But my main source of information

Is mystical confabulation,

With similar forms and kindred souls

Which human hands for human soles

Have drilled to keep their ranks and show

Their noses, red-coat-like, in row:

I mean the stones, which, when your eyes 1150

shows his companions; viz.,

Were ope’d, appeared like heads to rise.

“A goodly confrèrie we are,

Gathered together from afar:

a Scotch stone,

That granite fellow five rows off,

Ah, he’s the Stone to laugh and scoff

At men, and, when he’s in the mood,

You’ll hear him swearing by the rood

He’s a twin brother to the Stone

The Scottish kings scratched on at Scone;*

And oft he sneers; in tones forlorn, 1160

‘Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn

Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn,’†

And bitterly declares no wonder

That men prefer the pound to pund, or

That sterling silver crowns weigh down

Th’ uneasy head-dress called a crown.

a Turkish stone,

Yon marble chap once stood as high as

The topmost moon of St. Sophia’s!

You’ve read, I s’pose, what fuss they

made

About the farce called Crusade?” 1170

“Yes! cursorily——”

* The Lea Fail, or “Fatal Stone,” stolen from Tara by Feargus of Scotland, and stolen from Scone Abbey by Edward I.; it is placed in Westminster, and is still used for good omen.—F. B.

† From the patriotic Smollett.—F. B.

“Well, man! well,

Your Pinnock’s cathechism will tell

How, when men failed, boys went to try

Their hand against the heatheny;

And faith the heathen treated ’em

Better by far than Christendom.

One young Crusader with a Turk

Lived, till beard grew, exempt from work;

But, when his face its beauty mourned,*

Finding himself hard used and scorned, 1180

He took ’t to heart and straight levanted,

And, as he naturally wanted

To show some trophy, bore a bit

Of stone, picked up from offal pit,

Home to his friends, swore ’twas the rock

On which St. Peter stood the shock

Of Hell-gates. All believed of course,

And worshipped it and him—a curse

On human fickleness! Now see

How trampled and how low lies he! 1190

and, lastly, Enoch’s stone.

Yonder Red Sandstone (with the spittle

Upon his patient brow), how little

You yester-things can guess how great

The honours of his former state.

Fellow! indulge me with thy ear—

I wish not other Stones to hear.

When mighty Enoch planned to keep

Intact from flame and the great deep

That invaluable mystery

Procataclysmal masonry, 1200

* A conceit of an Oriental poet, who, referring to the growth of his beard, declared that his face was putting on mourning for the loss of its beauty.—F. B.

He graved it on two pillars—one

Copper or brass, the other stone.

That stone was of the column’s base,

And bore inscribed upon his face

Th’ ineffable symbols A. S. S.

When the Flood came, his front was rolled or

Dashed against a brother boulder:

Now ’tis his solace to declaim

Against th’ event that marred his fame—

With fifty-parson-power damn 1210

The waves that spoiled his trinogram;

While folks upon his old head walk

As if he were but upstart chalk.

How are the mighty fallen! ’oons!

Now ye despise e’en Enoch’s stones!

Were I no Stone, but modern bard,

With my description ’twould go hard,

But duly introduced you to

Every thing that meets your view:

Not being such, I merely say what 1220

Is wanted, and what’s not I say not.”

“Stone! you’ve most sillily digressed,

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., returns to the subject

of Pagan Rome.

Wand’ring about from East to West.

I wish to speak of Rome; you’ll own

’Twas but a Pagan brood, whose crown

Was of this world.”

He gave a look

Like gloomy Pitt, or cynic Tooke,

And thus resumed: “I never knew

That Pagan Rome offended you;

I always thought that Christian Rome 1230

The Stone defends it against Great Britain;

Was your great eyesore: have not some

Declared they deem Stamboul’s sultan

A king more likely to attain

The heavenly crown than any Pope?

You contradictious mites that hope

To conquer worlds by brother love,

Yet in your inner hearts approve

Of solemn Christian curses thrown

Against the creed that bare your own,

Of periodic anathemas 1240

Which, to the ear of sense, but seem as

The railings of a shrewish maid

And curses on her mother’s head.

Say, why d’ye strive to prove before

The world you come from scarlet w—

Of Babylon, to whose broad base

Seven hills afford but sitting place?

