Two solemn voicès, in a funeral strain, "Thou art gone hence!" one sang:-" Our light is flown, "Thou art gone hence! Our joyous hills among When spring-flowers rise! Never the friend's familiar step to meet, With loving laughter, and the welcome sweet "Thou art gone home, gone home!" Then high and clear Again to shed! Never to fold the robe o'er secret pain,- "Thou art gone home!-Oh! early crown'd and blest! Thou must have seen rich dream by dream decay, Yet sigh'd again that breeze-like voice of grief- Thou tak'st our summer hence!-the flower, the tone, Depart with thee! "Home, home!" once more th' exulting voice arose: Never to roam ! Never to say farewell,-to weep in vain,— "By the bright waters now thy lot is cast; Now the long yearnings of thy soul are still'd; VOL. XXIV, F. II. 3 R The world has given us to understand, by the most unequivocal expression of her feelings, that she has been long longing for what, in her passion, she rather ungrammatically calls A NOCTES. We beg to assure the worthy world, with the utmost sincerity, that few things could give us more pain, than to disappoint her in any of her natural, reasonable, and honourable hopes of happiness, in as far as they are and ought to be dependent on this Magazine. The world, however she must pardon us for publicly telling her so, is constitutionally impatient. She ought to regulate her feelings-to bring them under a system of severer discipline—like Us, to tame the ardour of youth by the wisdom of age. She is, in fact, our senior; and yet to judge of the two, by their sense, their sobriety, and especially, by their submissive and cheerful resignation to the decrees of Providence, you might well suppose Us the older by some thousand years. "Why is there not a Noctes? Why is there not a Noctes? Why is there not a Noctes ?" the world keep exclaiming, with disappointment akin to displeasure, during every month that is suffered to die away in gloom unillumined by one of those Divine Dialogues. "Why is there not a Noctes ?" Heaven and Earth, why is there not always a Moon? How can the world be so impious as to find fault with the laws that regulate the motions of the Heavenly Bodies? The Moon, though to our eyes seeming to be occasionally hid in her vacant interlunar cave," notwithstanding keeps sailing along all the while in her orbit. So We, too, though sometimes invisible to the world, still keep shining-and why will not the world wait till, obedient to the Astral rules and regulations, a Noctes Ambrosianæ returns, and she is made again to feel the exquisite beauty of those lines of Homer and Pope "As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, We must not, however, be too severe on the world, whose chief fault, after all, is too impassioned admiration of Us. Let her know, then, that for some months past, the non-appearance of a Noctes has been owing to a cause over which we had little or no control the illness of Mr Gurney. Early in May that gentleman was seized with a brain-fever. Something odd we certainly did see in his manner on May-day, when celebrating our annual feast of curds and cream at the Hunter's Tryst. But we continued to attribute the manifest flurry and fluster of his demeanour to an unfortunate domestic grievance, with most of the fundamental features of which the world, alas! is now but too well acquainted; and he still occupied his closet during our social evenings in Picardy, still took and still extended his notes. On setting up his MS. for June, the compositors the choice of the establishment-were first perplexed-then confounded and finally dismayed. However, they got up the article-and in the regular course of things, it fell under the eye of the best of foremen, Mr M'Corkindale. He stood aghast and then carried the incomprehensible composition to head-quarters-to J. B. himself, who at once saw how it was, and immediately sent Mr Gurney (who had suddenly made his appearance in the office, very much in the dress of Hamlet, as described by Ophelia) to Dr Warburton, then, as the world knows, providentially on a visit to Scotland. There was no longer any possibility of not seeing, or of concealing the truth. Mr Gurney had for months been as mad as a March hare; and were we to publish the Three Noctes which he extended, during the incumbency of his disease, the world would think the Chaldee itself wishy-washy-such was the super-human impiety, and extra-mundane wickedness of the ravings, which, thank God, never issued from any of our lips; but, aided no doubt by a few hints from us-were the inspiration of his Demon. One truly singular and most interesting psychological curiosity we must mention in discriminating Mr Gurney's case from that of any other lunatic of our acquaintance. During his lunacy, he absolutely invented a new system of Short Hand! a system which-now that he is not only perfectly restored to his former senses, but inspired by new ones-gives him incredible facilities-so that never more will a single syllable of our wit and wisdom be suffered to elude his pen and make its escape. The Three Noctes-both as they exist in the new stenography-and in a state of extension-have been safely deposited in the British Museum. Two others, which may thus be fairly considered as the first of a new series-and which were taken and extended by Mr Gurney when he would appear to have been nearly recovered from the severest visitation by which a human creature can be afflicted-we now present to the world as specimens of a style of composition, which we cannot for a moment doubt will be even more popular than those hitherto inimitable productions that have been the chief causes of clevating the character of this Magazine to the highest pinnacle of earthly fame. C. N. Noctes Ambrosiauae. No. XXXVII. ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΑΩΝ [This is a distich by wise old Phocylides, Σ. гноC. ap Ath. An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days; Meaning, ""TIS RIGHT FOR GOOD WINEBIBBING FEOPLE, "NOT TO LET THE JUG PACE ROUND THE BOARD LIKE A CRIPPLE; BUT GAILY TO CHAT WHILE DISCUSSING THEIR TIPPLE.' An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis And a very fit motto to put to our Noctes.] C. N. ap. Ambr. Picardy Place-Scene, the Oval.—Time, Seven in the Evening. NORTH. Is not Mrs Ambrose an incomparable coffee-brewstress? TICKLER. She is, indeed. I never got reconciled to the continental custom of cream. less and sugarless coffee, North. The Dairy Company excels itself to-night. NORTH. Honey your bap, Tickler-I know you prefer it in the comb-and this has been a glorious season both for clover and heather. TICKLER. Virgin honey, indeed-but be so good as give me the marmalade-after the essence of flowers, the fruit smacks of paradise, and I shall conclude with jam. NORTH. To resume our conversation-What! says a great gaby in England, or a great rogue on the continent-what, are you then going to permit the Russians to eat up all Europe, leaf by leaf, as a maiden spinster eats a lettuce? TICKLER. You remember, North, Sir Bob Wilson wrote a book on this subject many years ago, which sadly terrified several old women who are holders of India stock. Sir Robert-he was a knight in those days-Sir Robert drew maps, and charts, and plans, and campaigned as actively on paper as ever he retreated at Banoz. He marched the troops of Russia from post to pillar over the bellies of the Austrians, Prussians, Poles, Saxons, Turks, Jews, and Atheists, all sprawling on the flat of their backs. Slap in like manner he dashed them down from Trebisond to the northern bank of the Euphrates, ninety miles. To Arzroun, one hundred. NORTH. TICKLER. To Sinope, two hundred and seventy. NORTH. To Scutari, opposite Constantinople, a little more than five hundred. TICKLER. Across the Isthmus of Asia Minor to Alexandretta, (a sca-port town oppo site Cyprus, in the Mediterrancan, and only sixty miles from Aleppo,) little more than four hundred. |