Let comfortably in the summer wind;
But when the winter comes, it pinches me
To see the little wretch. I've three besides;
And.-God forgive me! but I often wish

To see them in their coffins-God reward you!
God bless you for your charity!

TRAVELLER.

TOWNSMAN.

Even so. The text

Is Gospel-wisdom. I would ride the camel,-
Yes, leap him, flying, through the needle's eye,
As easily as such a pamper'd soul
Could pass the narrow gate.

STRANGER.

But sure this lack of Christian charity
Your pardon, Sir,
Looks not like Christian truth.

TOWNSMAN.

Your pardon too, Sir,

If, with this text before me, I should feel
In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-

trees,

To give sad meaning to the village bells!

Bristol, 1800.

IX.

THE ALDERMAN'S FUNERAL.

STRANGER.

WHOм are they ushering from the world, with all This pageantry and long parade of death?

TOWNSMAN.

A long parade, indeed, Sir, and yet here
You see but half; round yonder bend it reaches
A furlong further, carriage behind carriage.

STRANGER.

'Tis but a mournful sight; and yet the pomp Tempts me to stand a gazer.

TOWNSMAN.

Yonder schoolboy, Who plays the truant, says the proclamation Of peace was nothing to the show; and even The chairing of the members at election Would not have been a finer sight than this; Only that red and green are prettier colours Than all this mourning. There, Sir, you behold One of the red-gown'd worthies of the city, The envy and the boast of our exchange ;Ay, what was worth, last week, a good halfmillion,

Screw'd down in yonder hearse !

STRANGER.

Undone ;-for sins, not one of which is written
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other Gods than those of the Creed;
Bow'd to no idols, but his money-bags;
Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house;
Kept the Sabbath idle; built a monument
To honour his dead father; did no murder;
Never sustain'd an action for crim-con;
Never pick'd pockets; never bore false witness;
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass!

STRANGER.

You knew him, then, it seems?

TOWNSMAN.

As all men know The virtues of your hundred-thousanders; They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.

STRANGER.

Is that then in your mind?

TOWNSMAN.

Now, Sir, you touch
Upon the point. This man of half a million
Had all these public virtues which you praise:
But the poor man rung never at his door,
And the old beggar, at the public gate,
Who, all the summer long, stands hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye
To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.
His alms were money put to interest

In the other world,-donations to keep open
A running charity account with Heaven,-
Retaining fees against the Last Assizes,
When, for the trusted talents, strict account
Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-
Lawyer

Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

STRANGER.

I must needs Believe you, Sir-these are your witnesses, These mourners here, who from their carriages, Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind Were to be pray'd for now, to lend their eyes Some decent rheum; the very hireling mute Bears not a face more blank of all emotion Than the old servant of the family! How can this man have lived, that thus his death Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief?

TOWNSMAN.

Who should lament for him, Sir, in whose heart
Love had no place, nor natural charity?
The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace: she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus? Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught;
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,
To give his blood its natural spring and play,
He in a close and dusky counting-house
Smoke-dried, and scar'd, and shrivell'd up his
heart.

So from the way in which he was train'd up
His feet departed not; he toil'd and moil'd,
Poor muck-worm! through his threescore years

and ten;

And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,

If that which served him for a soul were still
Within its husk, 'twould still be dirt to dirt.

STRANGER.

Yet your next newspapers will blazon him
For industry and honourable wealth
A bright example.

TOWNSMAN.

Even half a million

Gets him no other praise. But come this way Some twelve months hence, and you will find his virtues

Trimly set forth in lapidary lines,

Faith with her torch beside, and little Cupids Dropping upon his urn their marble tears. Bristol, 1803.

ODE

ON

THE PORTRAIT OF BISHOP HEBER.

1.

YES, such as these were Heber's lineaments;
Such his capacious front,
His comprehensive eye,
His open brow serene.

Such was the gentle countenance which bore
Of generous feeling, and of golden truth,
Sure Nature's sterling impress; never there
Unruly passion left

Its ominous marks infix'd,
Nor the worse die of evil habit set
An inward stain ingrain'd.

Such were the lips whose salient playfulness
Enliven'd peaceful hours of private life;
Whose eloquence

Held congregations open ear'd, As from the heart it flow'd, a living stream, Of Christian wisdom, pure and undefiled.

