'Upon whom!' exclaimed the poetical young
gentleman in a frenzy of poetry, 'Upon whom should they be bestowed
but upon the murderer!'-and thereupon it came out, in a fine
torrent of eloquence, that the murderer was a great spirit, a bold
creature full of daring and nerve, a man of dauntless heart and
determined courage, and withal a great casuist and able reasoner,
as was fully demonstrated in his philosophical colloquies with the
great and noble of the land. We held our peace, and meekly
signified our indisposition to controvert these opinions-firstly,
because we were no match at quotation for the poetical young
gentleman; and secondly, because we felt it would be of little use
our entering into any disputation, if we were: being perfectly
convinced that the respectable and immoral hero in question is not
the first and will not be the last hanged gentleman upon whom false
sympathy or diseased curiosity will be plentifully expended.
This was a stern mystic flight of the poetical young gentleman. In
his milder and softer moments he occasionally lays down his
neckcloth, and pens stanzas, which sometimes find their way into a
Lady's Magazine, or the 'Poets' Corner' of some country newspaper;
or which, in default of either vent for his genius, adorn the
rainbow leaves of a lady's album. These are generally written upon
some such occasions as contemplating the Bank of England by
midnight, or beholding Saint Paul's in a snow-storm; and when these
gloomy objects fail to afford him inspiration, he pours forth his
soul in a touching address to a violet, or a plaintive lament that
he is no longer a child, but has gradually grown up.
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