written sundry sonnets, greatly admired by several of the milliner girls who frequented the shop, when the premises were burnt down by the accidental over-heating of a flue communicating with a sort of furnace used for the partial destruction, by fire, of such goods as were intended to represent the remains of the "damaged articles" saved from the late "dreadful fire in street, and sold for the benefit of the Insurance Office." Mr. Golightly wrote on the occasion very touching "lines," which appeared on the following Saturday in the columns of the "Looking Glass," a two-penny publication which had the honour of first publishing to the world his poetical effusions. During the time which elapsed since we last took leave of Timmy Snooks, he was indefatigable in serving his employers and himself, and the reward of his devotion to the interest of the former was promotion to a more lucrative post in their house, while his economy and self-denial were amply compensated by the possession of ten pounds in the savings-bank, and that delicious feeling of independence generated by the consciousness of possessing money, that "dross"-" trash"-" root of all evil" as it has been unjustly termed by poets, philosophers, and id genus omne, who never were worth a farthing. As soon as Mr. Golightly found himself emancipated from the thraldom of business, he packed up all he possessed in the world in a carpet bag of no very large dimensions, and made an excur- . sion to Gravesend, observing that such a lucky chance could not be expected to occur every day. Here he revelled in poetry for a whole week, until he found his finances verging towards that state in which the late Chancellor of the Exchequer left his on retiring from office. Like his prototype, however, he conjured up bright visions of the future, and returned to town to mix once more in its busy hum. Fully impressed with the idea that he had a soul above buttons," his first step was to offer some of his poetical productions to several of the leading periodicals of the day, with the view of earning an honourable subsistence with his pen. Ah! of how many thousand has that "cacoethes scribendi," prompted by a highly poetical imagination, been the ruin! "A. G.'s" communications were politely declined by some, rudely rejected by others, and by some inserted, with the express understanding that the honour of seeing himself "in print" was to be considered by their "esteemed correspondent" a sufficient equivalent for his pieces. But (would it be believed?) a very few were so insensible to their merit as to demand to be paid at the usual rate of advertisements as the only terms on which they could insert them! Any mind less buoyant than that of our hero would have been fairly swamped by such an accumulation of disappointments; but his was not the gloomy soul which delighted to look on the shadowy side of things. Great indeed must be the misfortune from which he could not glean some consolation. He therefore con soled himself on this occasion by recalling to mind the numerous instances on record of publishers rejecting compositions which afterwards immortalized their authors. In the meantime, finding his finances in a very disordered state, he resolved to borrow the means of present subsistence from his friend Mr. Timothy Snooks, whose acquaintance he had not cultivated as much as usual since he had set up for a professional author. Timothy Snooks, on being applied to by his friend for the loan of a few pounds, gravely shook his head and brought forth one of his proverbs," I lend my money to my friend, I lost my money and my friend." "Hang your confounded proverbs," replied Mr. Golightly, “I will give them the lie on this occasion, at all events. I have every prospect of being regularly engaged to write for the Lookingglass,' and then I shall be able to repay you in a few weeks." "Ah! you'll never do any good while you write poetry; it will be the ruin of you. But I'll tell you what, Ady; as I am anxious to serve you, I will lend you the money on condition that you will give up writing poetical stuff. What say you, do you give it up?" Adolphus Golightly shook his head in a manner which clearly indicated his unwillingness to accede to this proposition. Timothy Snooks, who under a somewhat rough exterior concealed some sterling qualities, finding his friend inflexible in his attachment to those sluts, the muses, gave way at last, and furnished him with the means of extricating himself from his present difficulties, merely observing that "short reckonings make long friends." Adolphus Golightly, finding his poetry somewhat of a drug in the market, turned his attention to a sort of poetical prose, viz., the manufacture of "dreadful accidents" which never had existence, except in his own imaginative brain. By disposing of these to the Sunday papers at a halfpenny a line, he for a time gained a precarious living. He now gave free rein to his fancy, running over elderly gentlemen in every crowded thoroughfare in town, throwing young and interesting ladies out of chaises, and killing them on the spot, committing suicides by the dozens, and making Mr. — run away with the wife of Mr. — till at length his employers brought on themselves such a storm of explanations and recriminations, that they were compelled to dispense with the services of their imaginative correspondent. The next few years of Mr. Golightly's life were spent in sometimes doing one thing and sometimes another; but the pursuit which chiefly occupied his mind during that period was the study of that interesting aerial architecture vulgarly called "building castles in the air." There are some ludicrous instances on record of his absence of mind during those lunar surveys. On one occasion as he was leaving a friend's house, where he had spent the evening, he laid his hat on the table, and walked towards the door with the candlestick in his hand. On another occasion, when he had been fortunate enough to get a situation as copying clerk in some mercantile house in the city, he hit upon the following novel and ingenious expedient of making a sort of rus in urbe in order to stimulate his poetic fancy. He was in the habit of withdrawing to a retired portion of the premises, and arranging the hydraulic machinery in such a manner as to cause a constant stream of water, thereby producing a tolerable correct imitation of a mountain rivulet as it