— ^^ _— __-_ I Glass /"/V4 2 Book V2- __ AN ELOCUTIONARY MANUAL: CONSISTING OP CHOICE SELECTIONS FROM ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE, ADAPTED TO EVERY VARIETY OP VOCAL EXPRESSION. DESIGNED FOR THE HIGHER CLASSES IN SCHOOLS AND SEMINARIES, AND FOR PRIVATE AND SOCIAL READING. WITH AN INTKODUCTOKY ESSAY STUDY OF LITERATURE, AND ON VOCAL CULTURE AS INDISPENSABLE TO AN ESTHETIC APPRECIATION OP POETRY. BY HIEAM COESON, A.M., editor of " chaucer's legende of goode women. PHILADELPHIA: CHAELES D.ESILVBB, 1229 Chestnut Street. 1865. 192 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by CHARLES DESILVER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. «*$ x* J. FAOAX k SON, f? *V« , 8TEREOTYPERS, PHILAD'A. ^Jfi^** ^ vn JJR PRINTED BY CRI3SY k MARKLEY. TO MY PUPILS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED. H. C. (iii) CONTENTS PAGE. On the Study of Literature and on Vocal Culture Hiram Corson. 15 "What is Literature? Thomas Be Quincey. 49 On the refining and elevating influence of Poetry William Ellery Channing. 57 The Church of Brou Matthew Arnold. 61 Description of a Country Gentleman of the Seventeenth Century Thomas Babington Macaulay. 69 A Rill from the Town Pump Nathaniel Hawthorne. 73 The Wreck of the Hesperus.. ..Henry Wadsioorth Longfellow. 78 Squire Bull and his son Jonathan James Kirke Paulding. 82 The Alpine Sheep Mrs. Maria White Lowell. 86 Spring N. P. Willis. 88 Best method of Reading Henry Reed. 89 A literary Criticism Joseph Dennie. 91 The height of the Ridiculous Oliver Wendell Holmes. 100 Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon. 101 Gibbon's First Love Edward Gibbon. 104 The Blind Preacher William Wirt. 107 The Sea and the Mountains ....Oliver Wendell Holmes. 112 My Kate Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 114 Literature and Learning in the reign of Charles II Thomas Babington Macaulay. 116 The Human Voice Oliver Wendell Holmes. 126 1* (v) vi CONTENTS. PAGE. Extracts from "Aurora Leigh"... Elizabeth B. Browning. 131-134 English Landscape 131 Life 132 The Soul's intimations of Immortality L33 London L34 London Heinrich Heine. 136 The Song of Deborah and Barak Book of Judges. 137 Incident at Bruges William Wordsworth. 140 Monk Felix Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 142 The tendency of nations to over-estimate the Past, and de- preciate the Present Thomas Babington Macavlay. 147 Scorn not the Sonnet. % William Wordsworth. 149 The World is too much with us William Wordsworth. 150 Milton William Wordsworth. 151 Silence Thomas Hood. 15 1 Fancy in Nubibus ; or, the Poet in the Clouds Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 152 God's power and providence illustrated in the Animal King- dom Book of Job. 1 ">'.j Belshazzar's Feast Book of Daniel. L55 Rural Life in Sweden Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. loO Passages from the Marble Fann. ...Nathaniel Hawthorne. 108-179 The Faun of Praxiteles 1G8 The Dying Gladiator 171 Description of a Fountain 172 Needle-work 173 The Italian Climate 174 On the appreciation of a Picture 175 Description of Saint Peter's 175 Guido's Beatrice 177 Rome 179 Songs and Lyrics from " The Princess". .Alfred Tennyson. 181-185 Reconciliation over a Child's Grave 181 Cradle Song ' 182 CONTENTS. vii PAGE. Bugle Song '. 182 The Days that are no more 183 The Dead "Warrior ! 184 "Ask me no more" 185 The Saxon and Latin elements of the English language ; — the peculiar province of each in poetic diction Thomas De Quincey. 186 Visit of the Wise Men to the infant Saviour, and the Flight into Egypt Gospel of St. Matthew. 189 Parable of the Prodigal Son Gospel of St. Luke. 192 Christ and the Woman of Samaria Gospel of St. John. 194 Lady Clara Vere de Vere Alfred Tennyson. 197 The Lord of Burleigh Alfred Tennyson. 200 Parallel between the Portraits of Byron and Shelley George Gilfillan. 204 Intellectual qualities of Milton.... William Ellery Channing. 205 The Skeleton in Armour Henry Wadsivorth Longfellow. 208 Don Quixote Henry Giles. 215 Godiva.. 7. Leigh Hunt. 217 Godiva Alfred Tennyson. 223 Youth and Age • Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 226 Love; or, Genevieve Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 228 The Palimpsest Thomas De Quincey. 232 Ode to a Nightingale John Keats. 240 To a Lady with a Guitar Percy Bysshe Shelley. 243 " He giveth his beloved Sleej) ,, ...Elizabet7i Barrett Browning. 247 Covrper's Grave Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 249 "Break, Break, Break" Alfred Tennyson. 252 The Dream of Eugene Aram Thomas Hood. 253 The Portraits of Shakspeare and Goethe David Masson. 262 The Humble Bee Ralph Waldo Emerson. 268 The Execution. A sporting anecdote R. Harris Barham. 271 A Dead Rose Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 278 vm CONTENTS. PAGE. Garden Fancies Robert Browning. 279 Chaucer Hiram Corson. 281 " Tribulation" — the Etymology of the "Word Richard Chenevix Trench. 289 June James Russell Lowell. 292 The Voiceless Oliver Wendell Holmes. 29G The Chambered Nautilus Oliver Wendell Holmes. 297 The Panther Leigh limit. 299 Description of a Spanish Bull-fight Lord Byron. 302 The Haven Edgar Allan !'»<•. 305 The Bells Edgar Allan Foe. 313 Ulalume Edgar Allan I'oc. 317 To a Mountain Daisy, on turning one down with the Plough in April, 178G Robert Burns, 321 Sublimity of the Prophet Isaiah Bishop Robert Lowth. 323 The Three Ladies of Sorrow Thomas J)r Quincey. :V27 Sir Galahad ilfred Tennyson. 332 Intimations of Immortality from recollections of early child- hood William Wordsworth. 335 Boswell's Life of Johnson ; — how " Histories" are written.... Thomas Carlyle. 343 Morte D' Arthur Alfred Tennyson. 351 Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley. 368 The Beauty of the Outer World a reflex of a pure and joyous soul Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 372 Extract from " Christabel" Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 373 Passages from " The Paradise Lost" John Milton. 381-394 Satan recovers from his downfall and arouses his le- gions who lie entranced on the burning lake 381 Description of Satan 383 Pandemonium and its architect 383 Satan on the wing for Earth, and his meeting with Sin and Death at Hell gates 386 The expulsion of the rebel angels from Heaven 389 CONTENTS. IX PAGE. from Shakspeare. 394-432 Shylock, the Jew, loans Bassanio three thousand ducats on the security of a pound of Antonio's flesh 394 Othello, the Moor, accused by Brabantio of having won his daughter Desdemona by love-potions and witchcraft, makes his defence before the Duke and Senators of Venice, and tells the story of his courtship 402 Hamlet at his Uncle's Court. — Horatio imparts to him the appearance of his father's ghost 411 Interview between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth after the murder of King Duncan 421 Ulysses' advice to Achilles 424 INDEX OF AUTHORS. PAGE. Arnold, Matthew 61 Barham, R. Harris 271 Book of Daniel 155 Book of Job 153 Book of Judges 137 Browning, Elizabeth B. ... 114, 131, 132, 133, 134, 247, 249, 278 Browning, Robert 279 Burns, Robert 321 Byron, Lord 302 Carlyle, Thomas 343 Channing, William Ellery 57,205 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 152, 226, 228, 372 Corson, Hiram 15, 281 Dennie, Joseph 91 De Quincey, Thomas 49, 186, 232, 327 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 268 Gibbon, Edward 101, 104 Giles, Henry 215 Gilfillan, George 204 Gospel of St. John 194 Gospel of St, Luke 192 Gospel of St. Matthew 189 HaAvthorne, Nathaniel 168, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 179 Heine, Heinrich 136 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 100, 112, 126, 296, 297 (xi) Xil INDEX OF A UTEORS. PAGE. Hood, Thomas 151, 253 Hunt, Leigh 217, 299 Ingoldsby, Thomas 271 Keats, John 240 Leland, Charles G 13G Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 78, 142, 159, 208 Lowell, James Russell .• 292 Lowell, Mrs. Maria White 8G Lowth, Robert 323 Macaulay, Thomas Babington 69, 11G, 147 Masson, David 2G2 Milton, John 381-394 Paulding, James Kirke 82 Poe, Edgar Allan 305, 313, 317 Reed, Henry 89 Shakspeare, William 394-432 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 243, 368 Tennyson, Alfred 181, 185, 197, 200, 223, 252, 332, 351 Trench, Richard Chenevix 289 Willis, Nathaniel Parker 88 Wirt, William 107 Wordsworth, William 140, 149, 150, 151, 335 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE, AND ON VOCAL CULTURE AS INDISPENSABLE TO AN ESTHETIC APPRECIATION OF POETRY. BY HIRAM CORSON, A. M, (xiii) /' SO THEY READ L\ THE BOOK IN THE LAW OF GOD DISTINCTLY, AND GAVE THE SENSE, AND CAUSED THEM TO UNDERSTAND THE READING. Neiiemiaii, Chap. VIII., v. 8. (»v) PART I. ON THE STUDY OF LITEEATUEE. fITEE AEY study, in its higher form, aims to treat a literature as a whole, and endeavours to trace the several and successive stages of its development, to discover the various causes, political, social, edu- cational, religious, to which the productions of any period owe their peculiarities. Such an aim also em- braces a comparison of the genius and productions of authors of the same period and of different periods. It is also within its scope to trace the development of ideas relative to literary art, and the different views held at different periods as to the legitimate functions of the several departments of Literature. There is no study more interesting than this, treating, as it does, of the infinite phases and attitudes which the human mind presents under different circumstances, and yet remaining in all places and in all times, essentially the same. But it is a difficult and ambitious task, even when undertaken by men of the widest and ripest (15) 16 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. knowledge, the deepest imaginative insight, and the subtlest analytical power. The present century has produced perhaps not more than two men capable of writing a history of the development of English Literature ; I allude to. Thomas De Quincey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. That they possessed the requisite qualifications no one who is intimately acquainted with their writings can deny; and from their writings it is also evident that their powers pointed in this direction as the one most favourable to their fullest and most genial exercise. A less ambitious aim in literary study, is the study of individual productions as distinct works of art, without any special regard to their relative value and historical significance. To take a poem, for instance, and discover the secret of its aesthetic power, and the various elements of this power, is something within the reach of any one of ordinary emotional appre- ciation and analytical skill. Such a study requires for its successful prosecution no very extensive know- ledge of general literature, and no great powers of analysis and synthesis, and is, of course, the indispen- sable preparation for the higher study I have men- tioned. But true to a principle which seems to un- derlie our present systems of rapid education, — namely, to rush, at once, "in medias res" — the History of Eng- lish Literature is often studied in our Institutions of learning, before there is any, not even the most super- ficial, acquaintance with individual productions. If ON THE STTDY OF LITERATURE, 17 they are studied at all, they are usually studied in fragments, in the shape of "Beautiful Extracts," or "Moral Passages," and the advantage derived from the study of organisms is thus entirely forfeited. The one mode is as inferior to the other, as the study of bits of china would be, to contemplating the beautiful and graceful vase of which they once formed parts. In the study of the mere material, we lose sight of the beautiful form into which the artist has moulded it. It is by the form which he has given to his manifold material, and which is the basis of all high aesthetic impression, that he is to be estimated. What has he made or moulded out of his material ? is the question to be asked. How has he organized it, and with what results ? With what success has he brought all details under the pervading, vitalizing influence of a dominant idea, causing them to impart to his work a richness and an intense vitality ? Has he wisely rejected everything superfluous, or are there excrescences which contribute nothing to the general moral impression? Is his rhetoric in the web of his thought, or is it only sewed on, like gold lace on a coat? Are his thoughts evolved with a skilful and graceful transition from one to the other ? or are they abrupt, insulated, ca- pricious, with little or no law of succession? !N"o num- ber of brilliant passages will compensate for a de- ficiency in the organic unity and vitality of a work. The elements are nothing without "the atmosphere that moulds, and the dynamic forces that combine." 2* 18 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. There is no objection, however, to storing the memory with the beautiful passages of concentrated energy with which the higher poetry in the contriv- ing spirit of its eloquence, abounds. The more of such passages every one has at his command, the better. No means, however superficial, for increasing our familiarity with the ideal world of Poetry, should be discouraged. Converse with Poetry should not be regarded merely as an elegant and refined pastime, — but as an essential to our spiritual life, as bread is to our physical life. Without its kindly influence, life becomes sordid, selfish, and commonplace. Daily in- tercourse with the great Masters of Song is also the best safeguard against the temptations which beset us in the world of current literature. The most popular works the press sends forth are those which gratify an appetite for the surprising and the thrilling. " It is of the greatest importance," says John Euskin, " not only for Art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, in these days of book-deluge, to keep out of the salt-swamps of literature, and live on a little rocky island of your own, with a spring and a lake in it pure and good." Let Poetry, then, be studied and communed with in every possible way. It will do nobody any harm. But in a system of mental and aesthetic culture, the leading design should be, the study of poems and other literary art-products, as organisms, which are to be comprehended, not in their parts only, but in their totality. The more intense a man's intellectual and ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 19 emotional life becomes, the more he demands effects produced b j the organization of manifold elements — ■ elements fused by the alchemy of the imagination into a new and living whole, whose synthesis calls forth that harmonious energizing of the soul, which consti- tutes its highest life and delight. But let it not be supposed that the pleasure derived from the productions of Poetry or of any other of the fine arts, is due to a conscious energizing to compre- hend them. The pleasure derived from a work of the imagination is in proportion to the degree of uncon- sciousness with which all its appeals are responded to. Works which strictly belong to Literature, — that is, works which speak to the understanding through the emotions, — should not be read, of course, as those which address the insulated understanding. We must come to the reading of the former, for the first time, in the least self-conscious state possible ; we must avoid analysis as much as we can, and place ourselves passively under the influence of our author. " We get no good," says Mrs. Browning, in her " Aurora Leigh," " By being ungenerous, even to a book, And calculating profits ... so much help By so much reading. It is rather when We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge Soul-fjrward, headlong, into a book's profound, Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth — 'Tis then Tve get the right good from a book." 20 ON THE STUDY OF L 1 T i: /.' .1 T V R K . The sensibilities are the peculiar domain of the Fine Arts, and by a transcendent preeminence of the greatest of the Fine Arts — Poetry ; and if, by a pre- mature analysis, the sensibilities are not allowed their requisite play, the leading purpose of a work of the Imagination is defeated. We should not attempt an- alysis until we bave reoeived an emotional impression from the whole; in some eases, many emotional im- pressions, accordiiii'- bo the extent of a work, and the degree of its sensuousness. We may then seek to discover the various elements of this impression, and by a more conscious and intimate knowledge of the respective functions of these elements, attain to a higher impression from the whole. This higher im- pression will lead to a still more minute analysis by which we will discover subtler elements of effect which the first analysis did not reveal. This more minute analysis will be followed by a still higher im- pression from the whole ; and thus the process will continue of an alternation of general impression and analysis until we have grown up to the work, as it were : we fully respond to the emotional appeal made by the artist ; we grasp his work it its entireness ; that which was at first consciously and with effort, received, reaches in time higher and subtler organs of discernment, where is breathed the purer air of unconsciousness and spontaneity. > Take, for example, the " Locksley Hall " of Tenny- son. On the first reading of this "grand hymn of ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 21 human progress," the magnificent swell of the rhythm, and the richness of the melody, will be likely to pro- duce the most decided impression. In other words, the first impression will be, what it should be to a great extent in every true poem, a sensuous one — ac- companied, of course, by a general understanding of the poem. With this impression, we may be content for a number of readings, and not be disposed to look further into the poem, especially if we happen to take it up in a passive mood. At another time, when we are more disposed to be analytical, we may fix our attention upon the picturesqueness and passion of the language, the imagery, the lights and shades of the thoughts, and the suggestiveness of the vowel sounds, for in Poetry, words ara not merely representatives of ideas, but are ivied over with emotional associations. The syntactical construction, eveu, will claim some attention, for this latter feature presents a number of difficulties in "Locksley Hall." When the results of all these observations and the several impressions derived therefrom, shall have been absorbed in the general impression, we will be disposed to penetrate still further — we will endeavour to supply all the connecting links of the thought and feeling — and in the poem in question they are re- markably subtle — to discover how the poet, in the^ intensity of his inspiration, passed from one thought or one feeling to another thought or another feeling, A great poet, giving expression to a subtle and com- 22 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. plex sentiment, must necessarily be obscure to the ordinary reader, in whom such sentiment exists only potentially, and with its elements uncombined. It is not in the simple elements that one individual mind differs from another, but in their degree, and in the nature of their combination. The emotions which the great poet, or painter, or musician, experiences, are more complex than those experienced by men in gene- ral ; and when they are expressed in words, in marble, in colours, or in sounds, it requires at first, an effort, and frequently, a long-continued effort, to go over the process of their combination, and clearly to apprehend the leading sentiment which was the controlling prin- ciple of the association Imagination does not differ essentially from ordinary thinking — it follows the same laws, but those laws are more actively and harmoniously in force. It is ordinary thinking intensified. Imagination, to be sure, is always impassioned, which ordinary thinking is not; but that is the natural consequence of its intensity • the depths of the whole nature are stirred by it. Every true poem is a piece of articulate music, which an ordinary Imagination must long practice upon before it can play it with a sufficient degree of spontaneousness and unconsciousness, to derive from it all the pleasure it is capable of imparting. The same process goes on in the contemplation of a picture or a statue — at first view the impression it produces rnay be quite an indifferent one ; but repeated impres- ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 23 sions, each deepened by an analysis of previous ones, will finally fuse, if the work possesses a consistent, con- gruous unity, into one compound and harmonious feeling. As in the case of the poem, we grow up to the work. "We grasp it as a whole and spontaneously. We are fully informed in regard to the work. Our feelings have been gradually tuned to respond to its emotional appeal. Art owes its power chiefly to the magic garment of form, and not to what it explicitly teaches. The principle which underlies true art, and which the artist must consciously or unconsciously recognize, is that which Mrs. Browning has so happily expressed : "paint a body well, You paint a soul by implication, like The grand first Master." Art educates, but i\ does not aim directly to instruct or indoctrinate. Its great function is to keep alive man's sensibilities and instincts, and thus to fit him for the perception of high spiritual truths. It is thus that Poetry and all the Fine Arts work moral results. The true Artist is an implicit, not an explicit teacher and moralist. "The only real instructor of the human race," says Orestes Brownson, "is the artist; and it^is as artists, as men wrought up to the intensest life, and therefore acting from the full force of their being, that all the great and universally admitted philosophers have been able to quicken the race and set it forward to higher 24 ON THE S T UD Y F L I TE 11 A T UK E , and more comprehensive life. No man is really a philosopher till warmed up into the artist. Here is the sacredness of art, and the explanation of the fact, that the highest truths are always uttered by men when under the influence of the loftiest and c genuine Imagination." There is a final stage at which we arrive in the study of a great poem, though modern criticism is too much inclined to make it the introductory one. When we are fully informed in regard to a work of the Ima- gination, in the way that has been pointed out, and in the art-sense of the word, we are disposed to go fur- ther — to seek in the artist's forms an undercurrent of meaning, to make them typical of ideas which do not essentially and absolutely belong to them. Into what- ever recommends itself by the beauty of its form, the Imagination loves to infuse its own conceptions — to make it the casket of its own jewels, thus enriching it beyond its own intrinsic value. But we must not forget that although the Imagination may make this use of what it lovingly embraces by reason of its beauty of form, this beauty of form is an end to itself, and for itself was created by the artist, if he wrought it in a true artist spirit. All works of genius are richly suggestive, and are characterized by a flexi- bility of significance which often leads critics of a philosophic turn of mind to attribute to their authors definite purposes which they perhaps never dreamt of. The Grerman critics, (though the best in the world, ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 25 certainly far superior to the English and French,) from a disposition to see further into a millstone than the nature of a millstone will allow, run sometimes into ridiculous extremes in regard to what they are so fond of designating the Idea of a work. To be assured of this fact, we have but to read the Shakspearean criti- cisms of Dr. Ulrici, in many respects marked by great ability, and the numberless criticisms which have appeared on Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Faust. Goethe seems to have understood this tendency of his countrymen to dig for mysteries, and to have written the Second Part of Faust to give them plenty to do in that line for some generations. Certainly the interest which attaches to the Second Part of Faust is rather a philosophical than an art interest. It is in the inter- preting of its symbolism that the critics are chiefly interested, and not in the wealth of its poetic life, for this has been justly denied the Second Part of Faust, unsurpassed as is the First Part as a production of the poetic faculty. The legitimate interest which attaches to Art's forms, is an emotional interest, and is, in consequence, immeasurably higher in its nature than any merely intellectual interest could possibly be. "One impulse from a vernal wood May teach us more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can." Herein consist the sacredness and loftiness of Art, that its grand function is to bring into play and pre- 3 26 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. serve in an healthful activity, the emotional side of our nature. Man is greater as an emotional than as an intellectual being. The sensibilities are the soil in which all his moral qualities have root and nourish. But in a high state of civilization where the efforts requisite to procure the necessaries and luxuries of life, tend to sharpen men's wits at the expense of their sensibilities, special means are necessary to keep the latter alive, and this is done most effectually by the Fine Arts — by Music, by the Drama, by Painting, and more especially, by Poetry and other forms of Litera- ture. All these are, or should be, the handmaids of Eeligion. The highest, noblest, and most attractive order of manhood, is that wherein a just equilibrium is pre- served between the intellect and the emotions. George Sand has well remarked, that for civilization to attain its highest perfection, man must become more womanly, and woman more manly. Tennyson has expressed the same idea in "The Princess." Speaking of the mutual relations of the sexes, the Prince is made to say: — " in the long years liker must they grow ; The man be more of woman, she of man ; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind/ - ' All the great seers of the race have realized to an extent this condition — have been a well -poised duality ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 27 of the highest manhood and the highest womanhood. To a profound and refined sensibility to the influences of nature and of human life, they have united the highest discursive and analytical power. The sensi- bilities are the basis of the intuitional and the pro- phetic; through them man feels the truth before he knows it ; and a condition of his knowing it, that is, defining it to his intellect, is, that he possess the requi- site power to analyze the material furnished by his emotional nature. Emotion reaps the spiritual har- vest, intellect gathers it into sheaves, threshes it, winnows the grain from the chaff, and makes it into nourishing bread. If the intellect fail to perform its part of the labour, the swarth rots in the field, and the intellect pays the penalty of its inaction, by famine, and a life-in-death listlessness. It has, also, to lay up provisions, not only for the summer, but for the winter. Though emotion may be an active workman, as long as it serves the intellect, yet, unless it be well cared for, it grows torpid in the cold weather, and the intellect must depend wholly upon the acquisitions of the spring and summer's work ; and if these have not been sufficiently extensive, it too must experience winter's torpifying colds. Upon the life of the one, depends the life of the other. Neither can healthfully and vigourously exist by itself. To preserve a proper equilibrium between the in- tellect and the sensibilities, is, perhaps, in the present organization of society, impossible. The circumstances 28 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. which beset the life of every one, tend to a one-sided- ness of development. In fact, without a certain degree of one-sidedness in the individual, the various depart- ments of human thought and learning would make but little progress. The absolute good of the indivi- dual, it seems, must be sacrificed to the good of society; at any rate, until political wisdom shall have de\ -i means for reconciling the one with the other. But, in an abstract view, an emotional one-sidedaesa is prefer- able to an intellectual one-sidedness. A man may have scaled the loftiest heights of metaphysics ; he may have attained to the highest generalizations which are within the possibilities of the human intellect ; he may have weighed the stars, and measured their appalling dis- tances ; he may have descended into the bowels of the mountain, and found written there, in hieroglyphics of unmistakable meaning, the vast ages our planet has been dipping forward under sunshine and starry light ; he may have learned the names and habits, the genera and species, of all the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and of the creatures that inhabit the mighty deep ; he may, by a subtle chemistry, have resolved all matter into its primitive elements ; he may have seized the lightning and forced it to carry his messages, in the twinkling of an eye, to the most distant corners of the earth ; but, if the soft blue sky did never melt into his heart ; if he never felt the witchery of the soft blue sky ; if, like Wordsworth's Peter Bell, ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. 29 "A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose be to him, And it be nothing more ;" if lie has never been moved by the mysteries of the springtime, or dreamed amid the leafy pomps of sum- mer ; if his soul has never been softened, and filled with a luxurious sadness, by the departing glories and dreamy melancholy of the autumn woods ; if he has never experienced a wild and strange delight in the desolation and the howling blasts of winter; if he be a stranger to the divine and rapturous joys of which, through music, faint and sly glimpses are sometimes caught ; if he has never dreamed over some landscape, on the canvas of a great master, bathed in "A light that never was on sea or land," or stood rapt before a figure of ideal loveliness ; if his pulse has never been quickened, and his heart made to beat proudly by the radiant smiles and affec- tionate greetings of a wife and children, after a day's rude commerce with the world ; if, though ruthlessly deprived by Death of every earthly tie, he has not felt, that " "Pis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all," — he is, in spite of all his vast intellectual conquests, a very one-sided creature, and has but fed on husks, while many a poor servant in his father's house has had bread, enough and to spare. But reverse the picture. Suppose him to be ac- 3* 30 ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE. quainted with all these emotional experiences, but to be totally ignorant of the great conquests and triumphs of the intellect ; in the latter case, we would not con- sider him as one-sided as in the former ; we would be disposed to regard him, not as one who had had but a beggarly heritage, but as one of the highly favoured of the children of men. It was to express his profound conviction of this truth, that William Wordsworth wrote the most beau- tiful sonnet in our Literature : The world is too much with us ; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers ; Little we see in nature that is ours ; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! This 6ea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers ; For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; It moves us not. Great God ! Pd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Have eight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. PART II VOCAL CULTUKE. 