And own ye no predestination

When volleying your execration

excuses the Pope Pio Nono, alias Count Mastai,

Against th’ unhappy Count whom chance 1250

Drew from Spain, Italy, or France?

In India born, he would have bowed

To Vishnu, or, mid Shiva’s crowd,

Yemen had taught to love and fear

One Allah and his Prophet dear:

by predestina-

tion, and

In Scotland raised, he would have bow’d

’Fore ‘minister,’ not stone and wood;

While Afric rude had made his mind

In every bush a God to find. [1260

Chance birth, chance teaching—these decide

The faiths wherewith men feed their pride;

And, once on childhood’s plastic mind

The trace deep cut, you seldom find

Effaceable, unless the brain

Be either wanting or insane.

But what care you for brain or head,

Ye stiff-necked herd, well paid and fed.

“bangs”

the new lights.

And clothed by human ignorance?

What reck ye eke of choice or chance,

Ye new-light saints, whose dear delight 1270

Is envy, hatred, malice, spite—

Is sending a whole world to hell

By troops and squadrons mixed pell-mell,

Except yourselves? If heaven be

Filled with th’ insensate company

Of those whose only title to ’t

Is that of being a human brute

With a big boss of veneration

And no Causality, I say shame

Such Paradise—a cul-de-sac 1280

Appropriate to the groaning pack.

Pray, why should ye exclude the ass

And dog from future happiness

Beside destroying all their pleasure

Here? O injustice beyond measure!” [no

“Ah! Stone, Stone, stop!—those brutes have

Reason or soul; their actions show——”

The Stone then identifies reason and instinct,

“Reason? A soul? Ay, ay, a store

Of misconceived and useless lore

Of dark, hard, dull great words to close 1290

Man’s eyes and lead him by the nose.

What is a soul but life derived

From life’s Eternal Fount deprived

Of power to gain its upward source

Or leave unbid the prison-corse?

atheistically or pantheistically.

Your cerebral machinery

Is Reason—Mind. Chicanery

Tells you the gift is one distinct

From that it gravely dubs Instinct.

Words! words! A similar spirit reigns 1300

In human and in bestial brains:

In that it sits on jewelled throne,

In this on block of roughest stone;

Still is it One,—for ever One.

The life ye please to term your souls

Through matter’s ev’ry atom rolls—

From mote that swims the sun’s gay beam

To the vast might of ocean stream;

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., bids

him “bow and believe.”

And man’s——”

“Why, you’re an atheist!

Or, what’s the same, a Pantheist— 1310

Worshipping all the world because

Such giant faith hath grandest flaws!

Humility is all you want—

He replies he can’t, explain-

ing the pith

of Moses’ rod.

Bow and believe!”

Said he, “I can’t!

Quit we the theme: it never fails

To lead from words to teeth and nails

And mighty fistings to convince

One’s ‘’doxy’ is of creeds the prince.

The Baculine strong argument

Was all that Moses’ rod-myth meant— 1320

Its pith a parable to teach

Expediency, not safe to preach

That the true arm ecclesiastic

Is a wonder-working stake or a stick.”

“Well, modern Memnon!* still you’ll grant

That we can boast (the Romans can’t)

“Pol.” objects our philan-

thropists.

Of an Emancipation Bill,

Which, charity-wise, veils many an ill-

deed: philanthropic Wilberforce——”

“Yes! yes!” cried he; “yes! yes! of

course!——” 1330

* The celebrated speaking statue of Egypt.—F. B.

“What, then, hard-head! darest thou despise

Our Howards, Godwins, Owens, Frys?”

“No! They were stars sufficient bright

Each for its tiny sphere of light;

But their small glitter largely looms

Because of the surrounding glooms.

What say the wise mid rustic men?

‘One swallow makes no summer:’ when

Appears a throng of screaming swifts,

The Stone casts in his teeth our shopkeeperish-

ness,

The peasant knows the season shifts. 1340

A country so commercial could

Not be unselfish, an it would.

A land of traders ne’er can hope

Truly t’ enact the philanthrope.

Still its ambition’s highest range

Is what for good affects exchange:

Did China sink beneath the seas,

What would result? Demand for teas!

Unhappy Malwa starving dies—

Opium, of course, must have a rise! 1350

And Gallic revolutions get

Fame for affecting bobinet.

