Never mind what he touches, one shrieks out Taboo!

And while he is wondering what he shall do, Since each suggests opposite topics for song,

They all shout together you're right! and you're wrong!

"Nature fits all her children with something to do,

He who would write and can't write can surely review,

Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his

Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of his teens,

Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; Having read Johnson's lives of the poets half through,

There's nothing on earth he's not competent to;

He reviews with as much nonchalance as he whistles,

PART I

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,

From business snug withdrawn, Was much contented with a lot That would contain a Tudor cot

'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, And twelve feet more of lawn.

He had laid business on the shelf
To give his taste expansion,
And, since no man, retired with pelf,
The building mania can shun,
Knott, being middle-aged himself,
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!)
A mediæval mansion.

He called an architect in counsel;

"I want," said he, "a - you know

what,

(You are a builder, I am Knott,) À thing complete from chimney-pot Down to the very grounsel;

Here's a half-acre of good land;

Just have it nicely mapped and planned And make your workmen drive on; Meadow there is, and upland too, And I should like a water-view, D' you think you could contrive one? (Perhaps the pump and trough would do,

If painted a judicious blue?)

The woodland I've attended to;'

[He meant three pines stuck up askew, Two dead ones and a live one.]

"A pocket-full of rocks 't would take To build a house of freestone,

But then it is not hard to make
What nowadays is the stone;
The cunning painter in a trice
Your house's outside petrifies,
And people think it very gneiss
Without inquiring deeper;

My money never shall be thrown
Away on such a deal of stone,
When stone of deal is cheaper."

And so the greenest of antiques

Was reared for Knott to dwell in:
The architect worked hard for weeks
In venting all his private peaks
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks
Had satisfied Fluellen;
Whatever anybody had

Out of the common, good or bad,

Knott had it all worked well in;

A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry,
A porter's lodge that was a sty,
A campanile slim and high,

Too small to hang a bell in;

All up and down and here and there,
With Lord-knows-whats of round and

Knott was delighted with a pile
Approved by fashion's leaders:
(Only he made the builder smile,
By asking every little while,

Why that was called the Twodoor style,
Which certainly had three doors?)
Yet better for this luckless man
If he had put a downright ban

Upon the thing in limine;
For, though to quit affairs his plan,
Ere many days, poor Knott began
Perforce accepting draughts, that ran

All ways except up chimney;
The house, though painted stone to mock,
With nice white lines round every block,
Some trepidation stood in,
When tempests (with petrific shock,
So to speak,) made it really rock,

Though not a whit less wooden; And painted stone, howe'er well done, Will not take in the prodigal sun Whose beams are never quite at one With our terrestrial lumber;

So the wood shrank around the knots,

To marry mortgages and loans,
That fathers' hearts were stocks and stones,
And that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones,

To Davy Jones's locker;
Then gave her head a little toss
That said as plain as ever was,
If men are always at a loss

Mere womankind to bridle
To try the thing on woman cross
Were fifty times as idle;
For she a strict resolve had made
And registered in private,
That either she would die a maid,
Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade,

If woman could contrive it;
And, though the wedding-day was set,
Jenny was more so, rather,
Declaring, in a pretty pet,

That, howsoe'er they spread their net,
She would out-Jennyral them yet,

The colonel and her father.

Just at this time the Public's eyes

Were keenly on the watch, a stir
Beginning slowly to arise
About those questions and replies,
Those raps that unwrapped mysteries
So rapidly at Rochester,

And Knott, already nervous grown
By lying much awake alone,
And listening, sometimes to a moan,
And sometimes to a clatter,
Whene'er the wind at night would rouse
The gingerbread-work on his house,
Or when some hasty-tempered mouse,
Behind the plastering, made a towse
About a family matter,
Began to wonder if his wife,
A paralytic half her life,

Which made it more surprising,
Might not to rule him from her urn,
Have taken a peripatetic turn

For want of exorcising.

Or, in his room (his breath grew thick)
He heard the long-familiar click
Of slender needles flying quick,

As if she knit a stocking;

For whom? - he prayed that years might

flit

With pains rheumatic shooting, Before those ghostly things she knit Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, He did not fancy it a bit,

To stand upon that footing;
At other times, his frightened hairs
Above the bedclothes trusting,
He heard her, full of household cares,
(No dream entrapped in supper's snares,
The foal of horrible nightmares,
But broad awake, as he declares,)
Go bustling up and down the stairs,
Or setting back last evening's chairs,
Or with the poker thrusting

The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust -
And what! impossible! it must!
He knew she had returned to dust,
And yet could scarce his senses trust,
Hearing her as she poked and fussed
About the parlor, dusting!

Night after night he strove to sleep
And take his ease in spite of it;
But still his flesh would chill and creep,
And, though two night-lamps he might
keep,

He could not so make light of it.
At last, quite desperate, he goes
And tells his neighbors all his woes,

Which did but their amount enhance; They made such mockery of his fears That soon his days were of all jeers,

His nights of the rueful countenance; "I thought most folks," one neighbor said,

"Gave up the ghost when they were dead?"

