"What happiness thy face bestows When smiling on a lover's woes! Thrice happy then is he Who hears thy soul-subduing song,-- O more than blest, to whom belong The charms of Melite!"
I was head of the lower school then, and I remember the father of Bernal Osborne patting my curly locks and scolding his whiskered son for letting a small boy be above him.
Much about this time, and until I left Charterhouse at sixteen, there proceeded from my pen numerous other mild rhymed pieces and sundry unsuccessful prize poems; _e.g._, three on Carthage, the second Temple of Jerusalem, and the Tower of London, whereof I have schoolboy copies not worth notice; besides divers metrical translations of Horace, Æschylus, Virgil; and a few songs and album verses for young lady friends, one being set by a Mr. Sala (perhaps G.A.S. had a musical relative) with an impromptu or two, whereof the following "On a shell sounding like the sea" is a fair specimen for a boy:--
"I remember the voice of the flood Hoarse breaking upon the rough shore, As a linnet remembers the wood And his warblings so joyous before."
Of course, this class of my juvenile lyrics was holiday work, and barely worth a record, except to save a fly in amber, like this.
Whilst I was at Charterhouse, occurred my first Continental journey, when my excellent father took his small party all through France in his private travelling carriage, bought at Calais for the trip (it was long before railways were invented), and I jotted down in verse our daily adventures in the rumble. The whole journal, entitled "Rough Rhymes," in divers metres, grave and gay, was published by the "Literary Chronicle" in 1826, and the editor thereof, Mr. Jerdan, says, after some compliments, "the author is in his sixteenth year,"--which fixes the date. Possibly, a brief specimen or two of this may please: take the livelier first,--on French cookery: if trivial, the lines are genuine: I must not doctor anything up even by a word.
"Now Muse, you must versify your very best, To sing how they ransack the East and the West, To tell how they plunder the North and the South For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth! Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes, Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes! With sauces so strange they disguise the lean meat That you seldom, or never, know what you're to eat; Such fricandeaux, fricassees epicurean, Such vins-ordinaires, and such banquets Circean,-- And the nice little nothings which very soon vanish Before you are able your plate to replenish,-- Such exquisite eatables! and for your drink Not porter or ale, but--what do you think? 'Tis Burgundy, Bourdeaux, real red rosy wine, Which you quaff at a draught, neat nectar, divine! Thus they pamper the taste with everything good And of an old shoe can make savoury food, But the worst of it is that when you have done You are nearly as famish'd as when you begun!"