The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 45 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 45 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.
no more—­and of his paws, “very hands, as you may say,” miserable matches to his miserable feet.  To know him as he is, you must go to Senegal; or if that be too far off for a trip during the summer vacation, to the Rock of Gebir, now called Gibraltar, and see him at his gambols among the cliffs.  Sailor nor slater would have a chance with him there, standing on his head on a ledge of six inches, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, without ever so much as once tumbling down; or hanging at the same height from a bush by the tail, to dry, or air, or sun himself, as if he were flower or fruit.  There he is, a monkey indeed; but you catch him young, clap a pair of breeches on him, and an old red jacket, and oblige him to dance a saraband on the stones of a street, or perch upon the shoulder of Bruin, equally out of his natural element, which is a cave among the woods.  Here he is but the ape of a monkey.  Now if we were to catch you young, good subscriber or contributor, yourself, and put you into a cage to crack nuts and pull ugly faces, although you might, from continued practice, do both to perfection, at a shilling a-head for grown-up ladies and gentlemen, and sixpence for children and servants, and even at a lower rate after the collection had been some weeks in town, would you not think it exceedingly hard to be judged of in that one of your predicaments, not only individually, but nationally—­that is, not only as Ben Hoppus, your own name, but as John Bull, the name of the people of which you are an incarcerated specimen?  You would keep incessantly crying out against this with angry vociferation, as a most unwarrantable and unjust Test and Corporation Act.  And, no doubt, were an Ourang-outang to see you in such a situation, he would not only form a most mean opinion of you as an individual, but go away with a most false impression of the whole human race. Blackwood’s Magazine.

* * * * *

SONNET WRITTEN IN THE SPRING.

How heavenly o’er my frame steals the life-breath
Of beautiful Spring! who with her amorous gales
Kissing the violets, each stray sweet exhales
Of May-thorn, and the wild flower on the heath. 
I love thee, virgin daughter of the year! 
Yet, ah! not cups,—­dyed like the dawn, impart
Their elves’ dew-nectar to a fainting heart!—­
Ye birds! whose liquid warblings far and near
Make music to the green turf-board of swains;
To me, your light lays tell of April joy,—­
Of pleasures—­idle, as a long-loved toy;
And while my heart in unison complains,
Tears like of balm-tree flow in trickling wave,
And white forms strew with flowers a maid’s untimely grave!
New Monthly Mag.

* * * * *

THE KING OF ARRAGON’S LAMENT FOR HIS BROTHER.[1]

“If I could see him, it were well with me!” Coleridge’s Wallenstein.

There were lights and sounds of revelling in the vanquished city’s halls,
As by night the feast of victory was held within its walls;
And the conquerors filled the wine-cup high, after years of bright blood shed: 
But their Lord, the King of Arragon, ’midst the triumph, wailed the dead.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.