Yet the houses are just alike, you know,—­
    All the houses alike, in a row! 
  And solemn sounds are heard at night,
  And solemn forms shut out the light,
  And hideous thoughts the soul affright: 
    Death and despair, in solemn state,
    In the silent, vaulted chambers wait;
  And up the stairs as your children go,
  Spectres follow them, to and fro,—­
  Only a wall between them, oh! 
    And the darkest demons, grinning, see
    The fairest angels that dwell with thee!

    For the houses are all alike, you know,—­
    All the houses alike, in a row! 
  My chariot waited, gold and gay: 
  “I’ll ride,” I said, “to the woods to-day,—­
  Out to the blithesome woods away,—­
    Where the old trees, swaying thoughtfully,
    Watch the breeze and the shadow’s glee.” 
  I smiled but once, with my joy elate,
  For a chariot stood at my neighbor’s gate,—­
  A grim old chariot, dark as fate. 
    “Oh, where are you taking my neighbor?” I cried. 
    And the gray old driver thus replied:—­

    “Where the houses are all alike, you know,—­
    Narrow houses, all in a row! 
  Unto a populous city,” he saith: 
  “The road lies steep through the Vale of Death
  Oh, it makes the old steeds gasp for breath! 
    There’ll be a new name over the door,
    In a place where he’s never been before,—­
  Where the neighbors never visit, they say,—­
  Where the streets are echoless, night and day,
  And the children forget their childish play. 
    And if you should live next door, I doubt
    If you’d ever hear what they were about
  Who lived in the next house in the row,—­
  Though the houses are all alike, you know!”

DAPHNAIDES: 

OR THE ENGLISH LAUREL, FROM CHAUCER TO TENNYSON.

[Concluded.]

Dorset was still Lord Chamberlain when the death of Shadwell placed the laurel again at his disposal.  Had he listened to Dryden, William Congreve would have received it.  Of all the throng of young gentlemen who gathered about the chair of the old poet at Wills’s, Congreve was his prime favorite.  That his advice was not heeded was long a matter of pensive regret:—­

  “Oh that your brows my laurel had sustained! 
  Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned! 
  The father had descended for the son;
  For only you are lineal to the throne. 
  Thus, when the state one Edward did depose,
  A greater Edward in his room arose."[1]

The choice fell upon Nahum Tate:—­

  “But now not I, but poetry is cursed;
  For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First.”

What particular quality recommended Tate we are not wholly able to explain.  Dryden alleges “charity” as the single impulse of the appointment,—­not the merit or aptitude of the candidate.  But throughout life Dorset continued to countenance Nahum, serving as standing dedicatee of his works, and the prompter of several of them.  We have remarked the want of judgment which Lord Dorset exhibited in his anxious patronage of the scholars and scribblers of his time,—­a trait which stood the Blackmores, Bradys, and Tates in good stead.