By thy great vow which bound thee For ever to my side, And by the ring that made thee My darling and my bride! Thou wilt not fail nor falter, But bend thee to the task-- A BOILED SHEEP'S-HEAD ON SUNDAY Is all the boon I ask! Sonnet to Britain. BY THE D--- OF W--- Halt! Shoulder arms! Recover! As you were! Right wheel! Eyes left! Attention! Stand at ease! O Britain! O my country! Words like these Have made thy name a terror and a fear To all the nations. Witness Ebro's banks, Assaye, Toulouse, Nivelle, and Waterloo, Where the grim despot muttered--_Sauve qui peut_! And Ney fled darkling.--Silence in the ranks! Inspired by these, amidst the iron crash Of armies, in the centre of his troop The soldier stands--unmoveable, not rash-- Until the forces of the foeman droop; Then knocks the Frenchmen to eternal smash, Pounding them into mummy. Shoulder, hoop! THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. NOTES. {vii} Prologue de premiere livre. {ix} A fact. That such a subject for cathedral chimes, and in Scotland, too, could ever have been chosen, will scarcely be believed. But my astonished ears often heard it. {7} W. Gomersal, for many years a leading actor and rider at Astley's Amphitheatre. {8} John Esdaile Widdicomb, from 1819 to 1852 riding-master and conductor of the ring at Astley's Amphitheatre. {11} Stickney, a very dashing and graceful rider at Astley's. {12} A not uncommon tribute from the gallery at Astley's to the dash and daring of the heroes of the ring was half-eaten oranges or fragments of orange-peel. Either oranges are less in vogue, or manners are better in the galleries of theatres and circuses in the present day. {18} The allusion here is to one of Ducrow's remarkable feats. Entering the ring with the reins in his hands of five horses abreast, and standing on the back of the centre horse, he worked them round the ring at high speed, changing now and then with marvellous dexterity their relative positions, and with his feet always on more than one of them, ending with a foot on each of the extreme two, so that, as described, "the outer and the inner felt the pressure of his toes." {44} The value of these Bonds at the time this poem was written was precisely nil. {49} A fact. {64} The Yankee substitute for the _chapeau de soie_. {97} The Marquis of Waterford, {99} The fashionable abbreviation for a thousand pounds. {117} The reference here and in a subsequent verse is to a song very popular at the time:--