The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-16 00:00:00

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But let the glory of this dead be mine !
ORGAN and CHOIR.
Sublimatus ad honorem
Nicholai presulis:
Pietatis ante roretu
Cunctis pluit populis :
llt vix parena aut majorem
Habeat in seculis.
FIR IIILI AN.
Yet I weep to hear the wretches sing !
There rolls the organ anthem down the aisle,
And thousand voices join in its acclaim.
All they are happy—they are on their knees ;
Round and above them stare the images
Of antique saints and martyrs. Censers steam
With their Arabian charge of frankincense,
And every heart, with inward fingers, counts
A blissful rosary of pious prayer !'
And so the scene advances with the alternate
reveries of the Poet-Student and snatches of
Psalmody from the Organ and Choir within the
Cathedral—until the event arrives at its denoue-
ment. Firmilian has been wavering somewhat in
his design, when he thus breaks from his previous
doubtings and bewilderment :
" I must be resolute. Lose this one chance,
Which bears me to th' Acropolis of guilt,
And this, our age, foregoes its noblest song.
I must be speedy—
ORGAN and CHOIR.
A defunctis suscitatur
Forturn qui commiserat :
Et Judmus baptizatur
Furtum qui recuperat :
Illi vita restauratur,
Hie ad fidem properat.
FIR3IILIAN.
No more was needed to confirm my mind !
That stanza blows all thoughts of pity off,
As empty s'zaws are scattered by the wind !
For I have. been the victim of the Jews,
Who, by vile barter, have absorbed my means.
Did I not pawn—for that same flagrant stuff,
Which only waits a spark to be dissolved,
And, having done its mission, must disperse
As a thin smoke into the ambient air—
My diamond cross, my goblet, and my books?
What ! would they venture to baptise the Jew?
The cause assumes a holier aspect, then;
And, as a faithful son of Rome, I dare
To merge my darling passion in the wrong
That is projected against Christendom !
Pity, avaunt ! I may not longer stay.
[Exit into the vaults. A short pause.
After which he re-appears.]
This done ! I vanish like the lightning bolt.
ORGAN and mom.
Nicholai sacerdotum
Decus, honor, filoria :
Plebem omnem, clerum totum—
[The Cathedral is blown up.]"

An episode, coming directly afterwards, one
relating the death of a covetous Confessor crushed
under the blows of a ponderous mace, wielded by
the armed effigy of the Cid, at the end of a sub-
terranean gallery—although indirectly another of
th'e crimes of Firmilian—demands nothing more
than a passing mention in the presence of his
more stupendous and more heinous blood-guilti-
ness. We follow him to the spot from which he has
himself witnessed the blowing-up of the cathedral
—the summit of the Pillar of Simeon St. Stylites.
[Another sly Tennysonian reminiscence, observe
Firmilian loquitur

" 'Twas a grand spectacle ! The solid earth
Seemed from its quaking entrails to eruct
The gathered lava of a thousand years,
Like an inaposthume bursting up from hell !
In a red robe of flame, the riven towers,
Pillars and altar, organ loft and screen,
With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed,
Were whirled in anguish to the shuddering stars,
And all creation trembled at the din.
It was my doing—mine alone ! and I
Stand greater b' this deed than the vain fool
That thrust his torch beneath Diana's shrine.
For what was it inspired Erostratus
But a weak vanity to have his name
Blaze out for arson in the cataloune?

And yet—and yet—what boots the sacrifice ?'
Another failure ! The colossal homicide—the ho-
micide colossal in guilt, perched up on the top of
St. Simeon's column, discoVers that in his last
effort to gain remorse ho has been too wholesale.
What were these victims, he asks, who had gone
soaring up to heaven among the fragments of the
exploited cathedral?

" Nothing ! Mere human atoms, breathing clods,
Uninspired dullards, unpoetic slaves,
The rag, and tag, and bobtail of mankind ;
Whom having scorched to cinders, I no more
Feel ruth for what I did, than if my hand
Had thrust a stick of sulphur in the nest
Of some poor hive of droning humble-bees,
And smoked them into silence."
He is still lamenting over the blunder of his late
adventure, when, according to his own appoint-
ment, there comes panting and toiling up the spiral
staircase inside the Pillar, up to the narrow and
unguarded surface of its summit, Haverillo, an-
other student and poet of Badajoz, the friend of
Firmilian, one who has lent Firmilian much
money, and whose kindly fellowship in many things
would seen). to promise advantageously consider-
able remorse as the result of a cold-blooded
assassination. Firmilian is resolved to avail
himself of so tempting an opportunity. It were
needless to give the whole scene during the earlier
part of which the horrid purpose of his friend
gradually dawns upon the knowledge of Haverillo.
Its close, however, is too rich altogether to pass
unquoted. Haverillo has at last cried out—
" Madman, stand off r— to which Firmilian
responds—

" There's but four feet of spaoo
To spare between us. I'm not hasty, I !
Swans sing before their death, and it may be
That dying poets feel that impulse to
Then, prythee, be canorous. You may sing
One of those ditties which have won you gold,
And my meek audience of the vapid strain
Shall count with Phoebus a full discharge
For all the ducats. Will you not begin ?

HAVERILLO.
Leave off this horrid jest, Firmilian !

FIRMILIAN.
Jest ! 'Tis no jest ! This pillar's very high---
Shout, and no one can hear you from the square—
Wilt sing, I say ?

HAVERILLO.
Listen, Firrnilian !
I have a third edition in the press,
Whereof the proceeds shall be wholly thine—
Spare me !

FIRMILLIN.
A third edition ! Atropos—
Forgive me that 1 tat ried !
IiA.VEMLLO.

Mercy !--Ah !
FIRMILIAN hurls hint from the column.]''
The result of which is absolutely delicious in its
extravagance, beyond the death of Haverillo, that
of the critic Apollodorus. The meaning of the
satirist being more within the reach of general ap-
preciation, we would conjecture supposing we
were to print the name of the last mentioned per-
sonage somewhat differently, calling him not
" Apollodorus the Critic," but 'The Critic " Apol-
lodorus." He has been meditating in the Square
below the Pillar, this same ill-starred Apollodorus,
brooding over the thoughts consequent, upon his
first inquiry—
" Why do men call me a presumptuous cur,
A vepouring blockhead, and a turgid fool,
A common nuis Luce, and a charlatan ?"
When [we cannot apologise for the length of our
quotation]—

Enter SANCHO, a Costcrnwnger, singing.
Down i❑ the garden behind the wall,
Merrily grows the bright-green leek;
The old sow grunts as the acorns fall,
The winds blow heavy, the little pigs squeak.
One for the litter, and three for the teat—
Hark to the music, Juanna my sweat !
APOLLODORUS.
Now, heaven be thanked ! here is a genuine bard,
A creature of high impulse, one unsoiled
By coarse conventionalities of rule.
He labours not to sing, for his bright thoughts
Resolve themselves at once into a strain
Without the aid of balanced artifice.
All hail, great poet !