Sometimes the poetic afflatus falls upon him as he converses, and he will impromptu favour you with an original effusion of rhyme or blank verse, much to the strengthening of his self-complacency, and to the gratification of your sense of the ludicrous.
Talking with Mr. Smythe, a young student, some time ago, I found he was so full of poetic quotations that I began to think whether all his lessons at college had not consisted in the learning of odds and ends from “Gems” and “Caskets” and “Gleanings.”
Speaking about the man who is not enslaved to sects and parties, but free in his religious habits, he paused and said, “You remind me, Mr. Bond, of what Pope says,—
‘Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature’s God.’”
The subject of music was introduced, when, after a few words of prose he broke out in evident emotion,—
“Music! oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!
Why should feeling ever speak
When thou canst breathe her soul so well?
Friendship’s balmy words may pain,
Love’s are e’en more false than they—
Oh! ’tis only music’s strain
Can sweetly soothe and not betray.”
“Those are very beautiful lines, Mr. Smythe,” I observed; “can you tell me whose they are?”
Placing his hand to his head, he answered, “Really, Mr. Bond, I do not now remember.”
“They are Moore’s,” I replied.
“Oh yes, yes, so they are. I could give you numberless other pieces, Mr. Bond, equally fine and touching.”