SOME years ago, ere time and taste
Had turn’d 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. Mary’s Hill and Sandy Thicket
Was always shown across the green,
And guided to the parson’s wicket.

Back flew the bolt of lissom lath;
Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,
Led the lorn traveller up the path
Through clean-clipp’d rows of box and myrtle;
And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,
Upon the parlor steps collected,
Wagg’d all their tails, and seem’d to say,
“Our master knows you; you ’re expected.”

Up rose the reverend Doctor Brown,
Up rose the doctor’s “winsome marrow;”
The lady laid her knitting down,
Her husband clasp’d 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 reach’d his journey’s end,
And warm’d himself in court or college,
He had not gain’d 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 traveller was to blame,
And not the vicarage, nor the vicar.

His talk was like a stream which runs
With rapid change from rocks to roses;
It slipp’d from politics to puns;
It pass’d from Mahomet 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 ’stablish’d truth or startled error,
The Baptist found him far too deep,
The Deist sigh’d with saving sorrow,
And the lean Levite went to sleep
And dream’d of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermon never said or show’d
That earth is foul, that heaven is gracious,
Without refreshment on the road
From Jerome, or from Athanasius;
And sure a righteous zeal inspir’d
The hand and head that penn’d and plann’d them,
For all who understood admir’d,
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 to the Morning Post,
And nothings 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 improv’d by burning.

And he was king, and lov’d to sit
In the low hut or garnish’d 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 unbarr’d the shutter
The clammy lips of fever smil’d
The welcome which they could not utter.

He always had a tale for me
Of Julius Cæsar or of Venus;
From him I learn’d the rule of three,
Cat’s-cradle, leap-frog, and Quæ genus.
I used to singe his powder’d wig,
To steal the staff he put such trust in,
And make the puppy dance a jig
When he began to quote Augustine.

Alack, the change! In vain I look
For haunts in which my boyhood trifled;
The level lawn, the trickling brook,
The trees I climb’d, 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 for the gentry.

Sit in the vicar’s seat: you ’ll hear
The doctrine of a gentle Johnian,
Whose hand is white, whose voice 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 nullâ non donandus lauro.”

Everyday Characters Ii - Quince

Fallentis semita vit*. — Hor.


Near a small village in the West,
Where many very worthy people
Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best
To guard from evil Church and steeple.
There stood — alas! it stands no more! —
A tenement of brick and plaster,
Of which, for forty years and four,
My good friend Quince was lord and master.

Welcome was he in hut and hall
To maids and matrons, peers and peasants ;
He won the sympathies of all
By making puns, and making presents.
Though all the parish were at strife.
He kept his counsel, and his carriage,
He laughed, and loved a quiet life,
And shrank from Chancery suits — and marriage.

Sound was his claret — and his head;
Warm was his double ale — and feelings;
His partners at the whist club said
That he was faultless in his dealings :
He went to church but once a week ;
Yet Dr. Poundtext always found him
An upright man, who studied Greek,
And liked to see his friends around him.

Asylums, hospitals and schools,
He used to swear, were made to cozen ;
All who subscribed to them were fools, —
And he subscribed to half-a-dozen :
It was his doctrine, that the poor
Were always able, never willing ;
And so the beggar at his door
Had first abuse, and then — a shilling.

Some public principles he had,
But was no flatterer, nor fretter ;
He rapped his box when things were bad.
And said 'I cannot make them better!'
And much he loathed the patriot's snort,
And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle ;
And cut the fiercest quarrels short
With — ' ' Patience, gentlemen — and shuffle ! ' '

For full ten years his pointer Speed
Had couched beneath her master's table ;
For twice ten years his old white steed
Had fattened in his master's stable ;
Old Quince averred, upon his troth,
They were the ugliest beasts in Devon ;
And none knew why he fed them both,
With his own hands, six days in seven.

Whene'er they heard his ring or knock.
Quicker than thought, the village slatterns
Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock,
And took up Mrs. Glasse, and patterns;
Adine was studying baker's bills ;
Louisa looked the queen of knitters ;
Jane happened to be hemming frills ;
And Bell, by chance, was making fritters.

But all was vain ; and while decay
Came, like a tranquil moonlight, o'er him.
And found him gouty still, and gay,
With no fair nurse to bless or bore him,
His rugged smile and easy chair,
His dread of matrimonial lectures,
His wig, his stick, his powdered hair.
Were themes for very strange conjectures.

Some sages thought the stars above
Had crazed him with excess of knowledge;
Some heard he had been crost in love
Before he came away from College ;
Some darkly hinted that his Grace
Did nothing, great or small, without him ;
Some whispered, with a solemn face,
That there was 'something odd about him ! '

I found him, at threescore and ten,
A single man, but bent quite double;
Sickness was coming on him then
To take him from a world of trouble :
He prosed of slipping down the hill.
Discovered he grew older daily ;
One frosty day he made his will, —
The next, he sent for Doctor Bailey.

And so he lived, — and so he died! —
When last I sat beside his pillow
He shook my hand, and 'Ah!' he cried,
'Penelope must wear the willow.
Tell her I hugged her rosy chain
While life was flickering in the socket;
And say, that when I call again,
I '11 bring a licence in my pocket.

'I've left my house and grounds to Fag, —
I hope his master's shoes will suit him ;
And I've bequeathed to you my nag,
To feed him for my sake, — or shoot him,
The Vicar's wife will take old Fox, —
She '11 find him an uncommon mouser, -
And let her husband have my box,
My Bible, and my Assmanshauser.

' Whether I ought to die or not.
My Doctors cannot quite determine ;
It 's only clear that I shall rot.
And be, like Priam, food for vermin.
My debts are paid : — but Nature's debt
Almost escaped my recollection :
Tom! — we shall meet again; — and yet
I cannot leave you my direction ! '