of reform, nor even whether a finality man means Campbell's last man, or an undertaker. A total abstinence from such stimulating topics and fermented questions is, indeed, ensured by the established character of the editor, and his notorious aversion to party spirit. To borrow his own words, from a letter to the proprietors," I am no politician, and far from instructed on those topics which, to parody a common phrase, no gentleman's newspaper should be without. Thus for any knowledge of mine, the Irish prosecutions may be for pirating the Irish melodies; the Pennsylvanians may have repudiated their wives; Duff Green may be a place, like Goose Green; Prince Polignac a dahlia or a carnation, and the Duc de Bordeaux a tulip. The Spanish affairs I could never master, even with a Pronouncing Dictionary at my elbow; it would puzzle me to see whether Queen Isabella's majority is or is not equal to Sir Robert Peel's; or, if the shelling the Barcelonese was done with bombs and mortars, or the nutcrackers. Prim may be a quaker, and the whole civil war about the Seville Oranges. Nay, even on domestic matters, nearer home, my profound political ignorance leaves me in doubt on questions concerning which the newsmen's boys and printers' devils have formed very decided opinions; for example, whether the corn law league ought to extend beyond three miles from Mark Lane or the sliding scale should regulate the charges at the glaciarium-what share the Welsh whigs have had in the Welsh riots, and how far the Ryots in India were excited by the slaughter of the Brahmin Bull. On all such public subjects I am less au fait than that Publicist the Potboy, at the public-house, with the insolvent sign, The Hog in the Pound." Polemics will be excluded with the same rigour; and especially the Tractarian schism. The reader of "Hood's Magazine" must not hope, therefore, to be told whether an old Protestant church ought to be plastered with Roman cement; or if a design for a new one should be washed in with Newman's colours. And most egregiously will he be disappointed, should he look for controversial theology in our Poets' Corner. He might as well expect to see Queens of Sheba, and divided babies, from wearing Solomon's spectacles! For the rest, a critical eye will be kept on our current literature, a regretful one on the drama, and a kind one for the fine arts, from whose artesian well there will be an occasional drawing. With this brief explanatory announcement, "Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany" is left to recommend itself, by its own merits, to those enlightened judges, the reviewers; and to that impartial jury-too vast to pack in any casehe British public. THE HAUNTED HOUSE.* A ROMANCE. "A jolly place, said he, in days of old, But something ails it now: the spot is curst." PART I. WORDSWORTH. SOME dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural, and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes Are something more than fictions. *The Rev. G. P. A. Longmore has translated this poem into Latin verse-a task the difficulty of which any scholar can appreciate It might be only on enchanted ground; An old deserted Mansion. A residence for woman, child, and man, Unhinged the iron gates half open hung, No dog was at the threshold, great or small; Not one domestic feature. No human figure stirr'd, to go or come, No face look'd forth from shut or open casement; No chimney smoked-there was no sign of Home From parapet to basement. With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd; The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after ; And thro' the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd With naked beam and rafter. O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear; A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed, And vagrant plants of parasitic breed Had overgrown the Dial. But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm, No heart was there to heed the hour's duration; The wren had built within the Porch, she found The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted thro' The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and vanish'd, But leisurely and bold, as if he knew His enemy was banish'd. The wary crow,-the pheasant from the woods- Fed with a "shocking tameness." The coot was swimming in the reedy pond, The moping heron, motionless and stiff, No sound was heard except, from far away, But Echo never mock'd the human tongue; And its deserted Garden. The beds were all untouch'd by hand or tool; The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach, Droop'd from the wall with which they used to grapple ; And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach, Rotted the golden apple. But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground, For over all there hung a cloud of fear, The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass; Of bloomy plums-a Wilderness it was Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers! |