“Futurity shall tell the tale

of what befel in Tezeen’s vale,

By Kabul’s hills, whose ice-winds rave

O’er the bleached bones of many a brave—

O’er some ten thousand corpses strewed

Upon the snow, with red gore dewed.

our making money of every national dis-

aster,

Was this tragedy fittest scene

T’ enable painted mime to glean 1360

Pence from the pockets of the scum

Of town by ‘Sail’em Alick’em’?*

* Alluding to the minor theatres, which reproduced Lady Sale’s Capture. Enter two Moslems: quoth one, “Sail’em Alick’em!” (Assalamo Alaykum); responds the other, “Alick’em Sail’em!” (W’alaykum us Salàm).—F. B.

“Where ‘fabulous Hydaspes’ rolls

His real wave, a freight of souls

(Some fifteen thousand Sikhs) was hurled

Into th’ abyss of ‘other world.’

The wholesale massacre created

A little stir; that soon abated

Of course: who cares for distant blacks,

Die they by ones, die they by lacs? 1370

The grand sensation of the time

and thinking of Rush more

than of 15,000 Sikhs.

Was a small county-Norfolk crime.

On this your people’s fancy fed

With pleasing horror as they read

Detailed details: see, all the crush

Of Sikhdom’s hardly worth a ‘Rush!’

Such your philanthropy! In English

Another compound hath more relish—

Th’ intelligible philo-pelf,

Or veritable philo-self 1380

Faith you have all the perfidy

And all the fury of the sea!”*

“‘A man convinced against his will

Is of the same opinion still,’”

Cried I in wrath; “you, Stone, reflect!

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., accuses the Stone of envying man

Think ye I cannot e’en detect

The cause that set this storm a-brewing

And started off your tongue a-shrewing.

You vainly ape man’s dignity,

And, therein sadly failing, try, 1390

Radical-like, to bring us down

T’ a proper standard—viz., your own—

* So says M. Emile de Girardin.—F. B.

As Procrustes, first Radical,

To his own size cut down the tall—

A practical Pantisocrat;

But there the simile falls flat,

For the same thief un-Radically

Increased the small, to make them tally.

and of wrang-

ling like a Camford boy,

Thy arguments are raw and rare

As those of new-laid Baccalare, 1400

The sleeve-frocked sons of Alma Mater

(Abandoned mother! where’s the Pater?),

The full-grown calf of old Camford

(Or ‘Isis’ bower’—‘what’s in a word?’),

That holds no earthly joy so dear

As wrangling o’er his wine and beer,

Till right seem wrong, wrong right

appear,

Till white be black, and black be white,

Till one is three, three one are hight;

For he can take one side or t’other, 1410

In front and rear the foe to bother:

ending with the Amphis-

bæne.

So th’ Amphisbæne, of whom ’tis said

Now head is rump, now rump is head.”

The Stone cautions him against the Amphisbæne,

“Well wrangled, man! your eloquence,

However, smacks of virulence,

And ’s strong in simile, not sense

(That of the Amphisbæn’ is pretty,

But far too Millerish to be witty).

Methinks you weren’t just quite the

kind

Of lad to Mother Camford’s mind: 1420

Did she prescribe in rus t’ ye

and supports Camford against Lon-

don.

That ye must rail so cross and crusty?

Or gave a nunc dimitto ’cause

You broke her more than Median laws?

Against her I’ll back the city-

Effluvian University*

For impudence of London sparrows,

And shallow noisiness that harrows

My every feeling. Quit the theme!

It jars me like a drayman’s team.” 1430

“Quit we it, then: I wish to try

The fortunes of one more query,

Dr. Plyglott, Ph.D., harps

on the Eman-

cipation glories of England,

and gibes the United States.

Since you so quibbled off my last.

Say! is the age of Slavery past

From Britain? do we hunt and chain

The sons of Abel or of Cain?

Say! have we not full right to gibe

That contradictious New World tribe

‘Whose fustian flag of Freedom waves

In mock’ry o’er a land of slaves?’”† 1440

“Why, Spartan-like, I must reply:

You talk so long and wordily,

Before your speech’s tail appear,

Its head slips through mine other ear.

