» 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FRi(jM-THE .• '" 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Hi^nrs m. Sage 
 
 1S91 
 
 h...lLl-M.T ^^Jl/lf 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5023.A3 1883 
 
 Recollection of a literary life; and sele 
 
 3 1924 013 525 500 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013525500 
 
EECOLLECTIONS 
 
 A LITEEARY LIFE. 
 
■S:^^^^'^,'' 
 
 ;Am.Y MUSSEILIL MI!1?TPi2)l.B. 
 
 '.FJCE'D'BI S FREEifAN TSOM i TICIURI, EX JOBU LTICJIS TAIBTET' 17_4PK.IL 
 
RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 A LITEEAEY LIFE 
 
 AND SELECTIONS FROM 
 MY FAVOURITE POETS AND PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "our VILLAGE," "BELFOBD REGIS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 EICHARD BENTLBY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 ^ublis^us in ©ririnarg to p« Pajtstg fl^i ^mtn. 
 
 1883. 
 
R. Clay. Sons, and Taylor, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL, E.C- 
 
HENET F. CHOELEY, ESQ. 
 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 But for you this book would never have existed. It 
 has been to me throughout a soui'ce of great gratification. 
 As I wrote line after line of our fine old Poets, many a 
 cherished scene and many a happy hour seemed to live 
 again in my memory and my heart. But no higher plea- 
 sure can it afford me, than the opportunity of expressing 
 to you my sincere respect and admiration for talent, 
 especially dramatic talent not even yet sufficiently known, 
 and for innumerable personal qualities worth all the 
 talent in the world. 
 
 MARY EUSSELL MITFOKD. 
 
 SWALLOWFIELD, NEAR BEADING, 
 DECEMBER, 1861. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The title of this Book gives a very imperfect idea of 
 the contents. Perhaps it would be difficult to find a 
 short phrase that would accurately describe a work so 
 desultory and so wayward — a work where there is far too 
 much of personal gossip and of local scene-painting for 
 the grave pretension of critical essays, and far too much 
 of criticsm and extract for anything approaching in the 
 slightest degree to autobiography. 
 
 The courteous reader must take it for what it is — an 
 attempt to make others relish a few favourite writers as 
 heartily as T have relished them myself. My opinions, 
 such as they are, have at least the merit of being honest, 
 earnest, and individual, unbiassed by the spirit of coterie 
 or the influence of fashion. Many of my extracts will be 
 found to comprise the best bits of neglected authors ; and 
 some, I think, as the noble murder speech of Daniel 
 Webster, the poems of Thomas Davis, of Mrs. James 
 Gray, of Mr. Darley, of Mr. Noel, and of Dr. Holmes, will 
 be new to the English public. Some, again, as the de- 
 lightful pleasantries of Praed, and Frere, and (. atherine 
 
Vm PREFACE. 
 
 Fanshawe, are diflBcult, if not impossible, to procure ; and 
 others possess in perfection the sort of novelty ■which 
 belongs to the forgotten. Amongst these I may class 
 " Holcroft's Memoirs," " Richardson's Correspondence," 
 the curious " Trial of Captain Goodere," and the " Pleader's 
 Guide.'' I even fear that the choicest morsels of my book, 
 the delicious specimens of Cowley's prose, may come 
 under the same category. Ah I I wife I were as sure of 
 my original matter as I am of my selections. 
 
 It is right to say that a few of these papers (like the 
 first volume of my earliest prose work, " Our Village " 
 have appeared in an obscure Journal 
 
 SWALLOW Jf'XliLD, NEAR EEAJJIKO, 
 DEOBMBED, 1851. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I.— VAEIOUS ATJTHOES. 
 
 Page 
 
 JIT EARLIEST KECOLLECTIOMS. PEECY'S BELIQUES 1 
 
 II.— lEISH AUTHORS. 
 
 THOMAS DAVIS JOHN BAHIM 13 
 
 ni.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO TAPLOW. — THOMAS NOEL 22 
 
 rv.— OLD AUTHORS. 
 
 ABBAHAM COWLEY 31 
 
 v.— COMIC POETS. 
 
 A WET MOKNING. — J, ANSTEY 46 
 
 VI.— AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 HEIfKY WAD3T0ETH LONGEELLOW 55 
 
 Vn.— AUTHORS SPRUNG FROM THE PEOPLE. 
 
 THOMAS HOLCKOET 63 
 
 Vin.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 SITTIMO IN THE LAKE. — BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER 80 
 
 IX.— FASHIONABLE POETS. 
 
 WrMiaROP MACKWOETH EKAED 90 
 
X CONTEKTS. 
 
 X.— PEASANT POETS. 
 
 race 
 JOHN CLA.1U! ... 103 
 
 XI.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 A CO-JKTRT -VraDBING. MY FIEST VISIT TO LONDON. — SAMUEI. JOHNSON ] 15 
 
 XTI.— OLD POETS. 
 
 KOBERT nEKKICK — GEORGE WITHEKS 130 
 
 Xin.— FEMALE POETS. 
 
 JOATTNA BAILLIE CATHERINE PANSHAWE 13S 
 
 XrV.— MARRIED POETS. 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROTfNING — ROBERT BROWNING 164 
 
 XV.— PROSE PASTORALS. 
 
 TUB LOST CANE. — SIR PHILIP SYDNEY'S ARC.UIIA- ISAAC WAI.TCN'S 
 
 COMPLETE ANGLER 169 
 
 XVI.— SPANISH BALLADS 187 
 
 XVII.— FEMALE POETS. 
 
 AN ADVENTURE AT WILLIAM COBBETT'S. — MISS BLAMIRE. ^MES. JAMES 
 
 GRAY . . 197 
 
 XVIIL— AMERICAJT ORATORS. 
 
 DANIEL TVEBSTER 210 
 
 XIX.— OLD AUTHORS. 
 
 BEN JONSON 222 
 
 XX.— FASHIONABLE POETS. 
 
 "WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER. — i. SCHOOL-DAY ANECDOTE 228 
 
 XXL— AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DRAMATIC AUTHORS. 
 
 PASSION FOE THE DRAMA.— COLLET CIBBER — KICHAHB CUMBERLUO) 24C 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXn.— FEMALE POETS. 
 
 Page 
 MRS. CLIVT, — MBS. ACTON TIKDIL — MISS DAY — MRS. KOBEKT DERING . 254 
 
 XZrn.— CAVALIER POETS. 
 
 VISIT TO ROTllEKriEIiD GKA,TS. RICHARD LOVELACE ROGER 
 
 L'ESTEANGE THE MAKQOIS OE MONTROSE 2G5 
 
 XXrV.— POETRY THAT POETS LOVE. 
 
 ■WALTER SAVAGE 1AND03— LETGH HUNT — PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 JOH^i KEATS . . . 281 
 
 XXV.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO BATH. — CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY . 297 
 
 XXVL— AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 JOHN GREINLEAF WHITTIER — ^FITZ-GREENE HALLECK 309 
 
 XXVn.— VOLUMINOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 LOVE or LONG BOOKS. — HAKGRAVe's STATE TKIAI.S 316 
 
 XXVm.— FISHENG SONGS. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OP NOKTHUIIBERLAND. MR. DODBLEDAY MISS 
 
 CORBETT 335 
 
 XXIX.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 BESIDENCE AT LYME. — STORY OF A LOTTERY-TICKET. — JOHN KENYON . 344 
 
 XXX.— AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO BRISTOL AND CLIETON. — THOMAS CHATTEUION — ROBERT 
 
 SOHTHET — SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE — ^WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 358 
 
 XXXI.— AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 370 
 
 XXXn.— LETTERS OF AUTHORS. 
 
 SAMUEL RICHARDSON , . . SSO 
 
XXXm.— FINE SINGLE POEMS. 
 
 PagK 
 
 Sia TALTEK SCOTT, &C. 392 
 
 XXXIV.-AUTHOES ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO UFTON OOUHT. — W. 0. BENITETT .... . . . 409 
 
 XXXV.— IRISH AUTHOES. 
 aERALu GairriN 422 
 
 XXXVL— MOCK-HEROIC POETRY. 
 
 JOHN HOOKHAJI lEEEE 438 
 
 XXXVH.— AUTHORS ASSOCLiTBD WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO DONNINGTON. — BATTLE OE MEWBTJKY, LOKD OlAKENDON 
 
 GEOITKEY CHAUCBK — JOHN HUGHES 450 
 
 XXXVIII.— UNRECOGNISED POETS. 
 
 GEOKGE DAKLEY THE REV. EDWAKD WILLIAM BAB.MAKD ... . 454 
 
 XXXIX.— AMERICAN PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHOKNE 4!!5 
 
 XL.— OLD POETS. 
 
 ANBEEW MAHVELL . . . 492 
 
 XLI.— SCOTTISH POETS. 
 
 WILLIAM MOTHERWELL 499 
 
 ZLII.— GREAT PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 LORD BACON— JOHN MILTON — JEREMY TAYLOR — JOHN RVSKIN — CON- 
 CLUSION .... &0S 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF A LITERAEY LIFE 
 
 I. 
 
 VA.RIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 MY EARLIEST EECOLLBCTIONS. 
 PEROT'S EELIQUISS. 
 
 I NEVER take up these three heavily-bound volumes, the 
 actual first edition, at which Dr. Johnson was wont to scoff, 
 without feeling a pleasure quite apart from that excited by 
 the charming book itself ; although to that book, far more 
 than to any modern school of minstreLsy, we owe the revival 
 of the taste for romantic and lyrical poetry, which had lain 
 dormant since the days of the Commonwealth. 
 
 This pleasure springs from a very simple cause — the asso- 
 ciation of these ballads with the happiest days of my happy 
 childhood. 
 
 In common with many only children, especially where the 
 mother is of a grave and home-loving nature, I learned to 
 read at a very early age. Before I was three years old my 
 father would perch me on the breakfast-table to exhibit my 
 one aocomphshment to some admiring guest, who admired 
 all the more, because, a small puny child, looking far younger 
 than I really was, nicely dressed, as only children generally 
 are, and gifted with an affluence of curls, I might have passed 
 for the twin sister of my own great doU. On the table was I 
 perched to read some Foxite newspaper, " Courier," or " Morn - 
 ing Chronicle," the "Whiggish oracles of the day, and as my 
 delight in the high-seasoned politics of sixty years ago was 
 naturally less than that of my hearers, this display of preco- 
 cious acquirement was commonly rewarded, not by cakes or 
 sugar-plums, too plentiful in my case to be very greatly cared 
 for, but by a sort of payment in kind. I read leading articles 
 to please the company ; and my dear mother recited the 
 
 B 
 
2 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " Cliildren in the Wood" to please me. Tliis was my reward i 
 and I looked for my favourite ballad after every performance, 
 just ns the piping bullfinch that hung in the window looked 
 for his lump of sugar after going through "God save the 
 King." The two cases were exactly piu-allel. 
 
 One day it happened that I was called vipon to exhibit, 
 during some temporary absence of the dear mamma, and cried 
 out amain for the ditty that I loved. My father, who spoiled 
 me, did not know a word of it, but ho hunted over all the shelves 
 till he had found the volumes, that he might read it to me 
 liimself ; and then I grew vinreasonable in my demand, and 
 coaxed, and kissed, and begged that the book might be given 
 lo my maid Nancy, that she might read it to me whenever I 
 chose. And (have I not said that my father spoilt me 1) I 
 carried my point, and the three volumes were actually put in 
 chai-ge of my pretty neat maid, Nancy (in those days nursery- 
 governesses were not), and she, waxing weary of the " Children 
 in the Wood," gradually took to reading to me some of the 
 other ballads ; and as from three years old I grew to foxir or 
 five, I leai-ned to read them myself, and the book became the 
 delight of my childhood, as it is now the solace of mv ago. 
 Ah, well-a-day ! sixty years have passed, and I am an old 
 woman, whose nut-brown hair has turned to white ; but I 
 never see that heavily-bound copy of " Percy's Reliques" 
 without the home of my infancy springing up before my eyes. 
 
