CHAPTER XXXV.
ELECTRICS.
I have something of interest to say about the first laying of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic.

Sir Culling Eardley invited a number of savants, among them Wheatstone and Morse, and others, both English and American, to a great feast inaugurating the completion of the cable: and I, amongst other outsiders, had the honour of being asked.

I had written, and after dinner I read, the verses following, which had the good and great effect of originating the first message (see the seventh stanza) which was adopted by acclamation and sent off at once; being only preceded, for courtesy-sake, by a short friendly greeting from Queen to President, and President to Queen.

The heading runs in my book as "The Atlantic Telegraph." "World! what a wonder is this, Grandly and simply sublime,-- All the Atlantic abyss Leapt in a nothing of time! Even the steeds of the sun Half a day panting behind, In the flat race that is run, Won by a flash of the mind! "Lo! on this sensitive, link-- It is one link, not a chain-- Man with his brother can think Spanning the breadth of the main,-- Man to his brother can speak Swift as the bolt from a cloud, And where its thunders were weak There his least whisper is loud! "Yea; for as Providence wills, Now doth intelligent man Conquer material ills, Wrestling them down as he can,-- And lay one weak little coil Under the width of the waves, Distance and Time are his spoil, Fetter'd as Caliban slaves! "Ariel ?--right through the sea We can fly swift as in air; Puck ?--forty minutes shall be Sloth to the bow that we bear: Here is Earth's girdle indeed, Just a thought-circlet of fire,-- Delicate Ariel freed Sings, as she flies, on a wire! "Courage, O servants of light, For you are safe to succeed; Lo! you are helping the Right, And shall be blest in your deed.
Lo! you shall bind in one band, Joining the nations as one, Brethren of every land, Blessing them under the sun! "This is Earth's pulse of high health Thrilling with vigour and heat, Brotherhood, wisdom and wealth, Throbbing in every beat; But you must watch in good sooth Lest to false fever it swerve,-- Touch it with tenderest truth As the world's exquisite nerve! "Let the first message across-- High-hearted Commerce, give heed-- Not be of profit or loss, But one electric indeed: Praise to the Giver be given, For that He giveth man skill, Glory to God in the Heaven! 'Peace upon earth, and goodwill!'" Another Electric poem of mine called "The First Message," also in Gall's edition, was sent over by telegraph to America.

What a miserable muddle, by the way, those meddlesome revisers have made of The Angel's Message;--preferring a dubious sigma to a comma, they have utterly spoilt that sublime trilogy by making "Peace upon earth, goodwill towards men," read "Peace upon earth among men in whom he is well pleased." How clumsy and how ungrammatical, _in_ whom! The whole dear Bible has been terribly damaged by their 36,000 needless alterations in the New Testament (not 100 having been really necessary), and I know not how many more myriads in the Old, but happily their Version falls dead, and will soon be as forgotten as Dr.Conquest's "Bible with 20,000 emendations," whereof I now possess a somewhat scarce copy in the library at Albury.