cognise the spell, that awakens in our minds the bold and majestic scenery of mountain solitudes, the wild forest, and the foaming cataract. Thy greetings are honourable to us, and are valued as they deserve to be. The gratulation of one of the purest hearts, and one of the most sublime of British intellects, is surely worth more than a new farthing; and we say so, without disparagement to that neat and sovereign-looking coin. Thanks to Wordsworth!

TOKENS OF NATURAL AFFECTION.

As from the lowly meadow ground,

With congregated vapours, dank and dense,
O'erhung, a beauteous breaking-up takes place,
When the sun rises; and a mass of clouds,
Fleecy and thin, of half-transparent hue,
In the bright atmosphere evaporate,

Leaving the meadow-ground all fresh and green,
Beneath the morning dews; so did the mass
Of dark designers, and ill-boding men,
Disperse before thee, Christopher, and leave
Only the traces of their flight behind.

Sequester'd, on a rural mount, I dwell
Among the hills; listening, amid my walks,
Thy thunders, stern Lodoar! or noontide song
Of birds amid the branches caroling

Of lofty elm or beech-tree; toppling o'er
Some rocky precipice; and, with its boughs,
Forming a far-encircling coronal,

By Nature hung in its deep leafy mass,
Above the mirror of the silent tarn,

Whose undisturbed waters sleep below.

—Or, haply, when the western heavens are tinged

With orange light, sauntering adown the dale

In solitude, and watching the first ray

Of Evening's glittering star, the loveliest
Of all that stud the glowing galaxy.-

Yet, though sequester'd from the world I dwell,
Nursing in solitude the lofty thought
Of poesy; yet deem not, Christopher,
That, to my musing soul, the busy world
Is as an ocean, whose tremendous waves

Unmoved I hear, far distant; deem not thou,
Bright, venerable sage, that I forget

My English birth-right; that my bosom ne'er
Mourns o'er my country's sorrows; and swells proud
To think the ancient spirit of our clime

Not utterly degenerate hath grown,

But still can boast of thee, and such as thee!

A bright and bold noviciate thou hast pass'd;
And, Christopher, amid thy country's great,
Amid her loftiest and her noblest sons,
Thy name is placed; and at thy parlour-door,
Were Death, the skeleton, to tap to-night:
Openly I speak it, and without the fear
Of contradiction, that no greater head

Hath his scythe humbled, or his shaft laid low.

But why on death dilate, and nature's debt?
Living and life-like, in thy elbow chair
Thou sittest, cherishing thy gouty toe,
Flannel enwrapt, upon the crimson stool,

My Lady Morgan's handsome compliment.
Around thee, in huge piles, like drifted heaps
Of snow piled up by veering winds, are tomes,
Many uncut, with party-colour'd boards,
And with elastic backs, so beautiful!
Written by the living lustres of the land,
Who toil for praise or profit-haply both.-
There in thy parlour snug, with book in hand,
Thou peerest through the pages, scanning out
The worthy, and with most appropriate words,
Telling the world so; while thy sentiments
Are noted by a clerk, a sharp-eyed lad,

With dexterous quill, who wondering looks at thee,
Wondering from whence thy boundless knowledge flows;
And noting what thou bidd'st him on his sheet,-
Sheet of white paper, furrow'd o'er with lines
Of sable manuscript, straightway to be sent
To printing-office, where the devils reside,
Compositors, and men with paper caps ;-
Then, in a novel garb, whereon the face
Of Scotland's sage looks glorious in old age,
Borne on the wing of mails, and carriers' carts,
To the four ends of Britain; and the isle
Erin, her sister,-eke to foreign climes,
Shores Transatlantic, and far Indian lands,
Pack'd in the gloomy hold capacious
Of mighty vessel, for the voyage long,

Well stored with beef and biscuit; likewise rum,
And the pure element; with big-bellied sails
Catching the breeze; and, o'er the ocean deep,
Sailing like heron o'er a peaceful meer.

As, from the central point from where the stone
Descends amid the waters, circles spread
Wider and wider, till they reach the shores
Of the broad lake, so, Christopher, thy sale
Shall year by year increase; and, spreading still
Wider its circuit, to the utmost bound
Even of the habitable globe shall reach,
Teaching, enlightening, humanizing all!

Now, when the Christmas carols have gone by,
And the old year, into the womb of Time
Is swallow'd up, I would take up my pen,
As my heart dictates-bealth to wish to thee,
Prosperity, and honourable old age!—
To genius, unbefriended in the vale
Of this dim world, oh still the patron be!
And tear away the useless weeds that hide,
From eye of day, the modest violet:
So that the old may reverence thine age,
And the young rise up, as thou passest by.

Another offering at our shrine from Cockney-land! Let us adjust our spectacles-Yes! without doubt it is so-ay, and from Barry Cornwall too; that is what we did not look for; we thought that he had been for some time in bed dreaming night and day of the Deluge. We have been mistaken. Let us see again-be steady our spectacles-this is surely a Supplement to Barry Cornwall's Dream about the Nereides blowing on cow-horns, Nebuchadnezzar— sphinxes-hypogriffs-and aerial mail-coaches. It is certainly very beautiful; and, with your leave, my Public, we shall read it over to you. VOL. XI.

P

PHANTASMAGORIANA.

Figures there were amid the clouds,→
Whether from sepulchral shrouds
Burst, I know not, yet delight
Came athwart me at the sight,
For in tranced dream I lay
At the close of a cold day.

