LINES ON THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MORRIS.

To the Editor of the N. S. M.

SIR,

I am permitted by the author of the following Verses, to forward you a copy of them for your agreeable Magazine,

THERE's a deep rush and flurry among all the gods,
And Silenus looks up midst his drowsiest nods,
And some feel a joy, some a sadness come o'er them,
For Morris the vine-crown'd is summon'd before them.
Full of fame-full of love-wine-inspired he appears,
His white locks bespeaking the honours of years;
The mighty assembly of Jove and his Powers,
Receive the bright bard in their own deathless bowers.

First Jove holds his hand with an awful regard,
O'er his unruffled Eagle to welcome the Bard;
And Juno looks down without anger on one,
Who is dear to the Goddess of Love as her son.
The flowers in the sky-garden deepen in hue,
As the Poet is honour'd with love deep and true;
And the vine and the rose of Olympus the chief,
Know Morris and tremble in
every rich leaf.

And the king of proud thunder immortal in light,

Calls his peers in their beauty and splendour to sight;

And he bids those whose names, and whose glories and worth,
Have been circled by musical verse round the earth,--

To touch the revered and inspiring Old Man,
And bless him a welcome before the bright clan,

And each comes as call'd by Imperial Jove,
To hail the sweet poet of wit, wine, and love.

Then Apollo, the lustre of Poetry bright,

Through the laurel that hallows his forehead of light,
Advances all bloom, inspiration, and grace,

And looks sweet regard in his own fav'rite's face :

"My thoughts," said the god," my own words-my own fire, Have thrill'd my dear Bard on thy ever-tuned lyre.

Bring thy music,-thy magic, to us of the skies,
And have hearers all worthy thy lyrics to prize!"

Meek Venus, with what Shakspeare calls, "those dove's eyes," Glides forth with a blush and the sweetest of sighs;

And looking that long and voluptuous gaze,

Which is made up of sunlight and softening haze,—

She kisses the brow of her exquisite bard,

And that kiss leaves a light there as though he were starr'd; And the flush on the cheek-half of joy, half of fear—

Shews him conscious the spirit of Beauty is near !

Gay Bacchus-all life—all devotion—all truth—
All frank joy and pleasure-all rosy with youth,
Comes dancing as though he were Jove's airy page,
And drinks the proud cup to the welcome of age;
And he takes from his own head a few of the leaves
Of the vine for the forehead-which while it receives
That honour immortal, is flush'd and not fair,
Throbbing audible music and poesy there.

All is joy, all is eloquent beauty and light,

And the bard takes a lustre immortally bright;

And the feast of the gods is soon plann'd and prepared,

And our English Anacreon is sumptuously fared.

I

may not say more ;-my reporter who loves

To be kind-wrote by one of sweet Venus's doves,

And as that bright bird wing'd its way from the throng,

Old Morris was call'd on by Jove for a song!

SKETCHES FROM LIFE.

A VILLAGE AND A TRAVELLER.

"He was a jovial trader; men enjoy'd
The night with him ;"-CRABBE.
"Inferior houses now our notice claim,

But who shall deal them their appropriate fame?
Who shall the nice, yet known distinction tell,
Between the peal complete, and single bell?”
"Determine ye, who on your shining nags,
Wear oilskin beavers, and bear seal-skin bags;
Or ye grave topers, who, with coy delight,
Snugly enjoy the sweetness of the night;
Ye travellers all, superior inns denied
By moderate purse, the low by decent pride;
Come, and determine."-CRabbe.

in

THE Village of shire, is one of those little perfect and picturesque villages which abound in England, and which bespeak comfort, through comeliness, in every object on which the eye can fall. The bridge introduces you over a noisy shallow trout-stream, to a few thatched white cottages ;-and, up a clean road, you see the humble dwellings ripen into houses;-and as you advance, the medical man's brass knocker gives a dignity to a door, as though it had a diploma ;-and there is a brilliant square piece of side brass in addition, which announces a very polished round knob to be "the Night Bell;"-And the attorney's house looks solemn and stately, with a dark red door-and two windows on each side, with green muslin blinds, and a small pebbled passage at one extremity, running up to a twopenny post-slit sort of doorway, with a hand in outline kindly pointing" To the office." Then comes the bank, of about the size of a lady's work-box-a saddler's shop, with two horse collars, and a carter's whip curling out from the door-post-and the great omnibus shop of the place, selling merely flour, Nicholas Nickleby, mousline de laine, stocks (gentlemen's not national)-cheese-Bathpaper split-peas-teas-calicoes-stone-blue-sticking plaister -pickles-besoms-stamps-sugars-door-mats-home-made wines -Yarmouth bloaters-coffee-bacon-men's hats-magazines; in short, every thing wanted by every possible wanter, from the bridge at the opening, up to the little public house, that is licensed to be the last, the quietest, and the emptiest, at the opposite extremity of the village. Of course, there are two great inns-the Green-Dragon and the Crown ;-both of them let out very upright sallow inconveniences

NO. XCV.-VOL. XVI.

