N!'

Better is the following address to a certain Dr. E.:

'A bullying, brawling, champion of the Church,
Vain as a parrot screaming on her perch;
And like that parrot screaming out by rote,
The same stale, flat, unprofitable note;
Still interrupting all debate
With one eternal cry of "Church and State!"
With all the High Tory's ignorance increased,
By all the arrogance that makes the priest;
One who declares upon his solemn word
The Voluntary system is absurd;
He well may say so, for 'twere hard to tell
Who would support him did not law compel.'

A prophet, it is said, is not honoured in his own country. Bernard
Barton was happily the rare exception that proves the rule. I remember
being at the launching of a vessel, bought and owned by a Woodbridge man,
called the _Bernard Barton_; it was the first time I had ever seen a ship
launched, and I was interested accordingly. The ultimate fate of the
craft is unknown to history. On one occasion she was reported in the
shipping list amongst the arrivals at some far-off port as the _Barney
Burton_. Such is fame!

Of his local reputation Bernard was not a little proud. His little town
was vain of him. It was something to go into the bank and get a cheque
cashed by the poet. The other evening I went to the house of a
Woodbridge man who has done well in London, and lives in one of the few
grand old houses which yet adorn Stoke Newington Green--just a stone's
throw from where Samuel Rogers dwelt--and there in the drawing-room were
Bernard Barton's own chair and cabinet preserved with as much pious care
as if he had been a Shakespeare or a Milton. Bernard Barton made no
secret of his vocation, and when the time had come that he had delivered
himself of a new poem, it was his habit to call on one or other of his
friends and discuss the matter over a bottle of port--port befitting the
occasion; no modern liquor of that name--

'Not such as that
You set before chance comers,
But such whose father grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.'

And then there was a good deal of talk, as was to be expected, on things
in general, for B. B. loved his joke and was full of anecdote--anecdote,
perhaps, not always of the most refined character. But what could you
expect at such happy times from a man brimful of human nature, who had to
pose all life under the double weight of decorum imposed on him, in th