THE VICAR.

W. MACKWORTH PRAED.

SOME years ago, ere Time and Taste

Had turned our parish topsy-turvy,
When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste,
And roads as little known as scurvy,
The man who lost his way between
St. Marys' Hill and Sandy Thicket,
Was always shown across the Green,
And guided to the Parson's Wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lisson lath;

Fair Margaret in her tidy kirtle,

Led the lorn traveler up the path,

Through clean-clipped rows of box and myrtle: And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,

Upon the parlor steps collected,

Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say,
"Our master knows you; you 're expected!"

Up rose the Reverend Doctor Brown,

Up rose the Doctor's "winsome marrow;"
The lady lay her knitting down,

Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow;
Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed,
Pundit or papist, saint or sinner,
He found a stable for his steed,

And welcome for himself, and dinner.

If, when he reached his journey's end,
And warmed himself in court or college,
He had not gained an honest friend,

And twenty curious scraps of knowledge:—

If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor,Good sooth the traveler was to blame,

And not the Vicarage, or the Vicar.

His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses;
It slipped from politics to puns:

It passed from Mohammed to Moses:

Beginning with the laws which keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound divine,
Of loud Dissent the mortal terror;
And when, by dint of page and line,
He 'stablished Truth, or started Error,
The Baptist found him far too deep;

The Deist sighed with saving sorrow;
And the lean Levite went to sleep,

And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermons never said or showed

That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious,

Without refreshment on the road

⚫ From Jerome, or from Athanasius;

And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penned and planned them,

For all who understood, admired,

And some who did not understand them.

He wrote, too, in a quiet way,

Small treatises and smaller verses; And sage remarks on chalk and clay,

And hints to noble lords and nurses; True histories of last year's ghost,

Lines to a ringlet or a turban; And trifles for the Morning Post, And nothing for Sylvanus Urban.

He did not think all mischief fair,
Although he had a knack of joking;
He did not make himself a bear,
Although he had a taste for smoking:
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man's belief is bad,

It will not be improved by burning.

And he was kind, and loved to sit

In the low hut or garnished cottage,

And praise the farmer's homely wit,
And share the widow's homelier pottage:
At his approach complaint grew mild,

And when his hand unbarred the shutter,
The clammy lips of Fever smiled

The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me

Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus:
From him I learned the rule of three,
Cat's cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus;
I used to singe his powdered wig,

To steal the staff he put such trust in;
And make the puppy dance a jig

When he began to quote Augustin.

Alack the change! in vain I look

For haunts in which my boyhood trifled;
The level lawn, the trickling brook,

The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled:
The church is larger than before:

You reach it by a carriage entry:
It holds three hundred people more:
And pews are fitted up for gentry.

Sit in the Vicar's seat: you'll hear
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose tone is clear,
Whose tone is very Ciceronian.
Where is the old man laid?-look down,
And construe on the slab before you,
HIC JACET GULIELMUS BROWN,
VIR NULLA NON DONANDUS LAURA.

THE BACHELOR'S CANE-BOTTOMED CHAIR.

W. M. THACKERAY.

IN tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day

Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is crammed in all nooks,
With worthless old knicknacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,

Cracked bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armor, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all cracked),
Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;

A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;
What matter? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,

Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
And 'tis wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp;
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
"Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;
As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie

This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There's one that I love and I cherish the best;
For the finest of couches that's padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.

'Tis a bandy-legged, high-shouldered, worm-eaten seat,
With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when FANNY sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair.

If chairs have but feeling in holding such charms,
A thrill must have passed through your withered old arms!
I looked, and I longed, and I wished in despair;
I wished myself turned to a cane-bottomed chair.

It was but a moment she sat in this place,

She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!

A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,

And she sat there, and bloomed in my cane-bottomed chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since,

Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;

Saint FANNY, my patroness sweet I declare,

The queen of my heart and my cane-bottomed chair.
When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of night as I sit here alone-
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair-
My FANNY I see in my cane-bottomed chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottomed chair.

STANZAS TO PALE ALE.

On! I have loved thee fondly, ever

Preferr'd thee to the choicest wine;
From thee my lips they could not sever
By saying thou contain'dst strychnine.
Did I believe the slander? Never!

I held thee still to be divine.

For me thy color hath a charm,

Although 'tis true they call thee Pale;
And be thou cold when I am warm,
As late I've been-so high the scale
Of FAHRENHEIT-and febrile harm
Allay, refrigerating Ale!

How sweet thou art!-yet bitter, too
And sparkling, like satiric fun;
But how much better thee to brew,
Than a conundrum or a pun,

It is, in every point of view,

Must be allow'd by every one.

PUNCH.