MORNING. THERE is a parting in Night's murky veil, Like waning tapers, when the feast is o'er; There is a gentle rustling in the grove, Though winds be hush'd; it is the stir of wings, And now the sky-lark from her nest up springs, Trilling, in accents clear, her song of love; And now heaven's gate in golden splendour burnsJoy to the earth, the glorious Sun returns! BEHOLD a madman!-on the thirsty sands He builds in summer hour his gorgeous pile Up to the clouds, unmindful, all the while, How fleet shall be the labour of his hands, For lo! the sky is changed, the lightning flies, The thunders roll, winds beat, and torrents pour, And, when returning daylight gilds the shore, A prostrate wreck the mighty fabric lies!What better are the visions of our youth? R. G. What better are our plans of riper years? Amid life's desert distant far appears, Δ No. II. THE WORLD. THERE is a tumult in the wilderness- It is the witherer of Beauty, lo! Lifeless, with all the leaves on every bough!- The monstrous world, which, passing o'er the mind No. III. DESTRUCTION. SEE how that Giant, on his iron car, With wheels of fury traverses the earth, Are visible; and, to the wondering sky, Rocks, lava, and bitumen, in a stream; No. IV: HUMAN LIFE. How change our days! not oftener doth its hue We chase the airy bubbles of the brain; Destroy what Time hath spared, and build again: Years o'er us pass, and Age, that comes to few, Comes but to tell them they have lived in vain! Sin blights-Death scatters-Hope misleads-Thought errsJoy's icicles melt down before the sun And, ere the ebbing sands of life be run, Another generation Earth prefers! Δ THOUGHTS UPON THOROUGHFARES. "Dextra, ac sinistra, domunculæ construuntur.” "ON est etranger a son voisin!" observes Le Mercier, in one of his chapters upon "Life in Paris ;" and the carelessness of citizens, perhaps generally, as to that which passes immediately before their doors, might be proverbial. Accustomed, in fact, to the view of an infinity of objects, at an age when they want understanding to appreciate them, reflection seldom arises in after-life upon matters with which the senses are already familiar. It were a magazine of marvels for a man in London, who could only walk, with his eyes open, from one end of the city to the other; but how few men, who are habitually residents in London, would be capable (as regards the "mind's eye") of executing such a task! For the mere Town, to a man who looks back for twenty years-even though he himself has all the while resided in it-is a wonder! We are so bound up always, either in our business or our pleasure; the distance is so formidable from one extremity of suburb to another; each "Quarter" provides for its own wants so completely within itself; and there is such an apathy about seeing even novelties, when we may see them every day, that a colony of negroes might be planted at Shoreditch, and the fact remain unknown (except by the newspapers) to those who dwell in Lambeth. There are thousands, perhaps, among the inhabitants of Mary-labonne, who have never walked across the "Southwark" bridge, since that convenience was erected; and almost whole parishes, east of the Royal Ex change and the India House, who would as soon expect to hear of a pavement across the Atlantic Ocean, as over Primrose Hill. And yet it is beyond a chance, (though not believed in Birchin-lane,) that the next twenty years will bring about that consummation-shutting out green fields and hedges, even in a Sunday walk, from the poets of Holborn; and leaving no memento of the glories of Chalk-Farm but in its Sign! We have already got a complete succession of "places"-" terraces""squares" and "crescents," from Tottenham-Court-Road, reaching all the way to Kentish-Town ; and Kentish-Town has crept on until it almost reaches Hampstead. These erections skirt the Regent's Park, almost en tirely, upon the east; on the west, a new town-called, distinctively, "Portland Town"-extends itself from Faddington to the foot (westward) of Primrose Hill. There needs now but a short street farther of communication from this last "Town," across the Mons Coquinarius,* to Hampstead; and the duels which have been fought in "Mary-la-bonne Park" will then become as merely matters of record and recollection, as those encounters of a century past, which stand chronicled in our older comedies, when the "peerage" was "thinned" at " Barn Elms"-in" the Ring" or "behind Montague House." And of all the directions, too, (which rather ekes out this probability,) in which new buildings have increased on the roads out of London, those very innovations which run pretty "Mons Coquinarius, or "Mount of Cooks," so called (see Tacitus) by Julius Agricola, on account of its proximity to the city. Hence (Coquinaris, or Coquinarius) no doubt, the term 'Cockney;' which some writers will have to be only a corruption of the French Coquin né—two words which need no explanation. I think it most likely, however, and indeed certain, that the French Coquin, itself, is from the Latin Coquus; that substantive being frequently used to designate a knave (metaphorically) by the later Roman writers, on account of the roguish, peculating habits of the servants employed by that people in their kitchens. Thus we find Cato haranguing his household upon the general corruptness of the age, when a Greek slave, a scullion, had been detected in eating a piece of an eel. I should say, clearly, " Coquin'-from' Coquus.' But there be those who are more learned in such matters than I am."