The Stone advises glass-

dwellers not to throw stones

You men of glass should not begin

Stone-throwing at your New World kin:

There slaves are but their servants; here

Your servants are the slaves ’tis clear.”

“Slaves? and to whom?”

“To social life—

As dire a shrew as any wife! — 1450

points to the white slave,

To Circumstance! to want inbred

Of food and meat and roof and bed!

To rank, ‘gentility,’ and pride,

And twenty other lords beside.

* Poor old Stinkamaree.—F. B.

† From some English poet; we forget his name.—F. B.

What is the genus Governess?

The dame de compagnie? I guess,*

The veriest slaveys of their kind,

Tho’ you be to the fact stone-blind.

“Trace me a class that has not money

For purchasing of matrimony, 1460

Your cooks and maids must starve to

marry;

So footman John, or Master Harry,

(Your son), becomes a sire or not

As chance directs. The mother’s lot

Is pleasant! Virtue shows the gate,

and Hunger drives to sadder state

(Hence the infanticides that grace

The purlieus of your dwelling-place,

Th’ exposures and barbarities

That seem to rend all human ties), 1470

Till, when all foul resources fail,

She dies in Magdalen or jail;

Whence—useful still—her remnant goes

Where practised porter right well knows—

T’ expose before the tyro’s eye,

With crimson size, each artery;

And, when he’s learned to cut and maim,

The pauper-corpse no friends will claim.

The scalpel’s work when past and done,

They shovel pieces, not of one, 1480

But half-a-dozen subjects dead—

One arm, three legs, and dubious head—

That, ere the mass begin to fester,

The priest may pray for ‘this our sister.’”

* Quoth Wordsworth (this “guess” is not Yankee):—“He was a lovely youth; I guess.”—F. B.

“’Tis but one class!”

“How many die

Blaspheming foodless Liberty?

Britain declares she’s free; go, test her

Truth in the dread dens of Manchester!

Go, and with Freedom’s boastings, cram

The ravening maw of Birmingham! 1490

On Galway’s hills perhaps you’ll find

Mouths to support you—When they’ve dined!

“Fair sir, your wealthy vanities

Have frozen human charities

Within your breasts; as icebrook’s steel,

Your hardened hearts forget to feel

for any but yourselves. I saw

Last night a starv’ling seized by law

Because he dared to beg for bread

‘O where is Charity?’ cried I. ‘Where?’” 1500

The next Stone echo’d,* “Here, sir! here!”

“None of your sneering, gaby; I

Fear no levator labii.”

“Our theory is good, at least,

In segregating man and beast——”

“Theory? Stop!” cried he; “don’t prate

Of theory to me. I hate

To see th’ interminate duello

’Twixt theory and practice, fellow!

and shows

anti-slavery to be mere humbug;

I do not mean to test and try 1510

The moral grounds of slavery;

But your ideas sound far too good,

Methinks, for human flesh and blood.

Sir! all your patriarchs had slaves;

Your holy prophets, too, had slaves;

* Echo has, it is true, had of late very hard work, like the albatross and the travelling schoolmaster.—F. B.

Your early Christian saints had slaves;

Your Lord-anointed kings had slaves.

They all were wrong: you right, ye knaves!

Since one-idea’d Wilberforce [1520

Preached others deaf, talked himself hoarse,

From John Bull’s purse to loose the string,

And make you do a foolish thing.”

“Foolish—and why?”

“Because ’twas mere

Quixotic fancy to appear

Serving a tit-bit of romance,

Dished up with facts of eloquence—

Culled for a ‘Senate’s’ taste, and sorted

For minds that love the Great Distorted,

Whereon to waste your tears and coins,

opining that charity should begin at home,

When every rule of right enjoins 1530

Charity to begin at home.

But, when can homely horror come

Near the wild, distant, gloomy tales

Of blacks bepacked like cotton bales,

Sold like cattle, lashed till raw

By nankeen’d whites in hats of straw?

This for your theory: now attend!

I’ll try your practice—this the end

To which I make my theories tend. [1540

“Sir! when your cruisers plough the seas,

Now freeing slaves, now stealing teas

(Spending some million pounds a-year

In way John Bull e’er holds most

and that, as

it is, captured slaves are not liberated, but transported.

dear—

Namely, the silly ostentation

Of being such a liberal nation—

As if commissioned from on high

Finger to thrust in every pie,

Yet laughing loudly when ye see a

Neighbour contending for ‘idea,’

Although, methinks, ideas are 1550

Than bales of cotton manlier far)

A slaver caught, do they restore

The captive to his native shore?

