Ye reverend gods, who guard the household flame, Lares, Penates, whatsoe'er your name, What dire subversion of your sway divine Lets loose all cockneydom to tempt the brine? Why from the counter and the club-room so Flock the spruce trader and the Bond-street beau? Why should the lordling[A] and the Marquis come? And many a snug possessor of a plum, Quitting his burrow on the 'Ampstead road, With wife and trunks be flying all abroad? Is it in rivers and in rocks to find Some new sensation for a barren mind? To mark how Albion's little nook has grown To kiss the limits of the roasted zone? From kindred manners, doctrines, men, and sects To learn a lesson of their own defects? Or with rapt eye on cataracts to look? No, their sole passion is--to spawn a book. From the cold Caspian to the Volga thus The sturgeons pour pell-mell--a mighty muss![B] Eager with annual industry to strow The slimy bottom with whole heaps of roe; Scarce less I say the multitudinous fry Each season brings to keep a diary; Which oft, to give my simile more truth, Proves 'caviare' to the general tooth. Ere yet my glance anatomized aright The insect race that fluttered in my sight, Oft as the mote-like myriads of Broadway I scanned, their trim and bearing to survey, At each third passenger I could not choose But curl my lip, with frequent _pshas!_ and _poohs!_ To mark the vanity, the coarse conceit, That showed the creature's genus to the street. 'Was ever nation like Sienna's vain?'[C] Says father Dante, in sarcastic strain; And in my book-learned ignorance I quoted The line, to fit the follies which I noted. Surely, quoth I, could emptiness and froth And the poor pride of superfinest cloth To more excess be carried than by these Pert, whiskered, insolent Manhattanese? But soon I found how poor a patriot I, 'Twas _mine own countrymen_ I saw go by! Pride in their port, defiance in their gait, I saw these lords of human kind with hate. O, altered race! with hair upon your chins, In your strut Spaniards, Frenchmen in your grins; The 'snob' and shop-keeper but ill concealed By boots of Paris, bright and brazen-heeled, Newmarket coats, and Cashmere's flowery vests, And half Potosi blazing on your breasts, Made up of coxcomb, pugilist, and sot-- Are ye true Englishmen? I know ye not! With what fierce air, how lion-like a swell, They pace the pavement of the grand hotel; On each new guest with regal stare look down, Or strike him dead with a victorious frown;[D] These are the fools whom I for natives took, Ere I could read their nation in their look; Now wiser grown, I recognize each ass For a true bit of Birmingham's best brass.