1ST indispensable condition of an aesthetic appre- ciation of high poetry, is, that it receive an adequate vocal expression. Without a high vocal culture, — without the highest vocal culture, — the study of poetry must be more or less imperfect. To say nothing of other elements of poetry which demand a vocal expression, for their proper appreciation, the musical element, which constitutes in the higher poe- try so large a portion of the sentiment, and imparts that indefiniteness which attaches to all the produc- tions of the Imagination, can alone be fully appreciated when adequately expressed by the voice. When I speak of the musical element of poetry, I mean, of course, all the subtle effects produced by the rhythm, by the variation of successive vowel sounds, by the rhyme, by the varied length of the lines, by pauses, by the acceleration and retardation of the verse, by the distribution of emphasis, and many other elements (31) 32 VOCAL CULTURE. of effect, some of which are unrecognizable and beyond the reach of analysis. Without the aid of the voice, all the charms and subtle able from th elements, must be lost in a great measure to the ma- jority of silent readers. There are, no doubt, readers of poetry, whose im- agination of its musical suggestiveness sufficiently compensates for the absence of a vocal expression. But these must constitute a very limited class. With the great majority, much of the aroma of poetry must evaporate in silenl r< Mrs.Siddonsissaid to have studied her greatest parts silently. This, we must Buppose, she was enabled to do through her imagination of their elocution, and she possessed by nature, such a remarkable power over the organs of speech that she could always rely upon them in giving utterance on the stage, to her nicest concep- tions. Dr. Rush speaks of her voice as "a mirror for every trait of natural expression, in which one might recognize his deep, unuttered sympathy, and love the flattering picture as his own. All that is smooth," he adds, "and flexible, and various in intonation, all that is impressive in force, and in long-drawn time, all that is apt upon the countenance, and consonant in gesture, gave their united energy, gracefulness, grandeur, and truth, to this one great model of Ideal Elocution. Hers was that height of excellence, which, defying mimicry, can be made imaginable only by being equaled. VOCAL CULTURE. 33 " Such was my enthusiastic opinion, before a scrutiny into speech had developed a boundless scheme of criticism and instruction ; which, in admitting that nature may hold within her laws, the unrevealed power of producing occasional instances of rare accomplish- ment of voice ; yet assures us, that nothing but the influence of some system of principles, founded on a knowledge of those laws, can ever produce multipled examples of excellence, or give to any one the perfec- tion of art. There is a pervading energy in Observa- tive Science which searches, discovers, gathers-together co-arranges, still amplifies and completes ; and which all the means of untrained effort can never reach." * Some of the greatest poets, who exhibit in their poetry the nicest sense of all the elements of musical expressiveness, are known to have been very imper- fect, monotonous readers. Coleridge is an example. "Amongst Coleridge's accomplishments," says De Quincey, alluding, in his "Literary Eeminiscences," to Coleridge's lectures on Poetry and the Fine Arts, at the Eoyal Institution, " good reading was not one ; he had neither voice, nor management of voice." And yet, how wonderfully has he incarnated his sentiment in his versification ! — " Of the soul, the body form doth take." Witness his Christabel, especially the First Part, his Ancient Mariner, his Kubla Khan, his Genevieve, his Youth and Age, and numerous other of his poems. * " The Philosophy of the Human Voice, 5th edition, p. 396. 34 VOCAL CULTURE. Byron's reading, too, according to Medwin, was a sing-song ; and the present Laureate of England, the musical effects of whose poetry in suggesting subtlety of feeling, have never been surpassed, is said to read like a school-boy. Edgar Poe is represented to have been a most monotonous, uninteresting reader, and yet he composed one of the most melodious poems in our Literature. I allude to his Ulalumc, which is as beautifully, strangely, and significantly modulated as it is possible for language to be. But it would be absurd to suppose that these poets did not appreciate their own melodies when they pro- duced them ; — that they were mere passive iEolian harps, giving forth sounds to which they themselves were deaf. They no doubt had a profounder sense of them as conductors of feeling, than the most perfect reader would be able to express. This being the case, why did their reading so belie their conceptions ? The answer is easily given, and it affords the best argu- ment against the sticklers for what is called natural reading, namely, that the fullest appreciation of a poem, and the most searching sense of all its subtlest ele- ments of effect, are totally inadequate to a proper vocal expression of it, where the organs of speech are not in perfect obedience to the will and the feelings. This obedience can only be secured by long and care- ful culture. The conscious observance of principles and rules, must become unconscious and spontaneous. A poet's organs of speech are as likely to be rigid VOCAL CULTURE. 35 and unmanagable as those of a boor, and in such case, no degree of imagination and feeling will render them flexible without special culture. We often hear the advice given, and it frequently constitutes about all that some professors of the art have to impart on the subject, " Enter into the spirit of what you read, read naturally, and you will read well." This constitutes the sum and substance of what the learned Bishop Whately teaches on the subject in his "Elements of Ehetoric." In Part TV., Chap. II., § 2, of this work, he says : " Nature, or custom, which is a second nature, suggests spontaneously the different modes of giving expression to different thoughts, feel- ings, and designs, which are present to the mind of any one who, without study, is speaking in earnest his own sentiments. Then, if this be the case, why not leave nature to do her own work?" This question may perhaps be satisfactorily answered by asking another : If reason is a natural gift of man, and no one will deny that it is, why did the learned Arch- bishop of Dublin take the trouble to write such a good book as he did on the science and art of reason- ing ? Why did he not leave nature to do her own work ? The gift of reason can hardly be more per- verted than the gift of speech, and if earnestness is all that is required to give an unrestrained play to the functions of the latter, why should it not be equally available in respect to those of the former ? But every 36 VOCAL CULTURE. one's experience will tell him that earnest reasoning is not necessarily sound reasoning — it often shoots very far from the mark. "Impress but the mind," the Archbishop goes on to say, " fully with the sentiments, &c. to be uttered ; withdraw the attention from the sound, and fix it on the sense; and nature, or habit, will spontaneously suggest the proper Delivery." Such instruction as this is not unlike that which Hamlet gives to Guildenstern for playing upon the flute, and would be about as efficacious : Hamlet. Will you play upon this pipe ? Guildenstern. My lord, I cannot. Hamlet. I pray you. Guildenstern. Believe me, I cannot. Hamlet. I do beseech you. Guildenstern. I know no touch of it, my lord. Hamlet. 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. Guildenstern. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony : / have not the skill. Walking, it will be admitted, is as natural a func- tion as talking and reasoning, and much more easily performed. When we study the wonderful mechanism of the human body, the inference is readily drawn that Nature designed that all our movements should be in the highest degree graceful. But so far is this VOCAL CULTURE. 37 from being the case, that scarcely one person in a thousand knows how to walk with any degree of grace. In our movements, as in the exercise of our vocal and reasoning powers, we hate all gone astray, and it is only by special training, based upon princi- ples deduced from careful observation, that we can realize Nature's purposes. Science and art do not attempt anything different from these purposes, but only aim to fulfil them more effectually. Milton says of Eve, when fresh from the hands of her Creator, " Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, In every gesture, dignity and love.' 7 But her sons and daughters have long lost the primae- val grace and dignity. They exist only in marble and on canvas. Now every one will be ready to admit that the ad- vice given to one who walks clumsily and awkwardly, to enter into the spirit of the act, to be in earnest, and to walk naturally, would be very inadequate to the case. A more availing and rational advice would be — develop all the functions of the body in a way that they will be exercised harmoniously and without restraint; but not till then can graceful movements and attitudes be expected. Education can create no- thing. It can only develop what exists potentially and in germ. All the functions which we exercise, moral, intellectual, and physical, are more or less un- 38 VOCAL CULTURE. developed and shackled, and education aims, or should aim, to promote their growth, to remove the shackles and thus to lift man into an atmosphere of freedom and spontaneity. Principles and rules which arc at first objective, must become sul>j< ctivi . Growth of every kind proceeds from the passive to the active and t In- spontaneous. Man is passive to the degree that he is undeveloped. As he develops, he becomes more and more a law to himself. The law that was at first written upon tablets of stone is gradually transferred to his mind and his heart ; and he may finally break the tablets and forget their existence. Of all our faculties, — physical, at least, — that of speech is, perhaps, the most imperfectly developed, and is, in consequence, less a law to itself, and the most dependent upon outside principles and rules for its efficient exercise — a fact which the ancient Greeks and Eomans recognized and acted upon far more than we do. The great importance which they attached to vocal culture was, indeed, attributable to causes which do not now exist to the same extent. The mystery of printing had not yet been discovered. An ambitious politician could not bawl out a speech in the forum, in violation of all the laws of effective utterance, as our legislators do, with nobody to hear him, and have ten thousand copies printed off and sent to his consti- tuents, and all free of expense to himself, in the bar- gain. No ! he had to face his constituents, and say what he had to say, in the most accomplished manner. VOCAL CULTURE. 39 The Athenian orator owed the success of his speech as much to its vocal delivery as to its matter ; and if the former was not of a character to please his suscep- tible countrymen, he spoke in vain. But if the same causes do not now exist for the highest vocal culture, there are others which do, and which are infinitely more weighty. The Greek and Eoman religion was a mere cultus, with nothing to teach. But the Christian religion is distinguished from all others by its being a religion of the Book, by its teaching of doctrines, and this teaching is done throughout all Christendom chiefly through the medium of the voice. And yet, strange to say, the grand importance of a special vocal culture for an effective discharge of this great office, is almost entirely overlooked! Were the voices of those destined for the sacred ministry of Christ care- fully tuned for the delivery of the great spiritual truths which they are commissioned to promulgate, what an increased vitality, and power, and impressiveness, would be imparted to their teachings ! The Bible too — what a new life could be given to it, were all the capabilities which it possesses for effective reading, fully developed by an accomplished voice — capabili- ties greater, even if we regard it in its purely literary character, than those possessed by any other book ! " O the holiness of their living, and the painfullness of their preaching," exclaims the old English divine, Thomas Fuller. The good man used the word pain- fulness in a sense different from its present : he meant 40 VOCAL CULTURE. that the early apostles took great pains in their preach- ing. " Many things/' says Archbishop Trench, " would not be so 'painful' in the present sense of the word, if they had been more 'painful' in ti per- haps some sermons." To carry this remark a little further, many sermons would nut be BO painful in the present sense of the word, if the cultivation of the voice were made a mure prominent feature of theologi education. Vocal culture Beldom constitutes a part of the organism of our coll tdtheoloj ools. It is an outside thing, wholly incidental. A travelling elocutionist will happen to come along, a mere adven- turer — an unworthy disciple of r J , perhaps, with a very slim intellectual outfit. lit; proposes bo work miracles. A class is accordingly formed among the students, for a course of ten lessons, it may be. Some exercises in articulation are bawled over, which, in the words of Othello, "frighten the isle from its propriety." The self-styled professor pockets their money, obtains some extravagant testimonials to the excellence of his system, from the D.D.'s and LL.D.'s of the college, and goes on his way, rejoicing, and the unfortunate students are again left to shift for them- selves until some other adventurer comes along, to hoodwink them again with professions of miracle- working. "If any one would sing," says Ware, "he attends a master, and is drilled in the very elementary princi- ples ; and only after the most laborious process, dares VOCAL CULTURE. 41 to exercise his voice in public. ... If lie were learn- ing to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days would he spend, in giving facility to his fingers,. and attaining the power of the sweetest and most expressive execution. If he were devoting himself to the organ, what months and years would he labour, that he might know its compass, and be master of its keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various combinations of harmonious sound, and its full richness and delicacy of expression. " And yet he will fancy that the grandest, the most various and most expressive of all instruments which the Infinite Creator has fashioned by the union of an intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice ; he comes to it a mere uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power. He finds himself a bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, and settles it in his mind for ever that the attempt is vain." "The art of reading well," says Dr. Bush, in his "Philosophy of the Human Yoice," "is an accomplish- ment, that all desire to possess, many think they have already, and that a few set-about to acquire. These, believing their power is altogether in their ' Genius,' are, after a few lessons from an Elocutionist, disap- pointed at not becoming themselves at once masters of the art ; and with the restless vanity of their belief, abandon the study, for some new subject of trial and 4* 42 VOCAL CULTURE. failure. Such cases of infirmity result in part from the wavering character of the human tribe; but they chiefly arise from defects in the usual course of in- struction. Go to some, may we say all of our Coll and Universities; and observe how the art of Bpeaking is not taught there. See a boy of but fifteen y< with no want of youthful diffidence, and not without a craving desire to learn, Bent upon a stage, pale and choking with apprehension; being forced into an attempt to do that, without instruction, which he came purposely to learn; and furnishing amusement to his classmates, by a pardonable awkwardness, that should be punished, in the person of his pretending but neg- lectful preceptor, with little less than scourging. Then visit a Conservatorio of music ; observe there, the mentary outset, the orderly task, the masterly di pline, the unwearied superintendence, and the incessant toil to reach the utmost accomplishment in the Sing- ing- Voice ; and afterwards do not be surprised that the pulpit, the senate, the bar, and the chair of medical professorship, are filled with such abominable drawlers, mouthers, mumblers, clutterers, squeakers, chanters, and mongers in monotony ! nor that the Schools of Singing are constantly sending abroad those great instances of vocal wonder, who triumph along the crowded resorts of the world ; who contribute to the halls of fashion and wealth, their most refined source of gratification; who sometimes quell the pride of rank, by a momentary sensation of envy ; and who VOCAL CULTURE. 43 draw forth the admiration, and receive the crowning applause of the Prince and the Sage." The prescribed limits of this Essay will not allow me to carry this subject farther than merely to advert to one other point — namely, the importance of a care- ful vocal culture, and, what must always accompany it, a thorough study of the English language and literature, in our female seminaries. Were but half the time devoted to these subjects that is now spent in acquiring a barren smattering of the French language, and of the sciences, how inestimably superior would be the result ! The study of her vernacular is a sacred duty devolving upon every woman who would be true to the peculiar mission of her sex. Let her acquire as many foreign tongues as she pleases — the more the better — but she must not, and cannot, justifiably, ne- glect her native tongue ; for to her, more than to man, belongs the high duty of transmitting it to the succeed- ing generation in its idiomatic purity, free from the affectations and conceits which characterize the diction of the multitudinous productions of would-be authors. Every woman whose station permits it, should know, and learn to appreciate, all in her native literature that is excellent, forcible, and graceful in style, and pure and beautiful and noble in sentiment ; and more than this, she should cultivate that vocal expression of it which would carry it with potency to the hearts of her children. Great is the moral influence which woman's voice 44 VOCAL CULTURE. exerts in her family, in society, and in all the relations and responsibilities of life ; but the possibilities of tin's moral influence, which remain to be developed, have hitherto been hardly suspected. A lady will bestow great care upon her hand, and it is very proper that she should, for among beautiful things, a well-shaped, graceful, and fair hand, certainly does not occupy the lowest rank, and is by no means to be despised. She will j guard her face against the effects of sun and wind, with which, also, nobody can find fault; — but how seldom does Bhe think of the power so mighty to charm that lies slum- bering in her voice I When we regard the transcendent personal attrac- tions which nature sometimes bestows upon her favour- ites, we feel "the might, the majesty of loveliness ;" but, alas ! how often is the clasping charm rudely unlocked, and the numbing spell thawed, when we hear tt angels speak ! We wonder that so much harshness can be united with so much beauty. And then, again, we will meet with one, with whom nature has dealt less generously in the bestowal of personal charms, but whose voice, soft and winning, comes upon us as the dew upon the hill of Herrnon. She is idealized by her voice. We see her, not as she actually is, but in a transfiguring light, which softens and symmetrizes many an irregularity of feature and a disproportion of person. Shakspeare, who has left nothing unsaid, bears a VOCAL CULTURE. 45 most affecting witness to the power of woman's voice, in that passage, the sublimest in its pathos which the literature of this world has to show, wherein the heart- broken and desolate old king bewails the death of his daughter Cordelia.- By her angelic ministrations, she had become to him, when robbed of every earthly consolation and hope, the only object of interest and affection in the world. While bending over her life- less form, he mutters to himself these touching words : " Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low ; an excellent thing in woman." As the Past glinted through the distracted mind of the desolate father, nothing vibrated so musically in his memory as the voice of this dear girl. With it was associated all her "Little, nameless, unrememloered acts Of kindness and of love." If the principle of criticism which I have briefly set forth in the First Part of this Essay be admitted, namely, that every literary art-product, especially every true poem, must be at first received in as passive a state as possible, that the feelings must ever be the pioneers of the judgment, and that to them must be committed the gathering of material for the discursive understanding, it follows, that that reading of a poem which would not only mirror, but amplify and complete the poetic feeling of the hearer, would be the best preparation that could be afforded for the after-work 46 VOCAL CULTURE. of analysis, and its ultimate purpose, a higher and more comprehensive synthesis of thought and feeling. No other means in the absence of an adequate ima- gination, (and such an imagination must be extremely rare,) can be employed to reveal all the sly, lurking, and subtle elements of suggestiveness which must be felt before they can be successfully analyzed and grasped in their entireness. Vocal culture, I repeat, must go hand in hand with the study of Literature. The vocal expression of the higher Poetry, whos constitute so large an element of the sentiment, and are in fact the very incarnation of the sentiment, is as indispensable to its fullest appreciation, as is the vocal or instrumental expression of music. These (onus can seldom be ima- gined — they must be expressed by the voice, before they can be fully recognized and responded to. And the teacher or literary lecturer, who is able to give to his class or his audience an adequate vocal expression of a poem, will thus render it more appreciable than if he were to preach about it in grandiloquent language for a week. It is vain to analyze what has not been felt to some extent — be it a poem or a picture, or whatever else demands an emotional response ; and however limited any one's ability to feel may be, it should first be brought into play, and repeatedly, be- fore any analysis is attempted. It must never be forgotten that the analysis of poetic forms has an end beyond itself — and that end is, to VOCAL CULTURE. 4T widen spontaneous and unconscious receptivity. To resolve the forms into which the Poet has cast his con- ceptions, into their elements, and to make these elements distinct objects of thought, is not of itself sufficient to appreciate those forms 93sthetically — but it serves to nourish, so to speak, the unconscious and spontaneous recognition and appreciation of those forms. Conscious analysis must bloom into unconscious synthesis, or it fails of its end. CONCLUDING REMARKS- It was not my purpose in the preceding essay, to set forth any principles and rules, or to give any special exercises, for the cul- tivation of the voice. Furthermore, I have no faith in the effi- cacy of the vague generalities, and common-place instructions in which an author must necessarily indulge, (whatever may be his qualifications as a Vocal Philosopher,) who is confined to the prescribed limits of an Introduction to a book having for its special purpose the furnishing "only of good material for vocal expression. The grand science of the human voice cannot be compressed into the limits of a nut-shell ; and the earnest stu- dent, who, in the absence of the living teacher, searches for aid in the few introductory pages usually devoted to elocutionary instruction in ordinary " Readers," will be sadly disappointed. If he ask for bread, he will receive a stone. He will be presented with some unintelligible jargon about "abdominal muscles/ 7 "throat tones," "chest tones," and "head tones;" — some grave faults in pronunciation will be pointed out to him, such as only the most illiterate are guilty of ; — he will be told that a paren- thesis should be read more rapidly, and in a lower tone than the surrounding parts; — that antithetical words should receive dif- ferent inflections, that one affection of the voice is used to ex- 48 CONCLUDING REMARKS. press this kind of feeling, and another that; — that he must pause sufficiently at the end of a poetical trerse, to mark its in- dividuality as a verse, and exhibit the rhyme (advice which ho will probably not believe a -word of, if ho happens to know any- thing about the secrets of melody) ; — that one set of sentiments, emotions, and passions require a high key, another a medium key, and another, a Ioav key, etc., etc.; and finally, as summing up all, that he must read naturally, ami as if lie were speaking to some one. It would be untrue to say that all the introductory instruction in reading books amounts to no more than this — but it is not untrue to say, that this is its general char;: Let the earnest student, who knows that "good things arc dif- ficult," and who strives and labours to realize a lofty standard of vocal excellence, if he find not the living teacher who is able to meet his wants, devote himself to a reverential study of a work to which all writers on Elocution for the third of a century have been indebted, and to which they themselves have added little or nothing of importance, — I allude to "The Philosophy of the Human Voice," by Dr. James Rush, one of the greatest produc- tions of Observative Science of which the present century can boast. The analysis exhibited in this profound work, will satisfy much of the curiosity of him who desires to read the history of his voice; "for," to adopt the words of the learned author, in the introduction to the first edition, " I feel assured, by the result of the rigid method of observation employed throughout the in- quiry, that if science should ever come to one consent on this point, it will not differ essentially from this record. The world has long asked for light on this subject. It may not choose to accept it now; but having idly suffered its own opportunity for discovery to go by, it must, under any capricious postponement, at last receive it here. . . . Truth, whose first steps should be always vigorous and alone, is often obliged to lean for support and progress on the arm of Time ; who then only, when sup- porting her, seems to have laid aside his wings." AN ELOCUTIONARY MANUAL. W WHAT IS LITERATURE? BY THOMAS DE QUINCE Y. ^HAT is it that we mean by Literature? Popularly, and amongst the thoughtless, it is held to in- clude everything that is printed in a book. Little logic is required to disturb that definition ; the most thought- less person is easily made aware that in the idea of literature one essential element is, — some relation to a general and common interest of man, so that what ap- plies only to a local, or professional, or merely personal interest, even though presenting itself in the shape of a book, will not belong to literature. So far the defi- nition is easily narrowed ; and it is as easily expanded. For not only is much that takes a station in books not literature, but, inversely, much that really is literature never reaches a station in books. The weekly sermons of Christendom, that vast pulpit literature which acts so extensively upon the popular mind, — to warn, to 5 (49) 50 WHAT IS LITE RAT UREt uphold, to renew, to comfort, to alarm, — does not attain the sanctuary of libraries in the ten thousandth part of its extent. The drama again, as, for instance, the finest of Shakspeare's plays in England, and all lead- ing Athenian plays in the noontide of the Attic stage, operated as a literature on the public mind, and were (according to the strictest letter of that term) published through the audiences that witnessed their representa- tion some time before they were published as things to be read ; and they were published in this scenical mode of publication with much more effect than they could have had as books, during ages of costly copying or of costly printing. Books, therefore, do not suggest an idea co-extensive and interchangeable with the idea of literature ; since much literature, scenic, forensic, or didactic (as from lecturers and public orators), may never come into books ; and much that does come into books may con- nect itself with no literary interest. But a far more important correction, applicable to the common vague idea of literature, is to be sought, — not so much in a better definition of literature, as in a sharper distinc- tion of the two functions which it fulfils. In that great social organ, which collectively we call literature, there may be distinguished two separate offices that may blend and often do so, but capable severally of a severe insulation, and naturally fitted for reciprocal repulsion. There is, first, the literature of knowledge, and, secondly,, the literature of power. The function WHAT IS LITERATURE? 51 of the first is, to teach; the function of the second is, to move: the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive under- standing ; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it may travel towards an object seated in what Lord Bacon calls dry light; but proximately it does and must operate, else it ceases to be a literature of power, on and through that humid light which clothes itself in the mists and glittering iris of human passions, de- sires, and genial emotions. Men have so little reflected on the higher functions of literature, as to find it a paradox if one should describe it as a mean or subor- dinate purpose of books to give information. But this is a paradox only in the sense which makes it honour- able to be paradoxical. "Whenever we talk in ordinary language of seeking information or gaining knowledge, we understand the words as connected with something of absolute novelty. But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests, that it is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds : it exists eternally by way of germ or latent principle in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed but never to be planted. To be capable of transplantation is the immediate criterion of a truth that ranges on a lower scale. Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth, namely, power or deep sym- pathy with truth. What is the effect, for instance 52 UJIA T IS LITERATLKE? upon society, of children ? By the pity, by the ten- derness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration, which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and con- tinually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of Heaven — the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the innocence which symbolizes the heavenly, and the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly, are kept up in perpetual remem- brance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, namely, the literature of power. What do yocs learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all. What do you learn from a cookery-book ? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem ? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe, is power, that is, exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upwards — a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of WHAT IS LITERATURE? 