Then on it came, that ship was dashed
Down deeper still: the lightnings flashed,
And thunder rolled-the timber cracked;
And all the wild and dread array

Of storm and tempest held its way;
The cloud and wave together tost,
Confusion in confusion lost.

Oh! what are strength or bravery now,
When all is death, above, below!
All hope, or thought of hope is gone.
Yet still she trembles, staggers on,
At last one fearful quivering flash
Has struck her, and with one loud crash
The parting beams asunder sever,
And all is lost-ay, lost for ever.

Then 'neath the lightning's vivid glare,
Was heard the cry of wild despair.

One form was borne on by the wave,
As if to seek an earthly grave;
At last, its troubled tossings o'er,
'Twas dashed upon the rocky shore;
The waves rolled back, and there 'twas left,
Of motion, sense, and life, bereft.

She flew like lightning to the place,
And gazed, distracted, on the face:
And as she saw the glaring eye
And quivering form, arose a cry
Of wild heart-broken agony,
As sank she on the ground to die-
'Twas Henry!

In the churchyard green,

A simple monument is seen;

Two names upon its front are graved,
And o'er its head a cypress waved.

She sleeps in peace, nor ever knew
How Henry absent was untrue.

Manchester, May, 1845.

RICHARD BIDDULPH;1

OR,

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A SCHOOL-BOY.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE WORN-OUT BLACK WHO PLAYED THE CYMBALS FOR THE BRITISH ARMY.

Oн, what prodigiously long apologies are due to you, my kind-hearted reader! Oh, what a tender appeal ought to be made to your leniency for having presented you with a sketch of the British army without even introducing in the hinder or back ground of the picture the immortal black who played the cymbals. Why, it is like Gainsborough's landscape without his Market-cart; or a young lady without a pockethandkerchief. Nay, it is more, for it is a raree show minus a Punch, a Judy, a clown, a brown dog; or rather, it is the English and Irish and Scotch stage-by the by, not forgetting the Welsh and American— devoid of 478 principal tragedians, as well as I don't know how many excellently-correct damsels, who enact anything, from female horsestealers down to Athenian captives or Roman matrons, upon the stage the self-same evening. Yes, but the black man who played the cymbals for the British army was a very much more important character, in every sense of that word important; so that perhaps it is the better way to stand him up on the chimney-piece, so that he may be examined minutely, and his several properties be gone into with scientific correctness. Well, then, the chap who played the cymbals for the British army at the time referred to was surnamed Striker, otherwise Rum Striker. As to where he came from, or what part he was a native of, that must remain on the unpainted side of the canvas, inasmuch as Striker did not know himself, and there was not curiosity enough in the British army to make the inquiry through either the Hue and Cry or the Herald office. Sufficient is it to state his memory didn't carry him back farther that when he found himself dressed in the peculiar costume, playing, or rather striking, away at the cymbals. He didn't care to know how it was he got into the British army, not he; because the subject had never forced itself upon his attention. No; his whole attention-the outside as well as the inside of his mind-was occupied in the one idea of thrashing away at the cymbals; and beyond that, save in eating, drinking, and sleeping, he did not care one jot for the poets, or the historians, or the parliamentary geniuses which tried to dazzle the fancy of all living humanity, not even excepting Rum Striker, the black cymbalman of the British army. Unfortunately-I say unfortunately because

1 Continued from page 82.

I mean unfortunately-unfortunately for novel men, as well as for writers and speakers generally, Striker never read any of their generic flights, not he; because the whole of his time, and the very extent and boundary of his attention, was wrapped and concentrated round and about his cymbals. In a word, the black man had played the cymbals so long, and with so much effect, that he saw nothing in the whole world worthy of admiration-no, positively nothing; because it was the sound which flew away from the cymbals as he banged them together which crept round his heart, and clung to his every sympathy, not forgetting even whilst he slept, for he then saw a large crowd collected round and about a black man who was the very image of himself, and who did nothing else to gain the applause and admiration of both young and old than knock one piece of brass against another piece of brass as lustily as he was able, whilst he heard bravos and applause from all manner of people.

Come, come, this will not do thus to leave the actual world of life, bustle, and positive activity, and to enter into the not less actual world of dreams, and visions, and aches, and pains, and white flowers, to denote pure children, and red and black flowers, to show the inside of prisons as well as the interior of unions, with those who inhabit them. No-let Rum Striker appear in his own earthly character of cymbalthrasher to the marching regiment which called itself, or rather was called by the chaplain, "the British army."

And here it may be stated, and truly too, that if there was one low man in creation the chaplain would have condescended to shake hands with, it was none other than Massa Striker, the black who played the cymbals. Ay, even though that hand was black, and though that heart in his body might or might not have been of the same colour, still the chaplain felt no disgust, not he; because Striker actually elevated the dignity and exalted the pride of the British army. The chaplain actually thought of proposing his health after dinner upon more occasions than one, and would have done so if it had not been for his strong penchant for drinking the health of the highest in command-the iron colonel. But enough of the chaplain just now, in order that the legitimate black -I mean as far as this history goes, but really I can't say one word about his father and mother-in order that the legitimate black may stand bolt upright in the very front of the picture.