 A pleasant home, in truth, it was. A large house in a little 
 town of the north of Hampshii'e, — a town, so small that but 
 for an ancient market, very slenderly attended, nobody would 
 have dreamt of calling it anything but a village. The break- 
 fast-room, where I first possessed myself of my beloved bal- 
 lads, was a lofty and spacious apartment, literally lined with 
 books, which, with its Turkey carpet, its glowing fire, its sofas 
 and its easy chairs, seemed, what indeed it \i'as, a very nest 
 of English comfort. The windows opened on a large old- 
 fashioned garden, full of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, roses, 
 honeysuckles, and pinks ; and that again led into a grassv 
 orchard, abounding with fruit-trees, a picturesque country 
 church with its yews and lindens on one side, and beyond, a 
 down as smooth as velvet, dotted with rich islands of coppice, 
 hazel, woodbine, hawthorn, and holly reaching up into the 
 young oalcs, and overhanging flowery patches of primroses, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 3 
 
 wood-sorrel, wild hyacinths, and wild strawberries. On the 
 Bide opposite the church, in a hollow fringed with alders and 
 bulrushes, gleamed the bright clear lakelet, radiant witn 
 swans and wa-ter-lilies, which the simple townsfolk were con- 
 tent to call the Great Pond. 
 
 "What a playground was that orchard ! and what playfellows 
 were mine ! Nancy, with her trim prettiness, my own dear 
 father, handsomest and cheerfullest of men, and the great 
 Newfoundland dog Coe, who used to lie down at my feet, as 
 if to invite me to mount him, and then to prance off with his 
 burthen, as if he enjoyed the fun as much as we did. Happy, 
 happy days ! It is good to have the memory of such a child- 
 hood ! to be able to call up past delights by the mere sight 
 and sound of Chevy Chase or the Battle of Otterbourne. 
 
 And as time wore on the fine ballad of " King Estmere," 
 according to Bishop Percy one of the most ancient in thr 
 collection, got to be amongst our prime favourites. Absorbed 
 by the magic of the story, the old EngUsh never troubled us. 
 t hope it will not trouble my readers. We, a little child, and 
 (I young country maiden, the daughter of a respectable Hamp- 
 shire farmer, were no bad representatives in point of cultiva- 
 tion of the noble dames and their attendant damsels who had 
 «o often listened with delight to wandering minstrels in bower 
 and hall. In one point, we had probably the advantage of 
 them ; we could read, and it is most likely that they could not. 
 jfor the rest, every age has its own amusements ; and these 
 metrical romances, whether said or sung, may be regarded as 
 equivalent in their day to the novels and operas of ours. 
 
 KYNQ ESTMEEB. 
 
 Hearken to me, gentlemen. 
 
 Come, and you shall heare ; 
 I'll tell you of two of the boldest brethren 
 
 That ever born y-were. 
 
 The tone of them was Adler yonge, 
 
 The tother waa King Estmere ; 
 They were as bolde men in their deedes, 
 
 As any were far and neare. 
 
 As they were drinking ale and wine. 
 
 Within Kyng Estmere's halle ; 
 ■■' When will ye marry a wyfe, brothiir 
 
 A wyfe to gladd us alle?" 
 b2 
 
KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Then bespake him, Kyng Eatmere, 
 
 And answered him hastilee : 
 " I knowe not that ladye in any lande. 
 
 That is able to marry with me." 
 
 "King Adland hath a daughter, brother, 
 
 Men call her bright and sheene ; 
 If I were kyng here in your stead, 
 
 That ladye sholde be queen." 
 
 Sayes, " Reade me, reade me, deare brother, 
 
 Throughout merry England; 
 Where we might find a messenger, 
 
 Betweene us two to send ? " 
 
 Sayes, " Yoir shal ryde yourself, brother, 
 
 I'll bear you compan^e ; 
 Many through false messengers are deceived 
 
 And I feare lest soe sholde we." 
 
 Thus they renisht them to ryde, 
 
 Of twoe good renisht steedes, 
 And when they come to Kyng Adland's haUe, 
 
 Of red golde shone their weedes. 
 
 And when they come to Kynge Adland's halle, 
 
 Before the goodlye yate 
 There they found good Kyng Adland, 
 
 Bearing himself thereatt. 
 
 " Now Cbriste thee save, good Kyng Adland, 
 Kowe Christe thee save and see !" 
 
 Said " You be welcome, Kyng Estmere, 
 Eight heartily unto me." 
 
 " You have a daughter," said Adler yongc, 
 "Men call her bright and Bheene, 
 
 My brother wold marry her to his wyfe. 
 Of England to be queene." 
 
 "Yesterday was at my deare daughter 
 Syr Bremor the Kyng of Spayue : 
 
 And then she nicked him of naye, 
 I feare she'll do you the same." 
 
 " The Kyng of Spayu is a foule paycim, 
 
 And 'lieveth on Mahound ; 
 .A.nd pitye it were that fayre ladye 
 
 Shold marry a heathen hound." 
 " But grant to me," says Kyng Estmere, 
 
 " For my love I you praye. 
 That I may see your daughter deare, 
 
 Before I goe hence awaye." 
 
 " Although itt is seven yeare and more 
 
 Syth my daughter was in halie, 
 She shall come downe once for your sake. 
 
 To gliid my guestfe all." 
 
A LITEEAKY LITE. Si 
 
 Down then came that mayden fayre, 
 
 With ladyes laced in pall, 
 And half a hundred of bolde knightes, 
 
 To bring her from bowre to halle ; 
 And eke as many gentle squierea, 
 
 To waite upon them all. 
 
 [Scott has almost literally copied the four last lines of this 
 stanza in the first canto of the " Lay of the Last Minstrel." 
 One of the many obligations that we owe to these old un- 
 known poets, is the inspiration that Sir Walter drew from 
 them, an inspiration to be traced almost as frequently in his 
 prose as in his verse.] 
 
 The talents of golde were on her head sette, 
 
 Hung lowe down to her knee ; 
 And every rynge on her smalle finger 
 
 Shone of the chrystall free, 
 
 Sayes, " Christ you save, my deare mad^me ;" 
 
 Sayes, " Christ you save and see ! " 
 Sayes, " You be welcome, Kyng Estmere, 
 
 Right welcome unto me. 
 
 " And iff you love me as you saye, 
 
 So well and heartil^e ; 
 All that ever you are comen about, 
 
 Soone sped now itt may bee." 
 
 Then bespake her father deare : 
 
 " My daughter, I saye naye ; 
 Remember well the Kyng of Spayn, 
 
 What he sayd yesterdaye. 
 
 " He wolde puU down my hallea and castles. 
 
 And reeve me of my lyfe ; 
 And ever I feare that paynim kyng, 
 
 If I reeve him of his wyfe." 
 
 " Tour castles and your towres, father. 
 
 Are stronglye built aboute ; 
 And therefore of that foul paynim, 
 
 Wee neede not stande in doubte. 
 
 " Plyghte me your troth nowe, Kyng Estmere. 
 
 By Heaven and your righte hande. 
 That you will marrye me to your wyfe, 
 
 And make me queen of your lande." 
 
 Then Kyng Estmere. he plight his troth, 
 
 By Heaven and his right hand. 
 That he would marrye her to his wyfp, 
 
 And make her queen of his lande. 
 
KECOLLECTIOKS OP 
 
 And he tooke leave of that ladye fayre, 
 
 To go to his own contree ; 
 To fetch him dukes, and lordes, and knightes, 
 
 That marryed they might be. 
 They had not ridden scant a myle, 
 
 A myle forthe of the towne, 
 But in did come the Kyng of Spayne, 
 
 With kemp^s many a one. 
 But in did come the Kyng of Spayne, 
 
 With many a grimm barflne. 
 Tone day to marrye Kyng Adland's daughter 
 
 Tother day to cairye her home. 
 Then she sent after Kyng Estmere 
 
 In all the spede might bee, 
 That he must either retume and fighte. 
 
 Or goe home and lose his ladye. 
 One whyle then the page he went, 
 
 Another whyle he ranne ; 
 Till he had o'ertaken Kyng Estmere, 
 
 I wis he never blanne. 
 " Tydinges ! tydinges ! King Estmere !" 
 
 " What tydinges nowe, my boye ? " 
 " Oh, tydinges I can tell to you, 
 
 That wiU you sore annoye. 
 
 " You had not ridden scant a myle, 
 
 A myle out of the towne. 
 But in did come the Kyng of Spayne, 
 
 With kemp^s many a one. 
 " But in did come the Kyng of Spayne, 
 
 With many a bold barbne, 
 Tone day to man-ye Kyng Adland's daughter, 
 
 Tother day to carry her home. 
 
 " That ladye faire she greetes you well, 
 
 And evermore well, by me ; 
 You must either turne again and fighte. 
 
 Or goe home and lose your ladye." 
 
 Sayes, " Reade me, reade me, deare brother, 
 
 My reade shall ryde at thee. 
 Which waye we best may turne and fighte, 
 
 To save this fayre ladye ? '* 
 
 " Now hearken to me," sayes Adler yonge, 
 And your reade must rise at me, 
 
 I quicklye will devise a waye, 
 To sette thy ladye free. 
 
 " My mother was a western woman, 
 
 And leamSd in gramaiy^. 
 And when I learned at the schole, 
 
 Something she taught itt me. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 
 
 " There groweth an hearbe within thia fielde, 
 
 And iff it were but known, 
 His color which is whyte and redde, 
 
 It will make blaoke and browne. 
 
 " Hia color which is browne and blacke, 
 
 It wUl make redde and whyte : 
 That sworde is not all EngMnde, 
 
 Upon his coate will byte. 
 
 " And you shall be a harper, brother. 
 
 Out of the north countree ; 
 And I'U be your boye so faine of fighte. 
 
 To beare your harpe by your knee. 
 
 " And you shall be the best harper, 
 
 That ever took harp in hand. 
 And I will be the best singer, 
 
 That ever souge in the land. 
 
 " It shal be written in our forheads 
 
 All and in gramaryd, 
 That we twoe are the boldest men. 
 
 That are in all Christentye." 
 
 And thus they renisht them to ryde, 
 
 On twoe good renisht steedes, 
 And when they came to Kyng Adland's halle. 
 
 Of redd gold shone their weedes. 
 
 And when they came to Kyng Adland's halle, 
 
 Untill the fayre hall yate. 
 There they found a proud porter 
 
 Rearing himselfe thereatt. 
 
 Sayes, " Christ thee save, thou proud portfr," 
 Sayes, " Christ thee save and see." 
 
 " Now yoii be welcome," sayd the porter, 
 " Of what land soever ye be." 
 
 " We been harpers," sayd Adler yonge, 
 " Come out of the north couutrfie ; 
 
 We been com.e hither untill this place, 
 This proud wedding for to see." 
 
 Sayd, " An your color were whyte and redd. 
 
 As it is blacke and browne, 
 I'd say Kyng Estmere and his brother, 
 
 Were comen until thia towne." 
 
 Then they pulled out a ryng of gold, 
 
 Layd it on the porter's arme, 
 " And ever we will thee, proud porter, 
 
 Thou wilt say us no harme." 
 
