Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

* Arcangelo-angel of the bow-the name belonging, most characteristically, to

Corelli.

[blocks in formation]

Here the theme assumed a measure somewhat more stately and serene, and thus proceeded ere it relapsed into the familiar

Honour to him who in that city wide

Through which thou, Thames, dost roll thy changeful tide,

And in that temple there to me upraised,

Erst waked the strain, while Wonder mutely gazed!

Sweet were the tones that trembled from his bow,
And sweet the sympathies they taught to flow:
Lovers, not yours emotions half so pretty,
When with embracing arm you span your Letty!

(ECHO) Spagnoletti !

[blocks in formation]

The succeeding notes, less "audible and full of vent," melted away in gradual indistinctness, and the singular effusion ceased; while Echo, as if overcome by her exertions, fainted away, yet with a smile lingering about her pallid lips, and was caught in the arms of a small dingylooking sprite, "got up" in bluish-grey mixture, whom I surmised to be Distance, and who proceeded to the vanishing point with her immediately. Thames opened his capacious mouth into a grin, ducked his head with reverential awkwardness towards Apollo, and then soused, eels over heels, into the water, on the way to his bed. Glorious Apollo, in an attitude of easy grace, and holding in extension the instrument which had been the eloquent minister to his thoughts, was received again into the cloud, which gradually receded from my view.

Just at that seasonable instant, the rattle of a large cinder, which fell within the fender, brought me back with opened eyes to the narrow scene of my own private apartment, and terminated a dream as circumstantial, I will venture to affirm, as the experience of any living slumberer can furnish.

"Well, Mr. Amateur, it was but a dream!"

Yes! my too literal friend and reader-but is there nothing to be gained of real purpose from a dream? Is it all visionary that comes to us through a vision ? I would suggest the contrary. If to consider as a compliment to England the language and the locale through which this my dream presented itself, were to consider too curiously, at least there is one general hint of good honest value to be derived from it; I mean as regards the great importance of expression, the highest of all musical attributes. Let my worthy countrymen look to it. Postponing lesser things to greater-holding "execution" in strict subservience to meaning-let them ever study, in their cultivation of that subtle and marvellous exponent of mind and fancy, the violin, to do that which is at once most difficult and most delightful-to "make it speak!”

G. D.

MR. CABOOZE AND JAMES BEVAN.

A leetle ANECDOTE" OF TWO ENGLISHMEN IN NASSAU.

A MORE terrible drinker than Mr. Cabooze

Ne'er walk'd out at elbows, nor died in his shoes,

He began in a morning, at half after ten,

To ring for his big drop of brandy, and then

To gasp at a small cup of coffee at most,
And coquette with the ghost

Of a thin piece of toast,-

And top that with brandy-a strong paulo-post!
Rather faint at eleven,

He rang for James Bevan,

(For he kept a man-servant, and none of the dames,)
And he said to him very despondingly,-" James !
Whip an egg up-in sherry,
For I'm very low-very!

My eyes see all objects in specks, James, and curves,
And the devil is playing a fugue on my nerves."

Now James, who seem'd suffering his master's complaint,
For his eyelids were red and his figure was faint,—
Bow'd,-and then in a saunter

Search'd out the decanter,

And down in a very dim room-nothing loath,

Though with something of nausea, and something of sloth-
Whipp'd two eggs in two sherries,—and comforted both.
At two a slight luncheon

And a pull from the puncheon
Of antique Jamaica (to refuse which a sin is)

Just to keep down the cream-be-crown'd goblet of Guinness.
At half after four,

Or a pinch of time more,

By way of refresher, stomachic, or so,
Cold soda, sublimed by the indolent flow
Of the sweet-bitter, glutinous, rich Curaçoa.

[blocks in formation]

At night, lunch the second,

A reason is reckon'd

*

For brandy (just haunted by water) in heaps,
Till the deluge subdues the Cabooze till he sleeps
As still as a mouse and as sound as a Turk,
Quite fitted next day for the same sort of work!
You'd say all this drinking could never go on--
Could never be borne

From evening till morn,

From the morn to the noon-
From noon, I believe,

To what's call'd "dewy eve:"

You'd say this in England could ne'er be the tune;
Well, it was not in England-at Schwalbach 'twas done;
Langen Schwalbach, whose rills

Bathe the fair Taunus hills

That place where (see Head) the hot springs, like pea-soup,
Receive sallow souls in a carroty group;

Where the German in silence the nastiness swills,
And the pigs go in parties to dine on the hills;
Where a tin crooked horn

Is blown every morn,

And the cows all troop forth to the Schwalbach wood
To enjoy much air and a libel on food!

That place where the victims of vapours and gout
Are bathing eternally inside and out.

One sad severe day,

Nearly cold as our May,

After soaking, and soaking, and soaking the clay,
With a friend at a hof,

Up the street, not far off,

Poor Mr. Cabooze-quite be-bottled, bamboozled,
Teetotaciously turn'd out, entirely cafoozled;
And his crony, James Bevan,
Who fetched him at seven,

And was waiting at table from then till eleven,
Sat, respectfully drunk,

On an old German trunk,
Advising his master, through hiccups, to fly
(i. e. Stagger) from brandy and water, to try
The effect of a bed

On a fat, foggy head;

And he beckon'd, and ask'd him intensely to "come!"
And, in Schlangenead fashion, to serpent it home!

Now no one could say that Cabooze was the man
To gorge good advice, or to shrink from his can;

So he sat in a maze,

With his feet on the baize,

And his hand on the glass, and his head in a haze`;
And he very imperfectly wish'd his James Bevan
In a totally opposite quarter from Heaven.

And something he said, 'twixt the lip and the cup,
That by waiting a little, the moon would be up!
So they waited as still as two cherubs at church,
Till with sipping and filling,

And sweet'ning and swilling,

The friend at the hof mutely dropp'd off his perch;
And missing him-not knowing whither he'd wander'd,
Cabooze, at his absence, prodigiously pondered,
And mutter'd, ""Twas anything else but polite
To have slunk off to bed without wishing good night."
And James never saw

The fall'n spirit repose,
In the bloom of a doze,

With his nose very close to the pillar and claw.
Up stagger'd Cabooze ;

And he startled the snooze

From the goose-gogs of Bevan, and broke from the booze ;
And James blunder'd up in an uneven hurry,
And, half in a slumber, and half in a flurry,
The two fell together against one another.
Sans cap, and sans castor,

Deunhen, Pastor, and Master;
The two held together like brother and brother,
And out from the door-an uncertain event-
These mutual supporters, meandering went,
And four very weak feet
Shuffled-stutter'd-and beat
In every direction, in Schwalbach's street.
A rushlight sat up, like a very thin friend,
Blinking and winking as night near'd its end;
The Bath devotees were in slumbers deep,
The long thin pigs were in hungry sleep,-
Not a star was seen,-the expected moon
Came to the sky neither late nor soon;

Not a sound through the pitch-dark street did break,
The iron waters alone were awake:

The Brunnens were bubbling

Bubbling, and troubling—

When Cabooze contrived, with a fumbling fin,
To get at the lock, and to let himself in-

And in the two blunder'd :-the air from the door
Puff'd out the light,-
And in helpless plight,

And the jet of the night,

James and Cabooze stagger'd up to their floor!

Now it here should be told-and truth will be told-

As it ever has been since the times of old

Truth will not be check'd by chains or strings

Ah! " Facts," says George Robins, " are stubborn things;"It here should be told, that Cabooze's ways

Of damping his nights, and of wetting his days,

Made it a matter of prudence that James

« AnteriorContinuar »