[ 661 ] 
THE. S5TAR THAT SHONE 
WHEN OTHER STARS WERE DIM. 
| THE ensuing Verses were written at a time when, though the disastrous crisis, was 
fast approaching, the fate ‘of Spain was not decided —when the armies of France (with 
the tacit, though dissembled, connivance’ ‘of the English Court and Government) were 
advancing in their liberticide:career—when defection after defection’ had thinned the 
ranks of patriotism, and’ Mina, alone,’ was conspicuously upholding, with dauntless 
valour and incorruptible independence, the standard of liberty around which the hopes 
of patriot humanity could rally. I 
At such a point of eventful time, the idea of the poem was suggested; and some of 
the lines were mentally composed, while the author was walking along, at midnight, in 
the neighbourhood of Whitehall, towards his cottage in the rural vicinage of the me- 
tropolis. , : 
The singular phenomenon (for he neyer remembers to have seen it so, conspicuous. on 
any other occasion), from the blaze of the gas-lights all around him—the complete apparent 
blackness cf the sky, in which one solitary star alone had lustre sufficient to oyerpower 
the dazzling eifeet of the more approximate glare—struek (as is the tendency of all 
singular atmospheric cr planetary phenomena) strongly on his imagination: and the 
similitude to the state of the political horizon, in a country towards which’ all eyes, at 
that time, were so anxiously turned, was so irresistible, that his mind could not resume‘a 
settled tranquillity, till it had vented the feelings which. the comparison had excited: 
The total overthrow which ensued, of every hope to, which the, wishes of humanity 
had struggled to cling, prevented any immediate use from being made. of what. the 
imagination had suggested. The poet (if the author may presume to arrogate that name) 
was proved, atleast, to be no prophet ; and the local interest (ina production-which, perhaps; 
can aspire to no other) was of course abated. Circumstances, however, are every nov. 
and then occurring, which cannot but impel the mind occasionally to réturn to the feel- 
ings then awake. ‘The utter impossibility of the permanent continuance ‘of the presen 
state of things in Spain (if state it may be called, that stability, or shape; hath hone), can- 
not but be apparent'to every one; and some: symptoms have miafiifested themselves 
which may encourage at least the hope, that, at no very:distant period, the cause Of 
Constitutional, Patriotism, may yet revive,,in a. country the: most miserably afflicted; the 
most wantonly and stupidly oppressed, and. the most contemptibly degtaded,| of allithe 
priest-ridden and tyrant-goaded nations, whose abject, or whose compelled.submission, has 
scandalized the annals of modern, Europe. Tf such eyent should. occur; the memory 
(perhaps the re-manifestation) of the patriot valour and enterprize, of Mina must be. the 
loadstar to which the hopes and emulation of Spanish heroism will be directed. Those 
who can still cherish sucit hopes, may perhaps feel some interest. in the subject of the 
ensuing lines; and to sueh, alone, they can be dedicated with any very sanguine hope of 
attention. ] / 9 SBR ’ 
T warx’p at midnight in the cluster’d glare 
Of the throng’d strect—for, maugre the dull hour, 
. The sons of Belial and the sons of care, _ 
From wine-cup or protracted toil, were there, 
Even yet in throng: nor had the sleep-god’s power 
Clos’d half the city’s eye-—And while around 
(As ’twould the midnight and mid-noon confound) 
The flaring gas, in implicative shower, 
O’er the bianch’d pavement shed factitious day, 
I gaz’d aloft ;—for more I love to view, 
At such an hour, ‘the soft and pensive hue 
Of heaven’s blue concave, and the glimmering ‘stat, 
That whispers of'the myriad worlds afar,” 0" 
Lit by the eternal splendours of such car— 
To us though dimly seen,—than to survey 
Whate’er the gorgeous city can display, 
In strect/or hall, of banquet-reyelry : 
Even though the reeling carnival.of, joy 
‘ Make eyery window’ blaze, and every towev. 
So to the azure-wonted canopy 
I gaz’d aloft—in hopes I there might spy, 
