I need not ask thee if thy hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldiers mauled and knuckled;
For thou wert dead and buried and embalmed

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows; But prithee tell us something of thyself;

Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house.

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,

What hast thou seen what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above-ground, seen some strange mutations: The Roman Empire has begun and ended;

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast;
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled;
Have children climbed those knees and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh ! immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence!
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless 'tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost forever?
Oh, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

THE THEATRE. BY G. C.

(From "Rejected Addresses.")

HORACE SMITH.

"T IS sweet to view, from half-past five to six,
Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,
Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,
Start into light, and make the lighter start;
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane;
While gradual parties fill our widened pit,
And gape and gaze and wonder ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,
Distant or near, they settle where they please;
But when the multitude contracts the span,
And seats are rare, they settle where they can.
Now the full benches to late-comers doom
No room for standing, miscalled standing room.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks,
And bawling "Pit full!" gives the check he takes ;
Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram,
Contending crowders shout the frequent damn,
And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.
See, to their desks Apollo's sons repair,-

Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
In unison their various tones to tune,

Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
In soft vibrations sighs the whispering lute,

Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,

Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling harp;
Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,

Attunes to order the chaotic din.

Now all seems hushed- but, no, one fiddle will
Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still.
Foiled in his crash, the leader of the clan
Reproves with frowns the dilatory man;
Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,
Nods a new signal, and away they go.

What various swains our motley walls contain!—
Fashion from Moorfields, honor from Chick Lane;
Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;
From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain,
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane;
The lottery-cormorant, the auction-shark,
The full-price master and the half-price clerk;
Boys who long linger at the gallery door,

With pence twice five-they want but twopence more;
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares,

And sends them jumping up the gallery stairs.
Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk,
But talk their minds - we wish they'd mind their talk ;
Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live-
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;
Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,
That for old clothes they 'd even axe St. Mary;
And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait;
Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse
With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

Yet here, as elsewhere, Chance can joy bestow,
For scowling fortune seemed to threaten woe.
John Richard William Alexander Dwyer
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;
But when John Dwyer 'listed in the Blues,
Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes.
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy
Up as a corn-cutter a safe employ;

In Holy-well Street, St. Pancras, he was bred
(At number twenty-seven, it is said),
Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head;
He would have bound him to some shop in town,
But with a premium he could not come down.
Pat was the urchin's name a red-haired youth,
Fonder of purl and skittle grounds than truth.

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,
The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat,
But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat:
Down from the gallery the beaver flew,
And spurned the one to settle in the two.
How shall he act? Pay at the gallery door

Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four?

Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,
And gain his hat again at half-past eight?
Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,

John Mullens whispers, "Take my handkerchief."

"Thank you," cries Pat; "but one won't make line." "Take mine," cried Wilson; and, cried Stokes, "Take mine."

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,

Where Spitalfields with real India vies.

Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clew,

Stained, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue.

Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.

George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last kerchief to the beaver's band,—
Upsoars the prize! The youth with joy unfeigned
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat.

JAMES SMITH.

VOL. XVII. — -82

JOHN SMITH.

SMITH, (Captain) JOHN, famous English adventurer and colo nist; born at Willoughby, Lincolnshire, January, 1579; died at London, June 21, 1631. He was one of the founders of Virginia, who in 1607 settled in Jamestown. He was an energetic, restless spirit who had the welfare of Virginia sincerely at heart, but was better fitted for roaming in search of adventure than for the sober business of colonization. The famous story of the saving of his life by Pocahontas, here given from "The Generall Historie," does not occur in the earlier "True Relation," and for that reason has been questioned by some historians. It is, however, accepted in the main by Mr. John Fiske in his "Virginia and her Neighbors" as also by some other historical critics. His writings include “A True Relation of such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as hath Passed in Virginia" (1608); "A Map of Virginia" (1612); "Description of New England" (1616); "New England's Trials" (1620); "The Generall Historie of Virginia" (1624); "An Accidence, or Pathway to Experience" (1826), reprinted in 1627 as "The Seaman's Grammar;" "The True Travels of Captain John Smith" (1630).

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH IN VIRGINIA.

Ar last they brought him to Weronocomoco, where was Powhatan their Emperor. Here more than two hundred of those grim Courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had beene a monster; till Powhatan and his trayne had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedsted, he sat covered with a great robe, made of Rarowcun skinnes, and all the tayles hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of 18 or 19 yeares, and along on each side the house, two rowes of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red; many of their heads bedecked with the white downe of Birds; but every one with something: and a great chayne of white beads about their necks. At his entrance before the King, all the people gave a great shout.