'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 moment, 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 ther 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 Mer maid, 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 Socinians; 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 He went a step farther; without cough or hem, VOL. II 4 And in happier times, before Atheism grew, With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut; And we all entertain a sincere private notion, 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,- 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) TO TAV, 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,) He makes it quiet clear what he doesn't believe in, Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum, Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb 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 darker 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, 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, He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation, (There's no doubt that he stands in supreme iceolation,) |