Part 18 (1/2)
My American Ballads, perhaps after ”Proverbial Philosophy,” the chief cause of in at Albury The first of these and the most famous, as it induced several friendly replies from American poets, was one whereof this below is the first stanza I wrote it in 1850, and read it after dinner to four visitors froreat delectation, and of course they sent MS copies all over the States It begins--
_To Brother Jonathan_
”Ho! brother, I'm a Britisher, A chip of heart of oak, That wouldn't warp or swerve or stir Froht or spoke; And you--a blunt and honest htforward, kind, and true, I tell you, brother Jonathan, That you're a Briton too!”
I would copy more here, but as the whole ballad (equally with the two just following) is printed in my Miscellaneous Poems and still extant at Paternoster Square, I refer my reader thereto if he wants more of it
The next of note was one headed ”Ye Thirty noble Nations,” and is ree fact, viz, that I coht-line stanzas in a seot out of bed and pencilled the ballad (or ht off, and went to bed again, of course to sleep profoundly; when I got up nextand found the MS on my table, it seemed like a dream, but it wasn't Those who are curious may look out this piece of ”_quasi_ inspiration” in that poe verse for those who cannot get the volume in bulk:--
”Ye thirty noble Nations Confederate in one, That keep your starry stations Around the Western sun,-- I have a glorious mission, And must obey the call, A claim!--and a petition!
To set before you all”
The clai love for Mother Britain; the petition for freedom to the slave It was published in 1851
A third is chiefly noticeable for this America had since my last address to her as ”Thirty Nations” added three ed to include them: which I did as thus; here are three of the Stanzas in proof:--
”Giant aggregate of Nations, Glorious Whole of glorious Parts, Unto endless generations Live United, hands and hearts!
Be it storm or summer weather, Peaceful calether, Sister States, as Now ye are!
”Charnal round, 'Every man must do his duty'
To redeehtness shi+ning clear frohtness, Sister States, as Now ye are!
”So a peerless constellation May those stars together blaze!
Three and ten-times threefold Nation Go ahead in power and praise!
Like the many-breasted Goddess Throned on her Ephesian car, Be--one heart in many bodies, Sister States, as Now ye are!”
There are also several other like balladisms, and sundry sonnets, all of which I had froreet my American audiences withal And thus before I paid my visits over there, the land was salted with ore and the water enriched with ground-bait, so that when the poetaster appeared he elcomed by every class as a promoter of International Kindliness
CHAPTER xxxII
AMERICAN VISITS
A vast volu my first American journal, which I sent over pieces to Albury, where ed them and kept them safely, till on my return after threebook
If I were to record a tithe of the myriad ress would not afford space even for a tithe of that: and after all, the result would only appear as a record of nu public), of sundry well-appreciated kindnesses, coer friends in many cities, and the numerous incidents that a tourist visitor ordinarily experiences;fashi+on through hundreds of the 3000 A here In fact, I look at this enormous volume with despair,--the more so that there is its other equally bulky brother about ive only some samples of both The world is too full of books, and does not call out for another American Journal The main social interest of my two visits consisted in the contrast shown between the one in 1851 and that in 1876, just a quarter of a century after; between in fact the extreeneration and the extrest other causes, to the overflowing prosperities of the middle of this century and the co years ”Jeshurun once waxed fat, and kicked,”--but since then he has become one of the ”lean kine:” wines and spirits were formerly in abundance as well as hard dollars, but have now been replaced by the cheaper water and discredited paper Moreover, such shrewd and caustic writers as the Trollopes and Dixon and Charles dickens have done great good service to their sensible and sensitive A strictures which for the e of their utterance in self-improvement My first visit was hospitably redolent of all manner of seductive drinks,--wherein, however, I was (as they thought) too temperate;went, but iced water (wherein I was tee: though even in the enerously allowed his port or Madeira or even his whisky if he wished it Temperance was a fashi+on, a _furore_, on my second visit, as its opposite had been on my first: and on each occasion, I persisted in a olden h not at present universally so accepted
It is hopeless for es of raphs, &c; they are only too full of compliments and kindnesses from friends in many instances passed away: and I will simply record two or three of the reeted rand dinner with the Maryland Historical Society at Baltimore, May 13, 1851, my late friend Mr Kennedy in the chair as president, while Sir Henry Bulwer and uests also being present Of course all was very well done, luxuriously andI can do (if my reader's patience and my present tired penmanshi+p will approve it) is to extract from a newspaper, the _Baltimore Clipper_ of the above date, a _precis_ ofproposedexpressed his thanks in an appropriate ratitude to the Author of all good, alluded to that international loving-kindness which he avowed to be one ht in Horace's prophetical description of England and America in their relation of mother and child, 'Oso which pervades the old country in favour of her illustrious offspring One we cannot fail to give was that the Royal Naval School at Greenwich had inserted his well-known ballad 'To Brother Jonathan' in a collection published for the use of the Royal Navy The speaker then paid an eloquent compliment to the literature of America--her poets, statesmen, historians, and divines He rejoiced that 'Insular Aland' were so intiled in the authorial productions of the huest ties of nature and religion, of lineage, laws, and language Adverting to the wise piety of such associations as the one before hiether the records of the past, that they ood and a warning against evil for the future He commented severely upon the vandal act of the British troops under General Ross in burning the national archives at Washi+ngton In this connection he introduced the beautiful lines froainst the Muse's bower; The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when teround'