2.

And what if there be those
Who in the cabinet
Of memory hold enshrined

A livelier portraiture,

And see in thought, as in their dreams,
His actual image, verily produced?
Yet shall this counterfeit convey
To strangers, and preserve for after-time,
All that could perish of him,-all that else
Even now had past away;

For he hath taken with the Living Dead
His honourable place,-

Yea, with the Saints of God

His holy habitation. Hearts, to which
Through ages he shall speak,

Will yearn towards him; and they, too, (for such
Will be,) who gird their loins
With truth to follow him,

Having the breastplate on of righteousness,
The helmet of salvation, and the shield
Of faith, they too will gaze
Upon his effigy

With reverential love,

Till they shall grow familiar with its lines, And know him when they see his face in Heaven

3.

Ten years have held their course
Since last I look'd upon

That living countenance,

When on Llangedwin's terraces we paced
Together, to and fro.

Partaking there its hospitality,
We with its honoured master spent,
Well-pleased, the social hours;

His friend and mine,-my earliest friend, whom I Have ever, through all changes, found the same

From boyhood to gray hairs,

In goodness, and in worth and warmth of heart.
Together then we traced
The grass-grown site, where armed feet once
trod

The threshold of Glendower's embattled hall;
Together sought Melangel's lonely Church,
Saw the dark yews, majestic in decay,
Which in their flourishing strength

Cyveilioc might have seen;
Letter by letter traced the lines

On Yorwerth's fabled tomb;
And curiously observed what vestiges,
Mouldering and mutilate,

Of Monacella's legend there are left,
A tale humane, itself
Well-nigh forgotten now:
Together visited the ancient house
Which from the hill-slope takes
Its Cymric name euphonious; there to view,
Though drawn by some rude linner inexpert,

The faded portrait of that lady fair,
Beside whose corpse her husband watch'd,
And with perverted faith,
Preposterously placed,

Thought, obstinate in hopeless hope, to see
The beautiful dead, by miracle, revive.

4.

The sunny recollections of those days Full soon were overcast, when Heber went Where half this wide world's circle lay

Between us interposed.

A messenger of love he went,
A true Evangelist;

Not for ambition, nor for gain,
Nor of constraint, save such as duty lays
Upon the disciplined heart,

Took he the overseeing on himself
Of that wide flock dispersed,
Which, till these latter times,
Had there been left to stray
Neglected all too long.

For this great end. devotedly he went,
Forsaking friends and kin,

His own loved paths of pleasantness and peace,

Books, leisure, privacy,

Prospects (and not remote) of all wherewith Authority could dignify desert;

And, dearer far to him,

Pursuits that with the learned and the wise Should have assured his name its lasting place.

5.

Large, England, is the debt

Thou owest to Heathendom;

To India most of all, where Providence,
Giving thee thy dominion there in trust,
Upholds its baseless strength.
All seas have seen thy red-cross flag
In war triumphantly display'd;
Late only hast thou set that standard up

On pagan shores in peace!
Yea, at this hour the cry of blood
Riseth against thee from beneath the wheels
Of that seven-headed Idol's car accursed;
Against thee, from the widow's funeral pile

How beautiful are the feet of him
That bringeth good tidings,
That publisheth peace,

That bringeth good tidings of good,
That proclaimeth salvation for men.
Where'er the Christian Patriarch went,
Honour and reverence heralded his way,

And blessings followed him.

The Malabar, the Moor, the Cingalese,
Though unillumed by faith,

Yet not the less admired
The virtue that they saw.
The European soldier, there so long
Of needful and consolatory rites

Injuriously deprived,

Felt, at his presence, the neglected seed
Of early piety

Refresh'd, as with a quickening dew from Heaven.
Native believers wept with thankfulness,
When on their heads he laid his hallowing hands;
And, if the Saints in bliss

Be cognizant of aught that passeth here,
It was a joy for Schwartz

To look from Paradise that hour,
Upon his earthly flock.

8.

