"O sovereign mistress of true melancholy!"
or the noble salutation of a mirthful-mournful spirit over seas:--
"Oh! thou art beautiful, howe'er it be, Huntress or Dian, or whatever named; And he the veriest pagan, that first framed His silver idol, and ne'er worshipped thee!"
Drummond, Sidney, Milton, glorified your wanderings. And your truest votary, one John Keats, spake out boldly that,
----"the oldest shade midst oldest trees Feels palpitations when thou lookest in!"
You are an incorrigible charmer; but as you are likewise
----"a relief To the poor, patient oyster, where he sleeps Within his pearly house,"
we infer, with pleasurable surprise, that you are something better: a humanitarian.
Now, we venture to assert that you remember compliments, meant to be of this same Orphic strain, and inscribed to you, of which we are not wholly guiltless. We have all but knelt to you. The primeval heathen has stirred within us. We have been under the witchery of Isis. We aspire to be a Moonshee, rather than any potentate of this universe.
We wound you not with the analytic eye, nor startle you with telescopes. The scepticisms of astronomy enter not into our rubric. Are you not comely? Do you not spiritualize the darkness with one touch of your pale garment? Then what are they to us,--your dimensions and your distances? Gross vanity of knowledge! Abuse of earthly privileges!
If we affect the abusive, shy of more ceremonious forms of address, forgive us, Luna! We make recantation, and disown our banter. We extend the hand of cordiality even to your Man. How blithe and beauteous he is! He is embodied Gentility. We bow to him as your anointed Viceroy, your illustrious Nuncio. You know our immemorial loyalty, nor shall our rogueries teach you so late to doubt it. Forgive us, benignant, peaceful, affable, propitious Moon! Poet are we not, nor lunatic, nor lover; "but that we love thee best, O most best! believe it."
FROM a little church of some celebrity, and from a remote corner in its quiet nave, come these rude bygone impressions, transcribed faithfully, save in whatsoever is mainly personal and local. No word is here of Brentford choir or Brentford pews; but a record, strict and spare, of the now vanished figures who expounded texts to the village folk. For the most part, they were but birds of passage, seldom remaining long enough to lose the gloss of novelty, or to escape the awakened scrutiny of young eyes. Two only of these preachers were widely known; but each of them, on the other hand, possessed a striking individuality. The "King of Brentford," as readers of a certain swinging translation of Béranger will remember, was something of an anomaly; and Brentford chaplains, at least in their public career, were indubitably of his court.