For the Table Book.
SONNET TO MISS KELLY,
On her excellent performance of Blindness, in the revived Opera of Arthur and Emmeline.
Rare artist, who with half thy tools, or none,
Canst execute with ease thy curious art,
And press thy powerful’st meanings on the heart
Unaided by the eye, expression’s throne!
While each blind sense, intelligential grown
Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight,
Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might,
All motionless and silent seem to moan
The unseemly negligence of nature’s hand,
That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine,
O mistress of the passions!—artist fine!—
Who dost our souls against our sense command;
Plucking the horror from a sightless face,
Lending to blank deformity a grace.
C. Lamb.
VOLUNTEER REMINISCENCES.
To the Editor.
Sham-Fights and Invasion.
Dear Sir,—Some agreeable recollections induce me to pen a few circumstances for the Table Book, which may kindle associations in the many who were formerly engaged in representing the “raw recruit,” and who are now playing the “old soldier” in the conflict of years. I do not travel out of the road to take the “Eleven city regiments” into my battalion, nor do I call for the aid of the “Gray’s-inn sharpshooters,” (as lawyers are,) and other gents of the “sword and sash,” who then emulated their brethren in “scarlet and blue.”—Erecting my canteen at Moorgate, I hint to other quilldrivers to extend their forces when and where their memories serve. Inkshed, not bloodshed, is my only danger—my greatest failing is a propensity (I fear) to digress and enlarge, till I may not bring the numbers of my muster-roll within proper discipline. Being on my guard, however, I take the succeeding specimens from a spot filled with chapels of several persuasions, the “London Institution,” and well-built houses, with a pleasant relief of verdure in the centre for nursery maids and romping children.