Ram boweth down,

Creeshna and Seeva stoop;

The Arabian Moon must wane to wax no more,
And Ishmael's seed redeem'd,
And Esau's-to their brotherhood,

And to their better birthright then restored
Shall within Israel's covenant be brought.
Drop down, ye Heavens, from above!
Ye skies, pour righteousness!
Open, thou Earth, and let
Salvation be brought forth!
And sing ye, O ye Heavens, and shout, O Earth,
With all thy hills and vales,
Thy mountains and thy woods;
Break forth into a song, a jubilant song;
For by Himself the Lord hath sworn
That every tongue to Him shall swear,
To Him that every knee shall bow.

9.

Take comfort, then, my soul! Thy latter days on earth, Though few, shall not be evil, by this hope Supported, and enlighten'd on the way. O Reginald, one course Our studies, and our thoughts,

Our aspirations held,
Wherein, but mostly in this blessed hope,
We had a bond of union, closely knit
In spirit, though, in this world's wilderness,
Apart our lots were cast.
Seldom we met; but I knew well
That whatsoe'er this never-idle hand
Sent forth would find with thee
Benign acceptance, to its full desert.
For thou wert of that audience,-fit, though few,
For whom I am content

To live laborious days,
Assured that after-years will ratify,
Their honourable award.

10.

Hadst thou revisited thy native land, Mortality, and Time, And Change, must needs have made Our meeting mournful. Happy he Who to his rest is borne, In sure and certain hope, Before the hand of age Hath chill'd his faculties, Or sorrow reach'd him in his heart of hearts! Most happy if he leave in his good name A light for those who follow him, And in his works a living seed Of good, prolific still.

11.

Yes, to the Christian, to the Heathen world, Heber, thou art not dead,-thou canst not die! Nor can I think of thee as lost. A little portion of this little isle At first divided us; then half the globe; The same earth held us still; but when, O Reginald, wert thou so near as now? 'Tis but the falling of a withered leaf,The breaking of a shell,―

The rending of a veil!

Oh, when that leaf shall fall,

commit that execrable impiety was, because he thought the famine would the sooner cease, if those unprofitable beggars that consumed more bread than they were worthy to eat, were dispatched out of the world. For he said that those poor folks were like to Mice, that were good for nothing but to devour corne. But God Almighty, the just avenger of the poor folks' quarrel, did not long suffer this hainous tyranny, this most detestable fact, unpunished. For he mustered up an army of Mice against the Archbishop, and sent them to persecute him as his furious Alastors, so that they afflicted him both day and night, and would not suffer him to take his rest in any place. Whereupon the Prelate, thinking that he should be secure from the injury of Mice if he were in a certain tower, that standeth in the Rhine near to the towne, betook himself unto the said tower as to a safe refuge and sanctuary from his enemies, and locked himself in. But the innumerable troupes of Mice chased him continually very eagerly, and swumme unto him upon the top of the water to execute the just judgment of God, and so at last he was most miserably devoured by those sillie creatures; who pursued him with such bitter hostility, that it is recorded they scraped and knawed out his very name from the walls and tapistry wherein it was written, after they had so cruelly devoured his body. Wherefore the tower wherein he was eaten up by the Mice is shewn to this day, for a perpetual monument to all succeeding ages of the barbarous and inhuman tyranny of this impious Prelate, being situate in a little green Island in the midst of the Rhine near to the towne of Bingen, and is commonly called in the German Tongue the Mowse-TURN.

CORYAT'S Crudities, pp. 571, 572. Other authors who record this tale say that the Bishop was eaten by Rats.

THE summer and autumn had been so wet, That in winter the corn was growing yet; 'Twas a piteous sight, to see, all around, The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor
Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,

My spirit be with thine!

Keswick, 1820.

GOD'S JUDGMENT

ON

A WICKED BISHOP.

Here followeth the History of HATTO, Archbishop of Mentz.

It happed in the year 914, that there was an exceeding great famine in Germany, at what time Otho

surnamed the Great was Emperor, and one Hatto, once Abbot of Fulda, was Archbishop of Mentz, of

the Bishops after Crescens and Crescentius the two and thirtieth, of the Archbishops after St. Bonifacius the thirteenth. This Hatto in the time of this great famine afore-mentioned, when he saw the poor people of the country exceedingly oppressed with famine, assembled a great company of them together into a Barne, and, like a most accursed and mercilesse caitiffe, burnt up these poor innocent souls, that were so far from doubting any such matter, that they rather hoped to receive some comfort and relief at his hands. The reason that moved the prelat to

And all the neighbourhood could tell His granaries were furnish'd well.

