This strikes us to have the genuine "birr." must quote one or two most admirable staves, for the boar-hunters of the Deccan are not unknown to song. HUZZA FOR A HUNTING MORNING! Awake! up, up, and away to the wood, Where the panther prowls, and the wild-wolf howls, Yes, awake and away! all your dreamings dismiss, O! who'd the glorious chase forsake, When the grey bear's track we follow O'er the mountain top, through the thorny brake, Then awake and away, &c. &c. &c. Though the bowl may yield some joy to the heart, Yet it never can rival the sounder's start, Or the crash of the grey boar breaking. Then awake and away, &c. &c. &c. Though some still swear no charm can vie Yet give ME the flash of the boar's brown eye, Parodies are generally poor enough things. They are something like a practice, very common among the smaller fry of wits, of making ludicrous quotations of Scriptural expressions. "A good man," quoth Samuel Johnson," dislikes it for its profanity, and a clever man despises it for its facility." But an imitation is a very superior thing to a parody; and what may be called a parallelism is a finer thing still. There are few songs finer, in their way, than " Hurrah for the bonnets o' blue." The tune, to be sure, is a great help to the words, for it stirs the heart of a Borderer like the notes of a trumpet; and, in a foray to Carlisle gates, there is no saying what might be the effect of so dashing a chorus among a set of wild reavers, devoted to pillage and song. "Et mihi, mehercle!" as old Lowth exclaims in a paroxysm of minstrel ardour-" plus valuisset unum Agμodia μλos quam omnes Philippicæ orationes!" And we cannot for an instant doubt, that, if the ven erable professor had known the tune of one of those ballads as well as the words, he would have carried his enthusiasm to a still higher pitch. Nothing can be better than the rapid roll of the music; and as we ourselves wear a blue bonnet, we are not ashamed to confess, that when we hear that μs sung with suitable spirit, very absurd ideas slip into our head of the iniquity of laws against sheep-driving, house-burning, and harrying the English, which we know were the favourite occupations of our forefathers. The "Blue bonnets over the Border" is another dangerous ballad, and ought to be bound over in its own recognisances, as tending to a breach of the peace. Now, what these and similar ditties are on the Border, are some of the songs by our gallant young huntsmen in the Jungles of Hindostan. We should like to see the man whose heart doesn't dance when he listens to such a stave as this: HURRAH FOR THE SPUR AND THE SPEAR! Here's a bumper to spur and to spear! A bumper to challenge a song! A bumper to those, who, where'er the boar goes, 'Tis good to be steady and cool, 'Tis better to dare than to doubt, 'Tis best to keep clear of the snobs in the rear, Hurrah for all those, who, where'er the boar goes, Here's a cheer for the charms of the chase! A cheer for a glorious burst! And who wouldn't cheer, when the bold win the spear; For the fearless are always the first. There are some ever in the right place There are some who just toddle and trot There are many who love every danger to face Then hurrah for the spur and the spear! Hurrah for the zest of my song! Hurrah for all those, who, where'er the boar goes, Are spearing and spurring along! There's a joy when the boar makes his rush There's a joy when the monster first bleeds— A welcome to those who are here A health to the whole, who, in spirit and soul, Then hurrah for the spur and the spear! Hurrah for all those, who, where'er the boar goes, The stormy joy of the chase in the morning, and the convivial enjoyments of music such as this, and iced Lafitte at night, are some slight alleviations to the pangs of absence from merry England, the slowness of promotion, and the hot climate of the gorgeous East. Hunting those tameless savages of the wood is a fine preparation for an active campaign; and we will venture a slight wager that not a few of the foremost of the stormers of Ghuznee were heroes of the spur and the spear. Be it remembered that the view we have here taken is furnished to us, not by the hands of the Mundys and Bacons, and other gentlemen of liter a cord of as binding force as the chains recorded in the Prometheus Vinctus, which he read the last half. year; and, in short, he is a puling white-faced, hobbledehoy; a nondescript, intolerable in the eyes of the whole human family-from very old men down to very young ladies. Before he has been six months in India, he is as much a man as his grandfather holds up his head at parade as if he were a field-marshal has no dread of schoolmasters, or of any living thing, beast or man, or mixture of both and heads a party of gallant spearsmen in their rush upon a whitetusked boar, without its ever entering into his