Through the portals of horn!

O dreams of the tongues that commend us,
Of crowns for the laureate pate,
Of a public to buy and befriend us,
Ye come through the Ivory Gate!
But the critics that slash us and slate, {2}
But the people that hold us in scorn,
But the sorrow, the scathe, and the hate,
Through the portals of horn!

ENVOY.

Fair dreams of things golden and great,
Ye come through the Ivory Gate;
But the facts that are bleak and forlorn,
Through the portals of horn!



CURIOSITIES OF PARISH REGISTERS



There are three classes of persons who are deeply concerned with
parish registers--namely, villains, antiquaries, and the sedulous
readers, "parish clerks and others," of the second or "agony" column
of the Times. Villains are probably the most numerous of these
three classes. The villain of fiction dearly loves a parish
register: he cuts out pages, inserts others, intercalates remarks