53 earth ; whereas, the very first step in power is a flight — is an ascending into another element where earth is forgotten. Were it not that human sensibilities are ventilated and continually called out into exercise by the great phenomena of infancy, or of real life as it moves through chance and change, or of literature as it re- combines these elements in the mimicries of poetry, romance, &c, it is certain that, like any animal power or muscular energy falling into disuse, all such sensi- bilities would gradually droop and dwindle. It is in relation to these great moral capacities of man that the literature of power, as contradistinguished from that of knowledge, lives and has its field of action. . . . The commonest novel, by moving in alliance with human fears and hopes, with human instincts of wrong and right, sustains and quickens those affections. Calling them into action, it rescues them from torpor. And hence the pre-eminency over all authors that merely teach, of the meanest that moves; or that teaches, if at all, indirectly by moving. The very highest work that has ever existed in the literature of knowledge is but a provisional work : a book upon trial and suffer- ance, and quamdiu bene se gesserit. Let its teaching be even partially revised, let it be but expanded, nay even let its teaching be but placed in a better order, and instantly it is superseded. "Whereas the feeblest works in the literature of power, surviving at all, sur- vive as finished and unalterable amongst men. For 5* 54 W II A T 1 8 L I T E R A TURK? instance, the Principia of Sir Isaac Newton was a book militant on earth from the first. In all a (' its progress it would have to fight for its existence; first, as regards absolute truth ; secondly, when that combat is over, as regards its form or mode of presenting the truth. And as soon as a La Place, or anybody else, builds higher upon the foundations htid by this book, effectually he throws it out of the sunshine into decay and darkness; by weapons won from this book he superannuates and destroys this book, so that soon the name of Newton remains, as a mere nominis umbra, but his book, as a living power, has transmigrated into other forms. Now, on the contrary, the Iliad, the Pro- metheus of ^Eschylus, — the Othello or King Lear, — the Hamlet or Macbeth, — and the Paradise Lost, are not militant but triumphant forever as long as the languages exist in which they speak or can be taught to speak. They never can transmigrate into new in- carnations. To reproduce these in new forms, or varia- tions, even if in some things they should be improved, would be to plagiarize. A good steam-engine is pro- perly superseded by a better. But one lovely pastoral valley is not superseded by another, nor a statue of Praxiteles by a statue of Michael Angelo. These things are not separated by imparity, but by disparity. They are not thought of as unequal under the same standard, but as different in kind, and as equal under a different standard. Human works of immortal beauty and works of nature in one respect stand on the same WE A T IS LITERATURE? 55 footing : they never absolutely repeat each other ; never approach so near as not to differ; and they differ not as better and worse, or simply by more and less ; they differ by undecipherable and incommunica- ble differences, that cannot be caught by mimicries, nor be reflected in the mirror of copies, nor become ponderable in the scales of vulgar comparison. .... At this hour, five hundred years since their creation, the tales of Chaucer, never equalled on this earth for their tenderness, and for life of picturesque- ness, are read familiarly by many in the charming lan- guage of their natal day, and by others in the mo- dernizations of Dryden, of Pope, and Wordsworth. At this hour, one thousand eight hundred years since their creation, the Pagan tales of Ovid, never equalled on this earth for the gayety of their movement and the capricious graces of their narrative, are read by all Christendom. This man's people and their monu- ments are dust ; but he is alive : he has survived them, as he told us that he had it in his commission to do, by a thousand years ; " and shall a thousand more." All the literature of knowledge builds only ground- nests, that are swept away by floods, or confounded by the plough ; but the literature of power builds nests in aerial altitudes of temples sacred from violation, or of forests inaccessible to fraud. This is a great pre- rogative of the power literature ; and it is a greater which lies in the mode of its influence. The knowledge literature, like the fashion of this world, passeth away. 56 WHAT IS LITERATURE? An Encyclopaedia is its abstract ; and ; in this respect, it may be taken for its speaking symbol, that, before one generation has passed, an Encyclopaedia is super- annuated ; for it speaks through the dead memory and unimpassioned understanding, which have not the rest of higher faculties, but are continually enlarging and varying their phylacteries. But all literature, properly so called — literature xar' i&xw* for the very same reason that it is so much more durable than the litera- ture of knowledge — is (and by the very same propor- tion it is) more intense and electrically searching in its impressions. The directions in which the tragedy of this planet has trained our human feelings to play, and the combinations into which the poetry of this planet has thrown our human passions of love and hatred, of admiration and contempt, exercise a power bad or good over human life, that cannot be contem- plated, when stretching through many generations, without a sentiment allied to awe.f And of this let * Par excellence, pre-eminently. f The reason why the broad distinctions between the two lite- ratures of power and knowledge so little fix the attention, lies in the fact, that a vast proportion of books — history, biography, travels, miscellaneous essays, &c. — lying in a middle zone, con- found these distinctions by interblending them. All that we call " amusement" or " entertainment," is a diluted form of the power belonging to passion, and also a mixed form ; and where threads of direct instruction intermingle in the texture with these threads of power, this absorption of the duality into one representative nuance neutralizes the separate perception of either. Fused into a tertium quid, or neutral state, they disappear to the popular eye as the repelling forces, which in fact they are. INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 57 every one be assured — that he owes to the impassioned books which he has read, many a thousand more of emotions than he can consciously trace back to them. Dim by their origination, these emotions yet arise in him, and mould him through life like the forgotten incidents of childhood. ON THE REFINING AND ELEVATING INFLUENCE OF POETRY. BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANGING, L E believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity, — that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions ; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and parts with much of its power ; and even when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness and misanthropy, she can- not wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent hap- piness, sympathies with what is good in our nature, 58 INFLUENCE OF POETRY. bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of outward nature and of the soul. It indeed portrays with terri- ble energy the excesses of the passions ; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life ; to lift it into a purer element, and to breathe into it more pro- found and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. We are aware that it is objected to poetry that it gives wrong views and excites false expectations of life, peoples the mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That INFLUENCE F POETRY. 59 there is a wisdom against which poetry wars — the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life — we do not deny ; nor do we deem it the least service which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thraldom of this earth- born prudence. But, passing over this topic, we would observe that the complaint against poetry, as abound- ing in illusion and deception, is, in the main, ground- less. In many poems there is more of truth than in many histories and philosophic theories. The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest veri- ties, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, the letter is falsehood, but the spirit is often profoundest wisdom; And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be ex- pected in his delineations of life ; for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the highest office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser pleasures and labours of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye it abounds in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into futurity ; the workings of mighty pas- sions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling 60 INFLUENCE OF TOETRY. hopes of youth. ; the throbbings of the heart when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affec- tion, and her blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire, — these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and con- centrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys ; and in this he does well ; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, senti- ments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happi- ness is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which — being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts — requires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to pre- serve men from sinking into an earthly, "material, epicurean life. THE CHURCH OF BROU. 61 THE CHURCH OF BROU, BY MATTHEW AENOLB. I. THE CASTLE. ^3% OWN the Savoy valleys sounding, /SIlJ Echoing round this castle old, 'Mid the distant mountain chalets, Hark ! what bell for church is toll'd ? In the bright October morning, Savoy's Duke had left his bride ; From the Castle, past the drawbridge, Flow'd the hunter's merry tide. Steeds are neighing, gallants glittering ; Gay, her smiling lord to greet, From her mullion'd chamber casement Smiles the Duchess Marguerite. From Vienna by the Danube Here she came, a bride, in spring ; Now the autumn crisps the forest, Hunters gather, bugles ring. 6 62 THE CHURCH OF BROU. Hounds are pulling, prickers swearing, Horses fret, and boar- spears glance : Off! — They sweep the marshy forests, Westward, on the side of France. Hark ! the game's on foot ; they scatter :- Down the forest ridings lone, Furious, single horsemen gallop ; Hark ! a shout — a crash — a groan ! Pale and breathless, came the hunters, On the turf dead lies the boar ; God ! the Duke lies stretch'd beside him Senseless, weltering in his gore. In the dull October evening, Down the leaf-strewn forest road, To the Castle, past the drawbridge, Came the hunters with their load. In the hall, with sconces blazing, Ladies waiting round her seat, Cloth'd in smiles, beneath the dais, Sate the Duchess Marguerite. Hark 1 below the gates unbarring ! Tramp of men and quick commands ! " — 'T is my lord come back from hunting,"- And the Duchess claps her hands. THE CHURCH OF BROU. 63 Slow and tired came the hunters I Stopp'd in darkness in the court ; " — Ho, this way, ye laggard hunters! To the hall ! What sport, what sport ?" — •Slow they enter' d with their Master, In the hall they laid him down : On his coat were leaves and blood-stains, On his brow an angry frown. Dead her princely youthful husband Lay before his youthful wife : Bloody, 'neath the flaring sconces, And the sight froze all her life. In Vienna, by the Danube, Kings hold revel, gallants meet ; Gay of old amid the gayest "Was the Duchess Marguerite. In Vienna, by the Danube, Feast and dance her youth beguil'd ; Till that hour she never sorrow'd But from then she never smil'd. 'Mid the Savoy mountain valleys, Far from town or haunt of man, Stands a lonely church, unfinish'd, Which the Duchess Maud began. 64 THE CHURCH OF BRO U. Old, that Duchess stern began it, In gray age, with palsied hands ; But she died as it was building. And the Church unfinish'd stands ; Stands as erst the builders left it, When she sunk into her grave ; Mountain greensward paves the chancel, Harebells flower in the nave. " In my Castle all is sorrow," — Said the Duchess Marguerite then, ' Guide me, vassals, to the mountains I We will build the church again." — Sandall'd palmers, faring homeward, Austrian knights from Syria came : "Austrian wanderers bring, warders, Homage to your Austrian dame." From the gate the warders answer'd, " Gone, knights, is she you knew ; Dead our Duke, and gone his Duchess Seek her at the Church of Brou." Austrian knights and march- worn palmers Climb the winding mountain way ; Keach the valley, where the fabric Kises higher day by day. THE CHURCH OF BROU. 65 Stones are sawing, hammers ringing ; On the work the bright sun shines \ In the Savoy mountain meadows, By the stream, below the pines. On her palfrey white, \jhe Duchess Sate and watch'd her working train ; Flemish carvers, Lombard gilders, German masons, smiths from Spain. Clad in black, on her white palfrey, Her old architect beside — There they found her in the mountains, Morn, and noon, and eventide. There she sate, and watch'd the builders, Till the Church was roof 7 d and done ; Last of all, the builders rear'd her In the nave a tomb of stone. On the tomb two forms they sculptur'd, Lifelike in the marble pale ; One, the Duke, in helm and armour, One, the Duchess, in her veil. Eound the tomb the carv'd stone fret-work Was at Easter tide put on ; Then the Duchess closed her labours And she died at the St. John. C6 THE CHURCH OF BROU. II. THE CHURCH. Upon the glistening leaden roof Of the new Pile, the sunlight shines ; The stream goes leaping by. The hills are cloth 'd with pines sun-proof, 'Mid bright green fields, below the pines, Stands the Church on high. What Church is this, from men aloof? " Tis the Church of Brou. At sunrise, from their dewy lair, Crossing the stream, the kine are seen Bound the wall to stray ; The churchyard wall that clips the square Of shaven hill-sward trim and green, Where last year they lay. But all things now are order'd fair Bound the Church of Brou. On Sundays, at the matin chime, The Alpine peasants, two and three, Climb up here to pray. Burghers and dames, at summer's prime, Bide out to church from Chambery, Dight with mantles gay. But else it is a lonely time Bound the Church of Brou. THE CHURCH OF BROU. * 67 On Sundays, too, a priest doth come From the wall'd town beyond the pass, Down the mountain way. . And then you hear the organ's hum, You hear the white-rob'd priest say mass And the people pray. But else the woods and fields are dumb Bound the Church of Brou. And after church, when mass is done, The people to the nave repair, Bound the tomb to stray, And marvel at the Forms of stone, And praise the chisell'd broideries rare, Then they drop away. The Princely pair are left alone In the Church of Brou. III. THE TOMB. So rest, forever rest, Princely Pair ! In your high Church, 'mid the still mountain air, "Where horn, and hound, and vassals, never come. Only the blessed Saints are smiling dumb, From the rich painted windows of the nave, On aisle, and transept, and your marble grave : Where thou, young Prince, shalt never more arise From the fring'd mattress where thy Duchess lies, 68 THE CHURCH OF BROU. On autumn mornings, when the bugle sounds, And ride across the drawbridge with thy hounds, To hunt the boar in the crisp woods till eve. And thou, Princess, shalt no more receive, Thou and thy ladies, in the hall of state, The jaded hunters with their bloody freight, Come benighted to the castle gate. So sleep, forever sleep, O Marble Pair ! And if ye wake, let it be then, when fair On the carv'd Western Front a flood of light Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright Prophets, transflgur'd Saints, and Martyrs brave, 1 n the vast western window of the nave ; And on the pavement round the Tomb there glints A chequer-work of glowing sapphire tints, And amethyst and ruby; — then unclose Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, And from your broider'd pillows lift your heads, And rise upon your cold white marble beds, Awl looking down on the warm rosy tints That chequer, at your feet, the illumin'd flints, Say — " What is this ? we are in bliss — forgiven — Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven ! " — Or let it be on autumn nights, when rain Doth rustlingly above your heads complain On the smooth leaden roof, and on the walls Shedding her pensive light at intervals The moon through the clere-story windows shines, And the wind washes in the mountain pines. A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, ETC. 69 Then, gazing up through the dim pillars high, The foliag'd marble forest where ye lie, " Hush" — ye will say — * it is eternity ; This is the glimmering verge of Heaven, and these The columns of the Heavenly Palaces." And in the sweeping of the wind your ear The passage of the Angels' wings will hear, And on the lichen- crusted leads above, The rustle of the eternal rain of Love. DESCRIPTION OF A COUNTRY GENTLE- MAN OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. BY THOMAS BABINGTON IACAULAY. ST l E should be much mistaken if we pictured to ourselves the squires of the seventeenth century as men bearing a close resemblance to their descendants, the county members and chairmen of quarter sessions with whom we are familiar. The modern country gentleman generally receives a liberal education, passes from a distinguished school to a distinguished college, and has every opportunity to become an excellent scholar. He has generally seen something of foreign countries. A considerable part of his life has gener- ally been passed in the capital ; and the refinements of the capital follow him into the country. There is, 70 A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN perhaps no class of dwellings so pleasing as the rural seats of the English gentry. In the parks and plea- sure grounds, nature, dressed, yet not disguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In the buildings, good sense and good taste combine to produce a happy union of the comfortable and the graceful. The pictures, the musical instruments, the library, would in any other country be considered as proving the owner to be an eminently polished and accomplished man. A country gentleman who witnessed the revo- lution was probably in receipt of about a fourth part of the rent which his acres now yield to his posterity. He was, therefore, as compared with his posterity, a poor man, and was generally under the necessity of residing, with little interruption, on his estate. To travel on the continent, to maintain an establishment in London, or even to visit London frequently, were pleasures in which only the great proprietors could indulge. It may be confidently affirmed, that of the squires whose names were in King Charles's commis- sions of peace and lieutenancy, not one in twenty went to town once in five years, or had ever in his life wandered so far as Paris. Many lords of manors had received an education differing little from that of their menial servants. The heir of an estate often passed his boyhood and youth at the seat of his family, with no better tutors than grooms and gamekeepers, and scarce attained learning enough to sign his name to a mittimus. If he went to school and to college, he OF TEE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. U generally returned before he was twenty to the seclu- sion of the old hall, and there, unless his mind was very happily constituted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in rural business and pleasures. His chief serious employment was the care of his property. He examined samples of grain, handled pigs, and on market days made bargains over a tan- kard with drovers and hop -merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field-sports and from an unrefined sensuality. His language and pronunciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, were uttered with the broadest accent of his province. It was easy to discern, from the first words which he spoke, whether he came from Somersetshire or York- shire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but deformity. The litter of a -farmyard gathered under the windows of his bed- chamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty, and guests were cordially welcomed to it ; but, as the habit of drinking to excess was general in the class to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed enormous ; for beer then was to the T2 A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, ETC. middle and lower classes not only all that beer now is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses or on great occasions that foreign drink was placed on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revellers were laid under the table. It was very seldom that the country gentleman caught glimpses of the great world, and what he saw of it tended rather to confuse than to enlighten his understanding. His opinions respecting religion, government, foreign countries, and former times, hav- ing been derived, not from study, from observation, or from conversation with enlightened companions, but from such traditions as were current in his own small circle, were the opinions of a child. He adhered to them, however, with the obstinacy which is gener- ally found in ignorant men accustomed to be fed with flattery. His animosities were numerous and bitter. He hated Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irishmen, papists and Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, Quakers and Jews. Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion which more than once produced important political effects. His wife and daughter were in tastes and acquirements below a housekeeper or a stillroom maid of the present day. A RILL FROM THE TO WN PUMP. 73 They stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry wine, cured marigolds, and made the crust for the venison pasty. A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. (prom "twice-told tales.") BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Scene: — The corner of two principal streets. The Town Pump talking through its nose. -icl^OON, by the north clock ! Noon, by the east ! >6x High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it ! And, among all the town officers, chosen at March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the Town Pump ? The title of "town treasurer " is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire-depart- ment, and one of the physicians to the board of health. 7 74 A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will con- fess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public no- tices when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the munici- pality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, down- right, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain ; for, all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike ; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, and keep people out of the gutters. At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice. Here it is, gentlemen I Here is the good liquor I Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up ! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam, — better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price ; here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay I Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves ! It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen ! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. ?5 nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cow-hide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Other- wise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir ! You and I have been great strangers, hitherto ; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man ! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, in the miniature tophet which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious ? ISTow, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavour of cold water. G-ood-by ; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply, at the old stand. "Who next ? Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other 76 A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now ! There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving- stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What ! he limps by, without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir, — no harm done, I hope ! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter ; but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout ? * * * Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or some- where along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. *[*{ they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking - vessel. An ox is your true toper. * * * Ahem ! Dry work, this speechifying ; especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived till now what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. Hereafter they shall have the business to them- selves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. Thank you, sir. My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regen- erated by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honour of the Town Pump. And when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon the spot. Such monu- ments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. * * * One o'clock ! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. — Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Eachel did of old ! Hold out your vessel, my dear ! There it is, full to the brim ; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go ; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink — "Success to the Town Pump!" 7* 78 WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. fT was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him ccflhpany. Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth ; And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke, now west, now south. Then up and spake an old sailor Had sailed the Spanish Main, "I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. "Last night the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see." The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. 79 Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the north-east; The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. " Come hither, come hither, my little daughter, And do not tremble so ; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat, Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar And bound her to the mast. " father, I hear the church bells ring ; O, say, what may it be?" " 'Tis a fog-bell, on a rock-bound coast ; " And he steered for the open sea. " father, I hear the sound of guns ; 0, say, what may it be?" " Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea." 80 WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. "0 father, I see a gleaming light: 0, say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word : A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed, through the gleaming snow, On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight, dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.* And ever, the fitful gusts between, A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows ; She drifted a dreary wreck; And a whooping billow swept the crew, Like icicles, from her deck. * A reef of rocks on the northern coast of Massachusetts, be- tween Manchester and Gloucester. WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. 81 She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool; But the cruel rocks they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts, went by the board; Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank : Ho! Ho! the breakers roared. * * * * # ■& * At daybreak, on the bleak sea beach, A fisherman stood aghast To see the form of a maiden fair Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow: Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe. SQUIRE BULL SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON JONA THAN. BY JAMES KIRKE PAULDING. fOHN BULL was a choleric old fellow, who held a good manor in the middle of a great mill-pond, and which, by reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called Bullock Island. Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous cutler, and a notable weaver and pot-baker besides. He also brewed capital porter, ale, and small beer, and was in fact a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, and good at each. In addition to these, he was a hearty fellow, an excellent bottle-companion, and passably honest as times go. But what tarnished all these qualities was a very quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was al- ways getting him into some scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going on among his neighbours, but his fingers itched to be in the thickest of them ; so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose. Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by the country-people his neighbours,- — one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not. AND HIS SON JONATHAN. 83 The squire was as tight a hand to deal with in doors as out ; sometimes treating his family as if they were not the same flesh and blood, when they happened to differ with him in certain matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son Jonathan, who was familiarly called Brother Jonathan, about whe- ther churches ought to be called churches or meeting- houses, and whether steeples were not an abomination. The squire, either having the worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient of contradiction, (I can't tell which,) fell into a great passion, and swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle. So he went to some of his doctors and got them to draw up a prescription, made up of thirty-nine different articles, many of them bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make Jonathan swallow, and, finding he made villanous wry faces, and would not do it, fell upon him and beat him like fury. After this, he made the house so disagreeable to him, that Jonathan, though as hard as a pine-knot, and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. Taking his gun and his axe, he put himself in a boat and paddled over the mill-pond to some new lands to which the squire pretended some sort of claim, intending to settle them, and build a meeting-house without a steeple as soon as he grew rich enough. "When he got over, Jonathan found that the land was quite in a state of nature, covered with wood, and inhabited by nobody but wild beasts. But, being a 84 SQUIRE BULL lad of mettle, lie took his axe on one shoulder, and his gun on the other, marched into the thickest of the wood, and, clearing a place, built a log hut. Pursuing his labours, and handling his axe like a notable wood- man, he, in a few years, cleared the land, which he laid out into thirteen good farms ; and, building him- self a fine frame house, about half finished, began to be quite snug and comfortable. But Squire Bull, who was getting old and stingy, and, besides, was in great want of money, on account of his having lately been made to pay swinging damages for assaulting his neighbours, and breaking their heads, — the squire, I say, finding Jonathan was getting well to do in the world, began to be very much troubled about his welfare; so he demanded that Jonathan should pay him a good rent for the land which he had cleared and made good for something. He trumped up I know not what claim against him, and, under different pretences, managed to pocket all Jonathan's honest gains. In fact, the poor lad had not a shilling left for holiday occasions ; and, had it not been for the filial respect he felt for the old man, he would certainly have refused to submit to such im- positions. But, for all this, in a little time Jonathan grew up to be very large of his age, and became a tall, stout, double-jointed, broad-footed cub of a fellow, awkward in his gait, and simple in his appearance, but showing a lively, shrewd look, and having the promise of great AND HIS SON JONATHAN. 85 strength when he should get his full growth. He was rather an odd-looking chap, in truth, and had many queer ways ; but everybody that had seen John Bull [saw a great likeness between them, and swore he was John's own boy, and a true chip of the old block. Like the old squire, he was apt to be blustering and saucy, but in the main was a peaceable sort of care- less fellow, that would quarrel with nobody, if you only let him alone. While Jonathan was outgrowing his strength, Bull kept on picking his pockets of every penny he could scrape together ; till at last one day when the squire was even more than usually pressing in his demands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan started up in a furious passion, and threw the tea-kettle at the old man's head. The choleric Bull was hereupon exceedingly enraged ; and, after calling the poor lad an undutiful, ungrateful, rebellious rascal, seized him by the collar, and forthwith a furious scuffle ensued. This lasted a long time; for the squire, though in years, was a capital boxer, and of most excellent bot- tom. At last, however, Jonathan got him Under, and, before he would let him up, made him sign a paper giving up all claim to the farms, and acknowledging the fee-simple to be in Jonathan forever. 