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'Tis not deep as a river, but who'd have it deep? In a country where scarcely a village is found That has not its author sublime and profound, For some one to be slightly shoal is a duty, And Willis's shallowness makes half his beauty. His prose winds along with a blithe, gurgling error, And reflects all of Heaven it can see in its mirror "Tis a narrowish strip, but it is not an artifice,'Tis the true out-of-doors with its genuine hearty phiz;

It is Nature herself, and there's something in that, Since most brains reflect but the crown of a hat. No volume I know to read under a tree,

More truly delicious than his A l' Abri,

With the shadows of leaves flowing over your book,

Like ripple-shades netting the bed of a brook With June coming softly your shoulder to look

over,

Breezes waiting to turn every leaf of your book

over,

And Nature to criticize still as you read,

The page that bears that is a rare one indeed.

"He's so innate a cockney, that had he been born

Where plain bare-skin's the only full-dress that is

worn,

He'd have given his own such an air that you'd

say

'T had been made by a tailor to lounge in Broad

way.

His nature's a glass of champagne with the foam

on't,

As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont;

So his best things are done in the flush of the mo

ment,

If he wait, all is spoiled; he may stir it and shake it,

But, the fixed air once gone, he can never re-make it.

He might be a marvel of easy delightfulness,

If he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightfulness;

And he ought to let Scripture alone-'tis selfslaughter,

For nobody likes inspiration-and-water.

He'd have been just the fellow to sup at the Mermaid,

Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye to the barmaid,

His wit running up as Canary ran down,—

The topmost bright bubble on the wave of The Town.

"Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a

man

Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban,

(The Church of Socinus, I mean)-his opinions Being So- (ultra) -cinian, they shocked the Socin

ians;

They believed-faith I'm puzzled—I think I may call

Their belief a believing in nothing at all,

Or something of that sort; I know they all went
For a general union of total dissent:

He went a step farther; without cough or hem,
He frankly avowed he believed not in them;
And, before he could be jumbled up or prevented,
From their orthodox kind of dissent he dissented.
There was heresy here, you perceive, for the right
Of privately judging means simply that light
Has been granted to me, for deciding on you,

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And in happier times, before Atheism grew,
The deed contained clauses for cooking you, too.
Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, yet our
foot

With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut;

And we all entertain a sincere private notion, That our Thus far! will have a great weight with the ocean.

'Twas so with our liberal Christians: they bore With sincerest conviction their chairs to the shore; They brandished their worn theological birches, Bade natural progress keep out of the Churches, And expected the lines they had drawn to prevail With the fast-rising tide to keep out of their pale ; They had formerly dammed the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.;

But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming,

And cared (shall I say ?) not a d-- for their damming;

So they first read him out of their church, and next minute

Turned round and declared he had never been in it.

But the ban was too small or the man was too big, For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a

fig;

(He don't look like a man who would stay treated shabbily,

Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the features of Rabe

lais;)

He bangs and bethwacks them, their backs he

salutes

With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the

roots;

His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht,

Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, that he's no faith in,)

Pan, Pillicock, Shakspeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson,

Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jonson, Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Monis,

Musæus, Muretus, hem,-u Scorpionis,

Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac-Mac-ah! Machiavelli,

Condorcet, Count d'Orsay, Conder, Say, Ganganelli,

Orion, O'Connell, the Chevalier D'O,

(See the Memoirs of Sully) Tо Tаv, the great toe Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to pass For that of Jew Peter by good Romish brass,— (You may add for yourselves, for I find it a bore, All the names you have ever, or not, heard before, And when you've done that—why, invent a few more.)

His hearers can't tell you on Sunday beforehand, If in that day's discourse they'll be Bibled or Koraned,

For he's seized the idea (by his martyrdom fired,)
That all men (not orthodox) may be inspired;
Yet though wisdom profane with his creed he may
weave in,

He makes it quiet clear what he doesn't believe in,
While some, who decry him, think all Kingdom
Come

Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum,

Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb
Would be left, if we didn't keep carefully mum,

And, to make a clean breast, that 'tis perfectly plain

That all kinds of wisdom are somewhat profane; Now P.'s creed than this may be lighter or darken But in one thing, 'tis clear, he has faith, namely.Parker;

And this is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher,

There's a background of god to each hard-working feature,

Every word that he speaks has been fierily fur

naced

In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest : There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest,

If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least,
His gestures all downright and same, if you will,
As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a drill,
But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke,
Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak,
You forget the man wholly, you're thankful to

meet

With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street,

And to hear, you're not over-particular whence, Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense.

"There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified,

As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified,
Save when by reflection 'tis kindled o' nights
With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern
Lights.

He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your

nation,

(There's no doubt that he stands in supreme iceolation,)

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