family,
Daughters and sons as countless as the rills
That Ida sends to be my tributaries.
What he can give thee, what thy prospects are,
What settlements thou art prepared to make,
If thou wouldst lead Oenone to the altar,
This would I know; excuse an anxious sire!"

Then Paris murmured:--
"Honourable but vague,
Remote, but honourable, my purpose is:"
And that great River-god arose in flood,
Monstrous, and murmuring, and to the main.
He swept the works of men and oxen down,
And had not Paris climbed into a tree,
He ne'er had crossed the ocean; never seen
The fairest face that launched a thousand ships,
And burned the topless towers of Ilium.

Some accused LEGION of plagiarising the last line and a half, which
reminded them, they said, of MARLOWE. But he replied that great wits
jump, that it was an accidental coincidence. The public, which rarely
cares much for poetry, was struck by _Cebren and Paris_. "There is in
it," said the _Parthenon_, "an original music, and a chord is struck,
reverberating from the prehistoric years, which will find an answer
in the heart of every father of a family." The Clergy at large quoted
_Cebren and Paris_ in their charges and sermons, and the work was
a favourite prize at seminaries for young ladies. Consequently all
the other poets, whom nobody buys, arose, and blasphemed _Cebren and
Paris_ in all the innumerable reviews. This greatly, and justly, added
to the popularity of LEGION's book. He followed it up by _Idylls of
the Nursery_, a volume of exquisite pieces on infants as yet incapable
of speaking or walking. This had an enormous success among young
newly-married people, an enthusiastic class of the community. At
recitations you might hear--

Tootsy, wootsy, pooty sing,
Mammie's darling, icky thing!
Coral lips that fret the coral,
Innocence completely moral.
Sweet Babe,
They say,
Naught rhymes to Babe,
In any lay
Save "astrolabe,"--
And Tippoo Saib!
Oh, tiny face,
And tiny feet,
Oh, infant grace,
So incomplete,
Kiss me, my Sweet!

In sequence to these effusions, LEGION poured forth Ballades, and
Rondeaux, and wrote a Chant Royal on a General Election which occupied
a whole column of a newspaper, and needed three men to read, with a
boy for the "envoy." But this ditty was not thought to have seriously
affected the voting classes in any direction. LEGION was n