Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hands addressed-
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought who heard the strain,
They saw in Tempè's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,
To some unwearied minstrel dancing:
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round,
(Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound)
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings.
LESSON CXCVII.
The Amateurs.-MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY.
WHEN Festin, heavenly swain, was young,
When first attuned his viol rung,
And the soft hautboy's melting trill
Confessed the magic master's skill;
Beneath his opening windows round
The admiring rabble caught the sound;
And oft, at early morn, the throng
Besieged the house to hear his song.
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
With one consent, they brought around
Dire instruments of grating sound;
And each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would try his own sky-rending power.
First in the ranks, his skill to try,
A stout and sturdy clown was there;
A deafening hautboy, cracked and dry,
Brayed harsh discordance on the air:
With breath retained, and labored grin,
Rapt by his own tumultuous din,
With blood suspended in his face,
And paws that could not find their place,
*Mr. John Festin, a music-master, was the intended hero of Hogarth's celebrated piece, "The Enraged Musician."
The champion played: while every peal confessed
How strong the throes that heaved his massy chest.
Next came a brawny nurse, but six feet high,
With leathern lungs, and throat of brass supplied ;
Striving with "Chevy Chase" and "Lullaby,"
To drown the screeching infant at her side.
And ever and anon the babe she seized,
And squeezed, and sung, and sung and squeezed;
Although sometimes, each dreary pause between,
The strangled infant's piercing shrieks,
And writhing limbs, and blackening cheeks,
Full well confessed the secret pin,
That keenly goaded him within
Yet closer squeezed the nurse, and louder was her din.
A wheezing sawyer, standing by,
Industriously was sawing wood;
Though dull his saw, his throat though dry,
A while he used them as he could.
At length, grown tired of toil in vain,
The wretch resolved to change his strain;
With fell intent, defying nature's law,
He paused, and held his breath-to whet his saw.—
With eyes half closed, and raised to heaven,
And starting teeth from sockets driven,
And clenching jaws, convulsed with ghastly smile,
Across the wiry edge he drew the screaking file.
A boy came next, loud whooping to the gale,
And on his truant shoulders bore a pole:
Two furious cats, suspended by the tail,
Were swinging cheek by jole.
O dulcet cats, thus hung at leisure,*
What was your delighted measure!
Entangled in no faint embrace,
With claws deep buried in each other's face,
How did ye hiss and spit your venom round,
With murderous yell of more than earthly sound!
O dulcet cats! could one more pair like you,
The concert join, and pour the strain anew,
Not man could bear, nor demon's ear sustain
The fiendish caterwaul of rage and pain.
A fish cart next came rattling by ;
Its lusty driver, perched on high,
Recruited by his recent bowl,
Poured through the deafening horn his greedy soul.
Such notes he blew as erst threw down
Old Jericho's substantial town;
While scarce was heard, so loud he wound his peal,
The mangled cur that yelped beneath his wheel.
Then came a child eloped from home,
Pleased, in the streets at large to roam ;
His cart behind he dragged ;-before,
A huge tin coffee-pot he bore,
Which, ever and anon, he beat
With sticks and stones in furious heat:
Nor heeded he that at his heels
The crier rung his frequent peals.
With brazen throat, and hideous yell,
That distanced all the hounds of hell,
In air his stunning bell he tossed,
And swelled, and shouted “lost!-lost !-lost!"
Emblem of justice, high above,
A ponderous pair of steelyards hung;-
Hooked by the nose, his weight to prove,
A living hog beneath was swung.
Dire was the squeal that rent the sky,
With sounds too dread for earthly throat;
While not a butcher lingered nigh
To stop the howling monster's note.
Fast to escape the hated strain,
With ears comprest, some fled amain,
While others paused, all hopeless of relief,
And cursed the stars that had not made them deaf.
Ere Colin* drew his fiddle bow,
While saw-mills yet were mute;
The jarring, howling, deafening choir,
With notes combined in concert dire,
Could shake the sky, the solid earth could move,
While milder thunders burst unheard above.
* The real name of the resolute musician, whose instrument suggested the idea of the above concert, is concealed by the poet-in his regard for the feelings of that votary of Apollo-under the name of one of the characters 'in Pope's second Pastoral.
The Street-scene between Brutus and CASSIUS.-From the Tragedy of Julius Cæsar.-SHAKSPEARE.
Cassius. WILL you go see the order of the course?
Brutus. Not I.
Cas. I pray you, do.
Bru. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony;
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;
I'll leave you.
Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late;
I have not from your eyes that gentleness,
And show of love, as I was wont to have:
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand
Over your friend that loves you.
Be not deceived; if I have veiled my look,
I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am,
Of late, with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,
Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors:
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved;
Among which number, Cassius, be you one;
Nor con'strue any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.
Cas. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,
By means whereof, this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?
Bru. No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself,
But by reflection by some other things.
And it is very much lamented, Brutus,
That you have no such mirrors as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,
That you might see your shadow. I have heard,
Where many of the best respect in Rome,
(Except immortal Cæsar,) speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age's yoke,
Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.
Bru. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself,
For that which is not in me?
Cas. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear;
And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous of me, gentle Brutus:
Were
I a common laugher, or did use
To stale with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protestor; if you know
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting
To all the rout, then hold me dāngerous.
Bru. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people Choose Cæsar for their king.
Cas. Ay, do you fear it?
Then must I think you would not have it so.
Bru. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well :
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in one eye, and death in the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honor more than I fear death.
Cas. I know that virtue to be in Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favor.
Well, honor is the subject of my story.-
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Cæsar
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tyber chafing with his shores,
Cæsar says to me, Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point ?-Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
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