Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847

Who leave alike life's woes and joys behind!"

says the philosophic Cowley; and with Cowley I perfectly agree.

But Erith is this scene of philosophy no more. It has now shared the march of mind: it has become almost a watering-place; it has a library, a promenade, lodgings for gouty gentlemen, a conventicle, several vigorous politicians, three doctors, and, most fatal of all, four steam-boat arrivals every day. Solitude has fled, and meditation is no more.

But, to my story. In that lonely house, lived for several years, in the beginning of the century, a singular character, of whom nothing more was known, than that he had come from some distant place of abode; that he never received a letter; and that he never hunted, shot, or fished with the squiredom of the country. He was of large form, loud voice, had a sullen look, and no trust in her Majesty's ministers for the time being. At length, on some occasion of peculiar public excitement, the recluse had gone to Gravesend, where, tempted by the impulse of the moment, he had broken through his reserve, dashed out into a diatribe of singular fierceness, but of remarkable power, accused England of all kinds of oppression to all kinds of countries, and finished his speech by a recapitulation of all the wishes, wants, woes, and wrongs, as he called them, of Ireland,

"First flower of the west, and first gem of the ocean."

Within the next twelve hours, a pair of Bow Street officers were seen galloping into the village in a post-chaise and four. They brought a warrant from the Secretary of State to arrest the Irish orator, as a leader of the late Rebellion returned from transportation, on his own authority. He was captured, and conveyed to the Tower. And this was the last intelligence of the patriot; except that he appealed to the government against all repetition of his Australian voyage, and swore that he preferred the speedier performance of the law to the operations on the Coal-mine river. A remarkable tempest, which broke all the windows, and threw down half the chimneys of the city, a few weeks after; was supposed by the imaginative to be connected with his disappearance. At all events, he was heard of no more.

THE VISION

Thunder pealed and lightning quivered,
Gusts a prison's casements shivered.
From its dungeon rose a scream,
Where, awakened by the gleam,
From his pallet rose and ran,
Wild with fear, a stalwart man.
Saw he in his tortured sleep,
Things that make the heart-veins creep?
Swept he through the world of flame,
Chased by shapes that none may name?
Still, as bars and windows clanged,
Still he roared—"I will be hanged."

Sleep had swept him o'er the seas,
To the drear antipodes;
There he saw a felon band,
Chains on neck, and spade in hand,
Orators, all sworn to die
In "Old Ireland's" cause—or fly!
Now, divorced from pike and pen,
Digging ditch, and draining fen,
Sky their ceiling, sand their bed,
Fed and flogged, and flogged and fed.
"Operatives!" he harangued;
"Ere I'm banished—I'll be hanged."

Now, he strove to strike a light,
But, a form of giant height
Through the crashing casement sprang;
Shattered stanchions round him rang,
From his eyes a light within
Showed the blackness of his skin;
In his lips a huge cigar
Smouldered, like a dying star;
Holding to the culprit's eyes,
Writ in flame, a scroll of lies,
Champing jaws with iron fanged,
"Friend," cried he, "you shall be hanged."

'Twixt the tempter and the rogue,
Then began the dialogue:
—"Master—shall I rob the state?"
"Not, unless you'd dine off plate."
—"Shall I try my hand at law?"
"You'll be sure to make a flaw."
—"Shall I job in Parliament?"
"You'll be richer, cent per cent."
—"Shall I truckle, or talk big?"
"You'll but get a judge's wig,
Blockheads may be conscience-panged,
Knaves are pensioned, but, not hanged!"

—"Master, must I then escape?"
"No," exclaimed the knowing shape,
"You shall perish by Lynch-Law."
Through his skull he struck a claw,
On the tempest burst a wail,
Through the bars a serpent-tail,
Flashing like a lightning spire,
Seemed to set the cell on fire;
Far and wide was heard the clang,
Through the whirlwind as they sprang.
Many a year the sulphurous fume
Stung the nostril in that room.

The river widens, and we sweep along by the rich slopes and deep wooded vales of the Kentish shore. From time to time little pastoral villages emerge, from plantations of willows and poplars, and all water-loving trees. Before coming to Purfleet, we had passed a noble hill, looking over a vast expanse of country, on which stands a princely mansion,—Belvedere, with its battlements glittering above groves as thick as the depths of the Black Forest. This was once the mansion of Lord Eardley, one of the greatest humorists of the age,—the companion of George the Fourth, before he ceased to be a wit and became a king.

How many delightful things are lost to the world, by the world's own laziness. Why have we not a Boswell in every city? Her majesty pays a laureate, who writes nothing but the annual receipt for his pension. Why not transfer the office to a Boswell? why not establish a Cabinet-dinner Boswell? a Buckingham-palace Boswell? a Windsor Boswell? with orders to make their weekly returns of gaiety and gossipry to the Home Department; to be thence issued by instalments of anecdote, in volumes, like "Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors," or in columns, like the protocols of the Montpensier marriage, for the laughter of mankind?

But the report of a heavy gun, and all eyes turned to a huge shell, making its curve a mile above our heads, reminded us that the artillery had a field-day as we passed Woolwich, and that there was every possibility that this vagrant messenger of destruction, might plump into our midships. The consternation on board grew, as it descended, looking bigger and blacker every instant. If it had come on board, it must have torn us up like paper. The catastrophe would have been invaluable to the journals of the empire, at this moment of a dearth of news, enough to make bankrupts of all the coffee-houses in London, and close every club from Charing Cross to Hyde Park Corner. We should all have been immortal in paragraphs without number. Coroners, surgeons, poets, and special juries, would have made their reputation out of us; and for a month of hot weather, we should have been a refreshing topic in the mouths of mankind. But it was otherwise decreed: the shell dropped within a foot of the steamer, and we were quittes pour la peur.

I fired a poetic shot at Woolwich in return.

THE ROYAL ARSENAL

Woolwich—Woolwich,
The Thames is thy ditch,
And stout hearts are thy fortification.
Let come who come may,
All is open as day,
Thy gates are as free as thy nation.

Let the King of the French
Build wall, or dig trench,
Though he has no more princes to marry,
Our trench is the sea,