The Illustrated London Reading Book Part 30

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bow'd the woods beneath their st.u.r.dy stroke!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of Heraldry, the pomp of Pow'r, And all that Beauty, all that Wealth e'er gave, Await alike th' inevitable hour-- The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, If Mem'ry o'er their tombs no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault, The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry sooth the dull, cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repress'd their n.o.ble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton, here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circ.u.mscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ign.o.ble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, Implores the pa.s.sing tribute of a sigh.

Their names, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate; If chance, by lonely Contemplation led, Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Haply some h.o.a.ry-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, Brus.h.i.+ng with hasty steps the dew away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that bubbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Mutt' ring his wayward fancies he would rove; Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless lore.

"One morn, I miss'd him on th' accustom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree; Another came, nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array, Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.

Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EPITAPH.]

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth-- Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown: Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had--a tear; He gain'd from Heav'n, 'twas all he wish'd--a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode; (There they alike in trembling hope repose) The bosom of his Father and his G.o.d.

GRAY.

THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Letter M.]

Marvellous indeed have been the productions of modern scientific investigations, but none surpa.s.s the wonder-working Electro-magnetic Telegraphic Machine; and when Shakspeare, in the exercise of his unbounded imagination, made _Puck_, in obedience to _Oberon's_ order to him--

"Be here again Ere the leviathan can swim a league."

reply--

"I'll put a girdle round the earth In forty minutes"--

how little did our immortal Bard think that this light fanciful offer of a "fairy" to "the King of the Fairies" would, in the nineteenth century, not only be substantially realised, but surpa.s.sed as follows:--

The electric telegraph would convey intelligence more than twenty-eight thousand times round the earth, while Puck, at his vaunted speed, was crawling round it only ONCE!

On every instrument there is a dial, on which are inscribed the names of the six or eight stations with which it usually communicates. When much business is to be transacted, a boy is necessary for each of these instruments; generally, however, one lad can, without practical difficulty, manage about three; but, as the whole of them are ready for work by night as well as by day, they are incessantly attended, in watches of eight hours each, by these satellite boys by day and by men at night.

As fast as the various messages for delivery, flying one after another from the ground-floor up the chimney, reach the level of the instruments, they are brought by the superintendent to the particular one by which they are to be communicated; and its boy, with the quickness characteristic of his age, then instantly sets to work.

His first process is by means of the electric current to sound a little bell, which simultaneously alarms all the stations on his line; and although the attention of the sentinel at each is thus attracted, yet it almost instantly evaporates from all excepting from that to the name of which he causes the electric needle to point, by which signal the clerk at that station instantly knows that the forthcoming question is addressed to _him_; and accordingly, by a corresponding signal, he announces to the London boy that he is ready to receive it. By means of a bra.s.s handle fixed to the dial, which the boy grasps in each hand, he now begins rapidly to spell off his information by certain twists of his wrists, each of which imparts to the needles on his dial, as well as to those on the dial of his distant correspondent, a convulsive movement designating the particular letter of the telegraphic alphabet required.

By this arrangement he is enabled to transmit an ordinary-sized word in three seconds, or about twenty per minute. In the case of any accident to the wire of one of his needles, he can, by a different alphabet, transmit his message by a series of movements of the single needle, at the reduced rate of about eight or nine words per minute.

While a boy at one instrument is thus occupied in transmitting to--say Liverpool, a message, written by its London author in ink which is scarcely dry, another boy at the adjoining instrument is, by the reverse of the process, attentively reading the quivering movements of the needles of his dial, which, by a sort of St. Vitus's dance, are rapidly spelling to him a message, _via_ the wires of the South Western Railway, say from Gosport, which word by word he repeats aloud to an a.s.sistant, who, seated by his side, writes it down (he receives it about as fast as his attendant can conveniently write it); on a sheet of; paper, which, as soon as the message is concluded, descends to the "booking-office."

When inscribed in due form, it is without delay despatched to its destination, by messenger, cab, or express, according to order.

SIR F.B. HEAD.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WORKING THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.]