Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-08-14
THE MERCHANT PRINCE.

Of Real and Personal, told the pleasing story;
Two solid millions, everybody said it;
Was not his name q luminous orb Of credit
Was not his praise in every city Bank3
Was he not foremost in the foremost rank
or Merchant Princes, that invincible host,
The Empire City's proud, imperial boast,
Her veteran guard, whose brilliant cash advances
Not with fixed bayonets and b%ristling ~lances,
But with sharp bargains and keen speculations,
Carry her eagles to remotest nations;
Bolder than ever Templars or Crusaders.
They sweep the distant seas, these daring Traders
Than tabled Argonauts, or classic Caesars.
They grasp the World, these modern golde
Fleecers
Think not, in this last verse, my m use evinces
The slightest disrespect to Merchant Princes
There are whose hearts are large and frank an
loyal,
Whose human nature, like their wealth is royal:
In whose free hands the glittering, dangerou
dust
Is not mere mony, but a sacred trust
Long may we keep their true, untainted line,
Such men are princes by a right divine.
Such was not Firkin; in his principality,
Worse than high treason was all liberality,
No ray Of bounty, with unselfsh cheer,
Threw its bright beam across that dark frontier,
Where every friendly grace of heart or hand
Was seized and fortified as contraband
You read it in his eye. dull, dark, and stern,
Which clutched the light, but ~grudged q kind re
turn,
In genial glances, through the open day,
And with a shrowd suspicion turned a gay.
His hard square features, like an iron safe,
Locked in his thoughts; no chance, unnotet wal
Of fugitive feeling, unawares betrayed
The inner man, or mental stock in trade.
The portly figure, with its solvent air,
Proclaimed to all the world the millionaire
His purse and person both at fullest Icing
And even the higher law which he obey
With all his heart and soul and mind and 6gti
To love his maker, for he was self made
THE sEAMsTREss.
She was a lady once; there was the rSy
She had no heart to beg. no strength 4
Or earn days wages at the washing tub3
And when she looked, as many a sorrow Este
Before and since down that attractive v
Which opened to her sight with joys o'ery ling,
That charming view o lifetime of plain win;
She found that all its fascinating scenery
Was quite cut up and ruined by machinery!
Just as toe rapid rattle on the rail
Destroys the calm of some secluded vale.
She saw the new Inventions tiny shaft,
As in its nimble pass it piled and licked;
1t seemei as though the wicked minion laughed
AT the slow thimble, and the fingers pricked
with weary stitches, and cried out in glee
Give up the race, you can't compete with me,
The seamstress sinks before the patentee!
THE FIFTH AVENUE PALACE.
n n His house, that lofty pile,
Built on the avenue, in the latest style
Ut merchant princes, grand. grotesque. and Hcrid
Out OF the finest free-stone ever q%uarried.
In it's erection, as he oft decl AIRED
10 wondering visitors, no expense was spared,
And had he said, no order of architecture,
rwould have been truer still, as | conjecture.
The builders, with their taste SO fine and funny,
Laid themselves out as well as Firkin's money,
AND In q way that beggars all description.
Blended Corinthian, Gothic and Egyptian,
And other famous styles, with classic ~rarities.
In one grand tumble of brown stone vulgarities.
Twas bad enough outside. but once within,
1t was like probing deeper than the skin
Some mammoth tester, such its taiuted mixtures
or decorations. furniture and fixtures.
1t seemed as if a bomb shell charged and loaded
With paint, aud gilt, and plaster, had exploded.
Without regard to anybody's feelings,
on walls and columns, cvrnices aud ceilings.
The ambitious piasterers had e~clipsed the builder
ana IN their turn were outdone by the gilders:
The painters then-beside whose rich adoring.
The brightest rainbow would have seemed dee
mourning;
From lowest basement up to topmGst attic,
The whole was gorgeous, glazing and prismatic;
Pannelied and ~kalsOmined, and striped. an,
starred.
Paint by the bucket. frescoes by the yard,
Laid on in thiekest layers by ba:talions
OF exiled red Republican I"taliansi
With pots and brushes, blues and greens and vel
lows.
They scared the walls. the bold designing fellows,
And took the house by storm with their mythOlog,
Fruits, flowers, Aa@ingoes. landscapes and 20
Oiogy,
Mernaijs aud Fawns, Areadian shepherdesses.
Long ia the riaglets, scan,y in the dresses.
Heroes and gods and goddesses and ogres,
hymPhs ia pink tsuics, sages ia red togas,
leads OF Old Masters, shaded somewhat duller.
And fall length Venuses, all in fresh color
Thea following op the grand two Million plan,
Where paint left OF upholstery tegan;
The latest artist at fresh msrve.s aims,
Acres Of mirrsrs ia prodigious frames,
And miles of aaIask spread in rich expansion
OF gilt and crimson, through the costly mansion
Incredible carpets, which oststared the ceiling,
With lansing haes tast set the brain to reelior.
And with the wa,ls la one fierce blaze united
% what a sigat. when all the gas was lighted,
Aud Firkin, seated with some fellow snob.
the scene beneath tho h,;lI;a,t 49,.