TO THOMAS CARLYLE, ESQUIRE, LONDON.
Herewith a box, a fragrant casket, goes,
Of that loved herb which best in Cuba grows;
You had my promise, Thomas, you remember,
In Fraser's shop, one morning last November,
Of, now and then, a letter from the land
Which cocknies write of ere they understand.
Pick then the choicest of the weeds I send,
(The Custom House will give them to my friend,)
There having paid the duties that accrue,
Permit me thus to pay mine own to you.
And oh! how difficult each London wight
Finds the more Christian duty—not to write;
For John is reckoned taciturn and shy,
Slow of address and sullen in reply;
Bacchus or Ceres, burgundy or ale,
To rouse his fancies are of no avail;
But would you force the fellow's mettle forth,
And of his genius know the pith and worth,
In vain you ply him with inspiring drink,
Give him a bottle, not of beer, but ink:
However tongue-tied, asinine, or dull,
A quill ay proves a cork-screw to his skull.
Hence this poor land so scribbled o'er has been,
'Tis like a window in some country inn,
Where every dolt has chronicled his folly,
His fit of belly-ache or melancholy;
With memorandums of his mutton oft,
And how his bed was hard, his butter soft;
How some John Thompson, on a rainy day,
Found nought to eat, but very much to pay,
And how said Thompson wished himself away.
Ye reverend gods, who guard the household flame,
Lares, Penates, whatsoe'er your name,
What dire subversion of your sway divine
Lets loose all cockneydom to tempt the brine?
Why from the counter and the club-room so
Flock the spruce trader and the Bond-street beau?
Why should the lordling[A] and the Marquis come?
And many a snug possessor of a plum,
Quitting his burrow on the 'Ampstead road,
With wife and trunks be flying all abroad?
Is it in rivers and in rocks to find
Some new sensation for a barren mind?
To mark how Albion's little nook has grown
To kiss the limits of the roasted zone?
From kindred manners, doctrines, men, and sects
To learn a lesson of their own defects?
Or with rapt eye on cataracts to look?
No, their sole passion is—to spawn a book.
From the cold Caspian to the Volga thus
The sturgeons pour pell-mell—a mighty muss![B]
Eager with annual industry to strow
The slimy bottom with whole heaps of roe;
Scarce less I say the multitudinous fry
Each season brings to keep a diary;
Which oft, to give my simile more truth,
Proves 'caviare' to the general tooth.
Ere yet my glance anatomized aright
The insect race that fluttered in my sight,
Oft as the mote-like myriads of Broadway
I scanned, their trim and bearing to survey,
At each third passenger I could not choose
But curl my lip, with frequent pshas! and poohs!
To mark the vanity, the coarse conceit,
That showed the creature's genus to the street.
'Was ever nation like Sienna's vain?'[C]
Says father Dante, in sarcastic strain;
And in my book-learned ignorance I quoted
The line, to fit the follies which I noted.
Surely, quoth I, could emptiness and froth
And the poor pride of superfinest cloth
To more excess be carried than by these
Pert, whiskered, insolent Manhattanese?
But soon I found how poor a patriot I,
'Twas mine own countrymen I saw go by!
Pride in their port, defiance in their gait,
I saw these lords of human kind with hate.
O, altered race! with hair upon your chins,
In your strut Spaniards, Frenchmen in your grins;
The 'snob' and shop-keeper but ill concealed
By boots of Paris, bright and brazen-heeled,
Newmarket coats, and Cashmere's flowery vests,
And half Potosi blazing on your breasts,
Made up of coxcomb, pugilist, and sot—
Are ye true Englishmen? I know ye not!
With what fierce air, how lion-like a swell,
They pace the pavement of the grand hotel;
On each new guest with regal stare look down,
Or strike him dead with a victorious frown;[D]
These are the fools whom I for natives took,
Ere I could read their nation in their look;
Now wiser grown, I recognize each ass
For a true bit of Birmingham's best brass.
In Astor's mansion, where the rich resort,
And exiled Britons toss their daily port,
And sometimes angels condescend to sip
Their balmy hyson with benignant lip,
A nook there is to thirsty pilgrims known,
But sacred to male animals alone,
Where foreign blades receive their morning's whet,
As deep almost in juleps as in debt.
There from the throng it pleases me at times
To pick out subjects for a few odd rhymes.
