And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheese out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles.
Split open the kegs of the salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
And shrieking and squeaking,
In fifty different sharps and flats.”
But the grandest pieces in the volume are “Pippa Passes,” and “A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.” The latter, in the opinion of Dickens, is the finest poem of the century. We think there can be detected in it that hardness of touch which characterizes the other dramas, but the depth and pathos of the matter, and the approach to something like impassioned action in the events, make it wonderfully impressive. Once read it must haunt the imagination forever, for its power strikes deep into the very substance and core of the soul. Thorold’s adamantine pride, and Guendolen’s sweet woman’s sympathy, and Mildred’s awful sorrow, can never be forgotten. Mildred’s repetition, in moments of agony or half-consciousness, of the lines—