 Sore he looked on Kyng Estmere, 
 
 And sore he handled the ryng. 
 Then opened to them the fayre hall yates, 
 
 Ke lett for no kind of thyug. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Kyng Estmere he light off his steede. 
 
 Up at the fayre hall board ; 
 The frothe that came from hia bridle bitte. 
 
 Light on Kyng Bremor's beard. 
 
 Sayes, " Stable thy steede, thou proud harpSr, 
 
 Go stable him in the stalle ; 
 It doth not become a proud harpfir. 
 
 To stable him in a kyng's haUe." 
 
 " My ladde he is so lither," he sayd, 
 
 " He will do nought that's meete. 
 And aye that I could but find the man, 
 
 Were able him to beate." 
 
 " Thou speakest proud wordes," sayd the paynim kyng, 
 
 " Thou harper, here to me ; 
 There is a man within this halle, 
 
 That will beate thy ladd and thee." 
 
 " lett that man come down," he sayd, 
 
 " A sight of him wolde I see, 
 And when he hath beaten well my ladd, 
 
 Then he shall beate of mee." 
 
 Down then came the kemperye man. 
 
 And looked him in the eai'e, 
 For all the golde that was under heaven. 
 
 He durst not neigh him neare. 
 
 " And how nowe, kempe," sayd the Kyng of Spayn, 
 
 " And now what aileth thee ? " 
 He sayes, " It is writen in hia forehead. 
 
 All, and in gramaryfi. 
 That for alle the golde that ia under heaven, 
 
 I dare not neigh him nye." 
 
 Kyng Estmere then pulled forth his harpe. 
 
 And played thereon so sweete, 
 Upstarte the ladye from the kyng, 
 
 As he sate att the meate. 
 
 " Now staye thy harpe, thou proud harper. 
 
 Now staye thy harpe I saye ; 
 For an thou playest as thou beginnest, 
 
 Thou'lt till my bride awaye." 
 
 He struck upon his harpe agayne. 
 
 And playde both fair and free ; 
 The ladye was so pleased thereatt, 
 
 She laughed loud laughters three. 
 
 "Now sell me thy harpe," said the Kyng of Spayn, 
 
 " Thy harpe and stryngs eohe one. 
 And as many gold nobles thou shalt have 
 
 As there be stryngs thereon." 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 9 
 
 " And what wolde yo doe with my harpe ? " he sayd, 
 
 "If I did sell it yee?"— 
 " To playe my wyfe and I a fitt. 
 
 When we together be." 
 
 " Nowe sell me. Sir Kyng, thy bryde soe gay. 
 
 As she sits laced in pall. 
 And as many gold nobles I will give. 
 
 As there be ryngs in the hall." 
 
 " And what wolde ye doe with my bryde soe gay 
 
 Iff I did sell her yee ? " — 
 " More seemly it is for that fair ladye 
 
 To wed with me than thee." 
 
 He played agayne both loud and shrille, 
 
 And Adler he did syng ; 
 " ladye, this is thy owne true love, 
 
 No harper, but a kyng. 
 
 " ladye, this is thy owne true love. 
 
 As playnlye thou mayst see ; 
 And I'll rid thee of that foul paynim. 
 
 Who parts thy love and thee." 
 
 The ladye lookt and the lady blusht. 
 
 And blusht and lookt agayne. 
 While Adler he hath drawn his brande, 
 
 And hath Sir Bremor slayne. 
 
 Up then rose the kemperye men. 
 
 And loud they gan to orye : 
 " Ah, tray tors ! yee have slayne our kyng. 
 
 And therefore ye shall dye." 
 
 Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde, 
 
 And swith he drew his brand ; 
 And Eatmere he, and Adler yonge. 
 
 Eight stiff in stour can stand: 
 
 And aye their swordes soe sore can byte, 
 
 Through help of gramaryg. 
 That soon they have slayne the kemperye men, 
 
 Or forst them forth to flee. 
 
 King Estmere took that fayre ladye, 
 
 And manied her to his wyfe, 
 And brought her home to merry England. 
 
 With her to leade his lyfe. 
 
 I must not, however, attempt to quote more of those fine 
 old ballads here : the feuds of the Percy and the Douglas 
 would take up too much space ; so would the Loves of King 
 Arthur's Court, and the Adventures of Eobin Hood. Even 
 the story of the Heir of Lynne must remain untold ; and I 
 must content myself with two of the shortest and least hack- 
 
10 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 neyed poems in a book that for great and varied interest can 
 hardly be surpassed. " The Lie," is said to have been written 
 by Sir "Walter Ealeigh the night before his execution. That 
 it was written at that exact time is pretty well disproved by 
 the date of its publication in "Davidson's Poems," before Sir 
 Walter's death ; it is even uncertain that Ealeigh was the 
 author ; but that it is of that age is beyond all doubt ; so is 
 its extraordinary beauty— a beauty quite free from the conceits 
 which deform too many of our finest old lyrics. 
 
 Go, Soul, the body's guest. 
 Upon a thankless errand ; 
 Fear not to touch the best, 
 
 The truth shall be thy warrant. 
 Go, since I needs must die. 
 And give the world the lie. 
 
 Go tell the Court it glows 
 
 And shines like rotten wood ; 
 Go tell the Church it shows 
 Men's good, and doth no good : 
 If Church and Court reply. 
 Then give them both the lie. 
 
 Tell potentates they live 
 
 Acting by other.^' actions. 
 Not loved unless they give. 
 
 Not strong but by their factions : 
 If potentates reply. 
 Give potentates the lie. 
 
 TeU men of high condition 
 
 That rule affairs of state. 
 
 Their purpose is ambition, 
 
 Their practice only hate : 
 
 And if they once reply, 
 
 Then give them all the lie. 
 
 Tell them that brave it most. 
 
 They beg for more by spending, 
 Who in their greatest cost 
 
 Seek nothing but commending : 
 And if they make reply, 
 Spare not to give the lie. 
 
 Tell zeal it lacks devotion ; 
 
 Tell love it is but lust ; 
 Tell time it is but motion ; 
 Tell flesh it is but dust ; 
 And wish them not reply, 
 For thou must give the lie. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. tl 
 
 Tell ago it daily wasteth ; 
 
 Tell honour how it altera ; 
 Tell beauty how she blasteth ; 
 Tell favour how she falters ; 
 And as they shall reply, 
 Give each of them the lie. 
 
 Tell wit how much it wrangles 
 In fickle points of niceness ; 
 Tell wisdom she entangles 
 Herself in over-wiseness : 
 And if they do reply. 
 Straight give them both the lie. 
 
 Tell physio of her boldness ; 
 Tell skill it is pretension ; 
 Tell charity of coldness ; 
 Tell law it is contention : 
 And as they yield reply, 
 So give them still the lie. 
 
 Tell fortune of her blindness ; 
 
 Tell nature of decay ; 
 Tell friendship of unkindness ; 
 Tell justice of delay : 
 And if they dare reply, 
 Then give them all the lie. 
 
 Tell arts they have no soundness, 
 
 But vary by estreming ; 
 Tell schools they want profoundness, 
 And stand too much on seeming ; 
 If arts and schools reply, 
 Give arts and schools the lie. 
 
 Tell faith it's fled the city; 
 
 Tell how the country erreth ; 
 Tell, manhood shakes off pity ; 
 Tell, virtue least preferreth : 
 And if they do reply. 
 Spare not to give the lie. 
 
 So when thou hast, as I 
 
 Commandeth thee, done blabbing, 
 Although to give the lie 
 JDeserves no less than stabbing. 
 Yet stab at thee who will, 
 No stab the soul can kill. 
 
 WIHIFEEDi. 
 
 About the authorship of this beautiful address to conjugal 
 love, there is also much uncerlainty. Bishop Percy calls it a 
 " Translation from the Antient British," probably to veil the 
 
12 .RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 real writer. We find it included among Gilbert Cooper's 
 poems, a diamond amongst pebbles ; he never could have 
 ■written it. It has been claimed for Steevens, who did the 
 world good service as one of the earliest restorers of Shake- 
 speare's text ; but who is almost as famous for his bitter and 
 cynical temper as for his aouteness as a verbal critic. Could 
 this charming love-song, true in its tenderness as the gushing 
 notes of a bird to his sitting mate, have been poured forth by 
 a man whom the whole world agreed in hating ? After all, we 
 have no need to meddle with this vexed question. Let us be 
 content to accept thankfully one of the very few purely English 
 ballads which contradict the reproach of oiir Scottish and Irish 
 neighbours, when they tell us that our love-songs are of the 
 head not of the heart. This poem, at least, may vie with 
 those of Gerald Griffin in the high and rare merit of conveying 
 the noblest sentiments in the simplest language. 
 
 Away ! let nought to love displeasing. 
 
 My Winifreda, move your care ; 
 Let nought delay the heavenly blessing. 
 
 Nor squeamish pride, nor gloomy fear. 
 
 What though no grant of royal donors 
 With pompous titles grace our blood ? 
 
 W e'll shine in more substantial honours. 
 And to be noble we'U be good. 
 
 Our name, while virtue thus we tender, 
 Shall sweetly sound where'er 'tis spoke ; 
 
 And all the great ones, they shall wonder 
 How they respect such little folk. 
 
 What though from fortune's lavish bounty 
 
 No mighty treasures we possess ? 
 We'll find within our pittance plenty. 
 
 And be content without excess. 
 
 Still shall each kind returning season 
 
 Sufficient for our wishes give ; 
 For we will live a life of reason,' 
 
 And that's the only life to live. 
 Through youth to age in love excelling, 
 
 We'll hand in hand together tread ; ' 
 Sweet-smiling Peace shall crown our dwelling. 
 
 And babes, sweet-smiling babes, our bed. 
 How should I love the pretty creatures, 
 
 Wtile round my knees they fondly clung; 
 To see them look their mother's featiires, 
 
 To hear them lisp their mother's tongue. 
 
A LITKEAKT LIFE. 13 
 
 And when with envy, time tranfsported, 
 
 Shall think to rob us of our joys, 
 You'll in your girls again be courted, 
 
 And 111 go wooing in my boys. 
 
 Surely this is the sort of poetry that ought to be popular — 
 to be sung in our concert-rooms, and set to such airs as should 
 be played on barrel-organs through our streets, suggesting the 
 words and the sentiments as soon as the first notes of the 
 melody make themselves heard under the window. 
 
 IT. 
 
 IRISH AUTHORS. 
 
 THOMAS DAVIS — JOHN BANIM. 
 
 Considering his immense reputation in the Sister Island, the 
 name of Thomas Davis has hardly found its due place in our 
 literature. He was an Irish barrister ; the most earnest, the 
 most vehement, the most gifted, and the most beloved of the 
 Young Ireland party. Until the spring of 1840, when he was 
 in his twenty-sixth year, he had only been remarkable for ex- 
 treme good nature, untiring industry, and very varied learning. 
 At that period he blazed forth at once as a powerful and bril- 
 liant political writer, produced an eloquent and admirable 
 "Life of Curran," became one of the founders of the " Nation" 
 newspaper, and carried his zeal in the cause of nationality to 
 such excess, that he actually proposed to publish a. weekly 
 journal in the Irish tongue — an impracticable scheme, which 
 happily ended in talk. 
 