86 THE ALPINE SHEEP. THE ALPINE SHEEP. BY MRS. MARIA WHITE LOWELL. (addressed to a friend, after the loss of a child.) w : k HEN on my ear your loss was knell'd, And tender sympathy upburst, A little spring from memory well'd, Which once had quench'd my bitter thirst, And I was fain to bear to you A portion of its mild relief, That it might be a healing dew, To steal some fever from your grief. After our child's untroubled breath Up to the Father took its way, And on our home the shade of Death Like a long twilight haunting lay, And friends came round, with us to weep Her little spirit's swift remove, The story of the Alpine sheep "Was told to us by one we love. THE ALPINE SHEEP. 87 They, in the valley's sheltering care, Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare, The shepherd strives to make them climb To airy shelves of pasture green, That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean, And down through mists the sunbeams slide. But naught can tempt the timid things The steep and rugged path to try, Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, And sear'd below the pastures lie, Till in his arms his lambs he takes, Along the dizzy verge to go: Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks, They follow on o'er rock and snow. And in these pastures, lifted fair, More dewy- soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender, care, And sheep and lambs together feed. This parable, by Nature breathed, Blew on me as the south wind free O'er frozen brooks that flow unsheathed From icy thraldom to the sea. 88 SPRING. A blissful vision through the night Would all my happy senses sway Of the Good Shepherd on the height, Or climbing up the starry way, Holding our little lamb asleep, While, like the murmur of the sea, Sounded that voice along the deep, Saying, "Arise, and follow me." SPEING. BY N. P. WILLIS. ^%^£)HE Spring is here, the delicate -footed May, With its slight fingers full of leaves and flowers, And with it comes a thirst to be away, Wasting in wood-paths its voluptuous hours : A feeling that is like a sense of wings, Eestless to soar above these perishing things. We pass out from the city's feverish hum, To find refreshment in the silent woods; And Nature, that is beautiful and dumb, Like a cool sleep upon the pulses broods: BEST METHOD OF READING. 89 Yet even there a restless thought will steal, To teach the indolent heart it still must/eeZ. Strange, that the audible stillness of the noon, The waters tripping with their silver feet, The turning to the light of leaves in June, And the light whisper as their edges meet: Strange, that they fill not, with their tranquil tone, The spirit, walking in their midst alone. There's no contentment in a world like this, Save in forgetting the immortal dream; We may not gaze upon the stars of bliss, That through the cloud-rifts radiantly stream ; Bird-like, the prisoned soul will lift its eye, And pine till it is hooded from the sky. BEST METHOD OF READING. BY HENRY REED. fT is not unfrequently thought that the true guid- ance for habits of reading is to be looked for in prescribed courses of reading, pointing out the books to be read, and the order of proceeding with them. Now, while this external guidance may, to a certain extent, be useful, I do believe that an elaborately pre- 8* 90 BEST METHOD OF HEADING. scribed course of reading would be found neither de- sirable nor practicable. It does not leave freedom enough to the movements of the reader's own mind ; it does not give free enough scope to choice. Our communion with books, to be intelligent, must be more or less spontaneous. It is not possible to antici- pate how or when an interest may be awakened in some particular subject or author, and it would be far better to break away from the prescribed list of books, in order to follow out that interest while it is a thought- ful impulse. It would be a sorry tameness of intellect that would not, sooner or later, work its way out of the track of the best of any such prescribed courses. This is the reason, no doubt, why they are so seldom attempted, and why, when attempted, they are so apt to fail. It may be asked, however, whether every thing is to be left to chance or caprice ; whether one is to read what accident puts in the way, — what happens to be reviewed or talked about. No! far from it: there would, in this, be no more exercise of rational will, than in the other process: in truth, the slavery to chance is a worse evil than slavery to authority. So far as the origin of a taste for reading can be traced in the growth of the mind, it will be found, I think, mostly in the mind's own prompting ; and the power thus engendered is, like all other powers in our being, to be looked to as something to be cultivated and chastened, and then its disciplined freedom will prove A LITERARY CRITICISM. 91 more and more its own safest guide. It will provide itself with more of philosophy than it is aware of in its choice of books, and will the better understand its relative virtues. On the other hand, I apprehend that often a taste for reading is quenched by rigid and in- judicious prescription of books in which the mind takes no interest, can assimilate nothing to itself, and recognises no progress but what the eye takes count of in the reckoning of pages it has travelled over. It lies on the mind, unpalatable, heavy, undigested food. But reverse the process ; observe or engender the in- terest as best you may, in the young mind, and then work with that, — expanding, cultivating, chasten- ing it. A LITERARY CRITICISM. BY JOSEPH DENNIE. Jack and Gill Went up a hill, To fetch a bucket of water ; Jack fell down And broke his crown, And Gill came tumbling after. MONGr critical writers, it is a common remark that the fashion of the times has often given a temporary reputation to performances of very little merit, and neglected those much more deserving of 92 A LITERARY CRITICISM. applause. I therefore rejoice that it has fallen to my lot to rescue from neglect this inimitable poem ; for, "whatever may be my diffidence, as I shall pursue the manner of the most eminent critics, it is scarcely pos- sible to err. The fastidious reader will doubtless smile when he is informed that the work, thus highly praised, is a poem consisting only of four lines ; but as there is no reason why a poet should be restricted in his number of verses, as it would be a very sad misfortune if every rhymer were obliged to write a long as well as a bad poem, and more particularly as these verses contain more beauties than we often find in a poem of four thousand, all objections to its brevity should cease. I must, at the same time, acknowledge that at first I doubted in what class of poetry it should be arranged. Its extreme shortness, and its uncom- mon metre, seemed to degrade it into a ballad ; but its interesting subject, its unity of plan, and, above all, its having a beginning, middle, and an end, decide its claim to the epic rank. I shall now proceed, with the candor, though not with the acuteness, of a good critic, to analyze and display its various excellencies. The opening of the poem is singularly beautiful : — Jack and Gill — The first duty of the poet is to introduce his subject ; and there is no part of poetry more difficult. We are told by the great critic of antiquity that we should A LITERARY CRITICISM. 93 avoid beginning " ab ovo" but go into the business at once. Here our author is very happy ; for, instead of telling us, as an ordinary writer would have done, who were the ancestors of Jack and Gill, that the grand- father of Jack was a respectable farmer, that his mother kept a tavern at the sign of the Blue Bear, and that Gill's father was a justice of the peace, (once of the quorum,) together with a catalogue of uncles and aunts, he introduces them to us at once in their proper persons. The choice, too, of names is not unworthy of con- sideration. It would doubtless have contributed to the splendor of the poem to have endowed the heroes with long and sounding titles, which, by dazzling the eyes of the reader, might prevent an examination of the work itself. These adventitious ornaments are justly disregarded by our author, who, by giving us plain Jack and Gill, has disdained to rely on extrinsic support. In the very choice of appellations he is, however, judicious. Had he, for instance, called the first character John, he might have given him more dignity ; but he would not so well harmonize with his neighbour, to whom, in the course of the work, it will appear he must necessarily be joined. The personages being now seen, their situation is next to be discovered. Of this we are immediately, informed in the subsequent line, when we are told Jack and Gill Went up a hill. 94 A LITERARY CRITICISM. Here the imagery is distinct, yet the description con- cise. We instantly figure to ourselves the two per- sons travelling up an ascent, which we may accommo- date to our own ideas of declivity, barrenness, rocki- ness, sandiness, &c, all which, as they exercise the imagination, are beauties of a high order. The reader will pardon my presumption, if I here attempt to broach a new principle, which no critic, with whom I am acquainted, has ever mentioned. It is this, that poetic beauties may be divided into negative and posi- tive, the former consisting of mere absence of fault, the latter in the presence of excellence ; the first of an in- ferior order, but requiring considerable critical acumen to discover them, the latter of a higher rank, but ob- vious to the meanest capacity. To app^y the principle in this case, the poet meant to inform us that two per- sons were going up a hill. Now, the act of going up a hill — although. Locke would pronounce it a very complex idea, comprehending person, rising ground, trees, &c, &c, — is an operation so simple as to need no description. Had the poet, therefore, told us how the two heroes went up, whether in a cart or a wagon, and entered into the thousand particulars which the subject involves, they would have been tedious, be- 8 cause superfluous. The omission of these little inci- dents, and telling us simply that they went up the hill, no matter how, is a very high negative beauty. Having ascertained the names and conditions of the parties, the reader becomes naturally inquisitive into A LITERARY CRITICISM. 95 their employment, and wishes to know whether their occupation is worthy of them. This laudable curiosity is abundantly gratified in the succeeding lines ; for Jack and Gill Went up a hill, To fetch a bucket of water. Here we behold the plan gradually unfolding, a new scene opens to our view, and the description is ex- ceedingly beautiful. We now discover their object, which we were before left to conjecture. We see the two friends, like Py lades and Orestes, assisting and cheering each other in their labours, gaily ascending the hill, eager to arrive at the summit, and to — fill their bucket. Here, too, is a new elegance. Our acute author could not but observe the necessity of machinery, which has been so much commended by critics, and admired by readers. Instead, however, of introducing a host of gods and goddesses, who might have only impeded the journey of his heroes, by the intervention of the bucket, — which is, as it ought to be, simple and conducive to the progress of the poem, — he has considerably improved on the ancient plan. In the management of it, also, he has shown much judgment, by making the influence of the machinery and the subject reciprocal : for while the utensil car- ries on the heroes, it is itself carried on by them. It has been objected, (for every Homer has his Zoilus,) that their employment is not sufficiently dig- 96 A LITERARY CRITICISM. nified for epic poetry ; but, in answer to this, it must be remarked, that it was the opinion of Socrates, and many other philosophers, that beauty should be esti- mated by utility ; and surely the purpose of the heroes must have been beneficial. They ascended the rugged mountain to draw water ; and drawing water is cer- tainly more conducive to human happiness than draw- ing blood, as do the boasted heroes of the Iliad, or roving on the ocean, and invading other men's pro- perty, as did the pious iEneas. Yes! they went to draw water. Interesting scene ! It might have been drawn for the purpose of culinary consumption; it might have been to quench the thirst of the harmless animals who relied on them for support; it might have been to feed a sterile soil, and to revive the drooping plants which they raised by their labours. Is not our author more judicious than Apollonius, who chooses for the heroes of his Argonautics a set of rascals undertaking to steal a sheepskin ? And, if dignity is to be considered, is not drawing water a cir- cumstance highly characteristic of antiquity ? Do we not find the amiable Rebecca busy at the well ? Does not one of the maidens in the Odyssey delight us by her diligence in the same situation? and has not a learned Dean proved that it was quite fashionable in Peloponnesus ? Let there be an end to such frivolous remarks. But the descriptive part is now finished, and the author hastens to the catastrophe. At what part of A LITERARY CRITICISM. 9T the mountain the well was situated, what was the reason of the sad misfortune, or how the prudence of Jack forsook him, we are not informed ; but so, alas ! it happened, Jack fell down — Unfortunate John! At the moment when he was nimbly, for aught we know, going up the hill, perhaps at the moment when his toils were to cease, and he had filled the bucket, he made an unfortunate step, his centre of gravity, as the philosophers would say, fell beyond his base, and he tumbled. The extent of his fall does not, however, appear until the next line, as the author feared to overwhelm us by too immediate a disclosure of his whole misfortune. Buoyed by hope, we suppose his affliction not quite remediless, that his fall is an accident to which the wayfarers of this life are daily liable, and we anticipate his imme- diate rise to resume his labours. But how are we un- deceived by the heart-rending tale that Jack fell down And broke his crown — Nothing now remains but to deplore the premature fate of the unhappy John. The mention of the crown has much perplexed the commentators. But my learned reader will doubtless agree with me in con- jecturing that, as the crown is often used metaphori- cally for the head, and as that part is, or, without any 98 A LITERARY CRITICISM. disparagement to the unfortunate sufferer, might have been, the heaviest, it was really his pericranium which sustained the damage. Having seen the fate of Jack, we are anxious to know the lot of his companion. Alas! And Gill came tumbling after. Here the distress thickens on us. Unable to support the loss of his friend, he followed him, determined to share his disaster, and resolved that, as they had gone up together, they should not be separated as they came down. Of the bucket we are told nothing ; but as it is pro- bable that it fell with its supporters, we have a scene of misery unequalled in the whole compass of tragic description. Imagine to ourselves Jack rapidly de- scending, perhaps rolling over and over down the mountain, the bucket, as the lighter, moving along, and pouring forth (if it had been filled) its liquid stream, Gill following in confusion, with a quick and circular and headlong motion ; add. to this the dust, which they might have collected and dispersed, with the blood which must have flowed from John's head, and we will witness a catastrophe highly shocking, and feel an irresistible impulse to run for a doctor. The sound, too, charmingly "echoes to the sense," — Jack fell down And broke his crown, And Gill came tumbling after. A LITERARY CRITICISM. 99 The quick succession of movements is indicated by an equally rapid motion of the short syllables ; and in the last line Grill rolls with a greater sprightliness and vivacity than even the stone of Sisyphus. Having expatiated so largely on its particular merits, let us conclude by a brief review of its most promi- nent beauties. The subject is the fall of men, — a subject, high, interesting, worthy of a poet ; the heroes, men who do not commit a single fault, and whose mis- fortunes are to be imputed, not to indiscretion, but to destiny. To the illustration of the subject, every part of the poem conduces. Attention is neither wearied by multiplicity of trivial incidents, nor distracted by frequency of digression. The poet prudently clipped the wings of imagination, and repressed the extrava- gance of metaphorical decoration. All is simple, plain, consistent. The moral, too, — that part without which poetry is useless sound, — has not escaped the view of the poet. When we behold two young men, who, but a short moment before, stqod up in all the pride of health, suddenly falling down a hill, how must we lament the instability of all things ! ^*a 100 THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. f WROTE some lines once on a time In wondrous merry mood, And thought, as usual, men would say They were exceeding good. They were so queer, so very queer, I laugh'd as I would die ; Albeit, in the general way, A sober man am I. I call'd my servant, and he came: How kind it was of him, To mind a slender man like me, He of the mighty limb ! "These to the printer," I exclaim'd, And, in my humourous way, I added, (as a trifling jest,) "There'll be the devil to pay." He took the paper, and I watch'd, And saw him peep within; At the first line he read, his face Was all upon the gTin. GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL. 101 He read the next ; the grin grew broad, And shot from ear to ear; He read the third; a chuckling noise I now began to hear. The fourth; he broke into a roar; The fifth, his waistband split ; The sixth, he burst five buttons off, And tumbled in a fit. Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watch'd that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can. GIBBON'S "DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE:' In the following extracts from the Memoirs of his Life and "Writings, the historian relates the first conception, the com- mencement, and the completion, of his great work : 2f)T was at Eome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I jB sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while ,the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my 9* 102 GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire : and, though my read- ing and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work. ******** No sooner was I settled in my house and library, than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my History. At the outset all was dark and doubt- ful ; even the title of the work, the true aera of the Decline and Fall of the Empire, the limits of the in- troduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of the narrative ; and I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical decla- mation : three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace ; but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have been reduced by three successive revisals, from a large volume to their present size, and they might still be compressed, without any loss of facts or sentiments. An opposite fault may be imputed to the concise and superficial narrative of the first reigns from Commodus to Alex- OF THE R03IAN EMPIRE. 103 ander; a fault of which I have never heard, except from Mr. Hume in his last journey to London. Such an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with rational devotion ; but I was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends, some will praise from polite- ness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance ; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject, no one is so sincerely interested in the event. I have presumed to mark the moment of concep- tion : I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my ^ind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, 104 GTBBON'S FIRST LOVE. the life of the historian must be short and precarious. I will add two facts, which have seldom oocurred in the composition of six, or at least of -five, quartos. 1. My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press. 2. Not a sheet has been seen by any human eyes, except those of the author and the printer: the faults and the merits are exclusively my own. gibbon's first love. (from the historian's autobiography.) T hesitate, from the apprehension of ridicule, when 1 i pproach the delicate subject of my early love. By word I do not mean the polite attention, the gal- lantry, without hope or design, which has originated in the spirit of chivalry, and is interwoven with the t wture of French manners. I understand by this ion the union of desire, friendship, and tender- . which is inflamed by a single female, which pre- fers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being. I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice ; and though my love was disappointed of success, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling such a pure and exalted sentiment. The per- sonal attractions of Mademoiselle Susan Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. GIBBON'S FIRST LOVE. 105 Her fortune was humble, but her family was respect- able. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion to her country. The profession of her father did not extinguish the moderation and philoso- phy of his temper, and he lived content with a small salary and laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minis- ter of Crassy, in the mountains that separate the Pays de Yaud from the county of Burgundy. In the soli- tude of a sequestered village he bestowed a liberal, aud even learned, education on his only daughter. She surpassed his hopes by her proficiency in the sciences and languages ; and in her short visits to some rela- tions at Lausanne, the wit, the beauty, and erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of universal applause. The report of such a prodigy awakened my curiosity ; I saw and loved. I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sen- timent, and elegant in manners ; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted me to make her two or three visits at her father's house. I passed some happy days there, in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged the connexion. In a calm retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom ; she listened to the voice of truth and passion, and I might presume to hope that I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity : but on my return to England, I soon dis- 106 GIBBON'S FIRST LOVE. covered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate : I sighed as a lover, I obi' son; my wound was insensibly healed by time, ab- sence, and the habits of a newlife. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself, and i Bubsided in friendship and esteem. The minister of Crassy soon afterwards died ; his stipend died with him ; his daugh- ter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence for herself and her mo- ther; but in her lowest distress she maintained a spot- les ' reputation, and a dignified behaviour. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure ; and in the capital of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicu- ous station in Europe. In every change of prosperity and disgrace he has reclined on the bosom of a faith- ful friend ; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Neckar, the minister, and perhaps the legislator, of the French monarchy.* * The celebrated Madame De Stael was their daughter. THE BLIND PREACHER. 10T THE BLIXD PREACHER.* BY WILLIAM WIET. (fROM A SERIES OF LETTERS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE " RICHMOND ARGUS," TJXDER THE ASSVHB9 NAME OF '"THE BRITISH SPY.") Richmond, Oct. 10, 1803. fHATE been, mv clear S , on an excursion through, the counties vdiich lie along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. A general description of that country and its inhabitants may form the subject of a future letter. For the present, I must entertain you with an account of a most singular and interesting adventure, which I met "with in the course of the tour. * The " Blind Preacher," thus described by Mr. Wirt in 1803, was the Rev. James Waddel, born in Ireland in 1739, and brought here in his infancy by his parents, -who settled in Delaware county, Pennsylvania. He became a fine classical scholar, and first con- cluded to devote his life to teaching. But, his views undergoing a change, he determined to enter the ministry, and he was licensed in 1761, and settled over a Presbyterian church in Lancaster county. In 1776, he removed to Virginia ; and, his salary being- small, he received some pupils for classical instruction in his own house. He resided in Louisa county for twenty years, and died there. He lost his eyesight the latter part of his life. Patrick Henry pronounced him the greatest orator he ever heard. The late Dr. Archibald Alexander married one of his daughters, and hence the middle name of the Eev. James \Vaddel Alexander, D. D., of Xew York. To the latter Mr. Wirt stated, in 1830, that, so far from having coloured too highly the picture of his elo- quence, he had fallen below the truth.— [Prof. Cleveland's Soic in his "Compendium of American Literature."] 108 THE BLIND PREACHER. It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old wooden house in the forest, not far from the road- side. Having frequently seen such objects before in travelling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the duties of the congregation ; but I must confess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilder- ness, was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man ; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy ; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind. The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah ! how soon were all my feelings changed ! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man ! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament ; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand, times: I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a THE BLIND PREACHER. 109 new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial before Pilate ; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole his- tory ; but never, until then, had I heard the circum- stances so selected, so arranged, so coloured ! It was all new : and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable ; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. "We saw the very faces of the Jews: the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of in- dignation ; and my hands were involuntarily and con- vulsively clinched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the for- giving meekness of our Saviour ; when he drew to the life his blessed eyes, streaming in tears to heaven ; his voice breathing to Grod, a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," — the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter, and fainter, 10 110 THE BLIND PREACHER. until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation. It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weak- ness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But, no ! the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic. The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Eousseau : " Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God." I despair of giving you any idea of the effect pro- duced by this short sentence, unless you could per- fectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher ; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his THE BLIND PREACHER. Ill performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses ; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody ; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised ; and then the few minutes of portentous, death -like silence which reigned throughout the house ; the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent tor- rent of his tears,) and, slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, "Socrates died like a philosopher," then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his " sightless balls " to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice, — " but Jesus Christ, like a Grod ! " If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. 112 THE SEA AXU THE MOUNTAIXS. THE SEA AND THE MOUNTAINS. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. fHAVE lived by the sea-shore, and by the moun- tains. No, I am not going to say which is best. The one where your place is, is the best for you. But this difference there is : you can domesticate moun- tains, but the sea is ferx naturue. You may have a hut, or know the owner of one, on the mountain-side ; you see a light half-way up its ascent in the evening, and you know there is a home, and you might share it. You have noted certain trees, perhaps ; you know the particular zone where the hemlocks look so black in October, when the maples and beeches have faded. All its reliefs and intaglios have electrotyped them- selves in the medallions that hang round the walls of your memory's chamber. The sea remembers nothing. It is feline. It licks your feet, — its huge flanks purr very pleasantly for you ; but it will crack your bones, and eat you, for all that, and wipe the crimsoned foam from its jaws, as if nothing had happened. The moun- tains give their lost children berries and water ; the sea mocks their thirst, and lets them die. The moun- tains have a grand, stupid, lovable tranquillity; the THE SEA AND THE MOUNTAINS. 113 sea has a fascinating, treacherous intelligence. The mountains lie about like huge ruminants, their broad backs awful to look upon, but safe to handle. The sea smooths its silver scales until you cannot see their joints, — but their shining is that of a snake's belly, after all. In deeper suggestiveness I find as great a difference. The mountains dwarf mankind, and fore- shorten the procession of its long generations. The sea drowns out humanity and time ; it has no sympathy with either ; for it belongs to eternity, and of that it sings its monotonous song for ever and ever. Yet I should love to have a little box by the sea- shore. 1 should love to gaze out on the wild feline element from a front window of my own, just as I should love to look on a caged panther, and see it stretch its shining length, and then curl over and lap its smooth sides, and by-and-by begin to lash itself into rage, and show its white teeth, and spring at its bars, and howl the cry of its mad, but, to me, harm- less fury. 10* 114 MY KATE. MY KATE. BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. HE was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways, While she's still remembered on warm and cold da y s - My Kate. Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace ; You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face : And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth — My Kate. Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, You looked at her silence, and fancied she spoke : When she did, so peculiar, yet soft was the tone, Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone — My Kate. I doubt if she said to you much that could act As a thought or suggestion : she did not attract In the sense of the brilliant or wise : I infer 'Twas her thinking of others^, made you think of her — My Kate. MY K ATA. 115 She never found fault with yon, never implied Your wrong by her right ; and yet men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town The children were gladder that pulled at her gown — My Kate. i None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall ; They knelt more to God than they used — that was all : If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, But the charm of her presence was felt when she went — My Kate. The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good ; It always was so with her — see what you have ! She has made the grass greener even here, with her grave — My Kate. My dear one ! — when thou wast alive with the rest, I held thee the sweetest, and loved thee the best ; And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart — My Kate? 116 LITERATURE AND LEARNING, LITERATURE AND LEARNING, IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. BY THOMAS BABINGTON MAC AIT LAY. flTERATUKE which could be carried by the post bag then formed the greater part of the intel- lectual nutriment ruminated by the country divines and country justices. The difficulty and expense of conveying large packets, from place to place, were so great, that an extensive work was longer in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lancashire, than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How scantily a rural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the most necessary to a theologian, has already been remarked. The houses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpetually be found in a servant's hall, or in the back parlor of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar, if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton's Jests, and the Seven Cham- pions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing-rods and fowling-pieces. No circulating library, no book society then existed, even in the capital ; but in the capital those students who could not afford to purchase largely, had a resource. The IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II: 11? shops of the great booksellers, near St. Paul's Church- yard, were crowded every day, and all day long with readers ; and a known customer was often permitted to carry a volume home. In the country there was no such accommodation ; and every man was under the necessity of buying whatever he wished to read. As to the lady of the manor, and her daughters, their literary stores generally consisted of a prayer- book, and a receipt-book. But in truth they lost little by living in rural seclusion. For, even in the highest ranks, and in those situations which afforded the greatest facilities for mental improvement, the English women of that generation were decidedly worse educated than they have been at any other time since the revival of learning. At an earlier period they had studied the masterpieces of ancient genius. In the present day they seldom bestow much attention on the dead languages ; but they are familiar with the tongue of Pascal and Moliere, with the tongue of Dante and Tasso, with the tongue of Groethe and Schiller; nor is there any purer or more graceful English than that which accomplished women now speak and write. But, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, the culture of the female mind seems to, have been almost entirely neglected. If a damsel had the least smattering of literature, she was regarded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and naturally quick witted, were unable to write a line in their mother tongue, without solecisms and 118 LITERATURE AND LEARNING faults of spelling, such as a charity girl would now be ashamed to commit. The explanation may easily be found. Extravagant licentiousness, the natural effect of extravagant aus- terity, was now the mode ; and licentiousness had pro- duced its ordinary effect, the moral and intellectual degradation of women. To their personal beauty it was the fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. But the admiration and desire which they inspired were seldom mingled with respect, with affection, or with any chivalrous sentiment. The qualities which fit them to be companions, advisers, confidential friends, rather repelled than attracted the libertines of Whitehall In such circumstances the standard of female attainments was necessarily low ; arid it was more dangerous to be above that standard than to be beneath it. Extreme ignorance and fri- volity were thought less unbecoming in a lady than the slightest tincture of pedantry. Of the too cele- brated women whose faces we still admire on the walls of Hampton Court, few, indeed, were in the habit of reading anything more valuable than acrostics, lam- poons, and translations of the Clelia, and the Grand Cyrus. , The literary acquirements, even of the accomplished gentlemen of that generation, seem to have been some- what less solid and profound than at an earlier or a later period. Greek learning, at least, did not flourish among us in the days of Charles the Second, as it had IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 119 flourished before the civil war, or as it again flourished long after the revolution. There were undoubtedly scholars to whom the whole Greek literature, from Homer to Photius, was familiar ; but such scholars were to be found almost exclusively among the clergy resident at the universities, and even at the universi- ties were few, and were not fully appreciated. At Cambridge it was not thought by any means neces- sary that a divine should be able to read the Gospels in the original. Nor was the standard at Oxford higher. When, in the reign of William the Third, Christ Church rose up as one man to defend the genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris, that great college, then considered as the first seat of philology in the kingdom, could not muster such a stock of Attic learning as is how possessed by several youths at every great public school. It may easily be sup- posed that a dead language, neglected at the universi- ties, was not much studied by men of the world. In a former age the poetry and eloquence of Greece had been the delight of Kaleigh and Falkland. In a later age the poetry and eloquence of Greece were the de- light of Pitt and Fox, of Windham, and Grenville. But during the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was in England scarcely one eminent statesman who could read with enjoyment a page of Sophocles or . Plato. Good Latin scholars were numerous. The language of Eome, indeed, had not altogether lost its imperial 120 LITERATURE AND LEARNING character, and was still, in many parts of Europe, almost indispensable to a traveller or a negotiator. To speak it well was therefore a much more common accomplishment than in our time ; and neither Oxford nor Cambridge wanted poets, who, on a great occa- sion, could lay at the foot of the throne happy imita- tions of the verses in which Virgil and Ovid had cele- brated the greatness of Augustus. Yet even the Latin was giving way to a younger rival. France united at that time almost every species of ascendency. Her military glory was at the height. She had vanquished mighty coalitions. She had dic- tated treaties. She had subjugated great cities and provinces. She had forced the Castilian pride to yield her the precedence. She had summoned Italian princes to prostrate themselves at her footstool. Her au- thority was supreme in all matters of good breeding, from a duel to a minuet. She determined how a gen- tleman's coat must be cut, how long his peruke must be, whether his heels must be high or low, and whe- ther the lace on his hat must be broad or narrow. In literature she gave law to the world. The fame of her great writers rilled Europe. No other country could produce a tragic poet equal to Racine, a comic poet equal to Moliere, a trifler so agreeable as La Fontaine, a rhetorician so skilful as Bossuet. The literary glory of Italy and of Spain had set ; that of Germany had not yet dawned. The genius, therefore, of the emi- nent men who adorned Paris, shone forth with a IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II. 121 splendour which was set off to full advantage by con- trast. France, indeed, had at that time an empire over mankind, such as even the Eoman Eepublic never at- tained. For, when Eome was politically dominant, 'she was in arts and letters the humble pupil of Greece. 'France had, over the surrounding countries, at once the ascendency which Eome had over Greece, and the ascendency which Greece had over Eome. French was fast becoming the universal language, the language of fashionable society, the language of diplomacy. At several courts, princes and nobles spoke it more accu- rately and politely than their mother tongue. In our island there was less of this servility than on the con- tinent. Neither our good nor our bad qualities were those of imitators. Yet even here homage was paid, awkwardly, indeed, and sullenly, to the literary supremacy of our neighbours. The melodious Tuscan, so familiar to the gallants and ladies of the court of Elizabeth, sank into contempt. A gentleman, who quoted Horace or Terence, was considered in good company as a pompous pedant. But to garnish his conversation with scraps of French was the best proof which he could give of his parts and attainments* New canons of criticism, new models of style came into fashion. The quaint ingenuity which had de- * Butler, in a satire of great asperity, says : — " For, though to smatter words of Greek And Latin he the rhetorique Of pedants counted, and vainglorious, To smatter French is meritorious." 11 122 LITERATURE AND LEARNING formed the verses of Donne, and had been a blemish on those of Cowley, disappeared from our poetry. Our prose became less majestic, less artfully involved, less variously musical than that of an earlier age, but more lucid, more easy, and better fitted for controversy and narrative. In these changes it is impossible not to recognize the influence of French precept and of French example. Great masters of our language, in their most dignified compositions, affected to use French words, when English words, quite as expressive and melodious, were at hand : * and from France was im- ported the tragedy in rhyme, an exotic, which, in our soil, drooped, and speedily died. It would have been well if our writers had also copied the decorum which their great French contem- poraries, with few exceptions, preserved : for the pro- fligacy of the English plays, satires, songs, and novels of that age, is a deep blot on our national fame. The evil may easily be traced to its source. The wits and the Puritans had never been on friendly terms. There was no sympathy between the two classes. They looked on the whole system of human life from differ- ent points, and in different lights. The earnest of each * The most offensive instance which I remember is in a poem on the coronation of Charles the Second, by Dryden, who cer- tainly could not plead poverty as an excuse for borrowing words from any foreign tongue, — " Hither in summer evenings you repair, To taste the fraicheur of the cooler air." IN TEE REIQN OF CHARLES II. 123 was the jest of the other. The pleasures of each were the torments of the other. To the stern precisian, even the innocent sport of the fancy seemed a crime. To light and festive natures the solemnity of the zeal-' ous brethren furnished copious matter of ridicule. From the Eeformation to the civil war, almost every writer, gifted with a fine sense of the ludicrous, had taken some opportunity of assailing the straight-haired, snuffling, whining saints, who christened their children out of the Book of Nehemiah, who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Green, and who thought it impious to taste plum porridge on Christmas day. At length a time came when the laughers began to look grave in their turn. The rigid, ungainly zealots, after having furnished much good sport during two gene- rations, rose up in arms, conquered, ruled, and, grimly smiling, trod down under their feet the whole crowd of mockers. The wounds inflicted by gay and pet- ulant malice were retaliated with the gloomy and im- placable malice peculiar to bigots who mistake their own rancour for virtue. The theatres were closed. The players were flogged. The press was put under the guardianship of austere licensers. The Muses were banished from their own favourite haunts. Cowley was ejected from Cambridge, and Crashaw from Oxford. The young candidate for academical honours was no longer required to write Ovidian epistles or Yirgilian pastorals, but was strictly inter- rogated by a synod of louring Supralapsarians as to 124 LITERATURE AND LEARNING the day and hour when he experienced the new birth. Such a system was, of course, fruitful of hypocrites. Under sober clothing, and under visages composed to the expression of austerity, lay hid during several years the intense desire of license and of revenge. At length that desire was gratified. The Restoration emancipated thousands of minds from a yoke which had become insupportable. The old fight recom- menced, but with an animosity altogether new. It was now not a sportive combat, but a war to the death. The Roundhead had no better quarter to expect from those whom he had persecuted, than a cruel slave driver can expect from insurgent slaves, still bearing the marks of his collars and his scourges. The war between wit and Puritanism soon became a war between wit and morality. The hostility excited by a grotesque caricature of virtue did not spare vir- tue herself. Whatever the canting Roundhead had regarded with reverence was insulted. Whatever he had proscribed was favoured. Because he had been scrupulous about trifles, all scruples were treated with derision. Because he had covered his failings with the mask of devotion, men were encouraged to obtrude with Cynic impudence all their most scandalous vices on the public eye. Because he had punished illicit love with barbarous severity, virgin purity and conju- gal fidelity were to be made a jest. To that sanctimo- nious jargon, which was his shibboleth, was opposed another jargon not less absurd and much more odious, IN THE RE ION OF CHARLES II. 125 As he. never opened his mouth except in scriptural phrase, the new breed of wits and fine gentlemen never opened their mouths without uttering ribaldry of which a porter would now be ashamed, and without calling on their Maker to curse them, sink them, confound them, blast them, and damn them. It is not strange, therefore, that our polite literature, when it revived with the revival of the old civil and ecclesiastical polity, should have been profoundly im- moral. A few eminent men, who belonged to an earlier and better age, were exempt from the general conta- gion. The verse of Waller still breathed the senti- ments which had animated a more chivalrous genera- tion. Cowley, distinguished at once as a loyalist and as a man of letters, raised his voice courageously against the immorality which disgraced both letters and loy- alty. A mightier spirit, unsubdued by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy and blindness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbe- come the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold. The vigorous and fertile genius of Butler, if it did not altogether escape the prevailing infection, took the disease in a mild form. But these were men whose minds had been trained in a world which had passed away. They gave place in no long- time to a younger generation of poets; and of that 11* 126 THE HUMAN VOICE. generation, from Dryden down to Durfey, the common characteristic was hard-hearted, shameless, swaggering licentiousness, at once inelegant and inhuman. The influence of these writers was doubtless noxious, yet less noxious than it would have been had they been less depraved. The poison which they administered was so strong, that it was, in no long time, rejected with nausea. None of them understood the dangerous art of associating images of unlawful pleasure with all that is endearing and ennobling. None of them was aware that a certain decorum is essential even to voluptuousness, that drapery may be more alluring than exposure, and that the imagination may be far more powerfully moved by delicate hints which impel it to exert itself than by gross descriptions which it takes in passively. THE HUMAN VOICE. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Jfj GRIEVE to say it, but our people, I think, have j|2 not generally agreeable voices. The marrowy 'organisms, with skins that shed water like the backs of ducks, with smooth surfaces neatly padded beneath, and velvet linings to their singing-pipes, are not so common among us as that other pattern of humanity THE, HUMAN VOICE. 127 with angular outlines and plain surfaces, arid integu- ments, hair like the fibrous covering of a cocoa-nut in gloss and suppleness as well as colour, and voices at once thin and strenuous, — acidulous enough to produce effervescence with alkalis, and stridulous enough to sing duets with the katydids. I think our conver- sational soprano, as sometimes overheard in the cars, arising from a group of young persons, who may have taken the train at one of our great industrial centres, for instance,— -young persons of the female sex, we will say, who have bustled in full-dressed, engaged in loud strident speech, and who, after free discussion, have fixed on two or more double seats, which having secured, they proceed to eat apples and hand round daguerreotypes, — I say, I think the conversational soprano, heard under these circumstances, would not be among the allurements the old enemy would put in requisition, were he getting up a new temptation of St. Anthony. There are sweet voices among us, we all know, and voices not musical, it may be, to those who hear them for the first time, yet sweeter to us than any we shall hear until we listen to some warbling angel in the overture to that eternity of blissful harmonies we hope to enjoy. But why should I tell lies ? If my friends love me, it is because I try to tell the truth. I never heard but two voices in my life that frightened me by their sweetness. . . . They made me feel as if there might be constituted a creature with such a chord in 128 THE HUMAN VOICE. her voice to some string in another's soul, that, if she but spoke, we would leave all and follow her, though it were into the jaws of Erebus. Our only chance to keep our wits is, that there are so few natural chords between others' voices and this string in our souls, and that those which at first may have jarred a little, by-and-by come into harmony with it. But I tell you this is no fiction. You may call the story of Ulysses and the Sirens a fable, but what will you say to Mario and the poor lady who followed him ? Whose were those two voices that bewitched me so ? They both belonged to German women. One was a chambermaid, not otherwise fascinating. The key of my room at a certain great hotel was missing, and this Teutonic maiden was summoned to give information respecting it. The simple soul was evidently not long from her mother-land, and spoke with sweet uncer- tainty of dialect. But to hear her wonder and lament and suggest, with soft, liquid inflexions, and low, sad murmurs, in tones as full of serious tenderness for the fate of the lost key as if it had been a child that had strayed from its mother, was so winning, that, had her features and figure been as delicious as her accents, — if she had looked like the marble Clytie, for in- stance, — why, all I can say is ... I was only going to say that I should have drowned myself. For Lake Erie was close by, and it is so much better to accept asphyxia, which takes only three minutes by the watch, than a mesalliance, that lasts fifty years to begin with, THE HUMAN VOICE. 129 and then passes along down the line of descent; (break- ing ont in all manner of boorish manifestations of feature and manner, which, if men were only as short- lived as horses, could be readily traced back through the square-roots and the cube-roots of the family stem on which you have hung the armorial bearings of the De Champignons or the De la Morues, until one came to beings that ate with knives and said "Haow?") that no person of right feeling could have hesitated for a single moment. The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have said, that of another German woman. — I suppose I shall ruin myself by saying that such a voice could not have come from any Americanized human being. ... It had so much woman in it, — muliebrity, as well as femineity ; — no self-assertion, such as free suffrage introduces into every word and move- ment; large, vigorous nature, running back to those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but subdued by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly culture of fifty generations. Sharp business habits, a lean soil, independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not the best things for the larynx. Still, you hear noble voices among us, — I have known families famous for them, — but ask the first person you meet a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, metallic, matter- of-business clink in the accents of the answer, that produces the effect of one of those bells which small trades-people connect with their shop -doors, and which 130 THE HUMAN VOICE. spring upon your ear with such vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to retire at once from the precincts. Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard in a French hospital. Between two and three years old. Fell out of a chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient, gentle. Kough students round her, some in white aprons, looking fearfully business-like ; but the child placid, perfectly still. I spoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards. — C'est tout comme un serin, said the French student at my side. These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres to ours ; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more trial to reach the shore, — as some grave theolo- gians have maintained, — if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead devils who have " died into life," MRS. BROWNING'S "AURORA LEIGH:' 131 (to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three or four score summers, — why, there must have been a few good spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak of must belong to them. EXTRACTS FROM MR S. B R WNTING'S "AURORA LEIGH." s» ENGLISH LANDSCAPE. jOT a grand nature. Not my chestnut woods Of Yallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps Of waters, that cry Out for joy or fear In leaping through the palpitating pines, Like a white soul tossed out to eternity "With thrills of time upon it. Not indeed My multitudinous mountains, setting in The magic circle, with the mutual touch Electric, panting from their full deep hearts Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for Communion and commission. Italy Is one thing, England one. On English ground You understand the letter ... ere the fall, How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay -like ; 132 EXTRACTS FROM The hills are crumpled plains, — the plains, parterres,- The trees, round, woolly, ready to be clipped ; And if you seek for any wilderness, You find, at best, a park. A nature tamed And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl, "Which does not awe you with its claws and beak, Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up, But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause Of finer meditation. Rather say A sweet familiar nature, stealing in As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so Of presence and affection, excellent For inner uses, from the things without. LIFE. Life, How oft we throw it off and think, — "Enough, Enough of life in so much ! — here's a cause For rupture ; — herein we must break with Life, Or be ourselves unworthy ; here we are wronged, Maimed, spoiled for aspiration : farewell Life ! " — And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes And think all ended. — Then, Life calls to us In some transformed, apocryphal, new voice, Above us, or below us, or around . . . MRS. BROWNING'S "AURORA LEIGH." 133 Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's, Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed To own our compensations than our griefs : Still, Life's voice ! — still, we make our peace with Life. THE SOUL'S INTIMATIONS OF IMMOR- TALITY. The cygnet finds the water; but the man Is born in ignorance of his element, And feels out blind at first, disorganized By sin in the blood, — his spirit-insight dulled And crossed by his sensations. Presently We feel it quicken in the dark sometimes; Then mark, be reverent, be obedient, — For those dumb motions of imperfect life Are oracles of vital Deity Attesting the Hereafter. Let who says "The soul's a clean white paper," rather say, A palimpsest, a prophet's holograph Defiled, erased and covered by a monk's, — The apocalypse, by a Longus! poring on Which obscure text, we may discern perhaps Some fair, fine trace of what was written once, Some offstroke of an Alpha and Omega Expressing the old scripture. 12 134 EXTRACTS FROM LONDON [Aurora Leigh, after the death of her aunt, and her rejection of her cousin Romney's offer of marriage, goes to London to realize her great ideal of the poet-artist. In the following passage she speaks of London as a source of poetic inspiration:] When Komney Leigh and I had parted thus, I took a chamber up three flights of stairs Not far from being as steep as some larks climb, And, in a certain house in Kensington, Three years I lived and worked. Get leave to work In this world, — 'tis the best you get at all ; For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts Than men in benediction. God says, " sweat For foreheads;" men say "crowns;" and so we are crowned, — Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work; get work; Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get. So, happy and unafraid of solitude, I worked the short days out, — and watched the sun On lurid morns or monstrous afternoons, Like some Druidic idol's fiery brass, With fixed unflickering outline of dead heat, In which the blood of wretches pent inside Seemed oozing forth to incarnadine the air, — ■ MRS. BROWNING'S "AURORA LEIGH." 135 Push out through fog with his dilated disk And startle the slant roofs and chimney-pots "With splashes of fierce colour. Or I saw Pog only, the great tawny weltering fog, Involve the passive city, strangle it Alive, and draw it off into the void, Spires, bridges, streets, and squares, as if a sponge Had wiped out London, — or as noon and night Had clapped together and utterly struck out The intermediate time, undoing themselves In the act. Your city poets see such things, Not despicable. Mountains of the South, When, drunk and mad with elemental wines, They rend the seamless mist and stand up bare, Make fewer singers, haply. No one sings, Descending Sinai ; on Parnassus mount, You take a mule to climb, and not a muse, Except in fable and figure : forests chant Their anthems to themselves, and leave you dumb. But sit in London, at the day's decline, And view the city perish in the mist Like Pharaoh's armaments in the deep Eed Sea, — The chariots, horsemen, footmen, all the host, Sucked down and choked to silence — then, surprised By a sudden sense of vision and of tune, You feel as conquerors though you did not fight, And you and Israel's other singing girls, Ay, Miriam with them, sing the song you choose. 136 LONDON. [It is interesting to compare with the preceding passage from "Aurora Leigh," what a great German poet, Heinrich Heine, says of London, in the same relation. The following passage is from his Reisebilder, {Pictures of Travel,) as translated by Charles G. Leland:] I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the astonished spirit ; I have seen it and am still astonished — and still there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and amid them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their motley passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger, and of hatred — I mean London. Send a philosopher to London, but, for your life, no poet! Send a philosopher there, and stand him at the corner of Cheapside, where he will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipsic fair ; and as the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new thoughts rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon the face of the waters will breathe upon him ; the most hidden secrets of social harmony will be suddenly revealed to him ; he will hear the pulse of the world beat audibly, and see it visibly ; for, if London is the right hand of the world — its active, mighty right hand — then we may regard the route which leads from the Exchange to Downing street as the world's pyloric artery. But never send a poet to London ! This downright earnestness of all things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated SONG OF DEBORAH AND BARAK. 137 London, smothers the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a Grerman poet thither — a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a ragged beggar woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop — why then, at least, he will find things going right badly with him. THE SONG OF DEBORAH AND BARAK. BOOK OF JUDGES, CHAP. V. figf HEN" sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam \$?) on that day, saying, Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings ; give ear, ye princes ; I, even I, will sing unto the Lord ; I will sing praise to the Lord Grod of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedest out of the field of Edom, the earth trem- bled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-ways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods ; then was war in the gates : was there 12* 138 SONG OF DEBORAH AND BARAK. a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel ? My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord. Speak ; ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. They that are deli- vered from the noise of archers in the places of draw- ing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts toward the inha- bitants of his villages in Israel : then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates. Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake, utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thoa son of Abinoam. Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the nobles among the people : the Lord made me have dominion over the mighty. Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek ; after thee, Ben- jamin, among thy people ; out of Machir came down governors, and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah ; even Issachar, and also Barak : he was sent on foot into the valley. For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks ? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Gilead abode beyond Jordan : and why did Dan remain in ships ? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his SONG OF DEBORAH AND BARAK. 139 creeks. Zebulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. The kings came and fought ; then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo ; they took no gain of money. They fought from heaven ; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be ; blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk ; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the work- men's hammer ; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down : at her feet he bowed, he fell : where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming ? why tarry the wheels of his chariots ? Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped ? have they not divided 140 INCIDENT AT BR UGES. the prey ; to every man a damsel or two ; to Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil ? So let all thine enemies perish, Lord : but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. — And the land had rest forty years. INCIDENT AT BRUGES. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. fN Bruges town is many a street "Whence busy life hath fled ; Where, without hurry, noiseless feet The grass-grown pavement tread. There heard we, halting in the shade Flung from a convent-tower, A harp that tuneful prelude made To a voice of thrilling power. The measure, simple truth to tell, Was fit for some gay throng^ Though from the same grim turret fell The shadow and the song. When silent were both voice and chords, The strain seemed doubly dear, Yet sad as sweet, — for English words Had fallen upon the ear. INCIDENT A T BR UGES. 141 It was a breezy hour of eve ; And pinnacle and spire Quivered and seemed almost to heave, Clothed with innocuous fire; But, where we stood, the setting sun Showed little of his state ; And, if the glory reached the Nun; 'Twas through an iron grate. Not always is the heart unwise, Nor pity idly born, If even a passing stranger sighs For them who do not mourn. Sad is thy doom, self-solaced dove, Captive, whoe'er thou be! Oh! what is beauty, what is love, And opening life to thee? Such feeling pressed upon my soul, A feeling sanctified By one soft trickling tear that stole From the Maiden at my side; Less tribute could she pay than this, Borne gaily o'er the sea, Fresh from the beauty and the bliss Of English Liberty? 