Another gravely shook his head,
Adding, "From all we hear, it's
Quite plain poor Knott is going mad
For how can he at once be sad

And think he's full of spirits?"
A third declared he knew a knife
Would cut this Knott much quicker,
"The surest way to end all strife,
And lay the spirit of a wife,

Is just to take and lick her !" A temperance man caught up the word, "Ah yes," he groaned, "I've always heard

Our poor friend somewhat slanted Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch; I fear these spirits may be Dutch, (A sort of gins, or something such,) With which his house is haunted; I see the thing as clear as light, If Knott would give up getting tight, Naught farther would be wanted: " So all his neighbors stood aloof And, that the spirits 'neath his roof Were not entirely up to proof, Unanimously granted.

Knott knew that cocks and sprites werc foes,

And so bought up, Heaven only knows
How
for he wanted crows
To give ghosts caws, as I suppose,

many,

To think that day was breaking;
Moreover what he called his park,
He turned into a kind of ark
For dogs, because a little bark
Is a good tonic in the dark,

If one is given to waking;
But things went on from bad to worse,
His curs were nothing but a curse,

And, what was still more shocking,
Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff
And would not think of going off
In spite of all his cocking.

Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques,
Malays (that did n't lay for weeks,)
Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings,
(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill,
Since each brought in his little bill,)
By day or night were never still,
But every thought of rest would kill

With cacklings and with quorkings; Henry the Eighth of wives got free By a way he had of axing;

But

poor Knott's Tudor henery Was not so fortunate, and he

Still found his trouble waxing;

As for the dogs, the rows they made,
And how they howled, snarled, barked and
bayed,

Beyond all human knowledge is;
All night, as wide awake as gnats,
The terriers rumpused after rats,
Or, just for practice, taught their brats
To worry cast-off shoes and hats,
The bull-dogs settled private spats,
All chased imaginary cats,

Or raved behind the fence's slats

At real ones, or, from their mats,

With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats,
Or, like some folks in white cravats,
Contemptuous of sharps and flats,
Sat up and sang dogsologies.
Meanwhile the cats set up a squall,
And, safe upon the garden-wall,

All night kept cat-a-walling,
As if the feline race were all,
In one wild cataleptic sprawl,
Into love's tortures falling.

PART II

SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW OF SPIRITS

At first the ghosts were somewhat shy,
Coming when none but Knott was nigh,
And people said 't was all their eye,
(Or rather his) a flam, the sly
Digestion's machination:
Some recommended a wet sheet,
Some a nice broth of pounded peat,
Some a cold flat-iron to the feet,
Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat,
Some a southwesterly grain of wheat;
Meat was by some pronounced unmeet,
Others thought fish most indiscreet,
And that 't was worse than all to eat
Of vegetables, sour or sweet,
(Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,)
In such a concatenation:
One quack his button gently plucks
And murmurs, "Biliary ducks!"

Says Knott, "I never ate one;
But all, though brimming full of wrath,
Homœo, Allo, Hydropath,
Concurred in this-that t' other's path
To death's door was the straight one.
Still, spite of medical advice,
The ghosts came thicker, and a spice

Of mischief grew apparent;
Nor did they only come at night,
But seemed to fancy broad daylight,
Till Knott, in horror and affright,

His unoffending hair rent;
Whene'er with handkerchief on lap,
He made his elbow-chair a trap,
To catch an after-dinner nap,
The spirits, always on the tap,
Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap,
The half-spun cord of sleep to snap,

(And what is life without its nap
But threadbareness and mere mishap ?)
As 't were with a percussion cap

The trouble's climax capping;
It seemed a party dried and grim
Of mummies had come to visit him,
Each getting off from every limb
Its multitudinous wrapping;
Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round,
The merest penny-weights of sound;
Sometimes 't was only by the pound
They carried on their dealing,
A thumping 'neath the parlor floor,
Thump-bump-thump-bumping o'er and o'er,
As if the vegetables in store
(Quiet and orderly before)

Were all together peeling; You would have thought the thing was done

By the spirit of some son of a gun,
And that a forty-two-pounder,
Or that the ghost which made such sounds
Could be none other than John Pounds,

Of Ragged Schools the founder.
Through three gradations of affright,
The awful noises reached their height;

At first they knocked nocturnally, Then, for some reason, changing quite, (As mourners, after six months' flight, Turn suddenly from dark to light,)

Began to knock diurnally,

And last, combining all their stocks,
(Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,)
Into one Chaos (father of Nox,)
Nocte pluit-they showered knocks,
And knocked, knocked, knocked, eter-
nally;

Ever upon the go, like buoys,
(Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys,
They turned to troubles and a noise
That preyed on him internally.

Soon they grew wider in their scope;
Whenever Knott a door would ope,
It would ope not, or else elope
And fly back (curbless as a trope
Once started down a stanza's slope
By a bard that gave it too much rope —)
Like a clap of thunder slamming;
And, when kind Jenny brought his hat,
(She always, when he walked, did that,)
Just as upon his head it sat,
Submitting to his settling pat,
Some unseen hand would jam it flat,
Or give it such a furious bat