Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/125

 NOTES BY THE WAY. 55

��King Solomon ! In days long past Were you that rare Ecclesiast Whose watchful eye was daily cast

On scenes of sainting and of sinning ? Great preacher-monarch ! O had you, With largely comprehensive view, Inaugurated ' N. & Q.'

Three thousand years ere our beginning !

You could have said where Tarshish stood, And how King Hiram sawed his wood (He sent you timber that was good),

And whether Homer was a person. (The question oft engenders doubt Among our literary rout, When would-be critics make him out

The product of some Greek Macpherson.)

You could have told us in a trice What cook (before the Age of Ice ?) Composed that very grave advice

To catch one's hare, and then to stuff it. You knew the chalks and marls and clays : Your plant-lore far exceeded Ray's : You saw the spider's works and ways

Long, long before she scared Miss Muffet.

You might have added who the first, When floods upon his shallop burst, And winds and seas were at their worst,

Poured oil upon the troubled waters ; And all the tale of Troy divine, The ins and outs of Pelops' line, The threads of Babel's vast design,

The histories of Nimrod's daughters.

But we, " the lastest seed of Time," Attempting much in prose or rime, With energy almost sublime,

Some from the camp, and some from college, Ranging from Beersheba to Dan, Accumulate, as best we can, Line upon line, and man by man,

An armoury of scraps of knowledge.

Here Thorns, with steady heart and will, Most critical, but kindly still, Wielded the editorial quill,

And Doran, full of curious learning. Here notes from Cuthbert Bede we see, And comments by astute Jaydee, By Hermentrude, by H. B. C.

For these, and more, is no returning !

�� �