f Weare's watch--or hid it?
Hast thou a Blue-Beard chamber? Heaven forbid it!
I should be very loth to see thee hang!
I hope thou hast an alibi well plann'd,
An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand.
Tho' that hast newly turn'd thy private bolt on
The curiosity of all invaders--
I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton,
Who knows a little of the _Holy Land_,
Writing thy next new novel--The Crusaders!

V.

Perhaps thou wert even born
To be Unknown.--Perhaps hung, some foggy morn,
At Captain Coram's charitable wicket,
Pinn'd to a ticket
That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing
The future great unmentionable being.--
Perhaps thou hast ridden
A scholar poor on St. Augustine's Back,
Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack
Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden;
A little hoard of clever simulation,
That took the town--and Constable has bidden
Some hundred pounds for a continuation--
To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation.

VI.

I like thy Waverley--first of thy breeding;
I like its modest "sixty years ago,"
As if it was not meant for ages' reading.
I don't like Ivanhoe,
Tho' Dymoke does--it makes him think of clattering
In iron overalls before the king
Secure from battering, to ladies flattering,
Tuning, his challenge to the gauntlet's ring--
Oh better far than all that anvil clang
It was to hear thee touch the famous string
Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang,
Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan,
Like Sagittarian Pan!

VII.

I like Guy Mannering--but not that sham son
Of Brown:--I like that literary Sampson,
Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson.
I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson
That slew the Gauger;
And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major;
And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender,
That Scottish Witch of Endor,
That doom'd thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it,
To tell a great man's fortune--or to make it!

VIII.

I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on,
He makes me think of Mr. Britton,
I like thy Antiquary. With Ins fit on,
It makes me think
Who has--or had--within his garden wall,
A _miniature Stone Henge_, so very small
That sparrows find it difficult to sit on;
And Dousterwivel, like Poyais' M'Gregor;
And Edie Ochiltree, that old _Blue Beggar_,
Painted so cleverly,
I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly!
I like thy Barber--him that fir'd th