[Return to text]This allusion is to Byrant’s lines ‘To the Fringed
Gentian,’ a poem so replete with truth and beauty, that we
cannot resist the inclination to quote it here.
Ed. Knickerbocker.
Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven’s own blue.
That openest, when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
Thou comest not when violets lean
O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o’er the ground-bird’s hidden nest.
Thou waitest late, and com’st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.
I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.
[Return to text]By the word ‘columnæ,’ Horace (though Bentley knew it not) evidently meant the columns of
the Roman newspapers.
[Return to text]The name of Boston, in Lincolnshire, is said to be derived from St. Botolph—quasi Botolph’s
town.
[Return to text]At the late opening of the ‘Tremont Temple’ in Boston, the new proprietors chanted what they
called a ‘Purification Hymn,’ of which we give one stanza:
‘Satan has here held empire long—
A blighting curse, a cruel reign;
By mimic scenes, and mirth and song
Alluring souls to endless pain!’
[Return to text]The Norwich company of players, to which he belonged.