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SONNETS,

DESCRIPTIVE OF A NIGHT STORM.

1.-THE WINDS.

"Hark to the winds that wildly rave and roar,
"Like ministers of wrath, loosed to destroy
"Man's and the season's hope, with savage joy

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Tearing young Autumn's bowers, ere his full store "Is garnered in, and flinging on his floor

"Green fruit, and leaf unseared, and seedless flower,
"And yellow corn, wrecking in one brief hour
"The work of many months, and woe of more.
"The rich man in his hall shuts close his door,
"And heeds it not; it takes from him no meal,
"Nor makes his cheek to pale, his heart to feel:—
"His house is stored; his board, that feasts no poor,
"Battens the fat, and fat hearts never weep:

"Then let the poor man pine, the proud man sleep ;—

2. THE WINDS.

"For God, who doth the lowly sparrow keep,
"And with his hidden hand sustaineth all,
"Shall make his Babel-built, high-piled hall,
"Toss like a mastless ship upon the deep

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Wide-weltering sea, at once the mark and mock "Of the strong thunder, striking his flint wall "As through his heart, and crumbling his tall rock "Of surety, as 'twere sand; whilst lightnings fall "Like fiery waves on his wrecked towers, and steep "Them in blue sulphurs deep; till, like a pyre "Piled for some living death, in the fierce fire "Of his proud phoenix-nest, a nameless heap "His ashes rot :-meanwhile, in his safe shed, "Poor virtue weeps but lives, for angels guard his bed."

3. THE STORM APPROACHING.

The lightning now, leaping the vault of night,
Stirred its black air to light,-as when from heaven
The fallen Satan, plunging in Stygian stream,
Splashed its dark waters to a silvery gleam;
And the thick-vailing darkness now was riven
Open and wide as the vast heavens were rent,

Making sight blind with a quick, blasting light.
Nearer and nearer the round thunder wheeled,
Shaking the earth, that like a bubble reeled
Dizzy and drunken through the lapsing air.

"The storm is roused; and now the full clouds weep,
"Like stubborn sinners, the dread wrath they dare!
"Guilt trembles cold in his disturbed sleep;

"But fear not thou, whose soul is white and innocent!"

4. THE STORM.

HER blood's bright currents ran to her pale heart;
As timid lambs together rush in fear—

Or rills recoil to their far fountain-mere,

When the world quakes. To see the clouds dispart,
And scorch with flame, as earth's last doom were near,
Flash following flash, making stout Courage start;
To hear the threatening thunder-car career

Round the shook heavens, and mark its death-bolts dart
Down on their fateful missions; and the trees,
High-roofed and centre-rooted, topple as did
Those pillars huge, each one as pyramid
Broad-based, when the strong-tressed Hebrew fell
Buried by broken men and temples, well

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Might fright a soul that knew not Nature's agonics.

5. THE CALM.

LIKE Eastern empress, from her azure tent,
Spread on some heaven-high hill, looking abroad
On her wide realm, so from her bright abode

Under the starry, deep-blue firmament

The moon walked forth, and all the storm was still.

The trees stood firm as pyramided stone;

The woods yet rained, though the rain-clouds were gone;

From the steep hills poured silvery rill in rill;

Freshness, soft airs, the silent sighs of flowers

That dared not breathe while the winds raged, breathed now
Like balm about the glittering-leaved bowers;
And the proud nightingale, from bough to bough
Fluttering her wetted wings, 'gan warbling strong

Her various sweetness, and fine-laboured song.

C. W.

CHRISTMAS IN THE OLDEN TIME.

"Frolick the full twelve holidays."-HERRICK.

HONEST Herrick, that Robin Goodfellow of Bards, who well deserved to have been poet laureate to a lord mayor, thus quaintly invites us to extend the pleasures of the season, and although Christmas is gone, to remember that new-year's day and twelfthday are yet to come. In the olden time, and during the most flourishing periods of our history, it was the jovial custom of the British noble to open wide his castle gates; on such occasions, welcome was every one to partake of the festivities from Christmas-eve till twelfth-day, and often these enjoyments were extended many days longer. Hospitality, tinctured with national pride, delighted to collect around the social board the smiling honest faces of respectful servants, and by thus administering to the comforts of the poorer neighbours, endearing them to their lords, and uniting, by closer ties, the bonds which existed between the owners and cultivators of the soil.-Perhaps the most fatal blow ever given to these jocund revellings, was the act which enabled noblemen to alienate their property: this was nearly a death-wound to the customs peculiar to Christmas, inasmuch as it disabled many gentlemen from pursuing that extended system of hospitality in the style of their forefathers, and finally compelled many of them entirely to abandon it. On the celebration of any great festival or remarkable event, both at court, and in the mansions of the nobility, the most conspicuous personage was a merry officer, in all the pomp of temporary authority, who was facetiously termed the Lord of Misrule. Stowe says, in his Survey of London, that at the feast of Christmas, in the king's court, wherever he chanced to reside, there was appointed a Lord of Misrule, or master of merry disports; the same merry fellow made his appearance at the house of every nobleman and person of distinction; and, among the rest, the lord mayor of London, and the sheriffs, had severally their Lord of Misrule, ever contending without quarrel or offence, who should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders. This pageant potentate began his rule at All-hallow Eve, and continued the same till the morrow after the feast of the Purification; in which space there were fine and subtle mummeries, disguisings, and masks. This officer was sometimes called the Abbot of Misrule, and in the northern parts of England and the sister-kingdom, according to the learned Warton, the Abbot of Unreason. Holingshed in his quaint style, adds "this office is not unknown to such as have been brought up in noblemen's houses and

among great housekeepers, which use liberal feasting in the

season.