 To the newspaper which was established, and which the 
 young patriots condescended to write in the language — to use 
 their own phrase — of the Saxons, we owe the beautiful lyrics 
 of Thomas Davis. The editor of the " Nation " had faith in 
 the well-known saying of Fletcher of Saltoun, " Give me the 
 writing of the ballads, and let who will make the laws ;" and 
 in default of other aid, the regular contributors to the new 
 journal resolved to attempt the task themselves. It is difficult 
 to believe, but the editor of his poems dwells upon it as a 
 weU-known fact, that up to this time the author of •' The Sack 
 of Baltimore " had never written a line of verse in his life, and 
 
14 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 was, indeed, far less sanguine than his coadjutors in the suc- 
 cess of the experiment. How completely he succeeded there 
 is no need to tell, although nearly all that he has written was 
 the work of one hurried year, thrown off in the midst of a 
 thousand occupations and a thousand claims. A very few 
 years more, and his brief and bright career was cut short by a 
 sudden illness, which carried him rapidly to the grave, beloved 
 and lamented by his countrymen of every sect and of every 
 party : 
 
 " His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; 
 * * * He had kept 
 
 The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept." 
 
 Oh ! that he had lived to love Ireland, not better, but more 
 wisely, and to write volumes upon volumes of such lyrics as 
 the two first which I transcribe, such biographies as his "Life 
 of Curran," and such criticism as his "Essay upon Irish 
 Song!" 
 
 I will deal more tenderly than he would have done with 
 printer and reader, by giving them as little as I can of his be- 
 loved Cymric words (such is the young Irish name for the old 
 Irish language) ; end by sparing them altogether his beloved 
 Cymric character, which I have before my eyes at this moment, 
 looking exactly like a cross between Arabic and Chinese. 
 
 THE SACK OF EALTIMOKE. 
 
 Baltimore is a small seaport, in the barony of Carbery, in 
 South Munster. It grew up round a castle of O'DriscoU's, and 
 was, after his ruin, colonized by the English. On the 20th of 
 June, 1631, the crew of two Algerine galleys landed in the 
 dead of the night, sacked the town, and bore off into slavery 
 all who were not too old or too young, or too fierce, for their 
 purpose. The pirates were steered up the intricate channel 
 by one Hackett, a Dungarvon fisherman, whom they had taken 
 at sea for that ofiSce. Two years after he was convicted and 
 executed for the crime. 
 
 The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles • 
 The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles • 
 Old Inisherkiu's crumbled fane loots like a moultin" bird ■ ' 
 
 And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean-tide is heard ■ ' 
 The hookers lie upon the beach ; the children cease their play ■ 
 The gossips leave the little inn ; the households kneel to pray '• 
 And full of love and peace and rest, its daily labour o'er. ' 
 
 Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of Baltimore. 
 
A IJTERAEY LITB. 15 
 
 A. deeper reat, a starry trance, has come with midnight there, 
 No souud, except that throbbing wave, in earth or sea or air ; 
 The massive capes and ruined towers seem conscious of the calm ; 
 The fibrous eod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm, 
 So still the night, those two long barques round Dunashad that glide. 
 Must trust their oars, methinks not few, against the ebbing tide : 
 Oh ! some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore. 
 They bring some lover to his bride, who sighs in Baltimore. 
 
 All, all asleep within each roof along that rocky street, 
 And these must be the lover's friends, with gently gliding feet ; — 
 A stifled gasp ! a dreamy noise ! — " The roof is in a flame ! " 
 From out their beds and to their doors rush maid and sire and dame, 
 And meet upon the threshold-stone, the gleaming sabre's fall. 
 And o'er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl ; 
 The yell of " Allah ! " breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar-— 
 Ohj blessed God ! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore ! 
 
 Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword ; 
 Then sprang the mother on the bi-and with which her son was gored ; 
 Then sank the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild ; 
 Then fled the maiden, moaning faint, and nestled with the child. 
 But see yon pirate strangled lies and crushed with splashing heel, 
 While o'er him, in an Irish hand, there sweeps his Syrian steel. 
 Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers yield their store. 
 There's one hearth well avenged in the sack of Baltimore ! 
 
 Midsummer morn, in woodland nigh, the birds begin to sing, 
 They see not now the milking maids — deserted is the spring ! 
 Midsummer day, this gallant rides from distant Bandon's town. 
 Those hookers crossed from stormy Skull, that skis' from Affadown. 
 They only found the smoking walls with neighbours' blood besprent. 
 And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went. 
 Then dashed to sea, and passed Cape Clear, and saw five leagues 
 The pirate galleys vanishing that ravaged Baltimore. [before, 
 
 Oh ! some must tug the galley's oat and some must tend the steed, 
 This boy will bear a Soheik's chibouk, and that a Bey's jerreed. 
 Oh ! some are for the arsenals by beauteous Dardanelles, 
 And some are in the caravan to Mecca's sandy dells. 
 The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen for the Dey ; 
 She's safe ! she's dead ! she stabbed him in the midst of his serai ! 
 And, when to die a death of fire, that noble maid they bore. 
 She only smiled — O'Driscoll's child ! — she thought of Baltimore. 
 
 'Tis two long years since sank the town beneath that bloody band. 
 And all around its trampled hearths a larger concourse stand, 
 Where, high upon a gallows tree, a yelling wretch is seen, 
 'Tis Hackett of Dungarvon, he who steered the Algerine. 
 He fell amid a sullen shout, with scarce a passing prayer. 
 For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there. 
 Some muttered of MacMurchadh , who had brought the Norman o'er ; 
 Some cursed him with Iscariot, tha.t day in Baltimore. 
 
16 REC0LLEC3TI0NS OF 
 
 The more we study tMs' ballad, the more extraordinary does 
 it appear that it should have been the work of an unpractised 
 hand. Not only is it full of spirit and of melody, qualities not 
 incompatible with inexperience in poetical composition, but 
 the artistic merit is so great. Picture succeeds to picture, each 
 perfect in itself, and each conducing to the effect of the whole. 
 There is not a careless line, or a word out of place ; and how 
 the epithets paint: "fibrous sod," "heavy balm," "shearing 
 sword ! " The Oriental portion is as complete in what the 
 French call local colour as the Irish. He was learned, was 
 Thomas Davis, and wrote of nothing that he could not have 
 taught. It is something that he should have left a poem like 
 this, altogether untinged by party politics, for the pride and 
 admiration of all who share a common language, whether Celt 
 or Saxon. 
 
 MAIRE BHAN ASTOIB* — " FAIE MART MT TREASURE." 
 IRISH EMIGRANT SONO. 
 
 In a valley far away, 
 
 With my Maire bhan astoir. 
 Short would be the summer day, 
 
 Ever loving more and more. 
 Winter days would all grow long 
 
 With the light her heart would pour, 
 With her kisses and her song 
 And her loving maith go leor.-i- 
 Fond is Maire bhan astoir, 
 Fair is Maire bhan astoir, 
 Sweet as ripple on tie shore 
 Sings my Maire bhan astoir. 
 
 Oh ! her sire is very proud. 
 
 And her mother cold as stone ; 
 But her brother bravely vowed 
 
 She should be my bride alone; 
 For he knew I loved her well, 
 
 And he knew she loved me too, 
 So he sought their pride to quell. 
 But 'twas all in vain to sue. 
 True ia Maire bhan astoir, 
 Tried is Maire bhan astoir, 
 Had I wings I*d never soar 
 From my Maire bhan astoir. 
 
 * Pronounced Maur-ya Vaun Asthore. 
 t Much plenty, or in abundance. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 17 
 
 There are lands where manly toil 
 
 Surely reaps the crop it sows. 
 Glorious woods and teeming soil 
 
 Where the broad Missouri flows ; 
 Through the trees the smoke shall rise 
 From our hearth with maith go leor. 
 There shall shine the happy eyes 
 Of my Maire bhan astoir. 
 Mild is Maire bhan astoir, 
 Mine is Maire bhan astoir, 
 Saints will watch about the door 
 Of my Maire bhan astoir. 
 
 I subjoin one of the lyrics, a ballad of the " Brigade," which 
 produced so much effect, when printed on the broad sheet of 
 the " Nation." It is a graphic and dramatic battle-song, full 
 of life and action ; too well calculated to excite that mas'; 
 excitable people, for whose gratification it was written. 
 
 SONTENOY. (1745.) 
 
 Thrice, at the huts of Fontenoy, the English column failed ; 
 And twice, the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed ; 
 For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery, 
 And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary. 
 As vainly through De Barri's wood the British soldiers burst, 
 The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dispersed. 
 The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye. 
 And ordered up his last reserve, his latest chance to try. 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride ! 
 And mustering come his chosen troops like clouds at eventide. 
 
 Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread. 
 Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head. 
 Steady they step adown the slope, steady they mount the hill, 
 Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still, 
 Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast. 
 Through rampart, trench, and palisade, and bullets showering fast 
 And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course, 
 With ready fire and grim resolve, that mocked at hostUe force ; 
 Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grow their ranks. 
 They break as breaks the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean 
 banks ! 
 
 More idly than the summer flies, French tirailleurs rush round ; 
 As stubble to the lava tide, French squadrons strew the ground ; 
 Bomb shell and grape and round-shot tore, still on they marched 
 
 and fired ; 
 Fast, from each volley, grenadier and voltigeur retired. 
 " Push on, my household cavalry ! " King Louis madly cried ; 
 To death they rush, but rude their shock, not unavenged they died. 
 On, through the camp the column trod. King Louis turned his rein ; 
 "Not yet, my liege," Saxe interposed, "the Irish troops remain." 
 
 C 
 
18 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo 
 Had not these exiles ready been, fresh, vehement and true. 
 
 "Lord Clare," he says, "you have your wish— there are youi 
 
 Saxon foes ! " 
 The Marshal almost smiles to see hov? furiously he goes ! 
 How fierce the look these exiles wore, who 're wont to be so gay ! 
 The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day ; 
 The treaty broken ere the ink wherein 'twas writ could dry ; [cry : 
 Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting 
 Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their countiy overthrown ; 
 Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone. 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere. 
 Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were. 
 
 O'Brien's voice is hoarse with joy, as, halting, he commands, 
 
 " Fix bayonets — charge ! " Like mountain storm rush on these 
 
 fieiy bands ! — 
 Thin is the English column now. and faint their volleys grow, 
 Yet, mustering all the strength they have, they make a gallant show. 
 They dress their ranks upon the hill, to face that battle-wind ; 
 Their bayonets the breakers' foam ; like rocks the men behind ! 
 One volley crashes from their line, when through the surging smoke. 
 With empty guns clutched in their hands, the headlong Irish broke. 
 On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, hark to that fierce huzza ! 
 " Eevenge ! remember Limerick ! dash down the Sacsanagh ! 
 
 Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger's pang. 
 Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang ; 
 Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore; 
 Thro' shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they tore ; 
 The English strove with desperate strength, paused, rallied, scat- 
 tered, fled ; 
 The green hill-side is matted close with dying and with dead. 
 Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack, 
 While cavalier and fanta^sin dash in upon their track. 
 On Fontenoy, on Poutenoy, like eagles in the sun, 
 With bloody plumes the Irish stand : the field ii fought and won ! 
 
 John Banim was tlie founder of that school of Irish novelists, 
 which, always excepting its blameless purity, so much re- 
 sembles the modern romantic French school, that if it were 
 possible to suspect Messieurs Victor Hugo, Eugfene Sue, and 
 Alexandre Dumas of reading the English which they never 
 approach without such ludicrous blunders, one might fancy 
 that many-volumed tribe to have stolen their peculiar inspira- 
 tion from the O'Hara family. Of a certainty the tales of Mr. 
 Banim were purely original. They had no precuraors either 
 in our own language or in any other, and they produced ac- 
 cordingly the sort of impression more vivid than durable 
 
A LITEEAUY LIFE. 19 
 
 which highly-coloured and deeply-shadowed novelty is sure 
 to make on the public mind. But they are also intensely 
 national. They reflect Irish scenery, Irish character, Irish 
 crime, and Irish virtue, with a general truth, which, in spite 
 of their tendency to melodramatic effects, -will keep them 
 fresh and life-like for many a day after the mere fashion of the 
 novel of the season shall be past and gone. The last of his 
 works, especially " Father Connell," contains the portrait of a 
 parish priest, so exquisitely simple, natural, and tender, that 
 in the whole range of fiction I know nothing more charming. 
 The subject was one that the author loved ; witness the fol- 
 lowing rude, rugged, homely song, which explains so well the 
 imperishable ties which unite the peasant to his pastor : — 
 
 SOGGARTH AKOON.* 
 
 Am I the slave they say, 
 
 Suggarth aroon ? 
 Since you did show the way, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 Their slave no more to be, 
 While they would work with me 
 Ould Ireland's slavery, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ? 
 
