Ask God, who made them beasts!

D'ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man (Like me”—aside)—" like you yourself,”—(aloud) "He's stuff to make a 'medium?' Bless your soul, 'Tis these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs, Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire!

We must take such as we find them, 'ware their tricks,
Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you—

How, I can't say, not being there to watch:
He was tried, was tempted by your easiness,-
He did not take in me!"

Thank you for Sludge!

I'm to be grateful to such patrons, eh,

When what you hear 's my best word? 'Tis a chal

lenge;

Snap at all strangers, you half-tamed prairie-dog, So you cower duly at your keeper's nod!

Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them
Only to me! Cheat others if you can,

Me, if you dare!" And, my wise sir, I dared-
Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next,
And had the help of your vaunted manliness
To bully the incredulous. You used me?
Have not I used you, taken full revenge,
Persuaded folk they knew not their own name,

And straight they'd own the error! Who was the fool

When, to an awe-struck, wide-eyed, open-mouthed
Circle of sages, Sludge would introduce
Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke
Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek

In noughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms
To crotchet and quaver? I've made a spirit squeak
In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke

Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles—

Have copied some ghost's pothooks, half a page,

Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised.

"All right! The ghost was merely using Sludge,

Suiting itself from his imperfect stock!"

Don't talk of gratitude to me! For what?
For being treated as a showman's ape,
Encouraged to be wicked and make sport,
Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood
So long as the ape be in it and no man—
Because a nut pays every mood alike.
Curse your superior, superintending sort,

Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb

To cure your chimney, bid a "medium" lie

To sweep you truth down! Curse your women too,
Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up
Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs,
Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge
As only a "medium," only the kind of thing
They must humour, fondle . . oh, to misconceive
Were too preposterous! But I've paid them out!
They 've had their wish-called for the naked truth,
And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare :
They had to blush a little and forgive!

"The fact is, children talk so; in next world
All our conventions are reversed,—perhaps

Made light of: something like old prints, my dear!

The Judge has one, he brought from Italy,

A metropolis in the background,-o'er a bridge,
A team of trotting roadsters,-cheerful groups
Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work,
And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not?
Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier,
And never a rag among them: 'fine,' folk cry-
And heavenly manners seem not much unlike!
Let Sludge go on; we'll fancy it's in print!"
If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn,
Where is the wrong I did them? 'Twas their choice;
They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up
And lost, as some one 's sure to do in games;
They fancied I was made to lose,-smoked glass
Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes:
And had I proved a red-hot iron plate
They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind,
Whose were the fault but theirs? While, as things go,
Their loss amounts to gain, the more 's the shame!
They 've had their peep into the spirit-world,
And all this world may know it! They 've fed fat
Their self-conceit which else had starved: what chance
Save this, of cackling o'er a golden egg

And compassing distinction from the flock,
Friends of a feather? Well, they paid for it,
And not prodigiously; the price o' the play,
Not counting certain pleasant interludes,