DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION OF THE PRESIDENT AND COUNCIL, TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.
Clear, and grey the day is dawning, free from each ill-omened warning,
And the sharp fresh air of morning blows upon our mountain way,
As o'er brook and chasm springing, or up woody crag-sides swinging,
Showers of dew and blossom bringing down from each rich laden spray;
While the birds from tree and thicket greet us with a jocund lay,
Merrily our band advancing, towards the mountain's summit glancing,
Sees the early sunbeams dancing on a dome of burnished flame,
Where, with open doors entreating our approach, a cordial greeting
Angel voices seem repeating, singing, sloth and fear to shame,
"Hasten! favoured mortals; hasten upward to the House of Fame!"
Pausing now, in contemplation, I perceive that every nation,
From each calling, class, or station, sends its quota to our band;
Poets jostling grave logicians; botanists by politicians;
Soldiers marching with physicians; kings, with hermits close at hand
Miners, æronauts, and divers, pass before me as I stand.
Owen, with a fossil tusk or femur strides along, and Busk a
Jar has got of fresh Mollusca to sustain him in his toil;
Williams, fond of vermicelli, has a mess of small Sabellæ,
Serpulæ, and Terabellæ; Fowler in his "mortal coil"
Thinks he has a force sufficient any obstacle to foil.
Murchison, with Chambers walking, of striated rocks is talking;
Cumming up a glen goes stalking deer, with Landseer painting him;
Brougham here and there is tripping, up the rocks for wild bees skipping,
In the brooks and fountains dipping; gazing, till his eyes are dim,
On the Sun, as "Hydrostatics," "Optics," "Instincts," suit his whim.
While Arago drags his dying limbs with us, and, though still plying
All his much-loved arts, is sighing for his country's broken laws:
Happier Humboldt's mind in masses groups rocks, pebbles, trees, and grasses,
Clouds, brooks, torrents, mountain passes; thence one grand conclusion draws;
From the greatest and the least of Nature's works the Common Cause
And purpose of them all divining. "Sages, in a well reclining,
Saw the stars at noon-day shining," ancient legends said; but Hind
Marching on in contemplation, by mere force of calculation
Every wandering planet's station in the sunlit sky can find,
Gazing at them from the deep recesses of his mighty mind.
And as thus, with collimators, syphons, hydro-incubators,
Seismoscopes and insulators, stuffed birds, insects, ferns and grasses,
Microscopic preparations, tons of fire-new publications,
Trophies of departed nations, jars of new invented gases,
Lenses, crucibles, and gauges, all the hurried cortège passes;
Claudet, on the concourse gazing, as they come beneath the blazing
Sun, much dust around them raising, dips his brush in solar flame;
And so skilfully his art he plies, that 'ere the busy party
From before his eye can start, he manages the whole to frame
In one picture, as a fitting tribute to the House of Fame.
Now the glens and gorges clearing, and on steep bare slopes appearing
Blither grows our band at hearing, from the gazing crowd below,
Shouts of praise and gratulation: but our joy to consternation
Changes, on the observation that some men we do not know
Have crept up by other paths, and share our glory as we go.
And these interlopers blending thoughts of fame and pelf are vending
Various wares while they're ascending. Fox the public fancy hits,
At so much per scratch revealing scratches on the walls and ceiling,
Made with infinite good feeling, by dead heroes, bards, and wits,
To amuse an epileptic milliner between her fits.
Reichenbach here runs up, saying he can see a marsh light playing
On the hill in open day; in swamps to sink above his knees
For his pains he is devoted. 'Mongst the rest, too, here, I noted
The unknown, but often quoted, author of the "Vestiges,"
Seeking for the geese that spring from barnacles that grow on trees.
Here our path with doubts and dangers thick is set; for shabby strangers,
Little better than bush-rangers, try our purses to retain:
Pupils these of Proudhon's teaching: Carlyle runs amongst us preaching
That we are but wind-bags, screeching flunkies, shams and shadows vain:
Cullen, Wiseman, Newman, tell us our true path is down again.
And a band, denominated Critics, of mere words created,
(Like the horses who were stated to be children of the wind)
Come to settle each pretension; but our best and wisest men shun
The oft proffered intervention of these blind guides of the blind;
On we press, and leave quacks, critics, dreamers, schemers, all behind.
From the crowd some intervening pine-trees now our band are screening,
Yet they shout, their praises meaning for the quacks we leave below.