 Why not her poorest man, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 Try ami do all he can, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 Hor commands to fulfil 
 0/ his own heart and will, 
 Side by side with you still, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ? 
 
 Loyal and brave to you, 
 
 Soggarth aroon. 
 Yet be no slave to yon, 
 
 Soggarth aroon. 
 Nor out of fear to you 
 Stand up so near to you- 
 Och ! out of fear to you, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ! 
 
 Who in the winter night, 
 
 Soggarth aroon. 
 When the could blast did bite, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 
 Anglic?, Priest dear. 
 C2 
 
20 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Came to my cabin-door, 
 And on my earthen floor 
 Knelt by me oiok and poor, 
 
 Soggartli aroou ? 
 Who on the marriage-day, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 Made the poor cabin gay, 
 
 Soggarth aroon. 
 And did both laugh and eing. 
 Making onr hearts to ring 
 At the poor christening, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ? 
 Who as friend only met, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ; 
 Never did flout me yet, 
 
 Soggarth aroon, 
 And when my hearth was dim, 
 Gave, while his eye did brim, 
 What I should give to him, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ? 
 Och ! you, and only you, 
 
 Soggarth aroou ! 
 And for this I was true to to<i, 
 
 Soggarth aroon ; 
 In love they'll never shake. 
 When for ould Ireland's sake, 
 W e a true part did take, 
 
 Soggarth aroou ! 
 
 There is a small and little-known volume of these rougli 
 peasant-ballads, full of the same truth and intensity of feeling, 
 — songs which seem destined to be sung at the wakes and 
 patterns of Ireland. But, to say nothing of his fine classical 
 tragedy of " Damon and Pythias," Mr. Banim, so successful in 
 the dehneation of the sweet, delicate, almost idealised girl of 
 the people, has written at least one song that may rival 
 Gerald Griffin in grace and sentiment. A lover sings it to his 
 
 'Tis not for love of gold I go, 
 
 'T is not for love of fame ; 
 Though Fortune may her smile bestow. 
 
 And 1 may win a name, 
 AiUeen ; 
 
 And I may win a name. 
 
 And yet it is for gold I go, 
 
 And yet it is for fame ; 
 That they may deck another brow. 
 
 And bless another name, 
 Ailleen ; 
 
 And bless another name. 
 
A LITKRAKY LIPE. 21 
 
 For this, but this I go — for this 
 
 I leaTe thy love awhile. 
 And all the soft and quiet bliss 
 
 Of thy young faithful smile, 
 Ailleen ; 
 
 Of thy young faithful smile. 
 
 And I go to brave a world I hate, • 
 
 And woo it o'er and o'er, 
 And tempt a wave, and try a fate 
 
 Upon a stranger shore, 
 Ailleen ; 
 
 Upon a stranger shore. 
 
 Oh ! when the bays are all my own, 
 
 I know a heart will care ! 
 Oh ! when the gold is sought and won 
 
 I know a brow will wear, 
 Ailleen ; 
 
 I know a brow will wear ! 
 
 And, when with both returned again. 
 
 My native land I see, 
 I know a smile will meet me then. 
 
 And a hand will welcome me, 
 Ailleen ; 
 
 And a hand will welcome me ! 
 
 Is it not strange that with such ballads as these of John 
 Banim, Thomas Davis, and Gerald Griffin before us, Mr. 
 Moore, that great and undoubted wit, should pass in the 
 highest English circles for the only song-writer of Ireland? 
 Do people really prefer flowers made of silk and cambric, of 
 gum and wire, the work of human hands, however perfect, to 
 such as Mother Earth sends forth in the gushing spring-time, 
 full of sap and odour, sparkling with sunshine, and dripping 
 with dew ? 
 
 I can find no regular life of our poet : nothing beyond 
 a chance record of a kind word to one young struggling coun- 
 tryman, and a kind act to another. He died in the vigour of 
 his age ; married, and, as I fear, poor. The too frequent story 
 of a man of genius. 
 
22 RECOLLECTIONS OK 
 
 III. 
 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO TAPLOW, 
 THOMAS KOEL. 
 
 Three summers ago I spent a few pleasant weeks among 
 some of the loveliest scenery of our great river. The banks of 
 the Thames, always beautiful, are nowhere more delightful 
 than in the neighbourhood of Maidenhead, — one side ram- 
 parted by the high, abrupt chalky cliffs of Buckinghamshire ; 
 the other edging gently away into our rich Berkshire meadows, 
 chequered with villages, villas, and woods. 
 
 My own temporary home was one of singular beauty, — a 
 snug cottage at Taplow, looking over a garden full of honey- 
 suckles, lilies, and roses, to a miniature terrace, whose steps 
 led down into the water, or rather into our little boat ; the 
 fine old bridge at Maidenhead just below us ; the magnificent 
 woods of Cliefden, crowned with the lordly mansion (now, 
 alas ! a second time burnt down), rising high above ; and the 
 broad majestic river, fringed with willow and alder, gay with 
 an ever-changing variety — ^the trim pleasure-yacht, the busy 
 barge, or the punt of the solitary angler — ^gliding by placidly 
 and slowly, the very image of calm and conscious power. No 
 pleasanter residence, through the sultry months of July and 
 August, than the Bridge Cottage at Taplow ! 
 
 Besides the natural advantages of the situation, we were 
 within reach of many interesting places, of which we, as 
 strangers, contrived — as strangers usually do — to see a great 
 deal more than the actual residents. 
 
 A six-mile drive took us to the lordly towers of Windsor — 
 the most queenly of our palaces — with the adjuncts that so 
 well become the royal residence, St. George's Chapel and Eton 
 College, fitting shrines of learning and devotion! Windsor 
 was full of charm. The ghostly shadow of a tree, that is, or 
 passes for. Heme's oak — for the very man of whom we in- 
 quired our way maintained that the tree was apocryphal, 
 although in such cases I hold it wisest and pleasantest to 
 believe — the quaint old town itself, with the localities immor- 
 talised by Sir John and Sir Hugh, Dame Quickly and Justice 
 
A LITERARY LITE. 23 
 
 Shallow, and all the company of the Merry Wives, had to me 
 an unfailing attraction. To Windsor we drove again and again, 
 until the pony spontaneously turned his head Windsor-ward. 
 
 Then we reviewed the haunts of Gray, the house at Stoke 
 Pogis, and the churchyard where he is buried, and which 
 contains the touching epitaph wherein the pious son com- 
 memorates "the careful mother of many children, one of 
 whom only had the misfortune to survive her." To that spot 
 we drove one bright summer-day, and we were not the only 
 visitants. It was pleasant to see one admirer seated under a 
 tree, sketching the church, and another party, escorted by 
 the clergyman, walking reverently through it. Stoke Pogis, 
 however, is not without its rivals ; and we also visited the old 
 church at Upton, whose ivy-mantled tower claims to be the 
 veritable tower of the " Elegy." A very curious scene did that 
 old church exhibit — ^that of an edifice not yet decayed, but 
 abandoned to decay, an incipient ruin, such as probably might 
 have been paralleled in the monasteries of England after the 
 Eeformation, or in the churches of France after the first 
 Revolution. The walls were still standing, still full of monu- 
 ments and monumental inscriptions : in some the gilding was 
 yet fresh ; and one tablet, especially, had been placed there 
 very recently, commemorating the talent and virtues of the 
 celebrated astronomer. Sir John Hersohel. But the windows 
 were denuded of their glass, the font broken, the pews dis- 
 mantled ; whilst on the tottering reading-desk one of the 
 great Prayer-books, aU mouldy and damp, still lay open — last 
 vestige of the holy services with which it once resounded. 
 Another church had been erected, but it looked new and 
 naked, and everybody seemed to regret the old place of 
 worship, the roof of which was remarkable for the purity of 
 its design.* 
 
 Another of our excursions was to Ockwells — a curious and 
 beautiful specimen of domestic architecture in the days before 
 the Tudors. Strange it seems to me that no one has exactly 
 imitated that graceful front, with its steep roof terminated on 
 either side by two projecting gables, the inner one lower than 
 the other, adorned with oak-carving, regular and delicate as 
 that on an ivory fan. The porch has equal elegance. One 
 
 * Since writing this paper, the fine old church in qiieation ha.? 
 been completely restored. 
 
24 EECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 almost expects to see some baronial hawking-party, or some 
 bridal procession, issue from its recesses. The great hall, 
 although its grand open roof has been barbarously closed up, 
 still retains its fine proportions, its dais, its music-gaUery, and 
 the long range of windows, still adorned with the mottos and 
 escutcheons of the Norreys, their kindred and allies. It has 
 long been used as a farm-house ; and one marvels that the 
 painted windows should have remained uninjured through 
 four centuries of neglect and change. Much that was inter- 
 esting has disappeared, but enough still remains to gratify 
 those who love to examine the picturesque dwellings of our 
 ancestors. The noble staircase, the iron-studded door, the 
 prodigious lock, the gigantic key (too heavy for a woman to 
 wield), the cloistered passages, the old-fashioned buttery- 
 hatch, give a view not merely of the degree of civilisation of 
 the age, but of the habits and customs of familiar daily life. 
 
 Another drive took us to the old grounds of Lady Place, 
 where, in demolishing the house, care had been taken to pre- 
 serve the vaults in which the great "Whig leaders wrote and 
 signed the famous letter to William of Orange which drove 
 James the Second from the throne. A gloomy place it is 
 now — a sort of underground ruin — and gloomy enough the 
 patriots must have found it on that memorable occasion ; the 
 tombs of the monks (it had formerly been a monastery) under 
 their feet, the rugged walls around them, and no ray of light, 
 except the lanterns they may have brought with them or the 
 torches which they lit. Surely the signature of that sum- 
 mons which secured the liberties of England would make an 
 impressive picture — Lord Somers in the foreground, and the 
 other Whig statesmen grouped around him. A Latin inscrip- 
 tion records a visit made by George III. to the vaults ; and 
 truly it is amongst the places that monarchs would do well to 
 visit — full of stern lessons ! 
 
 Chief pilgrimage of all was one that led us first to Beacons- 
 field, through the delightful lanes of Buckinghamshire, with 
 their luxuriance of hedge-row timber, and their patches of 
 heathy common. There we paid willing homage to all that 
 remained of the habitation consecrated by the genius of 
 Edmund Burke. Little is left, beyond gates and outbuildings, 
 for the house has been burnt down and the grounds disparked ; 
 but still some of his walks remained, and an old well and 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 25 
 
 traces of an old garden — and pleasant it was to tread where 
 such a man had trodden, and to converse with the few who 
 still remembered him. We saw, too, the stalwart yeoman who 
 had the honour, not only of furnishing to Sir Joshua the 
 model of his" Infant Hercules," but even of suggesting the 
 subject. Thus it happened. Passing a few days with Mr. 
 Burke at his favourite retirement, the great painter accom- 
 panied his host on a visit to his bailiff. A noble boy lay 
 sprawling in the cradle in the room where they sat. His 
 mother would fain have removed him, but Sir Joshua, then 
 commissioned to paint a picture for the Empress Catherine, 
 requested that the child might remain, sent with all speed for 
 palette and easel, and accomplished his task with that success 
 which so frequently waits upon a sudden inspiration. It is 
 remarkable that the good farmer, whose hearty cordial kind- 
 ness I shall not soon forget, has kept in a manner most 
 unusual the promise of his sturdy infancy, and makes as near 
 an approach to the proportions of the fabled Hercules as ever 
 Buckinghamshire yeoman displayed. 
 
