Hear my old friend (turned Shakespeare) read a scene
Only to his inferior in the clean

Passes of pathos with such fence-like art-
Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart.
Almost without the aid language affords,

Your piece seems wrought That huffing medium, words
(Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway
Our shamed souls from their bias) in your play
We scarce attend to. Hastier passion draws
Our tears on credit: and we find the cause
Some two hours after, spelling o'er again

Those strange few words at ease, that wrought the pain.
Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns,
Still snatch some new old story from the urns
Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before
Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you more.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK."

I LIKE you, and your book, ingenious Hone!
In whose capacious all-embracing leaves

The very marrow of tradition's shown;

And all that history-much that fiction-weaves.

By every sort of taste your work is graced ;
Vast stores of modern anecdote we find,
With good old story quaintly interlaced-
The theme as various as the reader's mind.

Rome's life-fraught legends you so truly paint-
Yet kindly, that the half-turned Catholic
Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint,
And cannot curse the candid heretic.

Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page;
Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased behold,
And, proudly conscious of a purer age,

Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.

Verse-honouring Phœbus, Father of bright Days,
Must needs bestow on you both good and many,
Who, building trophies of his children's praise,
Run their rich Żodiac through, not missing any.

Dan Phoebus loves your book—trust me, friend Hone-
The title only errs, he bids me say:

For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown,
He swears, 'tis not a work of every day.

TO CAROLINE MARIA APPLEBEE.

AN ACROSTIC.

CAROLINE, glides smooth in verse,
And is easy to rehearse;

Runs just like some crystal river
O'er its pebbly bed for ever.
Lines as harsh and quaint as mine
In their close at least will shine,
Nor from sweetness can decline,
Ending but with Caroline.

Maria asks a statelier pace-
"Ave Maria, full of grace!"
Romish rites before me rise,
Image-worship, sacrifice,

And well-meant but mistaken pieties.

Apple with Bee doth rougher run.
Paradise was lost by one;

Peace of mind would we regain,

Let us, like the other, strain
Every harmless faculty,

Bee-like at work in our degree,
Ever some sweet task designing,
Extracting still, and still refining.

TO CECILIA CATHERINE LAWTON,

AN ACROSTIC.

CHORAL service, solemn chanting,
Echoing round cathedrals holy-
Can aught else on earth be wanting
In Heaven's bliss to plunge us wholly?
Let us great Cecilia honour

In the praise we give unto them,

And the merit be upon her.

Cold the heart that would undo them,
And the solemn organ banish

That this sainted maid invented.

Holy thoughts too quickly vanish,
Ere the expression can be vented.
Raise the song to Catherine,
In her torments most divine!
Ne'er by Christians be forgot-
Envied be-this Martyr's lot.

Lawton, who these names combinest,
Aim to emulate their praises;
Women were they, yet divinest
Truths they taught; and story raises
O'er their mouldering bones a tomb,
Not to die till day of doom.

TO A LADY WHO DESIRED ME TO WRITE HER EPITAPH.

AN ACROSTIC.

GRACE JOANNA here doth lie:
Reader, wonder not that I

Ante-date her hour of rest.
Can I thwart her wish exprest,
Even unseemly though the laugh

Jesting with an Epitaph?

On her bones the turf lie lightly,
And her rise again be brightly!
No dark stain be found upon her-
No, there will not, on mine honour-
Answer that at least I can.

Would that I, thrice happy man,
In as spotless garb might rise,
Light as she will climb the skies,
Leaving the dull earth behind,
In a car more swift than wind.
All her errors, all her failings,
(Many they were not) and ailings,
Sleep secure from Envy's railings.

TO HER YOUNGEST DAUGHTER.

ANOTHER ACROSTIC.

LEAST Daughter, but not least beloved of Grace!
O frown not on a stranger, who from place
Unknown and distant these few lines have penned.

I but report what thy instructress Friend

So oft hath told us of thy gentle heart.
A pupil most affectionate thou art,

Careful to learn what elder years impart.
Louisa-Clare-by which name shall I call thee?
A prettier pair of name's sure ne'er was found,
Resembling thy own sweetness in sweet sound.
Ever calm peace and inocence befall thee !

TO MY FRIEND THE INDICATOR.1

YOUR easy Essays indicate a flow,

Dear friend, of brain which we may elsewhere seek;
And to their pages I and hundreds owe,

That Wednesday is the sweetest of the week.
Such observation, wit, and sense are shown,
We think the days of Bickerstaff returned;
And that a portion of that oil you own,
In his undying midnight lamp which burned.
I would not lightly bruise old Priscian's head
Or wrong the rules of grammar understood;
But, with the leave of Priscian be it said,
The Indicative is your Potential Mood.
Wit, poet, prose-man, party man, translator-
H[unt], your best title yet is Indicator.

1 Leigh Hunt.

SATAN IN SEARCH OF A WIFE,

WITH THE WHOLE PROCESS OF HIS COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE, and who DANCED AT THE WEDDING. BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

FIRST PRINTED IN 1831.

DEDICATION.-To delicate bosoms, that have sighed over the Loves of the Angels, this Poem is with tenderest regard consecrated. It can be no offence to you, dear Ladies, that the author has endeavoured to extend the dominion of your darling passion; to show Love triumphant in places to which his advent has been never yet suspected. If our Cecilia drew an Angel down, another may have leave to attract a spirit upwards; which, I am sure, was the most desperate adventure of the two. Wonder not at the inferior condition of the agent ; for, if King Cophetua wooed a Beggar Maid, a greater king need not scorn to confess the attractions of a fair Tailor's daughter. The more disproportionate the rank, the more signal is the glory of your sex. Like that of Hecate, a triple empire is now confessed your own. Nor Heaven, nor Earth, nor deepest tracts of Erebus, as Milton hath it, have power to resist your sway. I congratulate your last victory. You have fairly made an Honest Man of the Old One; and, if your conquest is late, the success must be salutary. The new Benedict has employment enough on his hands to desist from dabbling with the affairs of poor mortals; he may fairly leave human nature to herself; and we may sleep for one while at least secure from the attacks of this hitherto restless Old Bachelor. It remains to be seen whether the world will be much benefited by the change in his condition.

PART THE FIRST.

I.

THE devil was sick and queasy of late,

And his sleep and his appetite failed him;

His ears they hung down, and his tail it was clapped
Between his poor hoofs, like a dog that's been rapped-
None knew what the devil ailed him.