was in the last stage of poverty, till his writings raised him to independence. Burke was a statesman. Cowper received vast sums for his works so did Gibbon: yet Cowper had a private fortune, and Gibbon had held lucrative situations under the crown. Chatterton, indeed, died poor, but he had employment from his literary patrons as long as he chose to accept it. Burns was poor, not in consequence of being an author, but in spite of it. Schiller, Goethe, and Werner, were all enriched or ennobled by their poetry.

Here we close our catalogue; for we do not venture to quote instances from the writers of our own times. But it may be stated in general, and hundreds of instances will occur to the memory of every one, that there is scarcely one eminent individual of the present day who does not owe his riches, or rise, or distinctions, in some way to literature. Let our readers refer to the list we have given above, and they will see that scarcely one great or even second-rate name in literature has been omitted, and that on not one can the reproach of poverty in consequence of authorship, fall: while it will be uniformly seen that literary merit has been always of advantage to those who were unfortunate from other causes. We have carefully looked over Mr. D'Israeli's "Calamities of Authors," and have found, without one exception, either that the authors who suffered the calamities in question, were bad authors-persons who were not in their "vocation"—intruders without the wedding garment-who of course deserved to suffer for their want of due qualifications-or that the "calamities" alluded to consisted in a little gentle castigation in reviews-ridicule in popular novels-or the infliction of a satirical couplet. Verily these be great 66 calamities," Mr. D'Israeli!

"It is not in our bond" to show, that not only good authors have never been poor, but that they have been, frequently, persons of noble or distinguished families, people of title, and even of Royal blood. We shall, nevertheless, refer our readers to the brief notices of authors which have been already given, to show that authors have in general been gentlemen; and that the Greek and Roman writers were generally noble or royal; but we have not room for a list of our own royal or noble authors. Walpole's work under that title, will furnish them with a list of more than one hundred and fifty literary names which have been illustrated by high birth; and if the catalogue were continued down to our own days, the proportion would be increased rather than diminished.

66

LONDON LYRICS.

Sortes Virgiliane.

My Essay on Roads," quoth MacAdam, "lies there,
Result of a life's lucubration:

But does not the title-page look rather bare?

I long for a Latin quotation!"

A Delphin edition of Virgil stood nigh,

To second his classic desire :

Where the road-maker hit on the shepherd's reply

“Miror magis”—“I rather add mire!”

THE CAPTIVE'S FRIEND. *

THE sun in fresh and dewy hour

Shone bright upon Vincennes' tall tower,
Over forest, and meadow, and glittering tree,
Over all that was lovely and all that was free;
But it lit not the captive lingering there
Hopeless of succour from justice or prayer,
Mid a stillness withering up all that be
Into mute sepulchral apathy.

The massy walls were for ever made,
And within was a dim eternal shade.

When the sun's noon crested the blazing sky,

Not one rich beam met the captive's eye,

And day came and went with the self-same light-
Oh, slavery is rayless as black midnight!
In vain may the loveliest season reign

On mountain and forest, over river and plain;
To the captive it is but a by-gone name,
A shade of the past, or a perish'd dream—
A fair lovely dream long gone and over,
Of the smile of a dead maid on her lover,
Waking his memory to sharper distress
At his past bereavement and loneliness.
The sun shone on Vincennes' tall tower
At the resplendent morning hour;

There was a soul-sick prisoner there,
By all the world forgot,

No human accent cheer'd his ear,
He lived as he were not,

A man left with his fate to strive
Entomb'd, encoffin'd, yet alive.
His gaoler's step the only sound
That broke the horrid stillness round,
When bars undrawn, with scanty meal,
The noonday hours his steps reveal;
But not a whisper left his tongue
The captive's soul to cheer;
The captive had not heard a voice,
It seem'd 'twere many a year;
And when the gaoler's steps recede,
And die in the long vaults away,
He felt as though their echo made
A rack to sharpen cruelty:

Long hours must pass in lonely pain
Ere he shall glance at man again.

Till then must silence round him cling,
A silence almost changed to fear,

Black as the night-air's raven wing
Ere stars begin their bright career-

An anchorite worshipping despair,

One might have thought that captive there.

A massy grate his window crost,

Its wall so thick the light was lost;

*The circumstance here related is correct. The prisoner was an officer named St. Leger, a Calvinist. By his imprisonment he escaped the day of St. Bartholomew. The dog was a greyhound.

A ray that colour'd in one hue

The dungeon's space, came dimly through,
Nor show'd the roof, nor reach'd the floor,
'Twas a dull twilight, and no more:
It open'd near the earth, where grew

Nettles and tall weeds, thick and rank,
Hard by the moat of stagnant view

That nursed them from its vapours dank: The captive, when storms chanced to blow, Could hear them rustle to and fro. One morn he heard in the recess A moan, a whine of feebleness, Without his bars, and could not guess What gave a sound so strange; Since well he knew no friend or foe On that bann'd spot might rangeHe mark'd a shadow come and go, And the light's depth to change. He spoke again he heard the cryIt was not of humanity;

He to his grating went-Oh! no,
It was not man that linger'd near;
Man rarely seeks out man in woe;
Enough for man, should woe appear,
To proffer heartless words, and fly,
And leave the wretch to destiny.
It was a creature truer far

Stood now without the window's bar,
One friendly not with fortune's tide,
Whose friendship evil might divide—
But nobler in attachment he
Clung closer in adversity.

It was a faithful dog that long
Had search'd each wonted place,
Of recreation, business, chace,
Where he had toil❜d or ranged along
In gambol or in race,

By one whom he had loved so well;
Days, weeks, he'd haunted street and dell,
His master still invisible.

