And sportsmen who forbore to praise
Their greyhounds and their guns;
And poets who deserved the bays,
And did not dread the duns.

And boroughs were bought without a test,
And no man feared the Pope;
And the Irish cabins were all possest

Of liberty and soap;

And the Chancellor, feeling very sick,

Had just resigned the seals;

And a clever little Catholic

Was hearing Scotch appeals.

I went one day to a Court of Law
Where a fee had been refused!

And a Public School I really saw

Where the rod was never used;

And the sugar still was very sweet,
Though all the slaves were free;
And all the folk in Downing Street
Had learnt the rule of three.

There love had never a fear or doubt;
December breathed like June:

The Prima Donna ne'er was out

Of temper-or of tune;

The streets were paved with mutton pies,

Potatoes ate like pine;

Nothing looked black but woman's eyes;
Nothing grew old but wine.

It was an idle dream; but thou,

The worshipped one, wert there,

With thy dark clear eyes and beaming brow,

White neck and floating hair;

And oh, I had an honest heart,
And a house of Portland stone;

And thou wert dear, as still thou art,
And more than dear, my own!

Oh bitterness!—the morning broke
Alike for bocr and bard;

And thou wert married when I woke,
And all the rest was marred :

And toil and trouble, noise and steam,
Came back with the coming ray;

And, if I thought the dead could dream,
I'd hang myself to-day!

A POOR Relation-is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of impertinent correspondency,—an odious approximation, -a haunting conscience,-a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noon-tide of our prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification,—a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your pride,— a drawback upon success,—a rebuke to your rising, -a stain in your blood,-a blot on your 'scutcheon,-a rent in your garment,—a death's head at your banquet,-Agathocles'

VOL. II.

M

pot,—a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door,—a lion in your path,—a frog in your chamber,—a fly in your ointment, -a mote in your eye, a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful,—the hail in harvest, -the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you “That is Mr. A rap,

99

between familiarity and respect; that demands, and at the same time seems to despair of, entertainment. He entereth smiling and embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and—draweth it back again. He casually looketh in

about dinner-time-when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company- but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two chil