142 MONK FELIX. MONK FELIX. BY HENEY WADSWOETH LONGFELLOW. iNB morning, all alone, Out of his convent of gray stone, Into the forest older, darker, grayer, His lips moving as if in prayer, His head sunken upon his breast As in a dream of rest, Walked the Monk Felix. All about, The broad, sweet sunshine lay without, Filling the summer air ; And within the woodlands as he trod, The twilight was like the Truce of God With worldly woe and care ; Under him lay the golden moss; And above him the boughs of hemlock-trees Waved, and made the sign of the cross, And whispered their Benedicites ; And from the ground Eose an odor sweet and fragrant Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant Yines that wandered, Seeking the sunshine, round and round. These he heeded not, but pondered MONK FELIX. 143 On the volume in his hand ; A volume of Saint Augustine, Wherein he read of the unseen Splendors of Grod's great town In the unknown land, And, with his eyes cast down In humility, he said: "I believe, God, "What herein I have read, But, alas! I do not understand!" And lo! he heard The sudden singing of a bird, A snow-white bird, that from a cloud Dropped down, And among the branches brown Sat singing So sweet, and clear, and loud, It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing. And the Monk Felix closed his book, And long, long, With rapturous look, He listened to the song, And hardly breathed or stirred, Until he saw, as in a vision, The land Elysian, And in the heavenly city heard Angelic feet Fall on the golden flagging of the street. 144 MONK FELIX. And he would fain Have caught the wondrous bird, But strove in vain; For it flew away ; away, Far over hill and dell, And instead of its sweet singing He heard the convent bell Suddenly in the silence ringing For the service of noonday. And he retraced His pathway homeward sadly and in haste. In the convent there was a change! He looked for each well-known face, But the faces were new and strange; New figures sat in the oaken stalls, New voices chaunted in the choir; Yet the place was the same place, The same dusky walls Of cold, gray stone, The same cloisters and belfry and spire. A stranger and alone Among that brotherhood The Monk Felix stood. "Forty years," said a Friar, "Have I been Prior Of this convent in the wood, . MONK FELIX. 145 But for that space Never have I beheld thy face!" The heart of the Monk Felix fell : And he answered, with submissive tone, "This morning, after the hour of Prime, I left my cell, And wandered forth alone, Listening all the time To the melodious singing Of a beautiful white bird, Until I heard The bells of the convent ringing Noon from their noisy towers. It was as if I dreamed; For what to me had seemed Moments only, had been hours!" "Years!" said a voice close by. It was an aged Monk who spoke, From a bench of oak Fastened against the wall ; — He was the oldest Monk of all. For a whole century Had he been there, Serving God in prayer, The meekest and humblest of his creatures. He remembered well the features Of Felix, and he said, 18 146 MONK FELIX. Speaking distinct and slow: "One hundred years ago, When I was a novice in this place, There was here a Monk, full of God's grace, "Who bore the name Of Felix, and this man must be the same." And straightway They brought forth to the light of day A volume old and brown, A huge tome, bound In brass and wild-boar's hide, Wherein were written down The names of all who had died In the convent, since it was edified. And there they found, Just as the old Monk said, That on a certain day and date, One hundred years before, Had gone forth from the convent gate The Monk Felix, and never more Had entered that sacred door. He had been counted among the dead! And they knew, at last, That, such had been the power Of that celestial and immortal song, A hundred years had passed, And had not seemed so long As a single hour! THE PAST AND PRESENT. 147 TEE TENDENCY OF NATIONS TO OVER- ESTIMATE THE PAST, AND DEPRECIATE THE PRESENT. < BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. |N spite of evidence, many will still imagine to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, un- reasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly dis- contented with a condition which is constantly im- proving. But, in truth, there is constant improvement precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labour, and to save with a view to the future. And it is natural that, being dissatis- fied with the present, we should form a too favourable estimate of the past. 148 THE PAST AND PRESENT. In truth, we are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare : but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of re- freshing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward, and find nothing but sand, where, an hour before, they had seen a lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake, where, an hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But, if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts, the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farm- ers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves, the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern work- house, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. "We too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with fifteen shillings a week ; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a dav ; that labouring men may be as little used to dine SONNETS. 149 without meat as they now are to eat rye bread ; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown ; or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty work- ing man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendour of the rich. SCORN NOT THE SONNET. BY WILLIAM WOEDSWOKTH. §COKN" not the Sonnet ; critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours ; with this key Shakspeare unlocked his heart ; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 13* 150 SONNETS. His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. HE world is too much with us ; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers * r Little we see in nature that is ours ; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers ; For this, for every thing, we are out of tune ; It moves us not. Great God ! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. SONNETS. 151 MILTON. BY WILLIAM WOEDSWOETH. ILTON ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; England hath need of thee ; she is a fen Of stagnant waters ; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; Pure as the naked heavens — majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. SILENCE. BY THOMAS HOOD. £^f HEEE is a silence where hath been no sound, Xj?) There is a silence where no sound may be, In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound ; No voice is hush'd — no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. 152 SONNETS. That never spoke, over the idle ground : But in green ruins, in the desolate walls Of antique palaces, where man hath been, Though the dun fox, or wild hyaena, calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. FANCY IN NUBIBUS; OR, THE POET IN THE CLOUDS. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. H! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy ; or, with head bent low And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land ! Or, listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand, By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey Eise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. QOD'S POWER AND PROVIDENCE. 153 GOD'S POWER AND PROVIDENCE ILL US- TRATED IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, BOOK OF JOB, CHAP. XXXIX. NOWEST thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth ? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve ? Canst thou number the months that they fulfil ? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth ? They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows. Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn ; they go forth, and return not unto them. Who hath sent out the wild ass free ? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass ? "Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwell- ings. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regard eth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib ? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow ? or will he harrow the valleys after thee ? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great ? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him ? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn? 154 GOD'S POWER AND PROVIDENCE. Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks ? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich ? Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers : her labour is in vain without fear ; because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding. "What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider. Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper ? the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: nei- ther believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha ! and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the South ? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high ? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 155 seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood : and where the slain are, there is she. BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. BOOK OF DANIEL, CHAP, V. ELSHAZZAK, the king, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem ; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried 156 BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came in all the king's wise men ; but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished. Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house : and the queen spake and said, king, live for ever : let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed : There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods ; and in the days of thy father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him ; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers ; forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and dis- solving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar : now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation. Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 15T which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Jewry ? I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excel- lent wisdom is found in thee. And now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof; but they could not show the interpretation of the thing : And I have heard of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dis- solve doubts : now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel, answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another ; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour : And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew ; and whom he would he kept alive ; and whom he would he set up ; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him : and he was driven from the sons of 14 158 BELSHAZZAR' S FEAST. men ; and his heart was made like the beasts ; and his dwelling was with the wild asses : they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven ; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou, his son, Bel- shazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this ; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven : and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them ; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know ; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified : Then was the part of the hand sent from him ; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpre- tation of the thing : MENE ; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL ; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES ; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Per- sians. Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night was Belshazzar, the King of the Chal- deans, slain. And Darius, the Median, took the king- dom, being about threescore and two years old. RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN, 159 BUBAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. (^fHEKE is something patriarchal still lingering ^} about rural life in Sweden, which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost primeval simplicity reigns over that Northern land, — almost primeval solitude and stillness. You pass out from the gate of the city, and, as if by magic, the scene changes to a wild, wood- land landscape. Around you are forests of fir. Over- head hang the long, fan-like branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones. Under foot is a carpet of yellow leaves ; and the air is warm and balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a little silver stream ; and anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny land of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are gates, which are opened by troops of children. The peasants take off their hats as you pass ; you sneeze, and they cry, " God bless you." The houses in the villages and smaller towns are all built of hewn timber, and for the most part painted red. The floors of the taverns are strewn with the fragrant tips of fir boughs. In many villages there are no taverns, and the peasants take turns in receiving travellers. The thrifty housewife shows you into the best chamber, the walls of which are hung round with 100 RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. rude pictures from the Bible ; and brings you her heavy silver spoons, — an heirloom, — to dip the curdled milk from the pan. You have oaten cakes baked some months before; or bread with anise-seed and coriander in it, or, perhaps, a little pine bark. Meanwhile the sturdy husband has brought his horses from the plough, and harnessed them to your carriage. Solitary travellers come and go in uncouth one-horse chaises. Most of them have pipes in their mouths, and hanging around their necks in front, a leather wallet, in which they cany tobacco, and the great bank-notes of the country, as large as your two hands. You meet, also, groups of Dalekarlian peasant women, travelling homeward, or townward, in pursuit of work. They walk barefoot, carrying in their hands their shoes, which have high heels under the hollow of the foot, and soles of birch bark. Frequent, too, are the village churches, standing by the roadside, each in its own little garden of Gethse- mane. In the parish register great events are doubtless recorded. Some old king was christened or buried in that church ; and a little sexton, with a rusty key, shows you the baptismal font, or the coffin. In the churchyard are a few flowers, and much green grass ; and daily the shadow of the church spire, with its long, tapering finger, counts the tombs, representing a dial-plate of human life, on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men. The stones are flat, and large, and low, and perhaps sunken, like the roofs RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. 161 of old houses. On some are armorial bearings; on others, only the initials of the poor tenants, with a date, as on the roofs of Dutch cottages. They all sleep with their heads to the westward. Each held a lighted taper in his hand when he died ; and in his coffin were placed his little heart-treasures, and a piece of money for his last journey. Babes that came lifeless into the world were carried in the arms of gray-haired old men to the only cradle they ever slept in ; and in the shroud of the dead mother were laid the little garments of the child, that lived and died in her bosom. And over this scene the village pastor looks from his window in the stillness of midnight, and says in his heart, " How quietly they rest, all the departed ! " Near the churchyard gate stands a poor-box, fast- ened to a post by iron bands, and secured by a pad- lock, with a sloping wooden roof to keep off the rain. If it be Sunday, the peasants sit on the church steps and con their psalm-books. Others are coming down the road with their beloved pastor, who talks to them of holy things from beneath his broad-brimmed hat. He speaks of fields and harvests, and of the parable of the sower, that went forth to sow. He leads them to the good Shepherd, and to the pleasant pastures of the spirit-land. He is their patriarch, and, like Mel- chizedek, both priest and king, though he has no other throne than the church - pulpit. The women carry psalm-books in their hands, wrapped in silk handkerchiefs, and listen devoutly to the good man's 14* 162 RURAL LIFE IX SWEDEN. words. But the young men, like Gallio, care for none of these things. They are busy counting the plaits in the kirtles of the peasant girls, their number being an indication of the wearer's wealth. It may end in a wedding. I will endeavour to describe a village wedding in Sweden. It shall be in summer time, that there may be flowers, and in a southern province, that the bride may be fair. The early song of the lark and of chan- ticleer are mingling in the clear morning air, and the sun, the heavenly bridegroom with golden locks, arises in the east, just as our earthly bridegroom with yellow hair, arises in the south. In the yard there is a sound of voices and tramping of hoofs, and horses are led forth and saddled. The steed that is to bear the bride- groom has a bunch of flowers upon his forehead, and a garland of corn-flowers around his neck. Friends from the neighbouring farms come riding in, their blue cloaks streaming to the wind ; and finally the happy bridegroom, with a whip in his hand, and a monstrous nosegay in the breast of his black jacket, comes forth from his chamber ; and then to horse and away, towards the village w r here the bride already sits and waits. Foremost rides the spokesman, followed by some 'half dozen village musicians. JSText comes the bride- groom between his two groomsmen, and then forty or fifty friends and wedding guests, half of them perhaps with pistols and guns in their hands. A kind of bag- RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. 163 gage- wagon brings up the rear, laden with food and drink for these merry pilgrims. At the entrance of every village stands a triumphal arch, adorned with flowers and ribbons and evergreens ; and as they pass beneath it, the wedding guests fire a salute, and the whole procession stops. And straight from every pocket flies a black -jack, rilled with punch or brandy. It is passed from hand to hand among the crowd; provisions are brought from the wagon, and after eat- ing and drinking and hurrahing, the procession moves forward again, and at length draws near the house of the bride. Four heralds ride forward to announce that a knight and his attendants are in the neighbour- ing forest, and pray for hospitality. " How many are you ? " asks the bride's father. "At least three hun- dred," is the answer; and to this the host replies, " Yes ; were you seven times as many, you should all be welcome ; and in token thereof receive this cup." Whereupon each herald receives a can of ale; and soon after the whole jovial company comes storming into the farmer's yard, and, riding round the May-pole, which stands in the centre, alights amid a grand salute and flourish of music. In the hall sits the bride, with a crown upon her head and a tear in her eye, like the Yirgin Mary in old church paintings. She is dressed in a red boddice and kirtle, with loose linen sleeves. There is a gilded belt around her waist ; and around her neck strings of golden beads, and a golden chain. On the crown 164 RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. rests a wreath of wild roses, and below it another of cypress. Loose over her shoulders falls her flaxen hair ; and her blue innocent eyes are fixed upon the ground. thou good soul ! thou hast hard hands, but a soft heart ! Thou art poor. The very ornaments thou wearest are not thine. They have been hired for this great day. Yet art thou rich ; rich in health, rich in hope, rich in thy first, young, fervent love. The blessing of heaven be upon thee ! So thinks the parish priest, as he joins together the hands of bride and bridegroom, saying in deep solemn tones, — "I give thee in marriage this damsel, to be thy wedded wife in all honour, and to share the half of thy bed, thy lock and key, and every third penny which you two may possess, or may inherit, and all the rights which Upland's laws provide, and the holy king Erik gave." The dinner is now served, and the bride sits between the bridegroom and the priest. The spokesman deli- vers an oration after the ancient custom of his fathers. He interlards it well with quotations from the Bible ; and invites the Saviour to be present at this marriage feast, as he was at the marriage feast in Cana of Ga- lilee. The table is not sparingly set forth. Each makes a long arm, and the feast goes cheerily on. Punch and brandy pass round between the courses, and here and there a pipe is smoked, while waiting for the next dish. They sit long at table ; but, as all things must have an end, so must a Swedish dinner. Then the dance begins. It is led off by the bride and RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. 165 the priest, who perform a solemn minuet together. Not till after midnight comes the Last Dance. The girls form a ring around the bride, to keep her from the hands of the married women, who endeavour to break through the magic circle, and seize their new sister. After long struggling they succeed ; and the crown is taken from her head and the jewels from her neck, and her boddice is unlaced and her kirtle taken off; and like a vestal virgin clad all in white she goes, but it is to her marriage chamber, not to her grave ; and the wedding guests follow her with lighted can- dles in their hands. And this is a village bridal. Nor must I forget the suddenly changing seasons of the Northern clime. There is no long and lingering spring, unfolding leaf and blossom one by one ; — no long and lingering autumn, pompous with many- coloured leaves and the glow of Indian summers. But winter and summer are wonderful, and pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased piping in the corn, when winter from the folds of trailing clouds sows broadcast over the land snow, icicles, and rattling hail. The days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly rises above the horizon, or does not rise at all. The moon and the stars shine through the day; only, at noon, they are pale and wan, and in the southern sky, a red, fiery glow, as of sunset, burns along the horizon and then goes out. And pleasantly under the silver moon, and under the silent, solemn stars, ring the 166 RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. steel-shoes of the skaters on the frozen sea, and voices, and the sound of bells. And now the Northern Lights begin to burn, faintly at first, like sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea. Then a soft crimson glow tinges the heavens. There is a blush on the cheek of night. The colours come and go, and change from crimson to gold, from gold to crimson. The snow is stained with rosy light. Twofold from the zenith, east and west, flames a fiery sword ; and a broad band passes athwart the heavens, like a summer sunset. Soft purple clouds come sailing over the sky, and through their vapoury folds the winking stars shine white as silver. With such pomp as this is Merry Christmas ushered in, though only a single star heralded the first Christmas. And in memory of that day the Swedish peasants dance on straw ; and the peasant girls throw straws at the tim- bered roof of the hall, and for every one that sticks in a crack shall a groomsman come to their wedding. Merry Christmas indeed ! For pious sou] 3 there shall be church songs and sermons, but for Swedish pea- sants, brandy and nut-brown ale in wooden bowls ; and the great yulecake crowned with a cheese, and garlanded with apples, and upholding a three-armed candlestick over the Christmas feast. They may tell tales, too, of Jons Lundsbracka, and Lunkenfus, and the great Eiddar Finke of Pingsdaga * And now the glad, leafy mid- summer, full of bios * Titles of Swedish popular tales. RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN. 16? soms and the song of nightingales, is come! Saint John has taken the flowers and festival of heathen Balder ; and in every village there is a May-pole fifty feet high ; with wreaths, and roses, and ribbons, stream- ing in the wind, and a noisy weathercock on top, to tell the village whence the wind cometh and whither it goeth. The sun does not set till ten o'clock at night ; and the children are at play in the streets an hour later. The windows and doors are all open, and you may sit and read till midnight without a candle. O how beautiful is the summer night, which is not night, but a sunless, yet unclouded day, descending upon earth with dews, and shadows, and refreshing coolness! How beautiful the long, mild twilight, which, like a silver clasp, unites to-day with yester- day ! How beautiful the silent hour, when Morning and Evening thus sit together, hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight ! From the church -tower in the public square the bell tolls the hour, with a soft, musical chime; and the watchman, whose watch-tower is the belfry, blows a blast in his horn, for each stroke of the hammer, and four times, to the four corners of the heavens, in a sonorous voice, he chants, — " Ho ! watchman, ho ! Twelve is the clock! God keep our town From fire and brand And hostile hand! Twelve is the clock ! " 168 THE FA UN OF PRAXITELES. From his swallow's nest in the belfry he can see the sun all night long; and farther north the priest stands at his door in the warm midnight, and lights his pipe with a common burning-glass. SELECT PASSAGES FROM "THE MARBLE FAUN: OR, THE ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI." BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. THE FAUN OF PRAXITELES. HE Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on the trunk or stump of a tree ; one hand hangs carelessly by his side ; in the other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of music. His only garment — a lion's skin, with the claws upon his shoulder — falls half way down his back, leaving the limbs and entire front of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but has a fuller and mere rounded outline, more flesh, and less of heroic muscle than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their types of masculine beauty. The character of the face corresponds with the figure ; it is most agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and somewhat volup- THE FA UN OF PRAXITELES. 169 tuously developed, especially about the throat and chin; the nose is almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm of geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue — unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe material of marble — conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image with- out conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes very close to some of our plea- santest sympathies. Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be incapable of comprehending such ; but he would be true and honest by dint of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an abstract cause ; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that softened marble ; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. It is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium of his emotions, so 15 110 THE FAUN OF PRAXITELES. that the coarser animal portion of his nature might eventually be thrown into the background, though never utterly expelled. The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun's composition ; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and combine with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural concep- tion of antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused throughout his work that mute mystery which so hopelessly perplexes us whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of the lower orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by two definite signs ; these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf-shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of animals. Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations of this class of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute kindred, — a certain caudal appendage ; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles must be supposed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion's skin that forms his garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole indica- tions of his wild, forest nature. Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill — in a word, a sculptor and a poet too — could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and THE DYING GLADIATOR. 