head to enquire whether "his mother knows he's out." As to the feelings of that venerable matron when she finds out that Tommy has more stirring amusements than playing cricket that he has actually looked a royal Bengal tiger in the face, and discharged a bullet with unblenching cheek and unquivering hand right into the monster's forehead, she will hardly believe it can be the same dear Tommy that she remembers one little year before, with no higher ambition inflating his little heart than to have a gun of his own, and to be allowed to kill crows. Oh! mothers of innumer able Tommies-whose hearts leap up whenever you hear the word India mentioned-lay this soothing unction to your souls, that the mortality is as great in the heart of old England itself as in Hindostan—that more lives are lost in one season galloping after a fox, than in a century by teeth or paw of boar or tiger—and finally, that your darling will return at the end of the first ten years, with an epaulet on each shoulder, a liver sound and whole, and a cargo of shawls and turbans that will make you and his sisters the envy of the whole neighbourhood! We therefore conclude, after the example of the Rev. Dr Poundtext, with this practical exhortation-stir up "the governor," by all the means in your power, to send out to the aforesaid Tommy a new rifle, and an extra supply, to enable him to sport a good horse; for unless these two instruments be of the best quality, we cannot answer for the consequencesrifles are apt to burst, and old horses to fall down-a disagreeable incident, you will allow, within fifty feet of a tiger, or a couple of yards of a boarand what a pity it would be if Tommy's beauty should be injured, all for the want of an additional hundred pounds! old TO THE MOCKING BIRD. THOU glorious mocker of the world! I hear No light from history's starlike page illumes Over their bones by whom thou once wast deified. Thou scorner of all cities! Thou dost leave The world's turmoil and never-ceasing din, And thou dost flee into the broad green woods, Their heart to harmony-no jar intrudes Ha! what a burst was that! The Eolian strain Of glassy music under echoing trees, Thin waves of brilliant flame-till we become, (Even as men love light) the song of birds: Amid the woods, what time the snowy herds And vanish in the human heart; and then I revell'd in those songs, and sorrow'd when, I have to struggle with the tossing sea Into Death's darkness. Thou wilt sing and soar Through the thick woods and shadow-chequer'd glades, The brilliance of thy heart-but I must wear, Yet why complain? What though fo ndhopes deferr'd There is a voice sweeter than thine, sweet bird! Then why complain? When Death shall cast his blight Beneath these trees-and from thy swelling breast, MALACHI. THE final predictions of this Prophet are well known for their powerful and lofty threatenings of national ruin. Yet the condition of his country at the moment, was unquestionably the last which could have justified any human conjecture of its dissolution by Divine vengeance. The people had but lately rebuilt their Temple, had conformed to the renewed law of their fathers, had received the recovered Scriptures, and had commenced a new and purified polity. That there were remnants of the habits and corruptions of Babylonish life among them, is obvious from his rebukes, and those of Zechariah and Ezra. But those were slight stains, and the error which was predicted as the final source of their ruin-a ruin, too, at the distance of four hundred years—was of a wholly opposite character,—the national disdain of contact with the Gentile world, the national pride in the exclusiveness of their religion, and the national vindictiveness against that Mightiest of all Teachers, and Supreme of all Sovereigns, who came to announce the admission of mankind Indeinto the privileges of Israel. pendently of our direct knowledge of the universal inspiration of Scripture, this utter dissimilarity to human conclusions must make us feel that this awful denouncement of the matured vices of a land, then in their first period of regeneration, was the work of a knowledge above man. Malachi is said to have died young, after assisting the members of the Great Synagogue in the re-establishment of the law of the nation. A SOUND on the rampart, Howl to her mate. They roar for the prey On Zion's proud tower; For behold! the day cometh, Shall cover thy name; Of Death shall be driven; When thy tree, by the lightnings, From earth shall be riven: When the oven, unkindled By mortal, shall burn; Thou to dust shalt return. 'Tis the darkness of darkness, The midnight of soul! No moon on the depths Of that midnight shall roll. No starlight shall pierce Through that life-chilling haze ; No torch from the roof Of the Temple shall blaze. In final despair, Her great Sovereign be there! |