And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance, Not improved by the private dog's-ears and creases, Having clothed his own soul with, he'd fain see equipt yours,

So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.

And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt :
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbours
Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labours
Were help which the world could be saved without,
'Tis odds but I had borne in quiet

A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or, who can tell? perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sate on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.

The man with the handkerchief, untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another screwing,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it,
And saying, like Eve when she plucked the apple,
I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,
I flung out of the little chapel.

THEOLOGICAL LECTURE-ROOM AT

GÖTTINGEN.

Alone! I am left alone once more

Alone, beside the entrance-door

Of a sort of temple,-perhaps a college,
-Like nothing I ever saw before
At home in England, to my knowledge.
The tall, old, quaint, irregular town!

It may be . . . though which, I can't affirm
Of the famous middle-age towns of Germany;
And this flight of stairs where I sit down,
Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel or Frankfort
Or Göttingen, that I have to thank for't?
It may be Göttingen,-most likely.
Through the open door I catch obliquely
Glimpses of a lecture-hall;

And not a bad assembly neither,
Ranged decent and symmetrical

On benches, waiting what's to see there;
Which, holding still by the Vesture's hem,
I also resolve to see with them,
Cautious this time how I suffer to slip
The chance of joining in fellowship
With any that call themselves His friends,
As these folks do, I have a notion.
But hist-a buzzing and emotion!
All settle themselves, the while ascends
By the creaking rail to the lecture-desk,
Step by step, deliberate

Because of his cranium's over-freight,
Three parts sublime to one grotesque,

any

If I have proved an accurate guesser,

The hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned Professor.
I felt at once as if there ran

A shoot of love from my heart to the man-
That sallow, virgin-minded, studious
Martyr to mild enthusiasm,

As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious
That woke my sympathetic spasm,

(Beside some spitting that made me sorry)
And stood, surveying his auditory

With a wan pure look, well nigh celestial,
-Those blue eyes had survived so much!
While, under the foot it could not smutch,
Lay all the fleshly and the bestial.
Over he bowed, and arranged his notes,
Till the auditory's clearing of throats
Was done with, died into a silence;

And, when each glance was upward sent,
Each bearded mouth composed intent,

And a pin might be heard drop half a mile hence,
He pushed back higher his spectacles,

Let the eyes stream out like lamps from cells,

And giving his head of hair—a hake

Of undressed tow, for colour and quantity—

One rapid and impatient shake,

(As our own young England adjusts a jaunty tie When about to impart, on mature digestion, Some thrilling view of the surplice-question)

-The Professor's grave voice, sweet though hoarse, Broke into his Christmas-Eve's discourse.

And he began it by observing

How reason dictated that men

Should rectify the natural swerving,

By a reversion, now and then

To the well-heads of knowledge, few
And far away, whence rolling grew
The life-stream wide whereat we drink,
Commingled, as we needs must think,
With waters alien to the source :

To do which, aimed this Eve's discourse.
Since, where could be a fitter time
For tracing backward to its prime,
This Christianity, this lake,

This reservoir whereat we slake,
From one or other bank, our thirst?
So he proposed inquiring first
Into the various sources whence
This Myth of Christ is derivable,
Demanding from the evidence,
(Since plainly no such life was liveable)
How these phenomena should class?
Whether 'twere best opine Christ was,
Or never was at all, or whether
He was and was not, both together?-
It matters little for the name,
So the Idea be left the same :
Only, for practical purpose' sake,
'Twas obviously as well to take
The popular story,—understanding
How the ineptitude of the time,
And the penman's prejudice, expanding

Fact into fable fit for the clime,

Had, by slow and sure degrees, translated it

Into this myth, this Individuum,

Which, when reason had strained and abated it

Of foreign matter, gave, for residuum,

A Man!-a right true man, however,
Whose work was worthy a man's endeavour :
Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient
To his disciples, for rather believing
He was just omnipotent and omniscient,
As it gives to us, for as frankly receiving
His word, their tradition,
Something entirely different

which, though it meant

From all that those who only heard it,
In their simplicity thought and averred it,
Had yet a meaning quite as respectable :
For, among other doctrines delectable,
Was he not surely the first to insist on
The natural sovereignty of our race?—
Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place.
And while his cough, like a drouthy piston,
Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him,
I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to him.

ST. PETER'S AT ROME.

-Where am I, in city or plain,

Since I am 'ware of the world again?
And what is this that rises propped
By pillars of prodigious girth?

Is it really on the earth,

This miraculous Dome of God?
Has the angel's measuring-rod

Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,
'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem,
Meted it out, and what he meted,

Have the sons of men completed?