No, no! the negro’s kept and fed

Till, for some £7 10. per head,

A skipper tender ship to take a

Cargo of free men to Jamaica,

Or other colonies that pay

For labour hired so much a day.

Surely ’tis queer humanity 1560

To transport sine crimine—

To banish all your free men! Whew!

A most eccentric race are you

Islanders; as the Germans dream,

You all so many islands seem

Cut off from rest of human kind

By the fierce Channel’s ‘billows blind.’*

‘Whose fustian flag of Freedom waves

In mock’ry o’er a land of slaves!!!’

Yes, tinkling rhymer! well you sing, 1570

Alliterating little string.

How easy ’tis with writer’s art

To make of bad the better part!

Proving how words and jingle find

Easy approach to human mind.

Come, Southron, hear my tongue profer

A Rowland for their Oliver:

‘The meteor flag that blazes o’er

Free slaves on many a stolen shore.’”

* With which the Arab imagination filled the Atlantic.—F. B.

I threatened him with prosecution; 1580

He seemed to court such persecution:

Like old “professor,”* ne’er content

Till by main force to heaven sent;

Or modern patriot whose strong reason

Succumbs before charms of safe treason;

For still he sang, and louder sang,

With a most classic “Secesh” twang,

“The meteor flag that blazes o’er

Free slaves on many a stolen shore.”

Then, with abundant jeer and gibe, 1590

The Stone points to India,

He thus pursued his diatribe:

“Your slave-walks, sir, you’re pleased to call

‘Colonies’—change of name, that’s all;

And, when for ‘slave’ one ‘pauper’ reads,

There’s scanty difference ’twixt the breeds.

Mr. Legree, in Maryland,

Lashes his own with sparing hand;

Your fine East-Indian magistrate

To freemen deals far harder fate.

where women were, till lately, flogged,

Oft have I heard of women stripped,† 1600

Lashed to a tree, and fairly whipped

(List, shade of Haynau!) with the thong

Of cat-o’-nine-tail, sharp and long,

Laid by the Briton on her back.

’Tis true the wretch’s skin was black,

And epidermis dark, you see,

Somewhat like raiment seems to be.

Three dozen lashes! As descends

The manly blow, each hard knot sends

* Of the days of martyrdom—not to be confounded with the modern sense of the expression.—F. B.

† It has not, we believe, taken place since 1849.—F. B.

A burning pang through all her frame, 1610

Yet mild compared with outraged shame.

The first half-score, when duly plied,

Raise lengthy wheals from side to side;

And each fresh stripe, like molten lead,

Removes the strips of flesh that shed

Large blood-drops on the stones below,

Who blush them red.”

“But is it true?”*

“I’ve said, sir, we leave lies to you.

Dreadful, you cry?

I would contrast

and to more modest Persia.

Another scene with that just past. 1620

See the embattled hosts that stand

Upon the plains of Persian land;

Why points the gun, why bared the brand

Quiv’ring in every soldier’s hand?

Two brothers meet, in impious strife,

To fight for prize of crown and life;

And one shall fall a clay-cold thing

That one may sit a sceptr’d king.

The lines are formed, the standard reared,

Yet not a soul as yet hath dared 1630

To break that stirring pause, whose spell

The lawless men all feel so well.

“But whence those female sobs and wails?

Who come, in Burkas† wrapped and veils,

Hurrying ’twixt the hosts to try

If love or hate hath mastery?

Their prayers, their tears are all in vain!

Vainly in shrieks their voices strain!

* The scene referred to happened in a province of Western India. The woman was very insubordinate—still!—F. B.

† Mantillas covering the face.—F. B.

It is not on the battle-plain

That woman’s hest is heard. Again 1640

They try, again they fail; at last,

As mist before the Eastern blast,

Melts the sanguinary horde—

The spear is lowered, sheath’d the

sword,

The horseman springs from saddle-bow,

And tears, not blood, begin to flow:

Even the brothers must embrace

Before the mothers threat’ning face—

E’en they that hated for a crown

For smiling look change angry frown. 1650

“What might of miracle had power

Man’s heart to melt in such an hour?