Mysterious instinct led him now

Where the long lost was found,
He piteous on his master's brow

Gazed, whined, then look'd around,

Flew back, leap'd joyous, came once more,

Restless and joyful as before,

And, though the cruel grate was strong,
And entrance barr'd, he linger'd long.

Morn dawn'd and went, and years roll'd past,
And summer's heat and winter's blast,

Of each successive sun;

Still daily came that faithful brute,
His friendship never, never mute
Seem'd to have just begun;

His
eye upon his master brighten'd,
The master's soul his presence lighten'd;
When the world had his doom forgot,
Nor thought nor cared about his lot,

He found a comforter more true
Than e'er among his kind he knew.
He felt his cruel doom more light,
The thought of morning wiled the night--
He hoped to greet his dog, and find
Earth had for him one bosom kind
'Mid God's creation; and he drew
From this a measure of delight,

That warded many a misery new,
Perhaps even madness or despair-
Those shoals that wreck the soul, yet keep
Beyond the reach of hope and prayer
The shell of life to waste and weep-
How small a plank will sometimes save
The wretch that struggles with the wave!
Twelve times the summer sun had shone
Upon that massy tower of stone,—
And wet or dry, or ice or snow,
The dog was at the bars below:-
Diurnally at morning hour,

He came as close as he had power
To his loved master; stay'd his time,
Then left him (till the next day's prime)
Before high noon, and growing old
His friendship's duty grew not cold.
At length the bars and bolts were reft,
The captive his dim prison left,
And clasp'd his faithful dog again,
And join'd the busy scenes of men-
Like a stone 'mid the desert hurl'd,
A hermit in the peopled world,
For there no friend he ever found-
He had one in his dungeon's round!

NOT AT HOME.

"Mi par d'essere in Londra, dove il nome

Vi chiede il servitor, poi-Not at Home."

Ii Poeta de Teatro.

CERTAIN pettifogging strainers at gnats and bolters of camels-men with just morality enough to be offended at all sins but their own, and just sufficient religion to hate their neighbour very cordially-are apt to be much scandalized at that customary white lie, to which servants are compelled to condescend, in denying their masters to an unwelcome visitor. I shall not pause to justify this practice against the imputation of such quibblers and quiddity-mongers, who "indeed seem," and have not that within "which passes show ;" but I could wish that honest, benevolent Robert Owen of Lanark were not run away with by such whimsies as mistaking "your humble servant" at the bottom of a letter, or a footman's "not at home," for offences against candour. According to his notion, men should speak out all they think; and a pretty piece of work poor human nature would make of it, shivering in this primitive nakedness. Mighty agreeable it would be, when you knocked at a friend's door, for the surly porter to tell 66 you, Yes, to be sure, my lord is at home, but he does not care to be troubled with your tentimes-repeated jokes ;" or, "My lady is not gone into the country, and has only--got a new lover;" or, "Sir John has bought a seat in a certain assembly, and does not choose to be harassed with the useless

visits of duns; and you and your bill may go to the devil together." If ever there was a case, it is this, in which

"The pleasure is as great

In being cheated as to cheat,"

and it may fairly be mooted, whether the visitor is not as thoroughly satisfied with a dispensation from the toil of his visit, as the visited can for his life be in the undisturbed enjoyment of his retirement. Upon the broad principle of utility, then, I take my stand; and on that ground I would ask the said Robert Owen, whether every man's house is not by law, and ought not of right to be, his castle? He, who would have every thing else in common, allows to each family its separate chamber in the parallelogram, and would insure it from unwelcome intrusion. But, whatever my friend Owen may think of it, I am sure there are few of my readers, to whom the point is a matter of indifference, and who do not congratulate themselves, with Lord Chatham, that the poorest man's cabin is secure from violation; that though "the winds of heaven may penetrate, the rain may enter it, yet the king cannot." Now surely it is most unreasonable to suppose that this blessed sanctuary, which even the "Diis æqua potestas" is obliged to respect, ought to be penetrable to every common-place bore, who chooses to make his unseasonable attacks on it; or that an inquisitorial "Is your master at home?" should be permitted to have the effect of a star-chamber process, and break down all the barriers of liberty and property. A badger will bite the nose of any animal that enters its den,-a snail will retreat to its innermost chamber from intrusion,and an oyster, the dullest of all dull dogs, has the privilege of closing its valves against external annoyance. "Not at home," then, is an indefeasible right; and to quarrel with the formula, by which it is asserted, because it is what the lawyers call "a fiction," is as unreasonable as it would be to refuse the benefit of a charter, because it may happen to be written in bad Latin. Of all the advantages which a great city enjoys over the country, this privilege of being denied is the greatest. In the country, where a man is obliged to know every body whom chance has made his neighbour, for no better reason than because he lives within a calling distance, where propinquity indeed is the sole bond of friendship, and a vulgar, half-bred squire must be preferred to the most desirable companion in the world, whenever he chances to be more get-at-able, the power of being "Not at home" would have been most desirable; yet in the country, the thing is quite out of the question. The intruder sees you walking in your shrubbery, rides before your windows open to the lawn, or catches you superintending workmen, or overlooking your farm. There is no escape. Nay, should you even have the good luck to keep out of sight, your butler cannot turn away the horses that have come so far, unrested; he must offer the visitor refreshments; and you are confined in your hidingplace, and reduced to the repetition of St. Ernulphus's anathema, against the whole race of morning-callers, as long as the self-invited guest chooses to keep possession of your house. To a man of any activity of mind, occupation, or even natural taste, a morning visit in the country is the ne plus ultra of insipidity and mawkishness: the men all bored to death at being dragged into the scrape, and the

* Excepting only in the case of the Exciseman, and one or two more.