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

Further inland, but rising on the view, is Swainscomb, the hill on which the Danish armies encamped, in their pirate rovings of the British seas, and their invasions of the Thames.

What a contrast between the green landscape of this moment, and the camp of Sweno. All before me was the luxury of cultivation, the yellowing crop, the grazing cattle, the cottage smoke curling slowly upward on the back-ground of noble beech, ash, and sycamore. On the summit, the sun gleamed on a rectory house, half buried in roses, where the most learned of our Orientalists perused the Koran in the peace of a Mahometan paradise, and doubtless saw, on the dancing waters of the mighty river at his feet, perpetual visions of houris.

Yet those pastures once echoed with the barbarian cries of the Cimbric warriors; tents of seal-skin and white bear fur covered the hill; the smokes of savage feasting and Scandinavian sacrifice clouded the skies; and on the summit, surrounded by iron guards and spectral-looking priests, stood the magic standard of the north, the image of the Raven, which flapped its wings on the coming of battle, and gave the oracular cry of victory.

But, what sounds of harmony sweep along the water! I see a range of showy figures on the shore; it is a whole brass band, seducing us, in the style of the syrens of old, to bring our ship to an anchor, and hazard the enchantments of the most delicious of tea-gardens.—We are within a hundred yards of the pier of Rosherville.

Within five minutes, we might be roaming through this paradise of the Thames, climbing rustic slopes carpeted with flowers, or gazing at a menagerie, where the monkeys bound, chatter, and take apples out of your hand; or sipping coffee of the most fragrant growth, or dancing the polka under alcoves of painted canvass, large enough to manœuvre a brigade of the Horse-guards. By day the scene is romantic, but by night it is magical. By day the stranger roams through labyrinths of exotic vegetation, but by night he is enchanted with invisible music, dazzled with fireworks, and goes to his pillow to dream of the Arabian Nights. Honour to the name of Jeremiah Rosher, the discoverer of the "capabilities" of this Garden of the Hesperides. He found it a lime quarry, and made it a bower of Armida. If, as the great moralist said, "the man who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, is a benefactor to mankind," what honours should be paid to the genius, which substituted human beings for lime-burners, and made the élite of the east end of the mighty metropolis dance by thousands, where nothing but the top of a thistle ever danced before. There have been more "first affections" awakened in the rambles through the shades of Rosherville than in fifty Almacks, and five hundred times more matches in consequence, than ever took refuge in Gretna; and all this—for a shilling!

As we neared the pier, I observed a small but elegant yacht, lying to; with several groups of dark-featured and cloak-covered men listening, with all the eagerness of foreign gesture, to the brazen harmony. My Italian compagnon de voyage, instantly bounded from his seat, ran to the ship's side, and held a rapid dialogue with the crew of the little vessel. They were just from Rome, and were bringing over the newly appointed Archbishop from the Vatican! The novelty of the voyage did not seem to agree with the pleasurable faculties of those sons of "Bella Italia," for nothing could be conceived more deplorable than their physiognomies.

The scene reminded me of one which I had witnessed at Naples, on the arrival of the first steam-boat from Rome, conveying the Cardinal Legate to the Court of his Majesty of the Two Sicilies.

I disdain all the formalities of poetry. Let others prepare their parchment-bound portfolios, throw their visages into the penseroso, fling their curls back from their brows, unbutton their shirt-collars, and, thus Byronised, begin. To me all times and places are the same.—The inspiration rushes on me, and I pour out my "unpremeditated song" in the original rapture of Bardism!

THE CARDINAL'S VOYAGE

I have seen some queer things,
Both in people and kings,
Since first I began as a dreamer;
But I ne'er thought to hear
Any thing half so queer
As a Cardinal's trip in a steamer.

I once saw a Rabbi,
The prince of the shabby,
In a gale of wind playing the screamer,
Till we plumped him o'erboard,
Towed along by a cord,
For a bath at the tail of the steamer.

'Tis true, the Chinese
Looked as black as their teas,
When battered by brave Sir John Bremer:
But John Chinaman's slaughter
Was all milk and water,
To the havoc on board of the steamer.

On a coil of the cable,
Right under the table,
With the glass at 500 of Reaumur,
Busy "making his soul,"
As he felt every roll,
Lay his Highness, on board of the steamer.

Around him ten chaplains,
And none of them saplings,
Lay pale as a quarantine streamer.
With six dozen of monks,
All as helpless as trunks,
All rolling about in the steamer.

As she steered down the Tiber,
It shook every fibre
Of the conclave from forehead to femur;
But, 'twas when in her glee,
She got sight of the sea,
That she showed them the tricks of the steamer.

At Civita Vecchia,
Oh, mie orecchie!
What howls called the Saints to redeem her.
But she darted along
Like a stone from a thong,
In the style of a true British steamer.

She now ruled the roast,
As she sprang from the coast,
Through such surges no buckets could teem her:
The Lipari Isles
Got but very few smiles
From the brethren on board of the steamer.

"As sure as we're born,
We'll ne'er see Leghorn."
"Peccavi!" cried out every schemer:
The whole of the friars.
In that court were "criers,"
While thundered the wheels of the steamer.

I'd not stand in their shoes,
As they passed Syracuse,
Where thy frigate lay moored, Captain Seymour:
At the top of their throats
Yelling out for thy boats,
While teeth to the wind went the steamer.

As they swept by Messina—
Thy birth-place, Christina!—
Old Etna was scarce such a beamer:
In vain they cried—"Stop!"
With a blaze at her top,
Like a pillar of flame rushed the steamer.

She bounced by Charybdis,
With limestone which ribb'd is;
A touch from a pebble might seam her;
Made a curtsey to Scylla,