Error on Error grows and swells,
For, as a certain proverb tells,
"When once a man has lost his way,-" But you have read it,--or you may.
Girt with a crowd of listening graces,
With expectation on their faces,
Chattering, and looking all the while
As if he strove to hide a smile
That fain would burst Decorum's bands,
Alfred Duval, the hoaxer, stands.
Alfred! the eldest born of Mirth!
There is not on this nether earth
So light a spirit, nor a soul
So little used to all control.
Frolic, and Fun, and Jest, and Glee,
Burst round him unremittingly;
And in the glances of his eyes
Ever his heart's good-humour flies,
Mild as the breezes of the South;
And while, from many a wiser mouth,
We drink the fruits of education,
The solid Port of conversation,—
From Alfred's lips we seem to drain
A ceaseless flow of bright Champagne.
In various shapes his wit is found;
But most it loves to send around,
O'er half the town, on Rumour's gale,
Some marvellously-fashioned tale,
And cheat the unsuspecting ear
With groundless hope or groundless fear.
To speak in civil words-his bent
Lies sadly to-Embellishment.
"Sir!" says Morality, "you know
You shouldn't flatter Falsehood so:
The Nurse that rocked you in your crib,
Taught you to loathe and scorn a fib,
And Shakspeare warns you of the evil,
Saying, 'Tell truth, and shame the Devil!'
I like, as well as you, the glances
Where gay Good-Humour brightly dances;
But when a man tells horrid lies,
You shouldn't talk about his eyes."
Madam! you'll think it rather odd
That, while I bow me to the rod,
And make no shadow of defence,
I still persist in my offence;
And great and small may join to blame
The echo of the Hoaxer's fame;
But be it known to great and small,-
I can't write sermons at a ball.
'Tis Alfred fills the public prints
With all the sly, ingenious hints
That fly about, begirt with cares,
And terrify the Bulls and Bears.
Unrivalled statesman! War and peace
He makes and breaks with perfect ease;
Skilful to crown and to depose,
He sets up kings and overthrows;
As if apprenticed to the work,
He ties the bowstring round the Turk,
Or makes the Algerine devout,
Or plagues His Holiness with gout,
Or drives the Spaniards from Madrid
As quick as Bonaparte did.
Sometimes at home his plots he lays,
And wildly still his fancy plays.
He pulls the Speaker from the Chair,
Murders the Sheriffs, or the Mayor,
Or drags a Bishop through the mire,
Or sets the Theatres on fire,
Or brings the weavers to subjection,
Or prates of mobs and insurrection.
One dash of his creative pen
Can raise a hundred thousand men ;
They march! he wills, and myriads fall;-
One dash annihilates them all!
And now, amid that female rout, What scandal doth he buzz about? What grand affair or mighty name Intrusts he to the gossip Fame ? Unchecked, unstayed, he hurries on With wondrous stories of the Ton; Describes how London ladies lose Their heads in helmets, like the Blues;
And how the highest circles meet
To dance with pattens on their feet!
And all the while he tells his lie
With such a solemn gravity,
That many a Miss parades the room,
Dreaming about a casque and plume;
And vows it grievously must tire one
To waltz upon a pump of iron.
Jacques, the Cantab! I see him brood, Wrapped in his mental solitude,
On thoughts that lie too deep, I wis,
For such a scene and hour as this.
Now shall the rivers freeze in May,
Coquettes be silent at the play;
Old men shall dine without a story,
And mobs be civil to a Tory!
All miracles shall well befall,
When Youth is thoughtful at a ball.
From thoughts that grieve, and words that
And names invented to perplex ;
From latent findings, never found;
And mystic figures, square and round;
Shapes from whose labyrinthine toil
A Dædalus might well recoil;
He steals one night-one single night,
And gives its moments to delight.
Yet still upon his struggling soul
The muddy wave of Cam will roll,
And all the monsters grim, that float
Upon that dark and mirky moat,
Come jabbering round him-dark equation,
Subtile distinction, disputation;
Notion, idea, mystic schism,
Assumption, proof, and syllogism;
And many an old and awful name
Of optic or mechanic fame.
Look! in the van stern Euclid shows
The Asses' Bridge upon his nose;
Bacon comes forward, sage austere,
And Locke and Paley both are there;
And Newton, with a spiteful hiss,
Points to his "de Principiis."
Yet often, with his magic wand,
Doth Mirth dispel that hideous band;
And then, in strange confusion lost,
The mind of Jacques is tempest-tossed.
By turns, around it come and flee
The dulce, and the utile;
By turns, as Thought or Pleasure wills,
Quadratics struggle with Quadrilles ;
And figures sour, and figures sweet,
Of problems—and of dances-meet
Bisections fight with "down the middles,"
And chords of arcs with chords of fiddles;
Vain are the poor musician's graces;
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