The Sun. — 1854-08-16 (London, England)

CHOIR. Nicholai sacerdotum Decus, honor, filoria Plebem camera, clerum totum—  147.1;  [Thc 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 subterranean gallery—although indirectly another of the crimes of Firmilian—demands nothing more than a passing mention in the presence of his more stupendous and more heinous blood-guiltiness. 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 Tenuysonian 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 imposthunas 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 3 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 catalogue? •  And yet—and yet—what hoots the sacrifice'!" Another failure ! The colossal homicide—the homicide colossal in guilt, perched up on the top of St. Simeon's column, discovers that in his last effort to gain remorse he has been too wholesale. What were these victims, he asks, who had gone soaring up to heaven among the fragments of the exploded 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 appointment, there comes panting and toiling up the spiral staircase inside the Pillar, up to the narrow and unguarded surface of its summit, Haverillo, another student and poet of Badajoz, the friend of Firmilian, ono who has lent Firmilian much money, and whose kindly fellowship in many things would seem to promise advantageously considerable 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 !" —to which Firmilian responds—  " There's but four feet of space 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 ?