THE NIGHT.

On fair Augusta's towers and trees
Flitted the silent midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,
Which from the moon-tipped plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then reassumed its still array;
When, as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,
It shed such soft and balmy power,
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret height,
Appeared to slumber in the light.
From Henry's Chapel, Rufus' Hall,
To Savoy, Temple, and St. Paul;

From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town,
To Redriffe, Shadwell, Horsleydown,
No voice was heard, no eye unclosed,
But all in deepest sleep reposed.

They might have thought who gazed around
Amid a silence so profound

It made the senses thrill, That 't was no place inhabited, But some vast city of the dead,

All was so hushed and still.

THE BURNING.

As Chaos, which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Started with terror and surprise
When light first flashed upon her eyes,
So London's sons in nightcap woke,

In bedgown woke her dames;
For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke,
And twice ten hundred voices spoke,

"The playhouse is in flames! And, lo! where Catherine Street extends, A fiery tail its lustre lends

To every window-pane;

Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport,

A bright ensanguined drain;
Meux's new Brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's Chapel, and the height
Where Patent Shot they sell ;
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The Ticket-Porters' House of Call,
Old Bedlam, close by London Wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's Hotel.
Nor these alone, but far and wide,
Across red Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields the blaze was borne,
And daisy white and hoary thorn
In borrowed lustre seemed to sham
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am.

To those who on the hills around
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound,

As from a lofty altar rise,

It seemed that nations did conspire
To offer to the god of fire

Some vast, stupendous sacrifice!
The summoned firemen woke at call,
And hied them to their stations all:
Starting from short and broken snooze,
Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes,
But first his worsted hosen plied;
Plush breeches next, in crimson dyed,
His nether bulk embraced;
Then jacket thick, of red or blue,
Whose massy shoulder gave to view
The badge of each respective crew,

In tin or copper traced.

The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced.
And one, the leader of the band,
From Charing Cross along the Strand,
Like stag by beagles hunted hard,
Ran till he stopped at Vin'gar Yard.
The burning badge his shoulder bore,
The belt and oil-skin hat he wore,
The cane he had, his men to bang,
Showed foreman of the British gang,
His name was Higginbottom. Now
'Tis meet that I should tell you how
The others came in view:

The Hand-in-Hand the race began,
Then came the Phoenix and the Sun,
The Exchange, where old insurers run,
The Eagle, where the new;

With these came Rumford, Bumford, Cole,
Robins from Hockley in the Hole,
Lawson and Dawson, cheek by jowl,

Crump from St. Giles's Pound:
Whitford and Mitford joined the train,
Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane,
And Clutterbuck, who got a sprain

Before the plug was found.
Hobson and Jobson did not sleep,
But ah! no trophy could they reap,
For both were in the Donjon Keep

Of Bridewell's gloomy mound!
E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,
And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo "Heads below!"
Nor notice give at all.

The firemen terrified are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,

For fear the roof should fall.

Back, Robins, back! Crump, stand aloof!
Whitford, keep near the walls!
Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down, in thunder falls!
An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,
Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
At length the mist awhile was cleared,
When, lo amid the wreck upreared,
Gradual a moving head appeared,

And Eagle firemen knew

'T was Joseph Muggins, name revered,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in signs of woe,
"A Muggins! to the rescue, ho!"

And poured the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggled all in vain,
For, rallying but to fall again,

He tottered, sunk, and died!

Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succor one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire
(His fireman's soul was all on fire)

His brother chief to save;
But ah! his reckless generous ire

Served but to share his grave!
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,
Where Muggins broke before.
But sulphury stench and boiling drench,
Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite,
He sunk to rise no more.

Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved :
"Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps !
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps!
Why are you in such doleful dumps?

Interior of a Theatre described. — Pit gradually fills. The Checktaker. Pit full. The Orchestra tuned. One fiddle rather dil atory. Is reproved- and repents. - Evolutions of a Play-bill. -Its final Settlement on the Spikes. The Gods taken to task and why. Motley Group of Play-goers. Holywell Street, St. Pancras. Emanuel Jennings binds his Son apprentice - not in London- and why. - Episode of the Hat.

'Tis sweet to view, from half past five to six, Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,

Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,
Start into light, and make the lighter start;
To see red Phoebus through the gallery-pane
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane;
While gradual parties fill our widened pit,
And gape and gaze and wonder ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,
Distant or near, they settle where they please;
But when the multitude contracts the span,
And seats are rare, they settle where they can.

Now the full benches to late-comers doom No room for standing, miscalled standing room.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks, And bawling "Pit full!" gives the check he takes; Yet onward still the gathering numbers cram, Contending crowders shout the frequent damn, And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, and jam.

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair,
Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!
In unison their various tones to tune,
Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;
In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,
Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,
Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,
Winds the French horn, and twangs the tingling
harp;

Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,
Attunes to order the chaotic din.

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire; But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues, Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes.

Give, half ashamed, a tiny flourish still.
Foiled in his crash, the leader of the clan
Reproves with frowns the dilatory man;
Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,
Nods a new signal, and away they go.

Perchance, while pit and gallery cry "Hats off!"
And awed Consumption checks his chided cough,
Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love
Drops, reft of pin, her play-bill from above:
Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap,
Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;
But, wiser far than he, combustion fears,
And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers;
Till, sinking gradual, with repeated twirl,
It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl;
Who from his powdered pate the intruder strikes,
And, from mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.
Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues?
Who's that calls "Silence !" with such leathern
lungs?

He who, in quest of quiet, "Silence!" hoots, Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.

What various swains our motley walls contain!— Fashion from Moorfields, honor from Chick Lane;

Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ;

In Holy-well Street, St. Pancras, he was bred (At number twenty-seven, it is said), Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head; He would have bound him to some shop in town, But with a premium he could not come down. Fonder of purl and skittle grounds than truth. a red-haired youth,

Pat was the urchin's name,

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe, The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat, But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat: Down from the gallery the beaver flew, How shall he act? Pay at the gallery-door And spurned the one to settle in the two. Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four? Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait, And gain his hat again at half past eight? Now, while his fears anticipate a thief, John Mullens whispers, "Take my handkerchief." "Thank you," cries Pat; "but one won't make a line."

66

"Take mine," cried Wilson; and cried Stokes, "Take mine."

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,

Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted clew,
Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last kerchief to the beaver's band,
Upsoars the prize! The youth with joy unfeigned
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained;
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat.
JAMES SMITH,

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.
66 How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 't was in my vocation

For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate

To them and the King.

From its sources which well

In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,

And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,

Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,

And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,

And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,

And working and jerking, And guggling and struggling, And heaving and cleaving, And moaning and groaning;

And glittering and frittering,

And gathering and feathering,