And thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story!)

In Thebes's streets, three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous ?

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy;
Thou hast a tongue-come let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
"Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,'

Not like thin ghosts, or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us,-for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the Sphynx's fame?

Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either Pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden
By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade;
Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon's statue, which at sun-rise play'd?
Perhaps thou wert a priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.

Perhaps that very hand, now pinion'd flat,
Has hob-a-nobb'd with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropp'd a halfpenny in Homer's hat;
Or doff'd thine own, to let Queen Dido pass;
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when arm'd,
Has any Roman soldier maul'd and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalm'd,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled ?—
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

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,
March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
While the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secret may not be confess'd,
The nature of thy private life unfold :—

:

A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky check have roll'd :-
Have children climb'd those knees, and kiss'd 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 quits 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 for ever?
O! let us keep the soul embalm'd and pure
In living virtue, that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

A

APPENDIX.

No. I.

TRIALS AND LAW PROCEEDINGS.

CRIMINAL TRIALS.