 Beaconsfield, however, and even the cherished retirement of 
 Burke, was by no means the goal of our pilgrimage. The true 
 shrine was to be found four miles farther, in the small cottage 
 at Chalfont St. Giles, where Milton found a refuge during the 
 Great Plague of London. 
 
 The road wound through lanes still shadier and hedge-rows 
 still richer, where the tall trees rose from banks overhung 
 with fern, intermixed with spikes of purple fox-glove ; some- 
 times broken by a bit of mossy park-paling, sometimes by the 
 light shades of a beech-wood, until at last we reached the 
 quiet and secluded village whose veiy first dwelling was con- 
 secrated by the abode of the great poet. 
 
 It is a small tenement of four rooms, one on either side the 
 door, standing in a little garden, and having its gable to the 
 road. A short inscription, almost hidden by the foliage of the 
 vine, tells that Milton once lived within those saored walls. 
 The cottage has been so seldom visited, is so little desecrated 
 by thronging admirers, and has suffered so little from alteration 
 or decay, and all about it has so exactly the serene and 
 tranquil aspect that one should have expected to see in an 
 English village two centuries ago, that it requires but a slight 
 effort of fancy to image to ourselves the old blind bard still 
 
26 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 sitting in that little parlour, or sunning himself on the garden- 
 seat beside the well. Milton is said to have corrected at 
 Chalfont some of the sheets of the " Paradise Lost," The 
 " Paradise Regained " he certainly composed there. One loves 
 to think of him in that calm retreat, — to look round that poor 
 room and think how Genius ennobles all she touches ! Heaven 
 forefend that change in any shape, whether of embellishment 
 or of decay, should fall upon that cottage ! 
 
 Another resort of ours — not a pilgrimage, but a haunt — was 
 the forest of old pollards, known by the name of Burnham 
 Beeches. A real forest it is — six hundred acres in extent, 
 and varied by steep declivities, wild dells, and tangled dingles. 
 The ground, clothed with the fine short turf where the thyme 
 and the harebell love to grow, is partly covered with luxuriant 
 fern ; and the jumper and the holly form a fitting underwood 
 for those magnificent trees, hollowed by age, whose profuse 
 canopy of leafy boughs seems so much too heavy for the thin 
 rind by which it is supported. Mr. Grote has a house here 
 on which we looked with reverence ; and in one of the lovehest 
 spots we came upon a monument erected by Mrs. Grote in 
 memory of Mendelssohn, and enriched by an elegant inscrip- 
 tion from her pen. 
 
 We were never weary of wandering among the Biu'nham 
 Beeches ; sometimes taking Dropmore by the way, where the 
 taste of the late Lord Grenville created from a barren heath 
 a perfect Eden of rare trees and matchless flowers. But even 
 better than amid that sweet woodland scene did I love to 
 ramble by the side of the Thames, as it bounded the beautiful 
 grounds of Lord Orkney, or the magnificent demesne of Sir 
 George Warrender, the verdant lawns of Oliefden. 
 
 That place also is full of memories. There it was that the 
 famous Duke of Buckingham fought his no less famous duel 
 with Lord Shrewsbury, whilst the fair countess, dressed, rather 
 than disguised, as a page, held the horse of her victorious 
 paramour. We loved to gaze on that princely mansion, re- 
 peating to each other the marvellous lines in which our two 
 matchless satirists have immortalised the Duke's follies, and 
 doubting which portrait were the best. We may at least be 
 sure that no third painter will excel them.* Alas ! who reads 
 
 * And yet they have been almost equalled by a French artist ; 
 Count Anthony Hamilton in the '•" Memoires de Grammont." 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 27 
 
 Pope or Dryden now ! I am afraid, very much afraid, that to 
 many a fair young reader these celebrated characters will be 
 as good as manuscript. I will at all events try the experiment. 
 Here they be : — 
 
 " In the first rank of these did Zimri stand : 
 A man so various, that he seemed to he 
 Kot one, but all mankind's epitome ; 
 Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong, 
 Was everything by starts and nothing long ; 
 But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
 Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; 
 Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 
 Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
 Blest madman, who could every hour employ, 
 With something new to wish or to enjoy ! " 
 
 DRiriEN, Absalom and Achitoplel. 
 
 Now for the little hunchback of Twickenham — 
 
 " In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung. 
 The walls of plaster, and the floor of dung ; 
 On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw. 
 With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, 
 Thg George and Garter dangling from that bed. 
 Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red : 
 Great Villiers lies : — but ah, how changed from him. 
 That life of pleasure and that soul of whim, 
 (rallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove, 
 The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ! 
 Or just as gay at counoU 'mid the ring 
 Of mimic statesmen and their merry king ! 
 No wit to flatter left of all his store ; 
 No fool to laugh at, which he valued more ; 
 There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends 
 And fame, the lord of useless thousands ends ! " 
 
 Pope, Moral Essays. 
 
 The charming walk at Lord Orkney's, which I was so kindly 
 permitted to enjoy, and which I did enjoy so thoroughly, ran 
 between the noble river shaded and overhung by trees, and 
 the high steep chalky cliff, also clothed with trees to the very 
 summit ; trees of all kinds, the oak, the beech, the ash, the 
 elm, the yew, the cypress, the pine, the juniper. The wood- 
 land path — ^no trimly-kept walk, but a rude narrow cart-track 
 — thridded its way amidst nooks so closely planted and 
 branches so interlaced, that oftentimes the water only glanced 
 upon us by glimpses through the foliage, just as in looking 
 upward we caught a gleam of the blue sky. Sometimes again 
 it was totally hidden, and we only felt the presence of the 
 
28 • KECOLLBCTIONB OF 
 
 river by the refreshing ooohieas of the breeze, and the gentle 
 rippling of the slow current ; while, sometimes, a sudden 
 opening would give to view some rude landing-place where 
 the boats were laden with chalk; or a vista accidentally 
 formed by the felling of some large tree would show us an 
 old mill across the stream framed in by meeting branches 
 like ^ picture. 
 
 The Taplow spring, with its pretty cottage for picnics, often 
 proved the end of our evening walks. I loved to see the 
 gushing of that cool clear sparkling spring, plashing over the 
 huge stones that seemed meant to restrain it, sporting in 
 pools and eddies, and lost almost as soon as it wells from the 
 earth amid the waters of the silver Thames. 
 
 Steep as it seems and is, the chalky cliff is not inaccessible. 
 Here and there it recedes from the river, sometimes hollowed 
 into deep oaves, and then again it advances with a more gradual 
 slope, so as to admit of zig-zag walks practised to the summit. 
 These walks, almost buried amongst the rich foliage, have a 
 singular attraction in their steepness and their difficulty. 
 Long branches of ivy trail from the cliff in every direction, 
 mingled at this season with a gorgeous profusion of the cling- 
 ing woodbine, the yellow St. John's-wort, and the large purple 
 flowers of the Canterbury bell. Our steps were literally 
 impeded by these long garlands. Our feet were perpetually 
 entangled in them. We crushed them as we passed. 
 
 The view from the Hermit's hut, on the height, is amongst 
 those that can never be forgotten. We looked over the tons 
 of the tail trees, down a sheer descent of I know not how 
 many hundred feet, to a weir upon the Thames, foaming and 
 brawling under our veiy eyes. Just beyond was one of the 
 lovehest reaches of the river, with Cookham bridge and the 
 fine old church forming a picture in itself. Then came a wide 
 extent of field and meadow, mansion and village, tower and 
 spire, the rich woods of Berkshire interspersed amongst all, 
 the noble river winding away into the distance, and the far- 
 off hills mingling with the clouds, until we knew not which 
 was earth or which was sky. 
 
 Very pleasant was that sojourn by the Thames side ; and 
 amongst the pleasures that I most value, one of those which 
 I brought home with me, and trust never to lose, must be 
 reckoned the becoming acquainted with Mr. Noel's " Rhymes 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 29 
 
 and Rouudelayes," and forming, not an acquaintance, for we 
 have never met, but a friendship with the author. 
 
 Mr. Noel resides in a beautiful place in that beautiful 
 neighbourhood, leading the life of an accomplished but some- 
 what secluded country gentleman ; — a most enviable life, and 
 one well adapted to the observation of nature and to the pro- 
 duction of poetry, but by no means so well calculated to 
 make a volume of poems extensively known. Hence it is that 
 the elegant and graphic description of Thames scenery which 
 1 subjoin, although it has been published nearly ten years, 
 will probably have the charm of novelty to many of ruy 
 readers : — 
 
 A THAMES TOTAGE. 
 
 Gracefully, gracefully glides our bark 
 
 On the bosom of Father Thames, 
 And before her bows the wavelets dark 
 
 Break into a thousand gems. 
 
 The kingfisher not straighter darts 
 
 Down the stream to his sweet mate's nest, 
 
 Than our arrowy pinnace shoots and parts 
 The river's yielding breast. 
 
 We have passed the chalk-cliff on whose crown 
 
 The hermit's hnt doth cling, 
 And the bank, whose hanging woods look down 
 
 On the smile of Cliefden spring. 
 
 We are come where Hedsor's crested fount 
 
 Pours forth its babbling rill, 
 And where the charmed eye loves to mount 
 
 To the small church on the hill. 
 
 On, like a hawk upon the wing. 
 
 Our little wherry flies ; 
 Against her bows the ripples sing, 
 
 And the wavelets round her rise. 
 
 In view is Cookham's ivied tower ; 
 
 And, up yon wUlowy reach. 
 Enfolding many a fairy bower. 
 
 Wave Bisham's woods of beech. 
 
 O'er Marlow's loveliest vale they look. 
 
 And its spire that seeks the skies ; 
 And afar, to where in its meadow-nook 
 
 Medmenham's Abbey lies. 
 
 Still on, still on, as we smoothly glide. 
 There are charms that woo the eye, — 
 
 Boughs waving green in the pictured tide. 
 And the blue reflected sky. 
 
30 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Swift (Iragou-flies, with tlieir gauzy wings. 
 
 Flit glistening to and fro. 
 And murmuring hosts of moving things 
 
 O'er the waters glance and glow. 
 There are spots where nestle wild flowers small 
 
 With many a mingling gleam ; 
 AVhere the broad flag waves, and the bulrush tall 
 
 Nods still to the thrusting stream. 
 The Forget-me-not on the watei-'s edge 
 
 Reveals her lovely hue. 
 Where the broken bank, between the sedge. 
 
 Is embroidered with her blue 
 And in bays where matted foliage weaves 
 
 A shadowy arch on high, 
 Serene on broad and bronze-like leaves. 
 
 The virgin lilies lie. 
 Fair fall those bonny flowers ! how 
 
 I love their petals bright ! 
 Smoother than Ariel's moonlit brow ! 
 
 The Water-Nymph's delight ! 
 Those milk-white cups with a golden core. 
 
 Like marble lamps, that throw 
 So soft a light on the bordering shore, 
 
 And the waves that round them flow ! 
 Steadily, steadily, speeds our bark. 
 