1U frisky thing in marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster ; bnt a being in whom both races meet on friendly ground! The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spec- tator broods long over the statue, he will be conscious of its spell ; all the pleasantness of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that dwell in woods and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, grass, flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated man ! The essence of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists within that discoloured marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet's reminiscence of a period when man's affinity with nature was more strict, and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and dear. THE DYING GLADIATOK. " I used to admire this statue exceedingly," he [Kenyon] remarked, "but, latterly, I find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a length of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so terribly hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado ? Flitting moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible inter- 172 DESCRIPTION OF A FOUNTAIN. vals between two breaths, ought not to be encrusted with the eternal repose of marble ; in any sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, since there must of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is like flinging a block of marble up into the air, and by some trick or enchantment, causing it to stick there. You feel that it ought to come down, and are dissatis- fied that it does not obey the natural law." DESCRIPTION OF A FOUNTAIN. In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky ; and with the hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it, from four sides, appears a foun- tain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes from a Naiad's urn, or spirts its many little jets from the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced them ; but now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden-hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And, hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash ! You might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny water-fall in the forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos from the stately echoes that reverberate their natural language. NEEDLE- WORK, 173 So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all its three centuries of play ! NEEDLE-WORK. There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching — at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect — in this peculiarity of needle-work, distinguish- ing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of any such by-play aside from the main business of life • but women — be they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed with awful beauty — have always some little handiwork ready to fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the fingers of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion ; the woman-poet can use it as adroitly as her pen ; the woman's eye, that has discovered a new star, turns from its glory to send the polished little instrument gleaming along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual fray in her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us in this respect. The slender thread of silk or cotton keeps them united with the small, familiar, gentle interests of life, the continually operating influences of which do so much for the health of the character, and carr}>- off what would otherwise be a dangerous accumula- tion of morbid sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this electric line, stretching from the throne to the wicker-chair of the humblest seam- 15* 174 THE ITALIAN CLIMATE. stress, and keeping high and low^n a species of com- munion with their kindred beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew ; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied. THE ITALIAN CLIMATE. The Italian climate robs age of its reverence, and makes it look newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as dilapi- dated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an English abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up among the former, had fallen, ages before the foundation of the latter was begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Nature takes an English ruin to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has won the whole structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the barren sunshine, DESCRIPTION OF SAINT PETER'S. 1T5 and leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, too, each succeeding century, in Rome, has done its .best to ruin the very ruins, so far as their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing away the marble and hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which never can look venerable. ON THE APPRECIATION OF A PICTURE. A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a sur- render of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you must look with the eye of faith, or its highest excellence escapes you. There is always the necessity of helping out the painter's art with your own re- sources of sensibility and imagination. Not that these qualities shall really add anything to what the master has effected ; but they must be put so entirely under his control, and work along with him to such an ex- tent, that, in a different mood, when you are cold and critical, instead of sympathetic, you will be apt to fancy that the loftier merits of the picture were of your own dreaming, not of his creating. DESCRIPTION OF SAINT PETER'S. One afternoon, as Hilda entered Saint Peter's in sombre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect of a new creation. It seemed an embodi- 176 DESCRIPTION OF SAINT PETER'S. ment of whatever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire, as a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of religious faith. . All splendour was included within its verge, and there was space for all. She gazed with delight even at the multiplicity of ornament. She was glad at the cherubim that flut- tered upon the pilasters, and of the marble doves, hovering, unexpectedly, with green olive branches of precious stones. She could spare nothing now, of the manifold magnificence thai bad been lavished, in a hundred places, richly enough to have made world- famous shrines in any other church, but which here melted away into the vast, sunny breadth, and were of no separate account. Yet each contributed its little all towards the grandeur of the whole. She would not have banished one of those grim popes, who sit each over his own tomb, scattering cold benedictions out of their marble hands ; nor a single frozen sister of the Allegoric family, to whom — as, like hired mourners at an English funeral, it costs them no wear and tear of heart — is assigned the office of weeping for the dead. If you choose to see these things, they present themselves ; if you deem them unsuitable and out of place, they vanish, individually, but leave their life upon the walls. The pavement ! it stretched out inimitably, a plain of many-coloured marble, where thousands of wor- shippers might kneel together, and shadowless angels tread among them without brushing their heavenly GUIDO'S BEATRICE. Ill garments against those earthly ones. The roof! the dome ! Kich, gorgeous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fadeless after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate the heavens to mortal comprehen- sion, and help the spirit upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the faith, that built this match- less edifice, and warmed, illuminated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can satisfy human aspira- tions at the loftiest, or minister to human necessity at the sorest ? If Eeligion had a material home, was it not here ? During a visit made by Miriam to the studio of Hilda, the latter shows her sister artist a copy she has just finished of Guido's celebrated picture, which is thus described : The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, envel- oped in white drapery, from beneath which strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole face was quiet ; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not ITS GUIDO'S BEATRICE. cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest picture ever painted or con- ceived ; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which — while yet her face is so close before us, — makes us shiver as at a spectre. ******** "And now that you have done it, Hilda, can you in- terpret what the feeling is, that gives this picture such a mysterious force ? For my part, though deeply sen- si ble of its influence, I cannot seize it." "Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. "But while I was painting her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze. She knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought to be solitary forever, both for the world's sake and her own ; and this is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, and to feel that nothing can be done \ to help or comfort her ; neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen angel — fallen, and }^et sinless ; and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that keeps her down upon earth, ROME. 179 and brings her within our view even while it sets her beyond our reach." ROME. When we have once known Eome, and left her where she lies, like a long decaying corpse, retaining a trace of the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a fungous growth overspreading all its more admirable features — left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage, so in- describably ugly, moreover, so cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and where a chill wind forces its deadly breath into our lungs — left her, tired of the sight of those immense seven -storied, yellow- washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and multi- plied, and weary of climbing those staircases, which ascend from a ground-floor of cook-shops, cobblers' stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists, just beneath the unattainable sky — left her, worn out with shivering at the cheer- less and smoky fireside by day, and feasting with our own substance the ravenous little populace of a Eoman bed at night — left her, sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity 180 ROME. had endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery, needlessly bestowed on evil meats — left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of misti- ness, each equally omnipresent — left her, half lifeless from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters — left her, crushed down in spirit with the desolation of her ruin, and the hope- lessness of her future — left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which her old crimes have unmistakably brought down, — when we have left Kome in such mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by-and-by, that our heartstrings have mys- teriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born. SONGS AND LYRICS. 181 SONGS AND LYRICS FROM TENNYSON'S "PRINCESS." [The lyric which the poet has introduced after each section of " The Princess," is a sort of chorus, designed to guide and inter- pret the sympathies of the reader, during the progress of the poem. They nearly all have reference to children and the ma- ternal affection, and their special purpose seems to be to keep prominently before the mind of the reader, the central idea of the poem, namely, that however much woman may gain in "mental breadth," she must not "fail in childward care, nor lose the childlike in the larger mind." These lyrics did not appear in the first edition of "The Princess." Their introduction appears to have been an after-thought with the poet. — Editor.] S thro' the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, "We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss'd again with tears. For when we came where lies the child We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave, We kiss'd again with tears. 16 182 SONGS AND LYRICS. CRADLE SONG. Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea ! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon ; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon : Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. BUGLE SONG. The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. SONGS AND LYRICS. 183 O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going ! sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing I Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river : Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set tha wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. IM SONGS AND LYRIC Ah, sad and strange, as in dark summer, dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying <• The casement slowly grows a gli, square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by ho jii'd On lips that are for others; d >ve, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; Death in Life, the days that are no more. THE DEAD WARRIOR. Home they brought her warrior dead : She nor swoon 'd, nor utter'd cry : All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die." Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe ; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stept, Took the face-cloth from the face ; Yet she neither moved nor wept. SONGS AND LYRICS. 185 Eose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee — Like summer tempest came her tears — "Sweet, my child, I live for thee." "ASK ME NO MORE." Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; But, O too fond, when have I answered thee ? Ask me no more. Ask me no more : what answer should I give ? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : Yet, my friend, I will not have thee die ! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; Ask me no more. Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are sealed : I strove against the stream and all in vain : Let the great river take me to the main : No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; - Ask me no more. 16 18C SAXON AND LATIN ELEMENTS THE SAXON AND LATIN ELEMENTS OF THE ENGLISH L AN G U A G E ; — T II E PE- CULIAR PROVINCE OF EACE IN PO- ETIC DICTION. BY THOMAS D E QUIXCEY* fXK original obstacle to the favourable impree of the Wordsworthian poetry, and an i purely self-created, w »etic diction. The diction itself, without the the 3 of less con- sequence; for the mass of readers would have been too blind or too c it. But the pre to the second edition of his Poems 2 v.. is.. L799 — 1800), compelled them to notice it. Nothing more injudicious was ever done by man. An unpopular truth would, at any rate, have been a bad inaugu- ration, for what, on other accounts, the author had an- nounced as "an experiment.'' Hi was already an experiment as regarded the quality of the subjects selected, and as regarded the mode of treating them. That was surely trial enough for the reader's untrained sensibilities, without the unpopular truth besides, as to the diction. But, in the mean time, this truth, be- sides being unpopular, was also, in part, false : it was true, and it was not true. And it was not true in a * From the author's essay on Wordsworth's Poetry. OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 187 double way. Stating broadly, and allowing it to be taken for his meaning, that the diction of ordinary life, in his own words, " the very language of man," was the proper diction for poetry, the 'writer meant no such thing ; for only a part of this diction, according to his own subsequent restriction, was available for such a use. And, secondly, as his own subsequent practice showed, even this part was available only for peculiar classes of poetry. In his oavii exquisite "Laodamia," in his " Sonnets," in his " Excursion," few are his obli- gations to the idiomatic language of life, as dis- tinguished from that of books, or of prescriptive usage. Coleridge remarked, justly, that "The Ex- cursion" bristles beyond most poems with what are called "dictionary" words; that is, polysyllabic words of Latin or Greek origin. And so it must ever be, in meditative poetry upon solemn philosophic themes. The gamut of ideas needs a corresponding gamut of expressions ; the scale of the thinking, which ranges through every key, exacts, for the artist, an unlimited command over the entire scale of the instrument which he employs. Never, in fact, was there a more errone- ous direction than that given by a modern rector of the Glasgow University to the students, -^ viz., that they should cultivate the Saxon part of our language, at the cost of the Latin part. Nonsense ! Both are in- dispensable ; and, speaking generally without stopping to distinguish as to subjects, both are equally indis- pensable. Pathos, in situations which are homely, or 188 SAXON AND LATIN ELEMENTS, ETC. at all connected with domestic affections, naturally moves by Saxon words. Lyrical emotion of every kind, which (to merit the name of lyrical) must be in the state of flux and reflux, or, generally, of agitation, also requires the Saxon element of our language. And why? Because the Saxon is the abori'jin.il ele- ment; the basis, and not the superstructure; c< quently, it comprehends all the ideas which are natural to the heart of man, and to the elementary situations of life. And, although the Latin often furnishes Ofl with duplicates of these ideas, yet the Saxon or mono- syllabic part has the advantage of precedency in our use and knowledge; for it is the language of the nursery, whether for rich or poor, in which greal phi- lological academy, no toleration is given to words in 'y" or " ation." There is, therefore, a great ad- vantage, as regards the consecration to our feel i i Led, by usage and custom, upon the Saxon strands, in the mixed yarn of our native tongue. And, uni- illy, this may be remarked — that, wherever the ion of a poem is of that sort, which uses, presumes, or postulates the ideas, without seeking to extend them, Saxon will be the "cocoon" (to speak by the language applied to silkworms), which the poem spins for itself. But, on the other hand, where the motion of the feel- ing is by and through the ideas, where (as in religious or meditative poetry — Young's, for instance, or Cow- per's) the pathos creeps and kindles underneath the very tissues of the thinking, there the Latin will pre- VISIT OF THE WISE MEN, ETC. 189 dominate ; and so much, so, that, whilst the flesh, the blood, and the muscle, will be often almost exclusivel y Latin, the articulations only, or hinges of connection, will be Anglo-Saxon. VISIT OF THE WISE MEN TO THE IN- FANT S AVI UB, AND THE FLIGHT INT EGYPT. GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, CHAP. II. tOW when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of -Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that -is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to wor- ship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah : for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel. Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently, what 190 VISIT OF THE WISE MEN time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethle- hem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also. When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, w r ent before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with ex- ceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down. and worshipped him : and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts ; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt : And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, TO THE INFANT SAVIOUR. 191 and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Eama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Eachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Say- ing, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judsea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither : notwithstanding, being warned of Grod in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee : And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene, 192 PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SOX. GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE, XV., V. 11 — 32. CEKTAIN man had two sons : And the you of them said to his Gather, Father, give me the Ion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his jour- ney into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land ; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country ; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself r he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON. 193 son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet : And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it ; and let us eat, and be merry : For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field : and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come ; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment ; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad : for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ; and was lost, and> is found. 17 194 CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, IV., V. 1 — 42. -HEN therefore the Lord knew how the Phari- sees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (Though Jesus himself bap- tized not, but his disciples,) He left Judaea, and de- parted again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria ? (for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the CHRIST AND THE WO MAN OF SAMARIA. 195 well is deep : from whence then hast thou that living water ? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle ? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water spring- ing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband : For thou hast had five husbands ; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband : in that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain ; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, be- lieve me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Fa- ther. Ye worship ye know not what ; we know what we worship ; for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I 196 CHRIST AND THE W M A N F SA MARIA. know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman : yet no man said, What seekest thou ? or, Why talkest thou with her ? The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did : is not this the Christ ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him aught to cat ? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh har- vest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white already to har- vest. And he that reapeth, receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 19T He told me all that ever I did. So when the Samari- tans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them : and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word ; And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not be- cause of thy saying : for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. ;ADY Clara Yere de Yere, Of me you shall not win renown: You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired: The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired. Lady Clara Yere de Yere, I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. 17* 198 LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that doats on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Yere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I. Lady Clara Yere de Yere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh, your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Yere de Yere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. 199 Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear ; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Yere de Yere. Lady Clara Yere de Yere, There stands a spectre in your hall : The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Yere de Yere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. I know you, Clara Yere de Yere: You pine among your halls and towers : The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. 200 THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these. Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan -girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yeoman go. THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. 33 N her ear he whispers gaily, 3B "If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily, And I think thou lov'st me well." She replies, in accents fainter, "There is none I love like thee." He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. 201 He to lips, that fondly falter, Presses his without reproof: Leads her to the village altar, And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present: - Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell." So she goes by him attended, Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state. All he shows her makes him dearer: Evermore she seems to gaze On that cottage growing nearer, Where they twain will spend their days. 202 THE LORD OF BURL&iOH. O but she will love him truly! He shall have a cheerful home; She will order all things duly, When beneath his roof they come. Thus her heart rejoices greatly, Till a gateway she discerns With armorial bearings stately, And beneath the gate she turns; Sees a mansion more majestic Than all those she saw before: Many a gallant gay domestic Bows before him at the door. And they speak in gentle murmur, When they answer to his call, While he treads with footstep firmer, Leading on from hall to hall. And, while now she wonders blindly, Nor the meaning can divine, Proudly turns he round and kindly, "All of this is mine and thine." Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he. All at once the colour flushes Her sweet face from brow to chin : As it were with shame she blushes, And her spirit changed within. THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. Then her countenance all over Pale again as death did prove: But he clasp'd her like a lover, And he cheered her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness, Tho' at times her spirits sank: Shaped her heart with woman's meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady, And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her, And perplex'd her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur'd, "Oh, that he Were once more that landscape-painter, Which did win my heart from me!" So she droop'd and droop'd before him, Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then, before her time, she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply monrn'd the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford- town. 204 PORTRAITS OF BYRON AND SHELLEY. And lie came to look upon her, And lie look'd at her and said, "Bring the dress and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed." Then her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest In the dress that she was wed in, That her spirit might have rest. PARALLEL BETWEEN THE PORTRAITS OF BYRON AND SHELLEY. BY GEORGE GILFILLAN C¥DN the forehead and head of Byron there is more 3B massive power and breadth : Shelley's has a smooth, arched, spiritual expression; wrinkle there seems none on his brow ; it is as if perpetual youth had there dropped its freshness. Byron's eye seems the focus of pride and lust ; Shelley's is mild, pensive, fixed on you, but seeing you through the mist of his own idealism. Defiance curls on Byron's nostril, and sensuality steeps his full large lips ; the lower features of Shelley's face are frail, feminine, flexible. Byron's head is turned upwards ; as if, having risen proudly above his contemporaries, he were daring to claim kindred, or to demand a contest, with a superior order INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON. 205 of beings : Shelley's is half bent, in reverence and humility, before some vast vision seen by his own eye alone. Misery erect, and striving to cover its retreat under an aspect of contemptuous fury, is the perma- nent and pervading expression of Byron's counten- ance : — sorrow, softened and shaded away by hope and habit, lies like a * holier day" of still moonshine upon that of Shelley. In the portrait of Byron, taken at the age of nineteen, you see the unnatural age of pre- mature passion ; his hair is young, his dress is youth- ful; but his face is old: — in Shelley you see the eternal child, none the less that his hair is gray, and that " sorrow seems half his immortality." INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON. BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANGING-. fN speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin with observing, that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet; when, in truth, he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to 18 206 INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON. master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellec- tual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age ; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest it should op- press and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might ; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts ; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries, and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed, almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fasti- diousness which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, on whatever soil, or in what- ever age it burst forth and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the rights, and dignity, and pride of a creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman schools. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt that poetry was a universal presence. Great minds were everywhere his kindred. He felt the en- chantment of Oriental fiction, surrendered himself to INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES OF MILTON. 20? the strange creations of "Araby the Blest," and de- lighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness, contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the depart- ment of imagination that his acquisitions were vast. He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had then been explored. His various philological attainments were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, history, the- ology, and political science of his own, and former times, were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind ; and we would cite Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread, as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connections and correspondences ; and accordingly its natural progress is from one to another field of thought : and wherever original power, creative genius exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more common bear- ings and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the 208 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. objects of knowledge ; will see mutual light shed from truth to truth; and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands, to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold. THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. [The following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour ; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Wind- mill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors.] PEAK! speak I thou fearful guest! Who, with thy hollow breast Still in rude armour drest, Comest to daunt me! Wrapt not in Eastern balms, But with thy fleshless palms Stretched, as if asking alms, Why dost thou haunt me?" THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. 209 Then, from those cavernous eyes Pale flashes seemed to rise, As when the Northern skies Gleam in December; And, like the water's flow Under December's snow, Came a dull voice of woe From the heart's chamber. "I was a Viking old! My deeds, though manifold, No Skald in song has told, No Saga taught thee! Take heed, that in thy verse Thou dost the tale rehearse, Else dread a dead man's curse; For this I sought thee. "Far in the Northern Land, By the wild Baltic's strand, I, with my childish hand, Tamed the ger-falcon; And, with my skates fast-bound, Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, That the poor whimpering hound Trembled to walk on, 18* 210 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. "Oft to his frozen lair Tracked I the grizzly bear, While from my path the hare Fled like a shadow; Oft through the forest dark Followed the were-wolf's bark, Until the soaring lark Sang from the meadow. "But when I older grew, Joining a corsair's crew, O'er the dark sea I flew With the marauders. Wild was the life we led; Many the souls that sped, Many the hearts that bled, By our stern orders. "Many a wassail-bout Wore the long winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the oaken pail, Filled to o'erflowing. THE SKELETON IN ARMO UR. 211 "Once as I told in glee Tales of the stormy sea, Soft eyes did gaze on me, Burning yet tender; And as the white stars shine On the dark Norway pine, On that dark heart of mine Fell their soft splendour. "I wooed the bine-eyed maid, Yielding, yet half afraid, And in the forest's shade Our vows were plighted. Under its loosened vest Fluttered her little breast, Like birds, within their nest By the hawk frighted. "Bright in her father's hall Shields gleamed upon the wall, Loud sang the minstrels all, Chaunting his glory; When of old Hildebrand I asked his daughter's hand, Mute did the minstrels stand To hear my story. 212 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR "While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft The sea-foam brightly, So the loud laugh of scorn, Out of those lips unshorn, From the deep drinking-horn Blew the foam lightly. "She was a Prince's child, I but a Viking wild, And though she blushed and smiled, I was discarded! Should not the dove so white Follow the sea-mew's flight, Why did they leave that night Her nest unguarded? "Scarce had I put to sea, Bearing the maid with me, — Fairest of all was she Among the Norsemen! — When on the white sea-strand, Waving his armed hand, Saw we old Hildebrand, With twenty horsemen. THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR. 213 "Then launched they to the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast, When the wind failed us; And with a sudden flaw Came round the gusty Skaw, So that our foe we saw Laugh as he hailed us. And as to catch the gale Eound veered the flapping sail, Death!' was the helmsman's hail 'Death without quarter!' Mid-ships, with iron keel, Struck we her ribs of steel; Down her black hull did reel Through the black water! "As with his wings aslant, Sails the fierce cormorant, Seeking some rocky haunt, With his prey laden, So toward the open main, Beating to sea again, Through the wild hurricane, Bore I the maiden. 