-Harwood's Antiquities, 1642. VOL. XVII. X nearly north, have been the most lucrative and desirable. Towards Islington, we have walked out in great force -Bagnigge Wells Tea-gardens will soon be too valuable ground for prentices to sup bohea upon. Cold-BathFields Prison is already surrounded on three sides with houses; Sadlers' Wells theatre will shortly stand within the city, and draw an audience from its own immediate neighbourhood. We have a paved street, I believe, uninterrupted, running from the Edgewareroad to "The Angel," beyond Pentonville; and, still later, the erections which surround Burton Crescent, have filled up all that tract of fields which lay betweenGray's-Inn-Lane and Tottenham-Court-Road, formerly east and west-Holborn and the New Road, north and south. But these latter foundations have never "taken," as the technical phrase is, upon the whole, so well, (frem some cause or other,) as those about Paddington and St John's Wood. The buildings first commenced in this quarter throve, and the higher rented ones thrive well still. But some streets of a smaller calibre were afterwards imagined-houses showily got up, but cheaply-containing four or five rooms only each-to "supersede the necessity of small families living in lodgings," and this experiment, which was nearly or altogether the first of its kind that had been made in town, in a very few months conveyed a most strange and dolorous aspect to the neighbourhood. lies" came in almost before the houses were dry-who disliked living under the same roof with a landlord"particularly towards " quarter-day." Negotiants of another class too soon perceived the advantage of inhabiting the entirety of a dwelling; in as much as that the right, absolute, of entry and sortie, (without reference restrietive as to hours or parties,) remained in such case peculiarly in the disposal and discretion of the lessee. By degrees, however, most of these retiring souls, who were so desirous of privacy upon ordinary occasions, came, upon extraordinary ones, (such as will occur four times a-year,) to be invisible altogether. Doors were seen opened ajar" too often, and with the "chains" kept up. A custom grew up among those who were "moving," of ordering their conveyances in the dead of the night. And the result was, that the whole Lilliputian district descended gradually into that three per cents at forty-two sort of occupation, to see which fills the contemplative soul with sadness, and the taxgatherer with despair.* 66 Ex. "Ironing boards," and cashiered shutters, were put into new commission as brevet counters ;" and pippins and gingerbread courted the gourmand's eye in little dining parlours-fitted up for clerks at ninety pounds a-year to take their chop in! "Red cows," and notices relevant to "mending shoes," deformed "stuccoed fronts," and street doors that had boasted of fan lights and brass-knockers to them! Area-steps, meant once to keep plebeians out of "the hall," now became an unexpected convenience to the old woman who took in washing in "the kitchen." Children's legs, and liberal offers for "old rags," The new Independencies were finished in the very extreme of gentility, and they were amazingly sought after (the projector thought of a coach-and-six) in the beginning. A great many very "genteel small fami · "The symptoms of failure in a town vicinity are commonly gradual, and their character depends entirely upon the style of the quarter which is afflicted with them. In a fashionable square, (not mercantile,) the first omen of danger is commonly the appearance of a solicitor,'-his departure is prophetic of certain, and ready, dissolution. Two 'plates' upon one door, in any Place' of pretension, are suspicious. A 'doctor,' unless he be of known practice, is always a dangerous newcomer; he is too apt to have a 'first and second floor' to let' furnished or unfurnished. Tooth-drawers are getting to infest streets with very good names to them now-nice minds will be jealous of such propinquity. It has a very vile appearance when you find a 'boarding-house' opened in the same Row' with you. If you value your character, give warning as soon after such an event as possible. A foot boy kept in it-the parish shoe-black calling at any house in a morning—a chariot, with one horse, passing even through it-or a door answered from up the area-any one of these casualties, in my view, renders a street or 'terrace' no longer correctly practicable."-BACON's Decline of Parishes (within the Bills of Mortality.) C |