 O'er the silvery whirls she springs ; 
 While merry as lay of morning lark 
 
 The watery carol rings. 
 Lo ! a sailing swan, with a little fleet 
 
 Of cygnets by her side. 
 Pushing her snowy bosom sweet 
 
 Against the bubbling tide ! 
 And see — was ever a lovelier sight ? 
 
 One little bird afloat 
 On its mother's back, 'neath her wing so white — 
 
 A beauteous living boat ! 
 The tbreatful male, as he sails ahead, 
 
 Like a champion proud and brave. 
 Makes, with his ruflling wings outspread, 
 
 Fierce jerks along the wave. 
 He tramples the stream, as we pass him by. 
 
 In wrath from its surface springs. 
 And after our boat begins to fly, 
 
 With loudly-flapping wings. 
 Gracefully, gracefully glides our bai-k. 
 
 And the curling current stems. 
 Where the willows cast their shadows dark, 
 
 And the ripples gleam like gems ; 
 Oh, there's many a charming scene to mark 
 
 From the bosom of Father Thames 1 
 
A LlTEllAKT LIlfB. 3t 
 
 The following powerful lines are better knowu, and serve to 
 show the variety of Mr. Noel's talent : — 
 
 THE PAtJPEB's DRIVE. 
 
 There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot ; 
 To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot ; 
 The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, 
 And hark to the dirge that the sad driver singa : — 
 
 Battle his bones over the stones; 
 
 He's only a pauper who nobody owns. 
 Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas ! there are none ; 
 He has left not a gap in the world now he 's gone ; 
 Not a tear in the eye of child, woman or man : — 
 To the grave with his carcase as fast as you can. 
 
 Rattle bis bones over the stones ; 
 
 He's only a pauper who nobody owns. 
 What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din ! 
 The whip how it cracks, and the wheels how they spin ! 
 How the dirt right and left o'er the hedges is hurled I 
 The pauper at length makes a noise in the world. 
 
 Rattle his bones over the stones ; 
 
 He's only a pauper who nobody owns. 
 Poor pauper defunct ! he has made some approach 
 To gentility now that he's stretched in a coach; 
 He's taking a drive in his carriage at last, 
 But it will not be long if he goes on so fast ! 
 
 Rattle his bones over the stones ; 
 
 He's only a pauper who nobody owns. 
 But a truce to this strain ! for my soul it is sad 
 To think that a heart in humanity clad 
 Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end. 
 And depart from the light without leaving a friend. 
 Bear softly his bones over the stones. 
 Though a pauper, he 's one whom his Maker yet owns 
 
 The author tells me that this incident was taken from the 
 life. He witnessed such a funeral — a coffin in a parish hearse 
 driven at full speed. 
 
 IV. 
 OLD AUTHORS. 
 
 ABRAHAM COWIiET. 
 
 As, in the case of Ben Jonson, posterity values his writings 
 for very different qualities from those which obtained his 
 high reputation amongst his contemporaries, so it has hap- 
 pened to Cowley, 
 
32 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Praised in his day as a great poet, the head of the school of 
 poets called metaphysical, he is now chiefly known by those 
 prose essays, all too short and all too few, which, whether for 
 thought or for expression, have rarely been excelled by any 
 writer in any language. They are eminently distinguished for 
 the grace, the finish, and the clearness which his verse too 
 often wants. That there is one cry which pervades them — 
 vanity of vanities ! all is vanity ! — that there is an almost 
 ostentatious longing for obscurity and retirement, may be 
 accounted for by the fact that at an early age Cowley was 
 thrown among the cavaliers of the civil wars, sharing the 
 exile and the return of the Stuarts, and doubtless disgusted, 
 as so pure a writer was pretty sure to be, by a dissolute 
 Court, with whom he would find it easier to sympathise in 
 its misery than in its triumph. Buckingham, with the fellow- 
 feeling of talent for talent, appears to have been kind to him ; 
 and when he fled from the world (not very far— he found his 
 beloved solitude at Chertsey), it is satisfactory to know that 
 he so far escaped the proverbial ingratitude of the Restoration, 
 as to carry with him an income sufficient for his moderate 
 wants. He did not long survive a retirement which, Sprat 
 says, in a curious hfe prefixed to the edition of his works 
 in 1719, " agreed better with his mind than his body." 
 
 It is difficult to select from a volume so abundant in riches, 
 but I will begin by his opinion of theatrical audiences con- 
 tained in " The Preface to the Cutter of Coleman Street :" — 
 
 " There is no writer but may fail sometimes in point of 
 wit ; and it is no less frequent for the auditors to fail in 
 point of judgment. I perceive plainly by daily experience 
 that Fortune is mistress of the theatre, as Tully says it is of 
 all popular assemblies. No man can tell sometimes from 
 whence the invisible winds rise that move them. There are a 
 multitude of people who are truly and only spectators of 
 a play without any use of their understanding ; and these 
 carry it sometimes by the strength of their numbers. There 
 are others who use their understandings too much; who 
 think it a sign of weakness and stupidity to let anything pass 
 by them unattaeked, and that the honour of their judgment 
 (as some brutals imagine of their courage) consists in quarrel- 
 ling with everything. We are, therefore, wonderful wise men 
 and have a fine business of it, we who spend our time in 
 
A LITERARY LIPE." 33 
 
 poetry. I do sometimes laugh, and am often angry with 
 myself when I think on it ; and if I had a son inclined by 
 nature to the same folly, I believe 1 should bind him from it 
 by the strictest conjurations of a paternal blessing. Eor what 
 can be more ridiculous than to labour to give men delight, 
 whilst they labour on their part more earnestly to take 
 offence ? to expose oneself voluntarily and frankly to all the 
 dangers of that narrow passage to unprofitable fame, which is 
 defended by rude multitudes of the ignorant, and by armed 
 troops of the malicious ? If we do ill, many discover it, and 
 all despise us. If we do well, but few men find it out, and 
 fewer entertain it kindly. If we commit errors, there is no 
 pardon ; if we could do wonders, there would be but little 
 thanks, and that too extorted from unwilling givers.'' 
 
 Of course his play had been coldly received. Here is 
 another bit of autobiography, singularly interesting, as coming 
 from one who, although he never could retain the rules of 
 grammar, was an eminent scholar, and the most precocious of 
 all poets. It forms part of the essay, headed " Of Myself." 
 
 " It is a hard and a nice subject for a man to write of 
 himself. It pains his own heart to say anything of disparage- 
 ment, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from 
 him. There is no danger from me of my offending him in 
 that kind ; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune 
 allow me any materials for that vanity. 
 
 " As far as my memory can return back into my past life, 
 before I knew, or was capable of guessing, what the world or 
 the glories or business of it were, the natural affections of my 
 soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some 
 plants are said to turn away from others by an antipathy, 
 imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's under- 
 standing. Even when I was a very young boy at school, 
 instead of roaming about on holidays, and playing with my 
 fellows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the 
 fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion 
 if I could find him of the same temper. I was then, too, so 
 much an enemy to all constraint, that my master could never 
 prevail on me by any persuasions or encoiiragements to learn 
 without book the common rules of grammar ; in which they 
 dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift 
 
34 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 to do the same exercise out of my own reading and observa- 
 tion. That I was then of the same mind that I am now 
 (which, I confess, I wonder at myself) may appear by the 
 latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen 
 years old, and which was then printed with many other verses. 
 The beginning of it is boyish, but of this part which I have 
 set down (if a very little were corrected) I should hardly now 
 be much ashamed : — 
 
 " This only grant me, that my means may lie. 
 Too low for envy, for contempt too high. 
 
 Some honour I would have, 
 Not from great deeds, but good alone ; 
 The unknown are better than ill known 
 
 Rumour can ope the grave. 
 Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends, 
 Not on the number, but the choice of friends. 
 " Books should, as business, entertain the light. 
 And sleep as undisturbed as death, the night. 
 
 My house, a cottage more 
 Than palace ; and should fitting be 
 For all my use, no luxury. 
 
 My garden painted o'er 
 With nature's hand, not art's ; and pleasures yield, 
 Horace might envy in his Sabine field. 
 
 " Thus would I double my life's fading space. 
 For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. 
 
 And in this true delight. 
 These unbought sports, this happy state, 
 I would not fear, nor wish my fate ; 
 
 But boldly say each night, 
 To-morrow let my sun his beams display, 
 Or in clouds hide them — I have lived to-day. 
 
 " You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the 
 poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace) ; and per- 
 haps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which 
 stampt first, or rather engraved these characters in me ; they 
 were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which, with 
 the tree, stUl grows proportionably. But how this love came 
 to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe 
 I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first 
 with such chimes of verse as have never since left ringing 
 there : for I remember when I began to read and to take 
 some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's 
 parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in 
 her life read any book but of devotion), but there was wont to 
 
A LITEEAB\ tIFK 30 
 
 lie Spenser's works. This I happened to fall upon, and was 
 infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, 
 and monsters, and brave houses which I found everywhere 
 there (though my understanding had little to do with all 
 this) ; and by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and 
 dance of the numbers ; so that I think I had read him all over 
 before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet. 
 
 " With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set 
 upon letters, I went to the University ; but was soon torn 
 from thence by that violent public storm which would suffer 
 nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even 
 from the princely cedars to me the hyssop. Yet I had as 
 good fortuije as could have befallen in such a tempest ; for 
 I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and 
 into the Court of one of the best princesses of the world. 
 Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to 
 the original design of my life, that is, into much company and 
 no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both 
 militant and triumphant (for that was the state then of the 
 English and French Courts) ; yet all this was so far from 
 altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of 
 reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I 
 saw clearly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came 
 to it ; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, 
 for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewilder or entice 
 me, when I saw that it was adulterate. I met with several 
 great persons whom I liked very well, but could not perceive 
 that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no 
 more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm 
 although I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it : 
 a storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my 
 courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as 
 coidd be found anywhere, though I was in business of great 
 and honourable trust, though I ate at the best table, and 
 enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that 
 ought to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment 
 and public distresses, yet I could not abstain from renewing 
 my old schoolboy's wish in a copy of verses to the same 
 effect :— 
 
 ■' ■Well, then, I now do plainly see 
 This busy world and I shall ne'er agree. 
 d2 
 
36 EECOLEECTIONS OF 
 
 " And I never then proposed to myself any other advan- 
 tage from his Hajest/s happy Restoration, but the getting 
 into some* moderately convenient retreat in the country, 
 which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, 
 as well as some others, who, with no greater probabilities or 
 pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortune : but I. had 
 Isefore written a shrewd prophecy against myself ; and I think 
 Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance 
 of it :— 
 
 " Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, 
 
 Nor at the exchange shalt be; nor at the wrangling bar. 
 
 Content thyself with the small barren praise. 
 
 Which neglected verse doth raise. 
 
 "However, by the failing of the forces which I had ex- 
 pected, I did not quit the design, which I had resolved on. I 
 cast myself into it a corps perdu without making capitulations, 
 or taking counsel of Fortune. But God laughs at a man who 
 says to his soul, Take thy ease. I raet presently not only with 
 many little encumbrances and impediments, but with so much 
 sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoilt the 
 happiness of an emperor, as well as mine. Yet do I neither 
 repent nor alter my course, non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum, 
 nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved 
 so long, and have now at last married, though she neither has 
 brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me 
 as I hoped from her. 
 
 " Nor by me e'er shall you. 
 
 You of all names the sweetest and the best, 
 
 You, Muses, books and liberty, and rest ; 
 
 You, gardens, fields, and woods foi-saken be, 
 
 Ab long a? life itself forsakes not me." 
 