Lo! a chariot, hot steeds prancing,
And behind, in ether dancing,
Lengthen'd flappings of surtout,
And great-coats with tails of blue.
From green mountains they did come,
Where the eagle his high home
Builds on Snowdon; to the north
Polarwise they sally forth,

To Dunedin by the sea,

And Tontine in West Countrée.

Who comes riding, sailing thus

On the Hippopotamus?-
O'er the sea-like sky they glide,
But the monster that dire ride
Loves not, for the rider is
Heavy in his densities;

And smoking his curl'd pipe anon:→→→
That fat vision sailed on!

Crown'd like mother Cybele,
With South-Sea cap and tassel gay,
Titanlike, on war-horse white,
Rushes to the goose-quill fight,
Fierce-eyed warrior, hundred handed,
Like the giant who expanded

His huge might against high heaven,
Till by Olympian fury driven
From the field by heavenly spears,
Overcome with all his peers,

That whelm'd beneath the mountains lie,
Which overlook green Thessaly.

As great Jove his foot doth lay on,
(Vide plate in Tooke's Pantheon,)
Necks of giants overthrown,
So, on red stool stuff'd with down,
Presses he his dexter heel ;-
He waves his hand, the senses reel
Of the nations far outspread,
By his magic power dazzled.
Never, on the Egypt shore,
Greater host bow'd down before

Apis, Osiris, Serapis ;

Never mightier crowd than this
Knelt to human sway-'tis fled!
The vision shadowy vanished!
But, mid futurity, mine eye
Trails of glory on the sky,
Like Aurora darting forth,

Saw bright glittering-this was North!

Unless we are wofully mistaken, here comes Byron with his famous letter on our Magazine. We know he is blood; but he shall find us a rum customer. If he does not go plump like a bag of wool over the ropes, our name is not Christopher. "By all the gods of Greece and Hellespont," as the tragic Odoherty exclaims, here, in lieu of an epistle, we have more poetry still.

RHYMING SALUTATION.

I.

Hail, Christopher, old buck, I hope the weather,
So damp of late, hath injured not your toe,
I would die of grief, my venerable father,

If death, the poacher, were to lay you low;
But why these omens ?-light as any feather
In heart and hope art thou-for aught I know!
And, as thy wont is, dealing to the nation
Wisdom with fun, and wit with botheration.

II.

'Tis a hard world, friend Kit, for here am I
Thy junior by some thirty years or more,
Beneath the circle of a foreign sky,

Upon the regions of another shore;
Angry, and dull of soul, I know not why,
Doubting, yet dreaming of the days of yore,
When Hope before me like a rainbow play'd,
And earth was Paradise by Fancy made.

III.

Some think me hair-brain'd, (that's a thought between us,) Some think that, lovelorn, by myself I pine;

And, it is true, I love no other Venus,

Than bright Terpsichore, choicest of the Nine ;-
Oh, many a merry hour hath, passing, seen us
Laugh, while we made the staring world divine
That I most willingly would die to-morrow;
Being so heavy laden with deep sorrow.

But "be thou silent," as the Chaldee says,
And, by and bye, I'll send a leading article,

--

Which shall make some poor ninnies look both ways,
To Tories and to Whigs alike cathartical;

Only you pledge me, that you shan't erase
One epithet, or change a single particle;
I'll have a general set-to on affairs,
And set mankind quadrilling like tame bears.

VII.

But halt-my memory is not worth a pin,
To right hand and to left for ever wavering,
Prudential bounds without, and now within,

With all I meet, on all I meet palavering;
But it is almost time I should begin

To tune my fiddle, and to leave my havering;
And give you a few stanzas, cramm'd with praise,
To warm your heart on January days.

Edina fair! Edina fair!

Whose terraced glory spreads in pride;
Whose turrets cleave the charmed air
From Bernard's Well to far Southside;
Where is the ancient Scottish might?
Alas! 'tis fallen 'mid dire misuse;
And gloom, that lapses into night,
Hangs o'er the sinking realm of Bruce!
Edina fair! Edina fair!

Alas! that thou so prone should’st fall ;
To thee did kings and courts repair,
Thou now neglected capital!

And now, when Scotia's sword is sheath'd,
And grim War's purple thunder-cloud
Hath rain'd away, is nought bequeath'd
To raise thee, to oblivion bow'd?

A star hath shone! no cloud of eve
Shall e'er obscure its glorious light,
"Twill blaze for centuries, and leave
A tract through time, intensely bright.

Edina fair! from midst of thee,

That star hath shed its mighty beams,
And cast its lustre o'er the sea,

To Ganges, and to Gambia's streams.
A Phoenix glory shall be thine;

And, as thou once wert first in arms,
Above the earth again thou'lt shine,

The first in more substantial charms.

Fill high the cup with bright champaign!
Fill till it sparkle o'er the brim!
Look to that star-oh, look again-
'Tis North-we'll quaff it off to him!

Hail to thee, North! to thee again
With bounding heart I fill the cup;
Another bumper of champaign,
See how I turn my finger up!

The New Year dawns-long life to thee,-
Long crutchless may'st thou move about,—

Fifty new years unfaded see,

And laugh at leeches, and the gout.

"Good," as Dr Pangloss would say. Well, this is more worthy a descendant of the old Byrons, than the heartless raving of the Venetian Ode; the impious sublimity of Cain; the tirade on Southey; and several other little things we could point out in his Lordship's writings. Indeed, the lyrical part of it is almost equal in enthusiasm to the splendid Bacchanalian Hymn on Greece, in the last cantos of the Don-though we forget which at present; as we do