But these, I fear, Are falsely catalogued; things that are, are not, As the mind answers to them, or the heart 670 Is prompt, or slow, to feel.

What say you, then, To times, when half the city shall break out Full of one passion, vengeance, rage, or fear?
To executions, to a street on fire, Mobs, riots, or rejoicings?
From these sights 675 Take one,--that ancient festival, the Fair, Holden where martyrs suffered in past time, And named of St.Bartholomew; [c] there, see A work completed to our hands, that lays, If any spectacle on earth can do, 680 The whole creative powers of man asleep!-- For once, the Muse's help will we implore, And she shall lodge us, wafted on her wings, Above the press and danger of the crowd, Upon some showman's platform.

What a shock 685 For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din, Barbarian and infernal,--a phantasma, Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound! Below, the open space, through every nook Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive 690 With heads; the midway region, and above, Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls, Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies; With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles, And children whirling in their roundabouts; 695 With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes, And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons Grimacing, writhing, screaming,--him who grinds The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves, 700 Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum, And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks, The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel, Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes .-- 705 All moveables of wonder, from all parts, Are here--Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, 710 The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows, All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts 715 Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters.

Tents and Booths Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill, Are vomiting, receiving on all sides, 720 Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.
Oh, blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl 725 Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one identity, by differences That have no law, no meaning, and no end-- Oppression, under which even highest minds Must labour, whence the strongest are not free.

[d] 730 But though the picture weary out the eye, By nature an unmanageable sight, It is not wholly so to him who looks In steadiness, who hath among least things An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts 735 As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.
This, of all acquisitions, first awaits On sundry and most widely different modes Of education, nor with least delight On that through which I passed.