And who could guess, amid this cloud of smoke,
That yonder things were hearts of British oak;
Or who that knew the country of their birth,
Could by the gilding guess the fabric's worth?
Come, let us dare these lions to attack,
And hang a calf-skin on each recreant back.
Some are third cousins of the penny press,
Skilful a piquant paragraph to dress;
Some in their veins a dash patrician boast—
Them Stülz has banished from their natal coast:
Here sits a lecturer, bearing in his mien
More glories than he bought at Aberdeen.
These are tragedians—wandering stars—and those
Some little nobodies no body knows,
Manchester men, deep read in calicoes.
Thomas, your soul abominates a quack,
Great, small, high, low—the universal pack.
And sure our London is a proper place
Wherein to study and detest the race.
But O, consider in a land like this,
Which owns but one distinction, aim, and bliss;
One only difference, by all confessed,
Betwixt earth's vilest offspring and her best;
One sole ambition for the young and old,
Divine, omnipotent, eternal gold;
Where genius, goodness, head and heart are weighed
By the false balance of delusive Trade,
How small, how impotent is Truth's defence }
Against the strides of that arch-fiend, Pretence, }
The time's worst poison, blight, and pestilence! }
Here, only here, a bold and honest lie
Its full allowance of success will buy.
No sanctity of station, age, or name,
Can check the Charlatan's audacious aim;
'A self-made man' is here a fav'rite phrase,
So self-made talents earn their self-made praise.
Whate'er a freeman claims to be, he is;
He knows all magic and all mysteries;
No matter in what sphere the scoundrel shine,
He made himself, and that's a right divine.
Come, then, ye mountebanks of all degrees,
New Cagliostros! fly beyond the seas;
Fiddlers from Rome, philanthropists from France,
Lords of the lyre, the lancet, and the dance;
Hydropathists, and mesmerisers, come;
Ye who Cremonas and Clementis thrum,
Here build your altars, hang your banners out,
Laurel yourselves, and your own pæan shout;
Assume what little, take what coin you will,
Profess all science, arrogate all skill:
What though no university enroll
Your name and honors on a Latin scroll?
Sure each may constitute himself a college,
And be himself the warrant of his knowledge.
Then at small cost in some gazette obtain
Alike an apotheösis and fane:
Amid its hallowed columns once enshrined,
Converts and worshippers you soon shall find,
Buy of the editor—'tis cheap enough—
The sacred incense of his potent puff;
The public nose will catch the sweet aroma,
Tut! they who advertise need no diploma.
'Good heavens!' methinks I hear my Thomas cry,
'With what a low, derogatory eye
You view the beautiful, primeval shore
Where first-born forests guard the torrent's roar.
What! is there nothing in that lovely land
Mid all that's fair, and excellent, and grand,
Nothing more worthy of a poet's pen
Than sots and rogues and bastard Englishmen?'
Patience! philosopher: as yet I dwell
In the dull echoes of a tavern-bell;
My inspiration is not born of rocks,
Nor meads, nor mountains white with snowy flocks;
Streets and their sights are all that fire me now
To tap the bump ideal of my brow;
Mine ears are thrilled not by Niagara's noise,
But that of drays and cabs and bawling boys;
And scarce the day one quiet hour affords
To fit my fancies with harmonious words;
Yet oft at evening, when the moon is up,
When trees on dew and men on slumber sup,
Along the gas-lit rampart of the bay
In rhymeful mood as undisturbed I stray,
Awhile my present 'whereabout' I lose,
And on my loved ones o'er the water muse.
Sometimes lulled ocean heaves an orient sigh,
Which brings our terrace and its roses nigh;
While each Æolian murmur of the sea
Seems whispering fragrantly of home and thee;
But something soon dispels the pleasing dream,
The fire-fly's flash, the night-hawk's whistling scream,
Or katydid, complaining in the dark,
Or other sound unheard in Regent's Park.
For wheresoe'er by night or noon I tread,
Thought guides me still, like Ariadne's thread,
Through shops and crowds and placard-pasted walls
Till on my brain Sleep's filmy finger falls
And cuts the filament, with gentle knife,
That leads me through this labyrinth of life.
I feel it now, the power of the dull god;
The verse imperfect halts—Thomas, I nod;
'Tis late—o'er Caurus hangs the northern car;
My page is out—and so is your cigar.