eloquence flourished at Athens and Rome, and
would be so now did orators wear mantles) not
to mention the name of a thing, when you had
the thing about you, in petto, ready to produce,
pop, in the place you want it. A scar, an axe,
a sword, a pinked doublet, a rusty helmet, a
pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a
three-halfpenny pickle-pot; but, above all, a
tender infant royally accoutred. . . . ." When,"
continues Mr. Sterne, "a state-orator has hit
the precise age to a minute, hid his Bambino in
his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could
smell it, and produced it so critically that no
soul could say it came in by head and shoulders
– oh, sirs, it has done wonders, it has opened
the sluices, and turned the brains, and shaken
the principles and unhinged the politics of half
a nation."

It would be a curious and interesting experiment,
to try the applicability of this wisdom of
Laurence Sterne's to the question of the
propriety of leaving Westminster School in its
present position, or of removing it to some healthy
place at a distance from London. It would be
an admirable plan, and one calculated to bring
the present discussion on this subject to a speedy
termination, if some gentleman who has a voice
in the consultations could manage to smuggle
into the apartment in which those conferences
are held, a couple of youngsters, of some ten
or twelve years old: one of whom should have
been educated in London, and the other in some
country village. Were it possible for one orator,
in default of a mantle, to conceal two such lads
under some tablecloth, or behind some
convenient curtain, and, at the moment when the
discussion was at its hottest, to draw aside
his curtain and reveal the two specimens of
town and country breeding, he would surely
carry everything before him at a single coup.
If no orator can be found who will make use of
the method of reasoning suggested by Mr.
Sterne, your Eye-witness would strongly
recommend a deputation of the boys themselves,
to attend the next meeting of the commission,
and plead their own cause with their own pale
faces. Both courses failing, and Westminster
School remaining where it is, Common Sense
outside will soon render its removal quite
unnecessary, by leaving no scholars there, to be
removed.

SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN.

Beyond me and above me, far away
   From colder poets lies a land Elysian –
The haunted land where Shakespeare's ladies stray
   Through shadowy groves and golden glades of vision;
And there I wander oft, as poets may,
   Cooling the fever of a hot ambition,
'Mong ghostly shades or palaces divine,
And pray at Shakespeare's Soul as at a shrine

Fair are those ladies all, some pure as foam,
   And sadder some than earthly ladies are;
From Juliet, calm and beautiful as home,
   Whose love was whiter than the morning star,
To Egypt, when the rebel lord of Rome
   Lolled at her knee and watch'd the world from far –
Selling his manhood for a woman's kiss,
But fretting in the heyday of his bliss.

There Portia argues love against the Jew,
   With quips and quiddities of azure eyes;
Fidele mourns for Posthumus untrue,
   And wanders homeless under angry skies;
There white Ophelia moans her ditties new,
   Sad as the swan's weird music when it dies;
There roaming hand in hand, as free as wind,
Walk little Celia and tall Rosalind.

And Slender Julia walks in man's attire,
   Praising her own sweet face which Proteus wrongs;
Miranda, isled from kisses, strikes the lyre
   Of her own wishes into fairy songs;
And stainless Hero, flashing into fire,
   Chides with her death the lie her love prolongs;
With buxom Beatrice, whose heart denies
The jest she still endorses with her eyes!

Shipwreck'd Marina wanders through the night,
   Blushing at sound, and trembling for the morn,
And blue-eyed Constance rises up her height
   To fortify her hope with words of scorn;
The lass of Florizel in tearful plight,
   Still seeks her hope in labyrinths forlorn;
And high upon a pinnacle, I see
Cordelia weeping at the wild King's knee!

And in the darkest corner of the land
   Walks one with blacker brows and looks of pain,
Heart-haunted by the shade of past command –
   The pale-faced Queen, who sinned beside the Thane;
And still she moans, and eyes a bloody hand
   That once was lily-white without a stain;
Robbed of the strength which help'd the Thane to climb,
When growing with the grandeur of crime.

But in the centre of a little hall,
   Roof'd by a patch of sky with stars and moon,
Titania sighs a love-sick madrigal,
   Throned in the red heart of a rose of June;
And round about, the fairies rise and fall
   Like daisies' shadows to an elfin tune;
Behind them, plaining through a citron grove,
Moves gentle Hermia, chasing hope and love.

I dream in this delicious land, where Song
   Epitomised all beauty and all love,
Familiar as my mother's face, the throng
   Of ladies through its shady vistas move;
Time listens to the sorrow they prolong,
   And Fancy weeps beside them, and above
Broods Music, wearing on her golden wings
The darkness of sublime imaginings.

O let me, dreaming on in this sweet place,
Draw near to Shakespeare's Soul with reverent eyes,
Let me dream on, forgetting time and space,
Pavilion'd in a golden Paradise,
Where smiles are conjured on the stately face,
And true-love kisses mix with tears and sighs;
Where each immortal lady still prolongs
The life our Shakespeare calentured in songs.

And in the spirit's twilight, when I feel
   Hard-visaged Labour recommending leisure,
Let me thus climb to fairy heights and steal
   Soft commune with the shapes all poets treasure;