And say it won't stir, save the wheel be well wet

afore,

Or lug in some stuff about water "so dreamily,”It is not a metaphor, though, 'tis a simile ;)

A lily, perhaps, would set my mill agoing,

For just at this season, I think, they are blowing, Here, somebody, fetch one, not very far hence They're in bloom by the score, 'tis but climbing a

fence;

There's a poet hard by, who does nothing but fill his

Whole garden, from one end to t'other, with lilies; A very good plan, were it not for satiety,

One longs for a weed here and there, for variety; Though a weed is no more than a flower in disguise,

Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes."

Now there happened to be among Phoebus's followers,

A gentleman, one of the omnivorous swallowers,
Who bolt every book that comes out of the press,
Without the least question of larger or less,
Whose stomachs are strong at the expense of their
head,-

For reading new books is like eating new bread,
One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he
Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy.
On a previous stage of existence, our Hero
Had ridden outside, with the glass below zero;
He had been, 'tis a fact you may safely rely on,
Of a very old stock a most eminent scion,-

A stock all fresh quacks their fierce boluses ply on,

Who stretch the new boots Earth's unwilling to

try on,

Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts keep their

eye on,

Whose hair's in the mortar of every new Zion, Who, when whistles are dear, go directly and buy

one,

Who think slavery a crime that we must not say fie on,

Who hunt, if they e'er hunt at all, with the lion, (Though they hunt lions also, whenever they spy

one,)

Who contrive to make every good fortune a wry

one,

And at last choose the hard bed of honor to die on,
Whose pedigree traced to earth's earliest years,
Is longer than any thing else but their ears ;-
In short, he was sent into life with the wrong key,
He unlocked the door, and stept forth a poor
donkey.

Though kicked and abused by his bipedal betters, Yet he filled no mean place in the kingdom of letters;

Far happier than many a literary hack,

He bore only paper-mill rags on his back;

(For it makes a vast difference which side the mill One expends on the paper his labor and skill ;) So, when his soul waited a new transmigration, And Destiny balanced 'twixt this and that station, Not having much time to expend upon bothers, Remembering he'd had some connexion with authors,

And considering his four legs had grown paraly tic,

She set him on two, and he came forth a critic.

Through his babyhood no kind of pleasure he took

In any amusement but tearing a book;

For him there was no intermediate stage,
From babyhood up to straight-laced middle age;
There were years when he didn't wear coat-tails
behind,

But a boy he could never be rightly defined;
Like the Irish Good Folk, though in length scarce

a span,

From the womb he came gravely, a little old man;
While other boys' trowsers demanded the toil
Of the motherly fingers on all kinds of soil,

Red, yellow, brown, black, clayey, gravelly, loamy,
He sat in the corner and read Viri Romæ.

He never was known to unbend or to revel once In base, marbles, hockey, or kick up the devil once;

He was just one of those who excite the benevolence

Of your old prigs who sound the soul's depths with a ledger,

And are on the look out for some young men to

"edger

cate," as they call it, who won't be too costly, And who'll afterward take to the ministry mostly; Who always wear spectacles, always look bilious, Always keep on good terms with each materfamilias

Throughout the whole parish, and manage to rear Ten boys like themselves, on four hundred a year; Who, fulfilling in turn the same fearful conditions, Either preach through their noses, or go upon

missions.

In this way our hero got safely to college, Where he bolted alike both his commons and knowledge;

A reading-machine, always wound up and going, Ho mastered whatever was not worth the knowing,

Appeared in a gown, and a vest of black satin,
To spout such a Gothic oration in Latin,

That Tully could never have made out a word in it, (Though himself was the model the author preferred in it,)

And grasping the parchment which gave him in fee,

All the mystic and-so-forths contained in A. B.,
He was launched (life is always compared to a

sea,)

With just enough learning, and skill for the using it,

To prove he'd a brain, by forever confusing it.
So worthy Saint Benedict, piously burning
With the holiest zeal against secular learning,
Nesciensque scienter, as writers express it,
Indoctusque sapienter â Româ recèssit.

"Twould be endless to tell you the things that he knew,

All separate facts, undeniably true,

But with him or each other they'd nothing to do; No power of combining, arranging, discerning, Digested the masses he learned into learning; There was one thing in life he had practical knowledge for,

(And this, you will think, he need scarce go to college for,)

Not a deed would he do, nor a word would he

utter,

Till he'd weighed its relations to plain bread and

butter.

When he left Alma Mater, he practised his wits
In compiling the journals' historical bits,-
Of shops broken open, men falling in fits,

Great fortunes in England bequeathed to poor printers,

And cold spells, the coldest for many past winters,--
Then, rising by industry, knack, and address,
Got notices up for an unbiased press,

With a mind so well poised, it seemed equally made for

Applause or abuse, just which chanced to be paid

for;

From this point his progress was rapid and sure, To the post of a regular heavy reviewer.

And here I must say he wrote excellent articles On the Hebraic points, or the force of Greek particles,

They filled up the space nothing else was prepared

for;

And nobody read that which nobody cared for;
If any old book reached a fiftieth edition,

He could fill forty pages with safe erudition;
He could gauge the old books by the old set of
rules,

And his very old nothings pleased very old fools;
But give him a new book, fresh out of the heart,
And you put him at sea without compass or chart,—
His blunders aspired to the rank of an art;
For his lore was engraft, something foreign that
grew in him,

Exhausting the sap of the native and true in him,
So that when a man came with a soul that was new

in him,

Carving new forms of truth out of Nature's old granite,

New and old at their birth, like Le Verrier's planet,

Which, to get a true judgment, themselves must

create

In the soul of their critic the measure and weight, Being rather themselves a fresh standard of grace,