The world, but for them, had been chaos and night,
A desert of thorns, not a garden of flowers!
* Plautus turned a mill; Terenee was a slave; Boethius died in a jail; Tasso was often distressed for a shilling; Benti- voglio was refused admission into an hospital he had himself founded; Cervantes died (almost) of hunger; Camoens ended his days in an almshouse; Vaugelas sold his body to the surgeons to support life; Burns died penniless, disappointed, and heart-broken; and Massinger, Lee, and Otway, were "steeped in poverty to the very lips." Yet how consoling are John Taylor the Water Poet's lines! Addressing his friend, Wm. Fennor, he exclaims,
"Thou say'st that poetry descended is From poverty: thou tak'st thy mark amiss--
In spite of weal or woe, or want of pelf, It is a kingdom of content itself,!"
To the above unhappy list may be added Thomas Dekker the Dramatist. "Lent unto the Company the 'of February, 1598, to discharge Mr. Dicker out of the Counter in the Poultry, the some of Fortie Shillinges." In another place Mr. Henslowe redeems Dekker out of the Clinke.
This was a subject that awakened all Uncle Timothy's enthusiasm!
"Age could not wither it, nor custom stale
But it produced fits of abstraction and melancholy; and Mr. Bosky knowing this, would interpose a merry tale or song. Upon the present occasion he made a bold dash from the sublime to the ridiculous, and striking up a comical voluntary, played us out of Little Britain.--
"Gentlemen," said Uncle Timothy, as he bade us good night, "the rogue, I fear, will be the spoil of you, as he hath been of me!"
|With the fullest intention to rise early the next morning, without deliberating for a mortal half-hour whether or not to turn round and take t' other nap, we retired to a tranquil pillow.
To ears polite" politeness never mentions--
To-morrow came; so did to-morrow's bright sun; and so did Mr. Bosky's brisk knock. Good report always preceded Mr. Bosky, like the bounce with which champagne sends its cork out of the bottle! But (there are two sides of the question to be considered--the _inside_ of the bed and the _out!_) they found us in much such a brown study as we have just described. Leaving the Lauréat to enjoy his triumph of punctuality, (an "alderman's virtue!") we lost no time in equipping ourselves, and were soon seated with him at breakfast. He was in the happiest spirits. "'Tis your birthday, Eugenio! Wear this ring for my sake; let it be friendship's * talisman to unite our hearts in one. Here," presenting some tablets beautifully wrought, "is Uncle Timothy's offering. Mark," pointing to the following inscription engraved on the cover, "by what poetical alchemy he hath transmuted the silver into gold!"