What need of votive Verse To strew thy _Laureat Herse_ With that mix'd _Flora_ of th' _Aonian Hill_? Or _Mincian_ vocall Reed, That _Cam_ and _Isis_ breed, When thine own Words are burning in us still? _Bard, Prophet, Archimage!_ In this Cash-cradled Age, We grate our scrannel Musick, and we dote: Where is the Strain unknown, Through Bronze or Silver blown, That thrill'd the Welkin with thy woven Note? Yes,--"we are selfish Men": Yet would we once again Might see _Sabrina_ braid her amber Tire; Or watch the _Comus_ Crew Sweep down the Glade; or view Strange-streamer'd Craft from _Javan_ or _Gadire_! Or could we catch once more, High up, the Clang and Roar Of Angel Conflict,--Angel Overthrow; Or, with a World begun, Behold the young-ray'd Sun Flame in the Groves where the _Four Rivers_ go! Ay me, I fondly dream! Only the Storm-bird's Scream Foretells of Tempest in the Days to come; Nowhere is heard up-climb The lofty lyric Rhyme, And the "God-gifted Organ-voice" is dumb.[73] Note: [73] Written, by request, for the celebration at Christ's College, Cambridge, July 10, 1908. FRESH FACTS ABOUT FIELDING The general reader, as a rule, is but moderately interested in minor rectifications. Secure in a conventional preference of the spirit to the letter, he professes to be indifferent whether the grandmother of an exalted personage was a "Hugginson" or a "Blenkinsop"; and he is equally careless as to the correct Christian names of his cousins and his aunts. In the main, the general reader is wise in his generation. But with the painful biographer, toiling in the immeasurable sand of thankless research, often foot-sore and dry of throat, these trivialities assume exaggerated proportions; and to those who remind him--as in a cynical age he is sure to be reminded--of the infinitesimal value of his hard-gotten grains of information, he can only reply mournfully, if unconvincingly, that fact is fact--even in matters of mustard-seed. With this prelude, I propose to set down one or two minute points concerning Henry Fielding, not yet comprised in any existing records of his career.[74] Note: [74] Since this was published in April 1907, they have been embodied in an Appendix to my "Men of Letters" _Fielding_; and used, to some extent, for a fresh edition of the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_ ("World's Classics").