The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-14 00:00:00

THE ONEROUS CHARGE.

Young, full of hope, I relished this guardianship amaz-
ingly at a distance ; but it was not until the moment of de-
parture, when I took the casket by its stiff leathern strap
into my hand to des2end to the cab, that the serious respon-
sibility first flashed upon me ; it then occurring to me that
peace of mind and tolerable assurance of its safety was only
to be purchased by never relaxing my fingers for an instant
from the stiff strap. From that moment it shouli never
leave my grasp. This notion took possession of my fancy,
and worked itself into a hundred awful shapes, and before
we had reached Dover a sort of nightmare conviction had
taken possession of me, that in all human probability there
was to be for the wretched guardian no sleeping, no eating,
save under conditions of strictest inconvenience ; no walk-
ing, no lying down ; in short, he was to bs chained I,ke a
felon to this odious yet precious companion. Down to
the town of Dover, where we embarked on board H.M.
Royal Mail steamer, a period of over two hours, the casket
lay upon my knees, my fingers firmly clutched upon the
strap; and I could see, with uneasiness, that it excited the
curiosity of the tive other passengers, to whom I then im-
puted the most felonious designs, perhaps unjustly. Per-
haps they were simply mystified by its conspicuous posi-
tion, and the astonishing power of endurance in theknees
that bore it.

How in the cabin of H.M. Royal Mail Packet I leant
back in a seat with the casket still upon my knee, and how
in that fatal position, conceded by all to be one of encourage-
ment to the fell enemy of those who go down to the sea in
ships, I did battle with the gradual encroachments of sick-
ness, need not be told here ; how I at last, after the regular
period of suffering, dropped asleep for an instant, and awoke
with a shriek, clutching at every object near at hand, need
not either be let out. I carried the casket from the packet
to the station at Calais. I carried the casket tenderly from
the station in Paris to a cab, selecting a cabman with a look
of primeval innocence. I carried it from the cab to that
other station of the Lyons Railway. I ate a hasty portion
of roll and butter upon it; I drank a hastier cup of coffee
upon it; at times I sat upon it; at times I put my feet
upon it; at times I laid it under the seat. Yet, having to
go down every three minutes or so, to feel if it was safe, it
seemed wiser to restore it to its old position. I knew how
much depended on it, and could not be too cautious. At
times I placed it in the network over my head, straining my
neck every moment to see that it was safe, and, finally, at
the Empereur Hotel at Marseilles, I actually took it to bed
with me, and in the morning was conscious of acute suffer-
ing and severe abrasion in the left side from a sudden
th.ust of a sharp corner of the casket in the night. What
did it signify ; was I not fulfilling my sacred trust ?
We must confess that before the close of his career,
or at least before the close of that portion of it which
is here recorded, we almost weary of our revered
interlocutor, so insufferable is his egotism, so blind,
so utterly blind is his self-esteem. On the other
hand, with a stern poetical justice, he details to us
all the horrors, pains, and penalties which befell
him, but which, numerous as they are, hardly fill
up the measure of his deserts, or of our indignation.

.Praeterita. By William Lancaster. One vol., pp.
123. Macmillan and Co.
Mr. Lancaster has.the perceptive faculties of a
poet. He observes keenly. He writes musically.
`` Praeterita," we are left to presume, is his first
'work. If so, it is more than creditable. Within
its narrow compass—extending only to 123 pages—
are comprised, besides sixteen sonnets, as many as
thirty-eight fugitive pieces: every one of them
brief, certainly, but some of them highly merito-
rious. The first is about the worst. Let not the
reader, however, be discouraged on glancing through
it. If he will but turn over a few leaves more he
will be rewarded for his perseverance. A glance at
the verses entitled "A Frosty Day" will jastify
this assertion. Instance, through that loophole,
whence we look forth upon the wintry landscape,
such a stanza as--
When the waves are solid floor,
And the clods are iron-bound,
And the boughs are crystall'd hoar,
And the red leaf nail'd a-ground.
Or the opening of two other verses in the same
effusion :

When the ice-erack flies and flaws,
Shore to shore, with thunder shock,
Deeper than the evening daws,
Clearer than the village clock,

Then the rusty blackbird strips,
_Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn,
And the pale day-crescent dips
New to heaven a slender horn.
Very charmingly epigrammatic in its way is the
following, entitled, by reason of its refrain,
AT LAST.
We toss and twist upon a restless bed;
Sleep comes at last.
Onr love denies, and yet denies again,
But yields at last.
The apple grows and ripens many days,
But falls at last.
And we are riped with joy, and marr'd with tears,
But end at last
Sweeter still as a true touch of nature—one epi-
tomising the pathos of human life through a sort of
stereoscopic picture, or duplicated vignette, of the
same face when v?ewed from either side, in youth
and in age, here the maiden, here the crone—
Tss POWER OF INTERVAL.
A. fair girl tripping cut to meet her love
Trimm'd in her best, fresh as a clover-bud.
An old crone leaning at an ember'd fire,
Short-breath'd in sighs and mumblings to herself--
And all the interval of stealing years
To make that this, and one by one detach
Some excellent condition, till Despair.
Faint at the vision, sadly, fiercely blinds
Her burning ayes on her forgetful bands.
We shall be. happy to meet with our hitherto
-unknown author later on, when he has more to sing
of than a pa,,sing sigh or a u b ddin
g p rimrose.