This officer by no means enjoyed a sinecure, as he was not only to guide and conduct, with becoming decorum and decency, all the exhibitions which might take place, but was also expected to rack his ingenuity to invent new sports and pastimes, and, by an endless variety, to prevent the minds of the spectators from being cloyed by a too-frequent repetition of the amusements and games practised during these hospitable periods. But of all festivals Christmas was the chief. The fireside seems to have been an irresistible magnet of attraction to all that was mirthful and agreeable, whilst the glorious event celebrated at this period appears to have been the watchword of good-fellowship, to have reconciled all previous disputes, and to have been the signal for returning the warm grasp of friendship with renewed ardour. Even in our own days there is something soothing, something delightful, in viewing the host of merry faces which the Christmas holidays collect around the social hearth, when all the better feelings of our nature are awakened, and the tale and the jest fly merrily round, and the laughing school-boy relates with a glee, felt only, alas! in the days of youth and innocence, the hair-breadth 'scapes from birch and book which marked his eventful career through the preceding five long months. Even the actual punishments are now no more remembered, all resentment dies with the last twinge of the rod, and he venerates his master for the very severity which has added such zest to present enjoyment; his quondam task becomes his delight, and he carols with overflowing spirits, the gay, enlivening stanzas of merry old Horace.

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus, nunc saliaribus

Ornare Pulvinar Deorum,

Tempus erat, dapibus sodales.

Antehac nefas depromere cæcubum
Cellis avitis.

How can we mention thee, thou sweetest of all poets, without paying one tribute of gratitude to thy memory, "for the solace thou hast given us in melancholy hours, and the sympathy in merry;" we love thee for thy wit, conviviality, and sound understanding, and feel our souls embarrassed, as it were, and unable to decide, whether thy singing, loving, or satyrizing, deserve most admiration, or the affectionate regard for friendship's sacred ties, which breathes throughout thy writings, and the pleasures which enlightened society afforded.

Ante focum si messis erit, si frigus in umbrâ.

Dearer to us art thou than all other authors, sweeter the sound of thy words, the harmony of thy numbers, than the song of dying swans; more soothing than the still moonbeams which fall noiseless on the tranquil bosom of the midVOL. I.

night deep. More wisdom is concealed under thy harmonious strains and merry odes, than the deepest research can find in the elaborate pages of the stoic or Pythagorean philosopher; to thee may well be applied thine own words,

Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,
Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicis.

May thy memory ever spring green in the heart of the scholar, and thy beauties be the theme of never-dying praise. The memory of thy worth recurs more vividly to our imaginations at this cheerless season, for well wert thou fitted to adorn the fireside and steal a march on the frozen wing of time.

Still in our enthusiasm let us not forget you, most puissant Lord of Misrule, but, spite the invectives of the splenetic querulous Phillip Stubbes, proceed to detail the festivities over which you presided. To prove we have not unjustly levelled a shaft at the sour spirit of puritanism which pervades the "Anatomie of abuses," we quote the following passage as most applicable to the subject of which we are treating. "Firste of all the wilde heads of the parishe conventyng togither chuse them a graund capetaine (of all mischief,) whom they innoble with the title of Lord of Misserule, and him they crowne with great solemnitie, and adopt for their kyng;" and after describing the various pastimes and dis ports which ensue, he adds, “ another sort of fantasticall fooles bring to these hel-hounds the Lord of Misserule and his complices, some bread, some good ale, some new cheese, some old cheese, some custardes, some cracknels, some cakes, some flawnes *, some tartes, some creame, some meate, some one thing, some another†." But to proceed—

The morning repast on this important occasion, was spread in the great hall, whither the family and visiters were wont to repair; the breakfast-table was crowded with a profusion of substantial viands, and the massive silver flagons foamed with old October, that invigorating, inspiring beverage. Nervous disorders were then unknown, for the fairest, noblest dames fearlessly partook of that indigenous liquor, ale, and the pernicious importations from the east formed in the good old times no part of domestic economy. Tea drinking, in defiance of a French writer's laudatory hexameter

"Thea Sinensis nostris gratissima inusis,"

is enervating in the extreme; (hence doubtless the milk-andwater productions of the cockney-school,). Immediately after the meal above-mentioned various sports and gambols took place,

* A kind of dainty made of fine flour, eggs, and butter.-PHILLIPS. Query. Does the court of the King of Cockaigne boast any of these ancient usages? Is he descended in a direct line from the ancient kings of the cockneys mentioned by Dugdale in his "Origines Judiciales."

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