Will ye believe it? Civilized set!

The empty sound of female threat,

The royal matron in despair

Offering to stranger eye to bare

The bosom whence existence drew

The twain that led that barbarous crew?*

These are the Turks for whom ye pray,

The heathen these for whom you pay 1660

A missionary mob to preach

Faith, Hope, and Charity—t’ unteach

More modest men t’ immure the fair—

deriding the former’s claim to superiority and mission-

ing.

Inculcate the true English stare,

Produce the brazen, reckless air

Which so distinguish women here.

Europe, the Moslems greet your plan

Of propagating courtesan-

* This romantic incident took place, exactly as described, after the death of Fatteh Alee Shah, King of Persia, when two of his sons prepared to fight for the succession.—F. B.

ship and dispensing to their breed

Strong waters and a ‘purer creed.’ 1670

“The civilizer aye delights

In neophytes, converts, proselytes:

Stir not an inch the graceless heathen

To bid their brother men to Heaven.

“This world is Heaven or is Hell

As you abuse or use it well,

And, in the graceless heathen’s sight,

Whatever is, is good, is right:

You’d make good better, and, of course,

You very oft’ make matters worse; 1680

The Stone defends the heathen against Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D.,

And, since you fail so signally,

I need not ask the reason why

You wish the world to be as bad.

The Hindu, you affirm, ’s a sad

Heathen, and yet, as such, he’s good.

The savage Moslem sheds men’s blood,

Marries four wives, and, what is worse,

Keeps concubines, allows divorce:

Still he is a righteous Mussulman.

The Parsee tricks his brother man 1690

And half adores his Ahriman,*

Yet’s a good Guebre. So the Jew—

In fact, all to their faiths are true,

And in them good, save, Christians, you!†

“And now, sir, as I’ve answered all

and calls for an explanation of the national thirst;

Interrogations, great and small

(Kindly remove your long thick leg),

I, in my turn, presume to beg

* The evil principle opposed to Hormuzd in the dualism of Old Persia.—F. B.

† Πας άγαθος ή άγαθος · έθνικος και πας χριστιανος ή χριστιανος κακος.—F. B.

Enlightment on a point which sore

Puzzles my brains each day the more. 1700

Tantalus-like are all you cursed

With an eternal raging thirst——”

“Dog-stone!” cried I, “intoxication

Is the pet vice of Northern nation;

Danes, Swedes, and Germans drink, while French

And Southron men prefer to wench

And eke to gamble——”

He pursued

Queries indelicate and rude:

“D’ye worship swine, like Taheitans,

And hog your minds like ponies’ manes? 1710

Else why go pigging all about

The streets and stations, in and out

Of houses, reeling, fighting, sing-

ing, weeping, laughing, puking, wring-

ing hands, until your presence shocks

The feelings of the stones and stocks?

Britannia, rise from off the edge

Of oval shield, and take the pledge!”

The question made me rather pensive;

I faintly muttered ’twas offensive— 1720

That drunkenness is now confined

of balls and theatres;

To snobs—obnoxious to be fined——

“And is it true you spend your nights,”

Asked he, “in viewing godless sights

Of women in flesh-coloured tights,

Whose only art is, as you know,

What’s better hidden all to show?

I’m told ’tis deemed the best of taste

To hug and paw strange woman’s waist,

Calling it fashion, custom, and 1730

The pleasures of a civilized land.

Like men less cynic, why not pay

Women to sing and dance and play?

Again, I hear no trade more thrives

of men mid-

wives;

Than accoucheurs and men mid-wives.

Can it be true you have no schools

Where sages femmes learn to litter fools?”

“Stone, we have reasons—there’s a chance——”

“Of what in England not in France?

Unless, perhaps, your women’s stays* 1740

And waspy waists you love to praise.

Produce the risk: why not reduce

The whalebone, and the tags disuse?

The Chinese cramp in swathes and shoes

The growth of dainty maiden’s toes,

Thinking that, next to woman’s tongue,

Gadding from home leads most to wrong.

But these corsets? Haply they’re placed

To keep your gentlewomen chaste?

As crinoline and farthingale, 1750

Which no hot amorist dare assail.