PHILO.
THE SAVOYARD
By E.B. Impey, Esq[The following ballad is founded on the melancholy fact of a Savoyard boy and his monkey having been found starved to death in St. James's Park during the night of a severe frost.]
Weary and wan from door to door
With faint and faltering tread,
In vain for shelter I implore,
And pine for want of bread.
Poor Jacko! thou art hungry too;
Thy dim and haggard eye
Pleads more pathetically true,
Than prayer or piercing cry.
Poor mute companion of my toil,
My wanderings and my woes!
Far have we sought this vaunted soil,
And here our course must close.
Chill falls the sleet; our colder clay
Shall to the morning light,
Stretch'd on these icy walks, betray
The ravages of night.
Scarce have I number'd twice seven years;
Ah! who would covet more?
Or swell the lengthen'd stream of tears
To man's thrice measur'd score?
Alas! they told me 'twas a land
Of wealth and weal to all;
And bless'd alike with bounteous hand
The stranger and the thrall.
A land whose golden vallies shame
Thy craggy wilds, Savoy,
Might well, methought, from want reclaim
One poor unfriended boy.
How did my young heart fondly yearn
To greet thy treach'rous shore!
And deem'd the while, for home-return
To husband up a store.
Why did I leave my native glen
And tune my mountain-lay,
To colder maids and sterner men
Than o'er our glaciers stray?
There pity dews the manly cheek
And heaves the bosom coy,
That quail'd not at the giddy peak
Which foils the fleet chamois.
Herewhere the torrents voice would thrill
Each craven breast with fear;
For dumb distress or human ill
There drops no kindred tear.
The rushing Arc, the cold blue Rhone,
That in their channels freeze;
And snow-clad Cenis' heart of stone
Might melt ere one of these.
Why did I loathe my lowly cot
Where late I caroll'd free,
Nor felt, contrasted with my lot,
The pomp of high degree?
Lo! where to mock the houseless head
Huge palaces arise,
Whose board uncharitably spread
The unbidden guest denies.
O for the crumbs that reckless fall
From that superfluous board!
O for the warmth you gorgeous hall
And blazing hearth afford!
All unavailing is the prayer
The proud ones pass us by;
Their chariots roll, their torches glare
Cold on the famish'd eye.
And yet a little from their need
Some poorer hands have spared:
And some have sighed, with little heed,
"Alas! poor Savoyard!"
And some have bent the churlish brow,
And curl'd the lip of scorn;
For they at home had brats enow,
And beggars British-born.
And some have scoff'd as proud to bear
Brute heart in human shape;
Nor drop nor morsel deign'd to share
With alien or with ape.
Poor Jacko! yet one soul can feel
Sad fellowship with thee;
And we have shared our scanty meal
In bitterness or glee.
Yes! we have shared our lastand here
Have little now to crave;
No bounty, save a passing tear,
No gift, beyond a grave.
Still let these arms to thy bare breast
Their lingering heat impart;
Come shroud thee in my tatter'd vest,
And nestle next my heart.
Partners in grief, in want allied,
E'en as we lived, we die;
So let one grave our relics hold,
Entwined, as thus we lie.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
EARLY INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN
(To the Editor.)Your interesting columns have afforded me much gratification by the sketches of the manners of various nations. I am a thorough Englishman in principle, with a sprinkling, however, of German in my veins, and as the early history of this country is a point of great interest, if The Mirror can allow, I will offer a few reflections.
Caesar, speaking of our ancestors, calls them, in blunt and plain Latin "Barbari." Now Caesar was a disappointed man; he knew but little of this land, he invaded it wantonly, and left it gladly. The Briton was by no means so luxurious as the Roman, but it is wrong to call him a barbarian.
As priests generally (in such periods as those to which we allude,) take good care of themselves, and as the Druids were the chiefs, let us take a few cursory observations upon their manners and customs.
The Druids were priests and magistrates. They were divided into three classes:7 the bard proper, whose province was philosophy and poetry; the Druid, or minister of religion; and the ovate, or mechanic and artist. These classes were all obedient to one superiorthe Archdruid.
The etymology of the word Druid has long been a subject of dispute, many deriving it from the Greek word [Greek: drus], an oak, because it has been affirmed that their mysteries were carried on in oak groves and forests; but as the latter fact is doubtful, consequently the etymology founded upon it is shaken. It has been already stated that the Druids were magistrates and philosophers, and very few etymologists will cavil with me if we fix it at once upon the Celtic word druidh, signifying "a wise man."
The theological tenets of the Druids were of a most interesting characterprofessing future punishments and immortality. Their heaven partook of the nature of the Elysian Fields, while their hell8 was as horrible as the most violent fanatic could depict it. It was a gulph of darkness, where the baneful animal crept, where the cold, gliding serpent maddened the sinner with his envenomed tooth, and hissed the dirge of horror, while the lion prowled along with his noiseless paw, and hungry wolves devoured those whom for their crimes on earth the Druids (unable to conquer or correct) condemned to
"Those dark solitudes and awful cells."
No sacred ceremonies could be performed but in the Druid's presence: they were the guardians of religion, the interpreters of mysteries; and the foolish "cunning man" of the north, who is often consulted in these days relative to strayed cattle, intended matches, &c. is a relic of the "druidh," the wise man of the ancient Celts.
Sun worship was the original creed; but as abuses crept in, other gods were variously introduced at the altars, Mercury being the most noted. The Druids were astronomers, and they divided time, not by the days but nights;9 a custom as old as any with which we are acquainted, as it appears Genesis i.5: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Whence we say, to this day, a "se'en night"a "fort night."
As the sun was the object of adoration, no wonder that mysteries were also performed to the moon, riding in silver splendour through azure space; smiling from her height upon the departed and unseen luminaries which had sunk over the distant hill, the fearful mind would watch the lamp of night as a guardian world, or deity, and in the fervour of gratitude, or under the impulse of fear, would address her as the mediatrix between man and his deity.