after which, while the grimy barges are still
gliding quietly up the dark stream and depositing
their freight, while engines and engine-house,
retorts, alembics, purifiers, and Men of
Fire are in the full tide of their busy night's
work, we pass under the ferocious black eagle
which guards the entrance to the company's
premises with beak and claw, and, threading some
narrow alleys and tortuous courts to the dimly-
lighted streets adjacent, emerge into the full
glare and bustle of King's-cross.

There is not a greater contrast between gas as
we now pass it burning brightly on the railway
platform, and lighting up the gay and busy shops,
and gas as we have just seen and smelt it,
seething and sweltering in oxide of iron tanks
shut up in dark prison-houses, and generally
whipped and disciplined into usefulness, than
between the popular notions on metropolitan
gas supply and the views and explanations we
have heard. How many people know they can
obtain prompt assistance from the Home Secretary
when their gas burns badly, or is too dear,
or that the act of 1860 is as stringent as
described, and sufficient for their protection? It
is fortunately no part of our duty to pronounce
upon the merits of rival schemes, to defend vested
interests, or to advocate particular hobbies. We
have seen and heard quite enough to know that
the public needs, in a moral as well as physical
sense, more of the article gas companies exist to
supply—Light. There has been so much of
secresy and mystery concerning their arrangements,
that charlatans, quacks, and jobbers
regard the metropolitan gas-making as a land of
Goshen, flowing with milk and honey, for the
bold hand and subtle brain. Some change is
inevitable; but what the public has especially to
guard against are specious promises of the
overthrow of a monopoly and the substitution of
a despotism in its stead. The truth is, in gas, as
in other social matters, restrictive and
protective laws create as many evils as they destroy,
and that present arrangements are unsatisfactory
is in a great measure due to our own
indifference and neglect. Let us now have clear
and definite information from skilled arbiters as
to how existing difficulties may be met; and let
us oppose propositions for a sweeping change
in the law until we are shown clearly where
such change will land us, and how far its
promises are sound.

               THE TICK OF THE CLOCK.

                                 I.
                EVERY tick of the clock
                Beckons us to depart,
                Robs us of life and youth,
                And pushes us to the grave.
                On, without ceasing, on!
                Pushes us to the grave,
                Over a yawning chasm
                No wider than a hair,
                But never to be repass'd
                By foot of mortal man
                Or flight of an angel's wings—
Pushes us on, in light or gloom,
On, on for ever, to the world beyond the tomb.

                                   II
                 Every tick of the clock
                 Is a greeting of the Past,
                 To the Future newly born,
                 A farewell of To-day—
                 To the Past that is no more;
                 A universe of Time,
                 Containing in itself
                 Yesterday as its germ,
                 To-day in its perfect flower
                 To-morrow as its fruit;
                 But neither of them ours,
Except to draw a breath
On the mournful and weary road that leadeth us
        down to death.

                                    III
                  Every tick of the clock
                  Makes a notch in the doom of kings
                  And of empire's hoary grey
                  With the dust of a thousand years,
                  And proud with the pride of strength
                  That has borne a thousand shocks,
                  And thinks, in its high conceit,
                  That in a world of change
                  No change can trouble its rest,
                  Or shake it to the dust,
And tells, with dull monotonous sound,
That empires fade like men, and cease to cumber
       the ground.

                                  IV
                 'Twas but the tick of a clock
                 That sent Assyria down,
                 A wreck on the billowy time
                 That shook out Egypt's pride,
                 As the winnower shakes the chaff,
                 That jostled imperial Rome
                 Out of her haughty seat,
                  And spilt the wine of her power
                 Like rain-drops in the dust,
                 That crumpled Byzantium up
                 Like a straw in a strong man's hand,
And that yet shall shatter a thousand thrones
Built high to reproving Heaven, on mounds of
       human bones.

                                     V
                 'Twill be but a tick of the clock,
                 O Britain! land supreme,
                 When thou art rotten and ripe,
                 Shall nestle thee to the earth,
                 That shall prick the bubble of France
                 As with Ithuriel's spear,
                 And that yet in the striding time,
                 Young giant of the West,
                 So insolent in thy strength
                 And thy ignorance of the past,
                 Shall rip thee into shreds,
And parcel out thy wide domain
'Mid a hundred chiefs and conquerors, to rob, and
       rule, and reign.

                                  VI
                  Oh mournful tick of the clock,
                  Sounding, though none may heed,
                  The knell of all that live,
                  And ringing the bridal chime
                  Of the Future with the Past.
                  Be thou for ever my friend,
                  And I, though I toil and moil,
                  Shall be greater and happier far
                  Than Caesar on his throne,