2 A

or "yellow bounders" as they are termed-when the post-boys and horses are not at plough ;-and both have decided sign-posts, painted in dull colours, but very far from being deficient in outline. There is a very small watchmaker's shop, at which a grey-headed man (who does the amens on Sunday) is eternally looking through a stunted horn telescope, at brass and steel wheels,—if you take the trouble to discern him, through the little silver chubby turnips, which proclaim his calling at the window panes. And the butcher, on occasions, displays a nicely killed carcase of a sheep or so,--contenting himself otherwise, with very clean blocks - a white interior-several iron hooks-and one bullock's heart, doing the tender to a solitary leg of moor mutton. The market place is spacious and quiet, with a square round house in the middle and two or three boys are leaning against the placid shambles, looking at nothing with very observant eyes. In the place of dark, dirty, town gutters, a nimble pure stream of water courses a brisk way through a wood channel, to the bridged brook-and a great many aged people dormouse away their lives at corner-or at shop dooror in the middle of the road-every spot being alike safe and serene. nothing disturbing the deathless stillness of the place, beyond the miller's horse-the idle team-or the two-mile-off Squire on an animal of the old school,-too fat and indolent to run over the laziest or lamest of paupers. The post office is next door to the barber's pole,— and you may know it by two or three dingy letters sticking unclaimed in the casement. Within a very low wall rises that blessed monument to peace and silence, the village church,-surrounded by its brood of humbler monuments, like younglings nestling around the mother bird!-Such is this village-and perhaps I have been rather describing the genus than the species! -all villages have streamlets-cottagesshops-doors-and paupers.

--

It was on a real summer's evening in last year that I crossed the good old stone bridge,—idly gazing up the brook and down the brook through its well leafed banks,—and sauntered on a very serene pony (Rory-Bean without his obstinacy) up the street of this my favourite village. I believe, and I should testify to this in a court of justice if necessity required it,-I believe that the entry of the Knight from the King of Araby and Inde, on the horse of brass into the hall of "Cambuscan bold," at the time when he was holding his festal anniversary at his court of Tartary, with his wife, his daughter, and his two sons— and surrounded by nobles and minstrels- could not have created more surprise than did my appearance on my small dull dun pony before the doors of the various tenements. The ostler at the Crown stopped whisping, with its hissing accompaniment, and, by some unaccountable Freemasonry, contrived to get the landlord-the girl at the bar—and

the rest of his royal family to the front of the house,-and it certainly seemed that I should, like crooked-backed Richard, secure the Crown, or perhaps be secured for it. However I,-like the venerable Danish Phantom in tin-in Hamlet-" went slow and stately by them."

With the assiduity, if not with the splendour of that chivalric champion of England, Saint George-I coolly advanced right up to the very jaws and claws of the Green Dragon,—and instead of finding the awful effluvia of brimstone and Farley-I found the politest of Dragons with the civilist of Ostlers-sleeves up-turned, and ready at the bit,—the most accommodating of Duns,-to receive not the galloping, although "the dreary Dun."

Into the Traveller's room I was at first ushered,-a room filled, I at first surmised, with whips, belonging to nobody; and box-seats, never sat upon; and long heavy drab coats, without tenants;—and black-polished packages, without travellers. It was a sad calumnious surmise,—but I must not, after having ventured it,-disguise the fact that I saw no traveller in the traveller's room,—in the yard—in the kitchen—in the inn—in the village. My notion was at first that the implements (for such I might conjecture them to be) were the victualler's implements of trade;-decoy-whips- decoy-box-seats-decoycoats and packages of phantom travellers :-No!no!no!--The sight of the landlord,-and of his comely wife, and handsomewholesome-cheerful-flesh and blood daughters,-removed all such suspicion. Still the room was as empty as the street :—and as I looked at it, and at the street, and at the houses;-I turned to the innermost apartment of my mind,—and murmured to myself in that solitary chamber, "where can the inhabitants of this village reside?"

I was glad, most truly glad, to have all these unjust surmises put an end to by the entrance of a traveller :-not such an one as would by his extent of continental travelling be entitled to an admission to the Traveller's Club in Pall Mall—but a commercial gentleman who like a mill-horse went his country rounds-who carried with him his country packages-his country hectic on the cheek-and his before-dinner country taciturnity. He would not of course speak to me, but he identified himself with a few of the parcels in the room,—and emancipated the landlord and my mind from the suspicion which I had entertained of the commercial room being a decoy room. The traveller with strong frame-a fullish bullish head, and an important air, was I verily think the true specimen and "badge of all the tribe!"

So much man compressed (like a sample) into so much coat,-I have seldom seen. He wore a brown surtout-closely buttoned up to the chest-but then,-allowing the growth of a small hedge-row of frill-flatted down by humility. The collar was small enough to have