Rum Striker was always very particular about his dress when he went out with the band of the British army, and usually wore two large white bags on his black legs reaching down to his ankle-jacks, a spangled jacket round about his waist, and an eastern turban, which might have been made for a sultan for what I know, upon the top of his black dog's-eared hair. His black face swelled itself out as wide as it could go, and shone with very grease, which poked itself through the pores of his skin, whilst his eyes were like two globes of ebony rolling about in every possible direction. Striker didn't walk, not he, for he actually strutted; so that each foot as it grasped a step seemed as though it longed to put its great toe into the chap who carried the great drum, and who always marched before him. Now this might have been natural, but I feel assured that it arose from mere envy and nothing else, and simply because the big drum sometimes—not often, to be sure,

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because it couldn't-sometimes drowned the cymballine music which rushed impetuously from around the black man's cymbals. In attempting to describe the cymbals themselves, a kind of warm water has taken possession of me, so that I must wait a little. There, now I'll I go on again. Well, then, the cymbals which Rum Striker carried were very like two vast shields of Achilles, only they were made of brass, and were as resplendent as looking-glasses; so that they were very often used for that purpose by the black, when he invariably held up his head sixteen inches higher after thus gazing at the reflection of the chap who played the cymbals for the British army. Not to leave out a single particular, he stood just five feet eleven without his ankle-jacks, and had rather a balloonish appearance; mind, not to say that he e was inflated with gas, but simply that he had been fed from the officers' mess, and had so many good things in his time for the purpose of keeping up the dignity of the British army, that he was like anything rather than the poor apothecary in Romeo and Juliet; and really, considering the hard work he had to perform once or twice a week, it was almost miraculous how he kept up his ponderosity. Only imagine the fatigue of knocking two pieces of brass together as hard as he was inclined to; only fancy the work of strutting as he strutted full a quarter of a mile daily; for it must be known that Rum Striker was conveyed in a cart when the British army marched from one town to another, lest too much grease should ooze out from his oily composition. Now it isn't saying too much when it is stated that the black cymbal-man had been a pet in the British army ever since he first struck the brass, and there was no end to the admiration of every young lady who had the good fortune to clap eyes upon him; for even nursery-maids held up their children on one side while they watched his every movement with the other; and real ladies actually forgot to look at the officers that is the padded regimental chaps, who were continually looking out for admirationwhilst Rum Striker whopped the round pieces of metal, one against the other. Still the officers liked the cymbal-player, because he brought the young ladies out of their sanctuaries, and away from their acts of charity as well as of devotion, so that they might see him lift one of the things in the air and then the other, and then crunch them, or slap them, or blow them into one another's faces. The poor fellow of course got proud, very proud of these, attentions on the part of the young ladies; but then he never returned their smiles-no, he was too proud to do that; besides, he would have had to smile during the whole day time, which made him put on a stern, angry-looking expression, just as though he were suffering from the tightness of his white neckcloth.

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And thus it was with Rum Striker for many years, during which he was the pet of the whole British army, and pulled his nose as close to his mouth as possible made it fall flat as though it hadn't a bridge to it-whenever he beheld a private; and this he would have continued to do even until the day of judgment, if it had not been for one grand particular, which, however painful to state, must now be revealed. Rum Striker, cymbal-player to the British army, was not immortal, for if he was I should be decidedly glad to say so; but, unfortunately, he wasn't, so that every strike he gave to the cymbals only served to allow time to grasp the sound and a portion of him at the same time, and to

carry both into the elastic bosom of eternity; so that they might associate with the first chirp of the goldfinch the last pang of the pauper, as well as the tears and joys of the industrious poor which shall come again into life when the immortal Saviour shall put an end unto eternity. On passing, doesn't it seem funny that Mistress Eternity's bosom should be able to subdue the opposites of this world; for one would think that a queen's, a marquis's, a lady mayoress's, or a lord chief baron's toe would actually kick a poor man's back if it were to run along side of it-mechanically like-as though it were used to do it and couldn't do without it. The governor of a union lying beside or underneath a pauper, or an opera beauty not being able to evade the downright questioning—by means of bones and sores sticking out-of unfortunate beggars. Why, what is the gauze for, the alabaster, the paint, and the varnish of the world, if it does not create a tongue of flesh without spirit which says continually, "I can kiss the sores when they are in a a book—a book of beauty for instance-but I wont let it touch the real, living, nasty poor." Oh, Jupiter, pray forgive me! You wont? Then I can't help it, so I must proceed in spite of you.

The

Well, then, even during this digression the cymbal-man has been getting thinner and older, so that it is natural to suppose that years have made a vast and very perceptible difference in his appearance. balloon began to descend, and lost its bulky character gradually, until all of a sudden the chap who had worked so hard for the British army actually received notice to quit his office, so that a younger man—a black, of course-might fill what had been so long his situation. To be sure his cheeks had gone in an inch or two, and his eyes weren't so brilliant as they had been, whilst his hair, as if to give a hint to his body, was beginning to imitate the white population. It was a blow, a vast and hard blow, to Rum Striker, yet he had no power of preventing it; so that, without more ado, he pulled a portion of his whiskers out, cried a little, took off the white bags from his black legs, threw down his turban and spangled coat; and having dressed himself in the common clothes which are peculiar to the civilian, whether he be black or brown, he handed over the cymbals to his successor, and forthwith left the British army. He had a pension, but what was that? Nothing in comparison to the proud situation he had lost. Besides, what was Rum Striker to do in the world, and away from the British army? That was the great question. He knew they didn't want cymbals at theatres for their bands, and he knew they were not of much use outside the British army. Still, for all that, he thought he would try his fortune one way or other, so that perhaps it is better, nay, it is bestthere's impudence for you to let the lean old black try and try again, for the matter of that, and it may fall to the reader's lot to meet with him again, although, for the life of me, I shouldn't like to promise it.

June, 1845.-VOL. XLIII.-NO. CLXX.

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