“Ay, go thy way, thou painted thing,
  Puppet, which mortals call a king,
  Adorning thee with idle gems,
  With drapery and diadems,
  And scarcely guessing, that beneath
  The purple robe and laurel wreath,
  There’s nothing but the common slime
  Of human clay and human crime:—­
  My rags are not so rich,—­but they
  Will serve as well to cloak decay.

  “And ever round thy jeweled brow
  False slaves and falser friends will bow;
  And Flattery,—­as varnish flings
  A baseness on the brightest things,—­
  Will make the monarch’s deeds appear
  All worthless to the monarch’s ear,
  Till thou wilt turn and think that Fame,
  So vilely drest, is worse than shame!—­
  The gods be thanked for all their mercies,
  Diogenes hears naught but curses!

  “And thou wilt banquet!—­air and sea
  Will render up their hoards for thee;
  And golden cups for thee will hold
  Rich nectar, richer than the gold. 
  The cunning caterer still must share
  The dainties which his toils prepare;
  The page’s lip must taste the wine
  Before he fills the cup for thine!—­
  Wilt feast with me on Hecate’s cheer? 
  I dread no royal hemlock here!

  “And night will come; and thou wilt lie
  Beneath a purple canopy,
  With lutes to lull thee, flowers to shed
  Their feverish fragrance round thy bed,
  A princess to unclasp thy crest,
  A Spartan spear to guard thy rest.—­
  Dream, happy one!—­thy dreams will be
  Of danger and of perfidy;—­
  The Persian lance,—­the Carian club!—­
  I shall sleep sounder in my tub!

  “And thou wilt pass away, and have
  A marble mountain o’er thy grave,
  With pillars tall, and chambers vast,
  Fit palace for the worm’s repast!—­
  I too shall perish!—­let them call
  The vulture to my funeral;
  The Cynic’s staff, the Cynic’s den,
  Are all he leaves his fellow men,—­
  Heedless how this corruption fares,—­
  Yea, heedless though it mix with theirs!”

* * * *

[From Household Words.]

THE LAST OF A LONG LINE.

CHAPTER I.

Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville was the last of a very long line.  It Extended from the Norman Conquest to the present century.  His first known ancestor came over with William, and must have been a man of some mark, either of bone and sinew, or of brain, for he obtained what the Americans would call a prime location.  As his name does not occur in the Roll of Battle Abbey, he was, of course, not of a very high Norman extraction; but he had done enough, it seems, in the way of knocking down Saxons, to place himself on a considerable eminence in this kingdom.  The center of his domains was conspicuous far over the country, through a high range of rock overhanging one of the sweetest rivers in England.  On one hand lay a vast tract of rich marsh land, capable, as society advanced, of being converted into meadows; and on the other, as extensive moorlands, finely undulating, and abounding with woods and deer.