Here sued the Violet-vender bland—
It fills me now-a-days with gloom
To meet, amid the swarming Strand,
Her basket's magical perfume:
—The close street spreads to woodland dells,
Where early lost Affection's ties
Are round me gathering violet-bells,
—I'll rhyme no more of London Cries.
XI.
Yet ere I shut from Memory's sight
That cherish'd book, those pictures rare—
Be it recorded with delight
The Organ-fiend was wanting there.
Not till the Peace had closed our quarrels
Could slaughter that machine devise
(Made from his useless musket-barrels)
To slay us 'mid our London Cries.
XII.
Why did not Martin in his Act
Insert some punishment to suit
This crime of being hourly rack'd
To death by some melodious Brute?
From ten at morn to twelve at night
His instrument the Savage plies,
From him alone there's no respite,
Since 'tis the Victim, here, that cries.
XIII.
Macaulay! Talfourd! Smythe! Lord John!
If ever yet your studies brown
This pest has broken in upon,
Arise and put the Monster down.
By all distracted students feel
When sense crash'd into nonsense dies
Beneath that ruthless Organ's wheel,
We call! O hear our London Cries!
CLAUDIA AND PUDENS.[17]
We gladly welcome this essay from the hand of an old friend, to whom Scotland is under great obligations. To Archdeacon Williams, so many years the esteemed and efficient head of our Edinburgh Academy, we are indebted for a large part of that increased energy and success with which our countrymen have latterly prosecuted the study of the classics; and he is more especially entitled to share with Professor Sandford, and a few others, the high praise of having awakened, in our native schools, an ardent love, and an accurate knowledge, of the higher Greek literature. We do not grudge to see, as the first fruits of Mr Williams's dignified retirement and well-earned leisure, a book devoted to an interesting passage in the antiquities of his own land.