he is the greatest poet who makes the greatest number of human hearts to leap and tingle.  But the fellow I mean piqued himself on not being understood.  Like the Yankee Noodle, he cut capers that had no intelligible meaning in them, just to make people stare.  As for my own share of poetry, I will tell you when I feel it stirring most.  You must know that in the view from a steeple the form of objects is changed only in one direction—­that is downwards.  The small houses, the narrow streets, the little creatures creeping along them, and the feeble sounds they send up, make me feel grand.  But when I turn my eyes to the heavens, I see no shadow of change.  The clouds look awful, as if despising my poor attempt at approach; and they glide, and break, and fade, and build themselves up again—­all in deep silence—­in a way that makes me feel mean.  Now this mean feeling is real poetry.  The meaner I feel, the grander are they; and when I look long at them, and think long, and then begin to descend to the earth, to mingle with the little creatures who are my fellows, I tremble—­but not with fear.

A philosopher, do you say?  Fie! don’t call names:  I am a bricklayer.  I know that such distance as human beings can climb to is but a small matter.  I see things as they are.  I do not fancy that it is more difficult to stand on a steeple than on a stool, or that it is more difficult to hold on by a rope at one height than at another.  I observe that men and their affairs, when viewed from a steeple, are very insignificant; but the same insight into things teaches me, when I am among them myself, to pull off my cap and be affable.  I know that the things of earth change according to distance, but that the things of heaven are unchangeable.  And all I have got further to say is, that I am quite sensible that although when up in the air I am a sign and a marvel to the people below, when down among themselves I am but plain.

STEEPLE JACK.

FOOTNOTES: 

[2] See article, ‘A Child’s Toy,’ in No. 418.

FOOD OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS—­FRANKLIN’S EXPEDITION.

A certain class of reasoners have argued themselves into the belief that, setting all other considerations aside, Sir John Franklin and his companions must have necessarily perished ere now from lack of food.  When the four years, or so, of provisions he took out with him for the large crews of the vessels were all consumed, how, say they, would it be possible for so great a number of men to obtain food sufficient to support life in those awfully desolate regions?  Let us examine the question a little.