We, with bated breath, slow creeping up the sharply rising steep, in
Indian file our course must keep in paths that faint and fainter grow—
Only by the spoils of those who went before, the track we know.
For in crevice, nook, and cranny peering, we perceive that many
Of our predecessors any loads they liked not, here threw down.
Loyola's whole knightly armour, and the ploughshare of the farmer
Hampden; Southey's early drama of Wat Tyler; Codrus' crown;
Stout Archbishop Blackburn's cutlass; Joan of Arc's plain hodden gown;
Galileo's early notion of the Sun's diurnal motion;
Becket's slily feigned devotion to his Royal Master's sway;
Lope's, Calderon's, Cervantes' swords, exchanged for pens, and Dante's
(When as force could not supplant his foes, he took a surer way);
Brutus' simulated weakness; strewn about the mountain, lay.
On these relics as we trample, fired by such a good example,
Some of our men leave an ample share upon the flinty strand;
Pio Nono's contribution is his taste for Revolution;
"Russell on the Constitution," tumbles from its author's hand;
Disraeli flings away his projects to relieve the land;
Engineers let fall a shower of statements that the tractive power
Of steam, just fifteen miles an hour cannot possibly exceed;
Sugden his determination quits, the due acceleration
Of amended legislation, by mere quibbles to impede,
Pelham and Paul Clifford Bulwer drops, and climbs with greater speed.
Now small hillocks round us lying mark the spots where others, trying
Feats beyond their strength, sank dying, ere the summit they could gain.
Luther's love of toleration perished here by congelation;
There the too great elevation turned Napoleon's seething brain;
Here a whirlwind caught Descartes and swept him downward to the plain.
And the day is well nigh ended, as against the steep extended,
Each by each in turn befriended, each to each for succour clings;
While the tempest, well nigh brushing us away sweeps down, and gushing
From our very path come rushing mighty rivers' snow-fed springs,
And the avalanche's roar through far off glens and valleys rings;
But, a glimpse sometimes espying, through the clouds beneath us flying,
Of the plain all peaceful lying, of the paths by which we came,
Or, along the road before us, of the fame close hanging o'er us—
Where the high celestial chorus greeting every one by name,
Sings; "O! Hasten, favoured mortals! Hasten to the House of Fame!"—
Pressing upwards at a pace, meant for success, we reach the basement.
Shattered is each door and casement; ruined are the lower halls,
Not a word by us is spoken, seeing statues long so broken
That of what they were no token yet remains, and crumbling walls
Whence the mouldering tablet, carved with long-forgotten letters, falls.
Through these chambers sadly wending, and to other halls ascending,
Newer they appear, though tending slowly to a like decay;
Aristotle's, Plato's pages, which, through long succeeding ages,
O'er the minds of other sages held so absolute a sway;
Panels, which Apelles used, with all the colours worn away;
Witty jests of Periander; bulletins of Alexander;
Systems of Anaximander; fossil Pterodactyles found
In the old Homeric strata; speeches that could once create a
New soul in a dying state, or burst the chains a tyrant bound;
Once loved arts and cherished customs; moulder on the dusty ground.
To the higher rooms approaching, still we find the new encroaching
On the old; the Moderns poaching coolly on the Ancients' land.
Niebuhr's stern determination many an ancient reputation
Tumbles from its lofty station; Hardouin's sacrilegious hand
Threatens Virgil; Shepherd scarce will let one ancient father stand.
Nay, our predecessors hearing our approach, and greatly fearing
Hurt from us, on our appearing, mostly haste to give us way;
Brewster with delight is glowing, laurels won from Newton showing;
Cuvier yields his wreath to Owen, Davy his to Faraday;
Hume does homage to Macaulay; Fielding welcomes Thackeray.
But though on the topmost story now we stand, we know our glory
Shall at best be transitory; brief our triumph is, though proud,
For, far down the mountain glancing, rays, that set for us, are dancing
On the rapidly advancing columns of a mighty crowd;
As their leaders cheer them on we hear them shouting long and loud.
That, as ours was, so their race is; that their course our track defaces;
That they crave our hard-won places; thrills us like a sudden flame;
And the high celestial chorus once again descending o'er us,
As of old it would implore us, sings, to urge them on, the same
Strain of "Hasten, favoured mortals! Hasten to the House of Fame!"