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Ay, what was worth, last week, a good half million, Screw'd down in yonder hearse.

S. Then he was born

Under a lucky planet, who to-day

Puts mourning on for his inheritance.

T. When first I heard his death, that very speech Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene Of the comedy hath waken'd wiser thoughts: And I bless God, that, when I go to the grave, There will not be the weight of wealth like his To sink me down.

S. The camel and the needle, Is that, then, in your mind?

T. Even so.

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Is gospel wisdom. I would ride the camel,-
Yea, leap him flying, through the needle's eye,
As easily as such a pamper'd soul

Could pass the narrow gate.

S. Your pardon, sir;

But sure this lack of Christian charity
Looks not like Christian truth.

T. Your pardon, too, sir,

If, with this text before me, I should feel

In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-trees,

With all their flourish and their leafiness,

We have been told their destiny and use,

When the axe falls upon their root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.

S. Was his wealth

Stored fraudfully; the spoil of orphans wrong'd,
And widows who had none to plead their right?
T. All honest, open, honourable gains;

Fair legal interests, bonds and mortgages,

Ships to the east and west.

So hardly of the dead?

S. Why judge you then

T. For what he left

Undone;-for sins not one

of which is mention'd

In the ten commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believ'd no other gods than those of the Creed;
Bow'd to no idols-but his money bags;
Swore no false oaths—except at a custom house;
Kept the Sabbath idle; built a monument
To honour his dead father; did no murder;
Was too old-fashion'd to commit adultery;
Never pick'd pockets; never bore false witness;
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass.
S. You knew him, then, it seems?

T. As all men know
The virtues of your hundred-thousanders!
They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.
S. Nay, nay, uncharitable sir; for often
Doth bounty, like a streamlet, flow unseen,
Freshening and giving life along its course.

T. We track the streamlet by the brighter green And livelier growth it gives: but as for thisThis was a pool that stagnated and stunk; The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it But slime and foul corruption.

S. Yet even these

Are reservoirs, whence public charity
Still keeps her channels full.

T. Now, sir, you touch

Upon the point. This man of half a million

Had all these public virtues which you praise:
But the poor man rung never at his door;
And the old beggar, at the public gate,
Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye

To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty-pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.

His alms were money put to interest
In the other world,-donations, to keep open
A running charity-account with heaven:
Retaining fees against the last assizes,

When, for the trusted talents, strict account

Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

sir you, :

S. I must needs

Believe
these are your witnesses,
These mourners here, who from their carriages
Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind
Were to be prayed for now, to lend their eyes
Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute
Bears not a face blanker of all emotion

Than the old servant of the family!

How can this man have lived, that thus his death
Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief?

T. Who should lament for him, sir, in whose heart Love had no place, nor natural charity?

The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.

How could it be but thus?

Arithmetic

Was the sole science he was ever taught.
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,

To give his blood its natural spring and play,
He, in a close and dusky counting-house,
Smoke-dried and sear'd and shrivell'd up his heart.
So, from the way in which he was train'd up
His feet departed not; he toiled and moil'd,

Poor muck-worm! through his threescore years and

ten.

And when the earth shall now be shovell'd on him,
If that which served him for a soul were still
Within its husk, 'twould still be-dirt to dirt.
S. Yet your next newspapers will blazon him
For industry and honourable wealth,

A bright example.

T. Even half a million

Gets him no other praise. But come this way Some twelve months hence, and you will find his virtues

Trimly set forth in lapidary lines;

Faith, with her torch beside, and little Cupids

Dropping upon his urn their marble tears.

SOUTHEY.

74. THE POPLAR FIELD.

THE poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view
Of my favourite field and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grass behold they are laid,

And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.
The blackbird has fled to another retreat,

Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene, where his melody charm'd me before,
Resounds with his sweet flowing ditty no more.
My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.
'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.

COWPER.

75. GREECE.

[From THE GIAOUR.]

HE who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled,

The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,-

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