Thinking such small concessions sage,
To meet the spirit of the age,
And do what best that spirit flatters,
In Wigs-if not in weightier matters.
Wherefore, to please the Czar, and show
That we too, much-wronged Bourbons, know
What liberalism in Monarchs is,
We have conceded the New Friz!
Thus armed, ye gallant Ultras, say,"
Can men, can Frenchmen, fear the fray?
With this proud relic in our van,
And D'Angoulême our worthy leader,
Let rebel Spain do all she can,
Let recreant England arm and feed her,-
Urged by that pupil of Hunt's school,
That Radical, Lord Liverpool-
France can have nought to fear-far from it--
When once astounded Europe sees
The wig of Louis, like a Comet,
Streaming above the Pyrenees,
All's o'er with Spain-then on, my sons,
On, my incomparable Duke,
And, shouting for the Holy Ones,
Cry Vive la guerre-et la Perruque!
EXTRACTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TRAVELLING MEMBER OF THE POCO-CURANTE SOCIETY, 1819.
Different Attitudes in which Authors compose.-Bayes, Henry Stephens, Herodotus, &c.-Writing in Bed-in the Fields.-Plato and Sir Richard Blackmore-Fiddling with Gloves and Twigs.-Madame de Staël.Rhyming on the Road, in an old Calèche.
WHAT various attitudes and ways,
And tricks, we authors have in writing!
While some write sitting, some, like Bayes,
Usually stand, while they're inditing.
Poets there are, who wear the floor out,
Measuring a line at every stride;
While some, like Henry Stephens, pour out
Rhymes by the dozen, while they ride.*
Herodotus wrote most in bed;
And Richerand, a French physician,
Declares the clock-work of the head
Goes best in that reclined position.
If you consult Montaigne+ and Pliny on
The subject, 'tis their joint opinion
That Thought its richest harvest yields
Abroad, among the woods and fields;
That bards, who deal in small retail,
At home may, at their counters, stop;
But that the grove, the hill, the vale,
Are Poesy's true wholesale shop.
Pleraque sua carmina equitans composuit. -Paravicin. Singular. + "Mes pensées dorment, si je les assis."-Montaigne. Animus eorum qul in aperto aere ambulant, attollitur. -Pliny.
And, verily, I think they're right—
For, many a time, on summer eves,
Just at that closing hour of light,
When, like an Eastern Prince, who leaves
For distant war his Haram bowers,
The Sun bids farewell to the flowers,
Whose heads are sunk, whose tears are flowing
Mid all the glory of his going!-
Even I have felt, beneath those beams,
When wandering through the fields alone,
Thoughts, fancies, intellectual gleams,
Which, far too bright to be my own,
Seemed lent me by the Sunny Power,
That was abroad at that still hour.
If thus I've felt, how must they feel,
The few, whom genuine Genius warms;
Upon whose souls he stamps his seal,
Graven with Beauty's countless forms ;-
The few upon this earth, who seem
Born to give truth to Plato's dream,
Since in their souls, as in a glass,
Shadows of things divine appear,
Reflections of bright shapes that pass
Through fairer worlds, beyond our sphere!
But this reminds me I digress ;-
For Plato, too, produced, 'tis said,
(As one, indeed, might almost guess,)
His glorious visions all in bed.*
'Twas in his carriage the sublime
Sir Richard Blackmore used to rhyme ;
And (if the wits don't do him wrong)
'Twixt death + and epics passed his time,
Scribbling and killing all day long—
Like Phoebus in his car, at ease,
Now warbling forth a lofty song,
Now murdering the young Niobes.
There was a hero 'mong the Danes,
Who wrote, we're told, 'mid all the pains
And horrors of exenteration,
Nine charming odes, which, if you'll look,
You'll find preserved, with a translation,
By Bartholinus in his book.‡
*The only authority I know for imputing this practice to Plato and Herodotus, is a Latin Poem by M. de Valois on his Bed, in which he says:
Lucifer Herodotum vidit Vesperque cubantem,
Desedit totos heic Plato sæpe dies.
↑ Sir Richard Blackmore was a physician, as well as a bad poet.
Eâdem curâ nec minores inter cruciatus animam infelicem agenti fuit Asbiorno Pruda Danico heroi, cum Bruso ipsum, intestina extrahens, immaniter torqueret, tunc enim novem carmina cecinit, &c.-Bartholin. de Causis Contempt. Mort
In short, 'twere endless to recite
The various modes in which men write.
Some wits are only in the mind,
When beaus and belles are round them parting;
Some, when they dress for dinner, find
Their muse and valet both in waiting;
And manage at the self-same time,
To adjust a neckcloth and a rhyme.
Some bards there are who cannot scribble
Without a glove to tear or nibble;
Or a small twig to whisk about-
As if the hidden founts of Fancy,
Like those of water, were found out
By mystic tricks of rhabdomancy.
Such was the little feathery wand,
That, held for ever in the hand
Of her who won and wore the crown
Of female genius in this age,
Seemed the conductor, that drew down
Those words of lightning to her page.
As for myself to come, at last,
To the odd way in which I write—
Having employed these few months past
Chiefly in travelling, day and night,
I've got into the easy mode,
You see of rhyming on the road-
Making a way-bill of my pages,
Counting my stanzas by my stages-
'Twixt lays and re-lays no time lost-
In short, in two words, writing post.
My verses, I suspect, not ill
Resembling the crazed vehicle
(An old calêche, for which a villain
Charged me some twenty Naps at Milan)
In which I wrote them-patched up things,
On weak, but rather easy springs,
Jingling along, with little in 'em,
And (where the road is not so rough,
Or deep or lofty, as to spin 'em
'Down precipices) safe enough.-
Too ready to take fire I own,
And then, too, nearest a break-down ;
But, for my comfort, hung so low,
I haven't, in falling, far to go.
With all this, light, and swift, and airy,
And carrying (which is best of all)
But little for the Dogauieri
Of the Reviews to overhaul.
* Made of paper, twisted up like a fan or feather.
View of the Lake of Geneva from the Jura.*-Anxious to reach it before the Sun went down.—Obliged to proceed on Foot.-Alps.-Mont Blanc.-Effect of the Scene.
TWAS late-the sun had almost shone
His last and best, when I ran on,
Anxious to reach that splendid view,
Before the day-beams quite withdrew;
And feeling as all feel, on first
Approaching scenes, where, they are told,
Such glories on their eyes will burst,
As youthful bards in dreams behold.
'Twas distant yet, and, as I ran,
Full often was my wistful gaze
Turned to the sun, who now began
To call in all his out-post rays,
And form a denser march of light,
Such as beseems a hero's flight.
Oh, how I wished for Joshua's power,
To stay the brightness of that hour!
But no-the sun still less became,
Diminished to a speck, as splendid
And small as were those tongues of flame,
That on the Apostles' heads descended!
'Twas at this instant-while there glowed
This last, intensest gleam of light-
Suddenly, through the opening road,
The valley burst upon my sight!
That glorious valley, with its Lake,
And Alps on Alps in clusters swelling,
Mighty, and pure, and fit to make
The ramparts of a Godhead's dwelling.
I stood entranced and mute-as they
Of Israel think the assembled world
Will stand, upon that awful day,
When the Ark's Light, aloft unfurled,
Among the opening clouds shall shine,
Divinity's own radiant sign!
Mighty Mont Blanc, thou wert to me,
That minute, with thy brow in heaven,
As sure a sign of Deity
As e'er to mortal gaze was given.
Not ever, were I destined yet
To live my life twice o'er again,
Can I the deep-felt awe forget,
The ecstacy that thrilled me then!
* Between Vattay and Gex.
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