214 THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR "Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o'er, Cloud-like we saw the shore Stretching to lee-ward; There for my lady's bower Built I the lofty tower, Which, to this very hour, Stands looking sea-ward. There lived we many years ; Time dried the maiden's tears; She had forgot her fears, She was a mother; Death closed her mild blue eyes, Under that tower she lies; Ne'er shall the sun arise On such another! Still grew my bosom then, Still as a stagnant fen! Hateful to me were men, The sun-light hateful! In the vast forest here, Clad in my warlike gear, Fell I upon my spear, 0, death was grateful! DON QUIXOTE. 215 "Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting these prison bars, Up to its native stars My soul ascended! There from the flowing bowl Deep drinks the warrior's soul, Shoal! to the Northland! skoal!"* — Thus the tale ended. DON QUIXOTE, BY HENKY GILES. fN" youth we revel in the mirth of this story ; we laugh at the exploits of the knight; we laugh at the misfortunes of the squire ; we have no reverence for the chivalrous but bareboned imitation of Beltene- bros; the famous recoverer of Mambrino's helmet; we extend no pity to the corpulent imbodiment of proverbs that rises beside him ; we enjoy with all our hearts the capers which the merry lodgers of the inn compel him to perform in the air without aid of tight rope or slack rope ; his flounderings are to us most * In Scandinavia this is the customary salutation when drink- ing a health. I have slightly changed the orthography of the word, in order to preserve the correct pronunciation. 216 DON QUIXOTE. exhilarating fun ; and, in imagination, we ourselves take hold upon the blanket. But, when time has taught us more sober lessons, — when we learn that we too have dreamed, that we too have had our buffet- ings and blanketings, — we think differently. When we learn that we likewise have often put the shapings of fancy for the substance of truth, the coinage of the brain for the creation of reality, the vision in the wish for the fulfilment in the fact, laughter is changed into reflection, and musing takes the place of gaiety. There is hidden meaning in these wondrous imagin- ings of Cervantes ; and experience, after many days, does not fail to show it. We have gleanings from them of life's purpose. We are here to do, and not to dream ; we are here to endure as much as to enjoy ; and, through doing and endurance, to grow — to grow in all that elevates the soul, in all that crowns it with genuine dignity, in all that clothes it at the same time with honour and humility, in all that renders it more gentle as it becomes more commanding. In the same manner we have gleamings of life's nature. Life is not all meditation ; it is not all business ; it is not all in the ideal ; it is not all in the actual ; and that life is best in which these several elements are best united. The ideal separate from the actual be- comes mysticism or extravagance ; the actual separate from the ideal degenerates into the sensual or into the sordid. It is in the proportioned combination of the ideal with the actual that life is highest ; it is in this QODIVA. 217 proportioned combination that life presents the finest union of enthusiasm and reflection, the finest harmony of beauty and of power. GODIVA. BY LEIGH HUNT. HIS is the lady who, under the title of Countess of Coventry, used to make such a figure in our childhood upon some old pocket-pieces of that city. "We hope she is in request there still ; otherwise the inhabitants deserve to be sent from Coventry. That city was famous in saintly legends for the visit of the eleven thousand virgins — an "incredible number," quoth Selden. But the eleven thousand virgins have vanished with their credibility, and a noble-hearted woman of flesh and blood is Coventry's true immor- tality. The story of Grodiva is not a fiction, as many sup- pose it. At least it is to be found in Matthew of "Westminster,* and is not of a nature to have been a * Flores Historiarum. A translation of this work was pub- lished by Bohn, in 2 vols., London, 1853, entitled : " The Flowers of History, especially such as relate to the affairs of Britain. From the beginning of the world to the year 1307. Collected by Matthew of Westminster. Translated from the original, by C. D. Yonge, B. A." 19 218 OODIVA. mere invention. Her name, and that of her husband, Leofric, are mentioned in an old chapter recorded by another early historian. That the story is omitted by Hume and others, argues little against it; for the latter are accustomed to confound the most interesting anecdotes of times and manners with something below the dignity of history (a very absurd mistake) ; and Hume, of whose philosophy better things might have been expected, is notoriously less philosophical in his history than in any other of his works. A certain coldness of temperament, not unmixed with aristo- cratical pride, or at least with a great aversion from everything like vulgar credulity, rendered his scepti- cism so extreme that it became a sort of superstition in turn, and blinded him to the claims of every species of enthusiasm, civil as well as religious. Milton, with his poetical eyesight, saw better, when he meditated the history of his native country. We do not remem- ber whether he relates the present story, but we re- member well, that at the beginning of his fragment on that subject, he says he shall relate doubtful stories as well as authentic ones, for the benefit of those, if no others, who will know how to make use of them, namely, the poets * We have faith, however, in the * When Dr. Johnson, among his other impatient accusations of our great republican, charged him with telling unwarrantable stories in his history, he must have overlooked this announce- ment ; and yet, if we recollect, it is but in the second page of the fragment. So hasty, and blind, and liable to be put to shame, is prejudice. GODIVA. 219 story ourselves. It has innate evidence enough for us, to give full weight to that of the old annalist. Imagination can invent a good deal ; affection more ; but affection can sometimes do things, such as the tenderest imagination is not in the habit of inventing ; and this piece of noble-heartedness we believe to have been one of them. Leofric, Earl of Leicester, was the lord of a large feudal territory in the middle of England, of which Coventry formed a part. He lived in the time of Edward the Confessor ; and was so eminently a feudal lord, that the hereditary greatness of his dominion appears to have been singular, even at that time, and to have lasted with an uninterrupted succession from Ethelbald to the Conquest — a period of more than three hundred years. He was a great and useful op- ponent of the famous Earl Godwin. Whether it was owing to Leofric or not, does not appear, but Coventry was subject to a very oppressive tollage, by which it would seem that the feudal despot enjoyed the greater part of the profit of all market- able commodities. The progress of knowledge has shown us how abominable, and even how unhappy for all parties, is an injustice of this description ; . yet it gives one an extraordinary idea of the mind in those times, to see it capable of piercing through the clouds of custom, of ignorance, and even of self-interest, and petitioning the petty tyrant to forego such a privilege. This mind was Godiva's. The other sex, always more 220 GOD I VA. slow to admit reason through the medium of feeling ; were then occupied to the full in their warlike habits. It was reserved for a woman to anticipate ages of liberal opinion, and to surpass them in the daring virtue of setting a principle above a custom. Godiva entreated her lord to give up his fancied right ; but in vain. At last, wishing to put an end to her importunities, he told her, either in a spirit of bitter jesting, or with a playful raillery that could not be bitter with so sweet an earnestness, that he would give up his tax, provided she rode through the city of Coventry, naked. She took him at his word. One may imagine the astonishment of a fierce, unlettered chieftain, not untinged with chivalry, at hearing a woman, and that too of the greatest delicacy and rank, maintaining seriously her intention of acting in a manner contrary to all that was supposed fitting for her sex, and at the same time forcing upon him a sense of the very beauty of her conduct by its prin- cipled excess. It is probable, that as he could not prevail upon her to give up her design, he had sworn some religious oath when he made his promise; but, be this as it may, he took every possible precaution to secure her modesty from hurt. The people of Coven- try were ordered to keep within doors, to close up all their windows and outlets, and not to give a glance into the streets upon pain of death. The day came ; and Coventry, it may be imagined, was silent as death. The lady went out at the palace door, was set on horse- GO DIVA. 221 back, and at the same time divested of her wrapping garment, as if she had been going into a bath ; then taking the fillet from her head, she let down her long and lovely tresses, which poured around her body like a veil; and so, took her gentle way through the streets.* What scene can be more touching to the imagi- nation! beauty, modesty, feminine softness, a daring sympathy ; an extravagance, producing by the noble- ness of its object, and the strange gentleness of its means, the grave and profound effect of the most reverend custom. We may suppose the scene taking place in the warm noon ; the doors all shut, the win- dows closed; the Earl and his court serious and wondering; the other inhabitants, many of them gushing with grateful tears, and all reverently listen- ing to hear the footsteps of the horse ; and lastly, the lady herself, with a downcast, but not a shamefaced eye, looking towards the earth through her flowing locks, and riding through the dumb and deserted streets, like an angelic spirit. It was an honourable superstition in that part of the country, that a man who ventured to look at the fair * " Nuda.' ; says Matthew of Westminster, " equum ascendens, crines capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum totum, preeter crura candidissima, inde velavit." See Selden's Notes to the Polyolbion of Drayton : Song 13. It is Selden from whom we learn, that Leofric was Earl of Leicester, and the other particu- lars of him mentioned above. The Earl was buried at Coventry ; his Countess most probably in the same tomb. 19* ^ 222 GOD IV A. saviour of his native town, was said to have been struck blind. But the use to which this superstition has been turned by some writers of late times, is not so honourable. The whole story is as sweetly serious as can be conceived. Drayton has not made so much of this subject as might have been expected ; yet what he says is said well and earnestly : Coventry at length From her small mean regard, recovered state and strength ; By Leofric her lord, yet in base bondage held, The people from her marts by tollage were expelled : "Whose duchess which desired this tribute to release, Their freedom often begged. The duke, to make her cease, Told her, that if she would his loss so far enforce, His will was, she should ride stark naked upon a horse By daylight through the street: which certainly he thought In her heroic breast so deeply would have wrought, That in her former suit she would have left to deal: But that most princely dame, as one devoured with zeal, Went on, and by that mean the city clearly freed. OODIVA. 223 GODIVA. BY ALFEED TENNYSON. f WAITED for the train at Coventry ; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires ; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this: — Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she Did more, and underwent, and overcame, The woman of a thousand summers back, Grodiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled In Coventry: for when he laid a tax Upon his town, and all the mothers brought Their children, clamouring, " If we pay, we starve !" She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, And pray'd him, " If they pay this tax, they starve." "Whereat he stared, replying, half- amazed, "You would not let your little finger ache For such as theseV — "But I would die," said she. 224 GOD IV A. He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul : Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; "0, ay, ay, ay, you talk!" — "Alas!" she said. "But prove me what it is I would not do." And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answer'd, "Kide you naked thro' the town, And I repeal it;" and nodding, as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all The hard condition ; but that she would loose The people: therefore, as they loved her well, From then till noon no foot should pace the street, No eye look down, she passing ; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift ; but ever at a breath She linger'd, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud : anon she shook her head, And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee ; Unclad herself in haste ; adown the stair Stole on ; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd The gateway ; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. GODIVA. 225 Then she rode forth, clothed on with 'chastity : The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spont Had cunning eyes to see : the barking cur Made her cheek flame : her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses : the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes ; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared ; but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-nower'd elder -thicket from the field Gleam through the Gothic archways in the wall. Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity : And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little augur-hole in fear, Peep'd — but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancelled a sense misused ; And she, that knew not, pass'd : and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, One after one: but even then she gain'd Her bower ; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, To meet her lord, she took the tax away, And built herself an everlasting name. 226 YOUTH AND AOE. m YOUTH AND AGE. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 'ERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — Both were mine ! Life went a maying With Nature, Ilope, and Poesy, When I was young! When I was young? — Ah, woful when! Ah ! for the change 'twixt Now and Then ! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, LTow lightly then it flashed along! Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Naught cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together. Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; Friendship is a sheltering tree; ! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old! YOUTH AND AGE. 227 Ere I was old? — Ah, woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known, that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceit — It cannot be that thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd, And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To make believe that thou art gone? 1 see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still. Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve When we are old: That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-lea ve ; Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist; Yet hath outstayed his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile. 228 LOVE; OR GENEVIEVE. LOVE; OR, GENEVIEVE. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE £jUT is not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light- winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth ! I ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. 241 for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth ; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim : Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan ; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards ; Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays ; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 21 242 ODE TO A LIGHTING ALE. I cannot see what flowers are al mv feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the bdtig But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; Fast-fading violets, eover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling* I listen; and, for many a time, I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names, in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath ; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstacy ! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! No hungry generations tread thee down ; * Darkling, in the dark. This is a purely poetical word. A beautiful illustration of its use occurs in the Paradise Lost iii. 39 : "As the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note." TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR. 243 The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown ; Perhaps the self- same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that ofttimes hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self ! Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill side ; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades ; Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music : — do I wake or sleep ? TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. EIEL to Miranda :— Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee ; And teach it all the harmony 244 TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR In which thou canst, and only thou, Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again, And, too intense, is turned to pain. For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken : Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who From life to life must still pursue Your happiness, for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own: From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, t Like a living meteor. When you die, the silent moon, In her interlunar swoon, Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel: When you live again on earth, Like an unseen star of birth,. Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity. Many changes have been run, Since Ferdinand and you begun Your course of love, and Ariel still Has track'd your steps and serv'd your will. TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR. 245 Now in humbler, happier lot, This is all remenibe*r'd not; And now, alas ! the poor sprite is Imprisoned for some fault of his In a body like a grave. From you, he only dares to crave, For his service and his sorrow, A smile to-day — a song to-morrow. The artist who this idol wrought, To echo all harmonious thought, Fell'd a tree, while on the steep The woods were in their winter sleep, Kock'd in that repose divine On the wind-swept Apennine : And dreaming, some of autumn past, And some of spring approaching fast, And some of April buds and showers, And some of songs in July bowers, And all of love : and so this tree — that such our death may be ! — Died in sleep, and felt no pain, To live in happier form again: From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star, The artist wrought this lov'd Guitar, And taught it justly to reply To all who question skilfully, In language gentle as thine own; Whispering in enamour'd tone 21* 24G TO A LADY WITH A UU IT AS. Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells; For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many -voiced fountains ; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound, Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way : — All this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it; It talks according to the wit Of its companions: and no more Is heard than has been felt before, By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day. But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest, holiest tone For our beloved friend alone. HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP. 247 "HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP."* BY ELIZABETH BABRETT BEOWNIKO. F all the thoughts of G-od that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deep — Now tell me if that any is, For gift or grace surpassing this, "He giveth His beloved sleep." What would we give to our beloved? The hero's heart, to be unmoved — The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep — The senate's shout to patriot vows — The monarch's crown to light the brows ? — "He giveth His beloved sleep." What do we give to our beloved? A little faith, all undisproved * Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it : except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrow : for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Psalm cxxvii. 1, 2. 248 HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP. A little dust to overweep — And bitter memories to make The whole earth blasted for our sake! "He giveth His beloved sleep." "Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, But have no tune to charm away Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep But never doleful dream again Shall break the happy dumber, when "He giveth Bia O earth, so full of dreary noi.^ O men, with wafting in your voices! O delved gold, the wailrrs' heap! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! God makes a silence through you all, And "giveth His beloved sleep." His dews drop mutely on the hill; His cloud above it saileth still, Though on its slope men toil and reap ; More softly than the dew is shed, Or cloud is floated overhead, "He giveth His beloved sleep." Ha! men may wonder while they scan A living, thinking, feeling man, COWPER' S GRAVE , 249 In such a rest his heart to keep; But angels say — and through the word I ween their blessed smile is heard — " He giveth His beloved sleep !" For me, my heart, that erst did go, Most like a tired child at a show, That sees through tears the juggler's leap — Would now its wearied vision close, Would childlike on His love repose, Who " giveth His beloved sleep !" And friends ! — dear friends ! — when it shall be That this low breath has gone from me, And round my bier ye come to weep — Let one, most loving of you all, Say, not a tear' must o'er her fall — "He giveth His beloved sleep!" COWPER' S GRAVE. BY ELIZABETH BAEHETT BROWNING, T is a place where poets crown'd May feel the heart's decaying — It is a place where happy saints May weep amid their praying — 250 CO WPER' S QRAY Yet let the grief and humbleness, As low as silence languish ; Earth surely now may give her calm To whom she gave her anguish. O poets! from a maniac's tongue Was pour'd the deathless singing! Christians ! at your cross of hope A hopeless hand was clinging I men ! this man in brotherhood, Your weary paths beguiling, Groan'd inly while he taught you peace, And died while ye were smiling. And now, what time ye all may read Through dimming tears his story — How discord on the music fell, And darkness on the glory — And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds And wandering lights departed, He wore no less a loving face, Because .so broken-hearted. He shall be strong to sanctify The poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down In meeker adoration; CO WPER'S GRAVE. 251 ISTor ever shall he be in praise By wise or good forsaken; Named softly as the household name Of one whom God hath taken! "With sadness that is calm, not gloom, I learn to think upon him ; With meekness that is gratefulness, On God, whose heaven hath won him. Who suffered once the madness -cloud Towards his love to blind him ; But gently led the blind along, Where breath and bird could find him; And wrought within *his shatter'd brain Such* quick poetic senses, As hills have language for, and stars Harmonious influences! The pulse of dew upon the grass His own did calmly number ; And silent shadow from the trees Fell o'er him like a slumber. The very world, by God's constraint, From falsehood's chill removing, Its women and its men became Beside him true and loving! 252 BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. And timid hares were drawn from woods To share his home- caresses, Uplooking to his human eyes, With sylvan tendernesses. But while in darkness he remain VI, Unconscious of the guiding, And things provided came without The sweet sense of providing, He testified this solemn truth, Though frenzy desolated — Nor man nor nature satisfy Whom only God created. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. EEAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, Seal And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 253 And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead "Will never come back to me. TEE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. BY THOMAS HOOD. WAS in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And four-and-twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school: There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool. Away they sped with gamesome minds, And souls untouch'd by sin ; To a level mead they came, and there They drave the wickets in : Pleasantly shone the setting sun Over the town of Lynn. 22 254 THE DREAM OF BUQE X E A RAM. Like sportive deer they coursed about, And shouted as they ran, — Turning to mirth all things of earth, As only boyhood can ; But the Usher sat remote from all, A melancholy man ! His hat was off, his vest apart, To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; For a burning thought was in his brow, And his bosom ill at ease : So he leaned his head on his hands, and read The book between his knees! Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er, Nor ever glanced aside, For the peace of his soul he read that book In the golden eventide: Much study had made him very lean, And pale, and leaden-eyed. At last he shut the ponderous tome, — With a fast and fervent grasp, He strained the dusky covers close, And fixed the brazen hasp: " Oh God ! could I so close my mind, And clasp it with a clasp!"' THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 255 Then, leaping on his feet upright, Some moody turns he took ; — Now up the mead ; then down the mead, And past a shady nook, — And, lo ! he saw a little boy That pored upon a book! "My gentle lad, what is't you read — Eomance or fairy fable ? Or is it some historic page, Of kings and crowns unstable?" The young bay gave an upward glance, — "It is 'The Death of Abel!"' The Usher took .six hasty strides, As smit with sudden pain, — Six hasty strides beyond the place, Then slowly back again ; And down he sat beside the lad, And talked with him of Cain: And, long since then, of bloody men, Whose deeds tradition saves; Of lonely folk cut off unseen, And hid in sudden graves; Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn, And murders done in caves; 256 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. And how the sprites of injured men Shriek upward from the sod, — Ay, how the ghostly hand will point To show the burial clod ; And unknown facts of guilty acts Are seen in dreams from God ! lie told how murderers walk the earth Beneath the curse of Cain, — With crimson clouds before their eyes, And flames about their brain; For blood has left upon their souls Its everlasting stain ! "And well," quoth he, "I know for truth, Their pangs must be extreme, — Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — Who spill life's sacred stream! For why ? methought, last night, I wrought A murder, in a dream ! "One that had never done me wrong — A feeble man and old; I led him to a lonely field, — The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold! TEE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 25Y "Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, And one with a heavy stone, One hurried gash with a hasty knife, — And then the deed was done : There was nothing lying at my foot But lifeless flesh and bone! "Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, That could not do me ill; And yet I feared him all the more, For lying there so still : There was a manhood in his look, That murder could not kill! "And, lo ! the universal air Seem'd lit with ghastly flame ; Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes Were looking down in blame : I took the dead man by his hand, And called upon his name ! "Oh, God! it made me quake to see Such sense within the slain ! But when I touched the lifeless clay, The blood gush'd out amain! For every clot, a burning spot "Was scorching in my brain ! 22* 258 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. * My head was like an ardent coal, My heart as solid ice; My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, Was at the Devil's price: A dozen times I groaned ; the dead Had groaned but twice! "And now, from forth the frowning sky, From the Heaven's topmost height, I heard a voice — the awful voice Of the blood-avenging sprite : — 1 Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead And hide it from my sight ! ' "I took the dreary body up, And cast it in a stream, — A sluggish water, black as ink, The depth was so extreme : — My gentle boy, remember this Is nothing but a dream! "Down went the corse with a hollow plunge, And vanish'd in the pool ; Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, And washed my forehead cool, And sat among the urchins young, That evening in the school. THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 259 "Oh, Heaven! to think of their white souls, And mine so black and grim! I could not share in childish prayer, Nor join in Evening Hymn: Like a Devil of the Pit I seemed, 'Mid holy cherubim ! "And peace went with them, one and all, And each calm pillow spread ; But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain, And lighted me to bed; And drew my midnight curtains round, With fingers bloody red ! "All night I lay in agony, In anguish dark and deep, My fevered eyes I dared not close But stared aghast at Sleep: For Sin had render'd unto her The keys of Hell to keep "All night I lay in agony, From weary chime to chime, With one besetting horrid hint, That racked me all the time; A mighty yearning, like the first Fierce impulse unto crime! 2C0 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. "One stern tyrannic thought, that made All other thoughts its slave; Stronger and stronger every pulse Did that temptation crave, — Still urging me to go and see The Dead Man in his gravel " Heavily I rose up, as soon As light was in the sh And sought the black urcursed pool "With a wild misgiving eye; And I saw the Dead in the river bed, For the faithless stream was dry! 11 Merrily rose the lark, and shook The dew-drop from its wing ; But I never marked its morning flight, I never heard it sing: For I was stooping once again Under the horrid thing. "With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, I took him up and ran ; — There was no time to dig a grave Before the day began ; In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, I hid the murder'd man ! THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 261 1 And all that day \ read in school, Bnt my thought was other where ; As soon as the mid-day task was done, In secret I was there : And a mighty wind had swept the leaves, And still the corse was bare! " Then down I cast me on my face, And first "began to weep, For I knew my secret then was one That earth refused to keep : Or land, or sea, though he should be Ten thousand fathoms deep. ' So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, Till blood for blood atones ! Ay, though he's buried in a cave, And trodden down with stones, And years have rotted off his flesh, • The world shall see his bones ! " Oh, God ! that horrid, horrid dream Besets me now awake ! Again — again, with dizzy brain, The human life I take; And my red right hand grows raging hot, Like Cranmers at the stake. 262 THE PORTRAITS OF "And still no peace for the restless clay, Will wave or mould allow ; The horrid thing pursues my soul, — It stands before me now!" The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw Huge drops upon his brow. ■ That very night, while gentle sleep The urchin eyelids kissed, Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walked between, With gyves upon his wrist. THE PORTRAITS OF SUAKSPEARE AND GOETHE. BY DAVID MASSON.* 2£)F there are any two portraits which we all expect