murmurs along its rocky channel. One day, however, overcome by the soporific influence of this artificial cascade, he fell asleep. His fellow clerks, alarmed at his prolonged absence, forced open the door, under the apprehension that he had committed suicide, and found him asleep, with a slip of paper, on which was written the following line, in his hand :: "As Damon reposed by a murmuring stream." Whatever might have been the fate of Damon, had it not been for this unseasonable interruption, that of Mr. Golightly was to be dismissed from his situation. Soon after this affair Adolphus Golightly fell incurably in love with a young and interesting lady of a highly poetical turn of mind; and, after the exchange of a due allowance of poetical sentiment, they were married. It may be easily conceived that this step, however natural, did not tend to extricate our hero from the difficulties into which his poetical temperament was constantly leading him. The next twenty years of his life were agreeably diversified by a constant succession of those hopes, fears, and disappointments usually incident to struggling aspirants after literary fame, whose good-natured and sanguine dispositions prompt them to look eternally on the pleasant side of things, a sort of indemnification kindly intended by nature for the very unpleasant realities inevitably entailed on them by indulging in such sunshiny prospects. During this period of turmoil and trouble on the part of Mr. Golightly, his friend Mr. Snooks had made such good use of his time in dealing out his tea, sugar, and proverbs, that, at the end of some twenty years from the time he first entered the trade as an errand-boy, he became generally known as the "Rich grocer Snooks," of whose prosy speeches at parish meetings, it was said, that they were as heavy as his gold. They were listened to, however, by all with great respect, as were all his other prose articles, and by none more than by Mr. Golightly, who, to do him justice, was much too polite to exhibit any symptoms of ill-breeding under the severest prosaïc infliction from his friend Mr. Snooks. Perhaps this spirit of patient endurance on his part was in some measure to be attributed to the fact that he was nearly the only one whom Mr. Snooks did not treat according to the strict letter of his proverbs. For instance, if Mr. Snooks L happened to be applied to the hundredth time for the loan of money which," without fail," was to be re-paid on a certain day, but which engagement Mr. Golightly, for the hundredth time, failed to fulfill, Mr. Snooks would remark, for the hundreth time, once bit, twice shy," but would, notwithstanding, lend the money. At length a gleam of sunshine seemed to cheer the declining years of Mr. Golightly's life. He became, what he had often sighed for (but had never dared to hope, even in the most palmy days of castle-building), the editor of a country newspaper. Behold, then, Mr. Golightly exercising the important functions of the editor of the Dullborough Independent. One of his first acts was to announce to his readers that a space, to be called "Poet's Corner," should be reserved in the Independent for the future, with the view of cultivating the hitherto latent seeds of poetry in the neighbourhood of Dullborough. Political parties at Dullborough were so evenly poised, that to give a decided support to one or the other, would be to lose just one half of the subscribers; and, as such a state of things would not suit the views of Mr. Golightly's "proprietor," a man of no principles in politics, and a very little more in morality, our editor was under the necessity of framing his leading articles in such a manner as to dispense, as nearly as possible, the same modicum of praise and dispraise, thus producing, by this nutralizing process, an agreeable mixture of alkali and acid, or, as Mr. Snooks (who read all the Independent except "Poet's Corner”) remarked, "a sort of milk and water, which however, yielded excellent cream to the proprietor, lawyer Sharke." Thus does Mr. Golightly pass his time in comparative ease, tending the poetic flowers in his literary parterre, and allaying the occasional out-burst of political party-spirit to which the elections of members of parliament and common councilmen give risc. Mr. Snookes has recently retired from business, and taken up his residence in Dullborough, in order to be near his friend, on whom he inflicts a due allowance of his prose and proverbs; and which Mr. Golightly bears with his usual patience; but whether this is owing to his innate politeness and sense of gratitude, or to some obscure hints thrown out by Mr. Snooks (who has neither chick nor child) to the effect, that he had made his will, and had not forgotten somebody, is perhaps rather doubtful. D. M'I. A TOUR ON THE CONTINENT.* THE author betrays both scholarship, vast reading, and information, joined to an æsthetical sense and sound taste; but he is deficient in the art of rounding his phrases and lending to his verses that easy and readable way of graphical description so peculiar to poetical genius at large. His figures are well chosen, but badly expressed, and his enthusiasm may be true, but is too artificially wrought by language. From travellers par excellence, however, not much excellence can be expected, and more especially on hackneyed subjects; and we might almost apply to the author the answer the celebrated painter Nicola Poussin gave to a person of quality who had one day shown him a picture painted by himself. Signore," said Poussin, after looking at it attentively," Signore, non vi manca ch'un poco di necessita." ("You only want a little poverty sir, to make you a good painter"). There is, however (p. 50), a poetical epistle from "Miss to Miss, &c.," which we consider a real gem of wit, racy style, beauty and vigour, and we cannot do better than give the epistle in full, assured that the reader will thank us for the ex tract: 66 "Here at Naples we are for this sweetest of winters; And a place for the picturesque famous, and for all To help us to kill time, and squander our money. And I booked in three days, would you think it, my dear? But alas! I am sadly knocked up by the lions. Our parties of pleasure, or so said to be, And that odious Miss Skim-milk: between me and you, Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, &c., &c. By ROBERT SNOW, Esq. London: William Pickering. 1845. |