At last Bishop Hatto appointed a day

To quiet the poor without delay;

He bade them to his great Barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.

Rejoiced such tidings good to hear,
The poor folk flock'd from far and near;
The great Barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.
Then when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the Barn and burnt them all.

"I' faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire !" quoth he,
"And the country is greatly obliged to me,
For ridding it in these times forlorn
Of Rats that only consume the corn."
So then to his palace returned he,
And he sat down to supper merrily,
And he slept that night like an innocent man;
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.

In the morning, as he enter'd the hall Where his picture hung against the wall, A sweat like death all over him came,

For the Rats had eaten it out of the frame.

As he look'd, there came a man from his farm;
He had a countenance white with alarm;
"My Lord, I open'd your granaries this morn,
And the Rats had eaten all your corn."

Another came running presently,
And he was pale as pale could be,-
"Fly! my Lord Bishop, fly," quoth he,
Ten thousand Rats are coming this way,-
The Lord forgive you for yesterday!"

"I'll go to my tower on the Rhine," replied he, 'Tis the safest place in Germany;

The walls are high, and the shores are steep, And the stream is strong, and the water deep."

Bishop Hatto fearfully hasten'd away,
And he cross'd the Rhine without delay,
And reach'd his tower, and barr'd with care
All the windows, doors, and loop-holes there.

He laid him down and closed his eyes;-
But soon a scream made him arise;
He started, and saw two eyes of flame

On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.

He listen'd and look'd ;-it was only the Cat; But the Bishop he grew more fearful for that; For she sat screaming, mad with fear

At the Army of Rats that were drawing near.

For they have swam over the river so deep,
And they have climb'd the shores so steep,
And up the Tower their way bent,
To do the work for which they were sent.

They are not to be told by the dozen or score; By thousands they come, and by myriads and

more.

Such numbers had never been heard of before; Such a judgment had never been witness'd of yore.

Down on his knees the Bishop fell,

And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder drawing near
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear.

And in at the windows, and in at the door,
And through the walls, helter-skelter they pour,
And down from the ceiling, and up through the
floor,

From the right and the left, from behind and before,

From within and without, from above and below, And all at once to the Bishop they go.

They have whetted their teeth against the stones;
And now they pick the Bishop's bones;
They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him!
Westbury, 1799.

KING HENRY V. AND THE

HERMIT OF DREUX.

While Henry V. lay at the siege of Dreux, an honest Hermit, unknown to him, came and told him the great evils he brought on Christendom by his unjust ambition, who usurped the kingdom of France, against all manner of right, and contrary to the will of God; wherefore, in his holy name, he threatened him with a severe and sudden punishment if he desisted not from his enterprise. Henry took this exhortation either as an idle whimsey, or a suggestion of the Dauphin's, and was but the more confirmed in his design. But the blow soon followed the threatening; for, within some few months after, he was smitten with a strange and incurable disease. MEZERAY.

HE pass'd unquestion'd through the camp;
Their heads the soldiers bent
In silent reverence, or begg'd

A blessing as he went;
And so the Hermit pass'd along,
And reached the royal tent.

King Henry sat in his tent alone;
The map before him lay;
Fresh conquests he was planning there
To grace the future day.

King Henry lifted up his eyes

The intruder to behold;
With reverence he the hermit saw;
For the holy man was old;
His look was gentle as a Saint's,
And yet his
eye was bold.

"Repent thee, Henry, of the wrongs
Which thou hast done this land!
O King, repent in time, for know
The judgment is at hand.

"I have pass'd forty years of peace Beside the river Blaise ;

But what a weight of woe hast thou Laid on my latter days!

"I used to see along the stream The white sail gliding down, That wafted food, in better times, To yonder peaceful town.

"Henry! I never now behold
The white sail gliding down;
Famine, Disease, and Death, and Thou
Destroy that wretched town.

"I used to hear the traveller's voice
As here he pass'd along,

Or maiden, as she loiter'd home
Singing her even-song.

"No traveller's voice may now be heard; In fear he hastens by;

But I have heard the village maid
In vain for succour cry.