Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28]
Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground,
The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound?
Awake! arise! though many a danger lour,
By one bright deed to vindicate thy power."
He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds,
With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds.
So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd,
Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade,
If weary with his toil perchance, he hears
His master's lash re-echoing in his ears,
Though loath, he lifts his paws, and bounds in air,
And hops and rages whilst the rabble stare.
CANTO THE SECOND.
You the great foe of this Assembly!
I the great foe? Why the great foe?
In that being one of the meanest, barest, poorest,
----Thou goest foremost.--SHAKSPEARE'S _Coriolanus_.
Forth from his cell the wily warrior hies,
And swift to seize the unwary victim flies.
For sure he deem'd, since now declining day
Had dimn'd the brightness of his visual ray,
He deem'd on helpless under-graduate foes
To purge the bile that in his liver rose.
Fierce schemes of vengeance in his bosom swell,
Jobations dire, and Impositions fell.
And now a cross he'd meditate, and swear[29]
Six ells of Virgil should the crime repair.[30]
Along the grass with heedless haste he trod,[31]
And with unequal footsteps press'd the sod--
That hallow'd sod, that consecrated ground,
By eclogues, fines, and crosses fenced around.
When lo! he sees, yet scarcely can believe,
The destined victim wears a master's sleeve;
So when those heroes, Britain's pride and care,
In dark Batavian meadows urge the war;
Oft as they roam'd, in fogs and darkness lost,
They found a Frenchman what they deem'd a post.
The Doctor saw; and, filled with wild amaze,
He fix'd on P----t[32] his quick convulsive gaze.
Thus shrunk the trembling thief, when first he saw,
Hung high in air, the waving Abershaw.[33]
Thus the pale bawd, with agonizing heart,
Shrieks when she hears the beadle's rumbling cart.
"And oh! what noise," he cries, "what sounds unblest,
Presume to break a senior's holy rest?[34]
Full well you know, who thus my anger dare,
To horse-whips what antipathy I bear.
Shall I, in vain, immersed in logic lore,
O'er Saunderson and Allrick try to pore--
I, who the major to the minor join,
And prove conclusively that _seven's_ not _nine_?
With expectation big, and hope elate,
The critic world my learned labours wait:
And shall not Strabo then respect command,
And shall not Strabo stay thy insulting hand?
Strabo![35] whose pages, eighteen years and more,
Have been my public shame, my private bore?
Hence, to thy room, audacious wretch! retire,
Nor think thy sleeves shall save thee from mine ire."
He spoke; such fury sparkled in his face,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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