Читать книгу The Essays of Douglas Jerrold онлайн

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The earth is blasted—the air seems full of spells: the shadows of the Fates darken the march of the conqueror: the hero is stabbed with air-drawn steel.

The waves roar like lions round the cliff: the winds are up, and howling; yet there is a voice, louder than theirs—a voice made high and piercing by intensest agony! The singer comes, his white head “crowned with rank fumitor”—madness, tended by truth, speaking through folly!

The Adriatic basks in the sun: there is a street in Venice; “a merry bargain” is struck—the Jew slinks like a balked tiger from the court.

Enter a pair of legs, marvellously cross-gartered.

And hark! to a sound of piping, comes one with an ass’s head wreathed with musk roses and a spirit playing around it like a wildfire.

A handkerchief, with “magic in the web,” comes like a trail of light, and disappears.

A leek—a leek of immortal green shoots up!

Behold! like to the San Trinidad, swims in a buck-basket labelled “to Datchet Meads.”

There gleam two roses, red and white—a Roman cloak stabbed through and through—a lantern of the watch of Messina!