The lady laid her knitting down, Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, He found a stable for his steed, And welcome for himself, and dinner. If, when he reached his journey's end, And twenty curious scraps of knowledge;-If he departed as he came, With no new light on love or liquor,— Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar. His talk was like a stream which runs It passed from Mahomet to Moses; The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels or shoeing horses. He was a shrewd and sound divine, Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line, He 'stablished Truth, or started Error, The Baptist found him far too deep; The Deist sighed with saving sorrow; And the lean Levite went to sleep, And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow. His sermon never said or showed That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, Without refreshment on the road From Jerome, or from Athanasius; And sure a righteous zeal inspired The hand and head that penned and planned For all who understood, admired, [them, And some who did not understand them. He wrote, too, in a quiet way, Small treatises, and smaller verses And trifles to the Morning Post, He did not think all mischief fair, That if a man's belief is bad, It will not be improved by burning. And he was kind, and loved to sit And share the widow's homelier pottage: At his approach complaint grew mild, And when his hand unbarred the shutter, The clammy lips of Fever smiled The welcome which they could not utter. He always had a tale for me Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus: Cat's-cradle, leap-frog, and Qua genus; To steal the staff he put such trust in; Alack the change! in vain I look For haunts in which my boyhood trifled; The level lawn, the trickling brook, The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled: The church is larger than before; You reach it by a carriage entry: It holds three hundred people more: And pews are fitted up for gentry. Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear (1829.) II. QUINCE. "Fallentis semita vitæ."-Horace. NEAR a small village in the West, My good friend Quince was lord and master! Welcome was he in hut and hall, To maids and matrons, peers and peasants, He won the sympathies of all, By making puns and making presents; Though all the parish were at strife, He kept his counsel and his carriage, And laughed, and loved a quiet life, And shrank from Chancery suits and-mar riage. Sound was his claret and bis head; Warm was his double ale-and feelings; And liked to see his friends around him. Asylums, hospitals, and schools, He used to swear were inade to cozen; And so the beggar at his door Had first abuse, and then a shilling. Some public principles he had, But was no flatterer, nor fretter; He rapped his box when things were bad, |