 The same vein runs through the charming Essay " O" 
 Obscurity :" — 
 
 * * * " The pleasantest condition of hfe is in incognito. 
 "What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentious, 
 from all envying, or being envied, from receiving or paying all 
 kinds of ceremonies ! It is, in my mind, a very delightful 
 pastime for two good and agreeable friends to travel up and 
 down together in places where they are by nobody known, 
 nor know anybody. It was the case of jEneas and his Achates, 
 when they walked invisibly about the fields and streets of 
 Carthage. Venus herself, 
 
A LITERAET LIFE. 37 
 
 " A veil of thickened air around them oast, 
 That none might know or see them as they past. 
 
 " The common story of Demosthenes' confession, that ho 
 had taken a great pleasure in hearing of a basket-woman say, 
 as he passed, ' This is that Demosthenes,' is wonderfully ridi- 
 culous from so solid an orator. I myself have often met with 
 that temptation to vanity (if it were any) ; but am so far from 
 finding it any pleasure, that it only makes me run faster from 
 the place till I get (as it were) out of sight-shot. Democritus 
 relates, and in such a manner as if he gloried in the good 
 fortune and commodity of it, that when he came to Athens, 
 nobody there did so much as take notice of him ; and Epicurus 
 lived there very well, that is, lay hid many years in his 
 gardens, so famous since that time, with his friend Metro- 
 dorus ; after whose death, making in one of his letters a kind 
 commemoration of the happiness which lihey two had enjoyed 
 together, he adds at laSt, that he thought it no disparagement 
 to those qualifications of their life, that, in the midst of the 
 most talked-of and talking country in the world, they had 
 lived so long, not only without fame, but almost without being 
 heard of. And yet, within a few years afterwards, there were 
 no two names of men more known, or more generally cele- 
 brated. If we engage into a large acquaintance, and various 
 familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of 
 our time : we expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid 
 impertinence, which would make a wise man tremble to think 
 of. Now, as for being known much by sight, and pointed at, 
 I cannot comprehend the honour' that lies in that. What- 
 soever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best 
 orator, and the hangman more than the Lord Chief Justice of 
 a city. Every creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be 
 anyways extraordinary. It was as often said, This is that 
 Bucephalus, or This is that Incitatus, when they were led 
 prancing through the streets, as This is that Alexander, or 
 This is that Domitian ; and truly for the latter, I take Inci- 
 tatus to have been a much more honourable beast than 
 his master, and more deserving the consulship than he the 
 empire. 
 
 " I love and commend a true, good fame, because it is the 
 shadow of virtue ; not that it doth any good to the body 
 which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious shadow, and hfce 
 
38 KKCOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 that of St. Peter, cures the diseases of others. The best kind 
 of glory, no doubt, is that which is reflected from honesty, 
 such as was the glory of Cato and Aristides ; but it was paiii- 
 ful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man while 
 he lives. What it is to him after his death I cannot say, 
 because I love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, 
 and no man who has made the experiment has been so kind 
 as to come back to inform us. Upon the whole matter, 
 I account a person who has a moderate mind and fortune, and 
 lives in the conversation of two or three agreeable friends 
 with little commerce in the world besides, who is esteemed 
 well enough by his few neighbom-s that know him, and is 
 truly irreproachable by anybody; and so after a healthful quiet 
 life before the great inconveniences of old age, goes more 
 silently out of it than he came in (for I would not have him 
 so much as cry in his exit) ; this innocent deceiver of the 
 world, as Horace calls him, this muta persona, I take to have 
 been more happy in his part than the greatest actors that till 
 the stage with show and noise, nay even than Augustus him- 
 self, who asked with his last breath whether ' he had not 
 played his farce very well.' " 
 
 We find another graceful bit of autobiography in an Essay 
 addressed to Evelyn, and called " The Garden :" — 
 
 "I never had any other desire so strong and so like to 
 covetousness, as that one which I have had always that I 
 might be master at last of a small house and large garden, 
 with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there 
 dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them 
 and study of nature — 
 
 " And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and entire to lie, 
 In no unaotive eaae and no unglorious poverty ; 
 
 or, as Virgil has said, shorter and better for me, that I might 
 there 
 
 " ' Studiis florere ignobilis oti.' 
 
 "(Although I could wish that he had rather said, 'nobilis 
 oti,' when he spoke of his own.) But several accidents of my 
 ill-fortune have disappointed me hitherto, and do still of that 
 felicity ; for though I have made the first and hardest step to 
 it by abandoning all ambitions and hopes in this world and 
 by retiring from the noise of all business, and almost com- 
 
A LITERAKX Lli'E. 39 
 
 pany, yet I stick still in the inn of a hired house and garden 
 amongst weeds and rubbish ; and without that pleasantest 
 work of human industry, the improvement of something 
 which we call (not very properly, but yet we call) our own. I 
 am gone out from Sodom, but I am not yet arrived at my 
 little Zoar. let me escape thither (is it not a little one ?) 
 and my soul shall live ! I do not look back yet, but I have 
 been forced to stop and make too many halts. You may 
 wonder, Sir (for this seems a httle too extravagant and 
 piudarical for prose), what I mean by all this preface ; it is to 
 let you know that though I have missed, like a chemist, my 
 great end, yet I account my affections and endeavours well 
 rewarded by something that I have met with, by the bye, 
 which is, that they have procured to me some part in your 
 kindness and esteem." 
 
 Here is a fine passage from the Essay " Of Solitude :" — 
 * * * " Happy had it been for Hannibal, if adversity 
 could have taught him as much wisdom as was learnt by 
 Scipio from the highest prosperities. This would be no 
 wonder, if it were as truly as it is colourably and wittily said 
 by Monsieur de Montaigne, ' That ambition itself might teach 
 u« to love solitude ; there is nothing that does so much hate 
 to have companions.' It is true it loves to have its elbows 
 free ; it detests to have company on either side ; but it de- 
 lights, above all things, in a train behind, ay, and a cheer too 
 before it. And the greatest part of men are so far from the 
 opinion of that noble Eoman, that if they chance to be at any 
 time without company they are like a becalmed ship ; they 
 never move but by the wind of other men's breath, and have 
 no oars of their own to steer withal." 
 
 The whole Essay " Of Liberty " is full of the happiest 
 adaptations of classical examples to Cowley's peculiar views. 
 He speedily dismisses the public side of the question, and 
 enlarges on the slavery to which ambitious men (Catiline 
 unfortunate in his ambition, Caesar prosperous) voluntarily 
 subject themselves in the pursuit of their object. There are 
 in this eloquent discourse many felicitous translations from 
 Cicero and Sallust, which, taken with the specimens of Ana- 
 creon (which my readers will find further on), may lead us 
 to lament deeply that, in that age of translators, Cowley 
 did not devote his cherished leisure to versions of some of 
 
40 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 the great masters of antiquity, especially the orators and 
 historians. 
 
 I prefer, however, to give an extract from the carious frag- 
 ment which he has entitled " On the Government of Oliver 
 Cromwell" — a strange vision of which the whole tenor is 
 strongly against the Great Protector, but into the midst of 
 which, put, it is true, into the mouth of a bad angel, the 
 following character of Cromwell is introduced as if by an 
 instinct of truth and candour which the writer found it 
 impossible to resist. Hume has inserted this character, 
 " altered," as he says, " in some particulars," in his history. 
 Why altered? The Scottish historian is a most clear and 
 pleasant narrator, but aurely he does not pretend to improve 
 Cowley's prose. I give it from the original. The spokesman 
 is the evil angel : — 
 
 "And pray, countryman," said he, very kindly and very 
 flatteringly, " for I would not have you fall into the general 
 error of the world, that detests and decries so extraordinary 
 a virtue, — what can be more extraordinary than that a person 
 of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which 
 have sometimes, or of mind which have often, raised men to 
 the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and 
 the happiness to succeed in so improbable a design as the 
 destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly- 
 founded monarchies upon the earth ? that he should have the 
 power or boldness to put his Prince and master to an open 
 and infamous death ; to banish that numerous and strongly- 
 allied family ; to do all this under the name and wages of a 
 Parhament; to trample upon them too as he pleased, and 
 spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them ; to 
 raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes ; 
 to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above 
 aU things that ever were called Sovereigns in England ; to 
 oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards 
 by artifloe ; to serve all parties patiently for a while ; and to 
 command them victoriously at last ; to overrun each corner 
 of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both 
 the riches of the south and the poverty of the north ; to bo 
 feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother 
 to the gods of the earth ; to call together parUaments with 
 a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 41 
 
 his mouth ; to be hourly and daily petitioned that he would 
 please to be hired at the rate of two millions a-year to be the 
 master of those who had hired him before to be their servant ; 
 to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at 
 his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to 
 be as noble and liberal iu the spending of them ; and lastly 
 (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to 
 bequeath all this with one word to his posterity ; to die with 
 peace at home and triumph abroad ; to be buried among kings 
 and with more than regal solemnity, and to leave a name be- 
 hind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world ; 
 which as it is now too little for his praises, so it might have 
 been too for his conquests, if the short time of his human 
 life could have been stretched out to the extent of his 
 immortal design." 
 
 Such is Cowley as a prose writer. And yet one of the most 
 accomplished persons whom I have ever known assured me 
 the other day, that, excepting amongst a few men of very 
 refined taste, he believed the Essays to be little read. They 
 will rise in demand soon, I hope ; for my friend Mr. Willmott, 
 a writer deservedly popular, has praised them in one of his 
 charming volumes jiist as they ought to be praised. It would 
 be difBcult' to say more. 
 
 The poems are singularly unequal. But as 1 for my own 
 private recreation am wont to resort to such innocent gaieties 
 as the fathers of song have bequeathed to us, so I seldom fail 
 to present them to my readers ; and it happens that this 
 philosopher, whom we have seen dealing with high and lofty 
 thoughts, descanting like a hermit on the joys of solitude and 
 the delights of the country, — and in this respect his odes are 
 nothing inferior to his Essays ; — it happens that this identical 
 Cowley hath left behind him the pleasantest of all pleasant 
 ballads, which could hardly have been produced by any one 
 except a thorough man of the world. It is entitled " The 
 Chronicle," and contains a catalogue of all the fair ladies with 
 whom he had at different times been enamoured. Never was 
 list more amusing. It abounds in happy traits, — especially 
 the one which tells to half an hour how long a silly beauty 
 may hope to retain the heart of a man of sense. The expres- 
 sion when the haughty Isabella, unconscious of her conquest 
 and marching on to fresh triumphs, beats out Susan " by the 
 
42 EECOLLECIIONS OF 
 
 bj'e," has passed into one of those proverbs, of which doubt- 
 less, as of many other by-words, they who use them little 
 guess the origin. 
 
 " The Chronicle " was written two hundred years ago. 
 Ladies, dear ladies, if one could be sure that no man would 
 open this book, if we were altogether in (female) parliament 
 assembled, without a single male creature within hearing, 
 might we not acknowledge that the sex, especially that part 
 of it formerly called coquette, and now known by the name 
 of flirt, is very little altered since the days of the Merry 
 Monarch? and that a similar Ust compiled by some gay 
 bachelor of Belgravia might, allowing for differences of custom 
 and of costume, serve very well as a companion to Master 
 Cowley's catalogue 1 I would not have a man read this 
 admission for the world. 
 
 THE OHRONIOLE. — A EALLiD. 
 
 Margarita first posseaaed. 
 
 If I remember well, my breast, 
 
 Margarita first of all ; 
 But when awhfle the wanton maid, 
 With my restless heart had played, 
 
 Martha took the flying b.ill. 
 
 Martha soon did it resign 
 To the beauteous Catherine : 
 
 Beauteous Catherine gave place 
 (Though loth and angry she to part 
 With the poaseasion of my heart) 
 
 To Eliza's conquering face. 
 
 Eliza to this hour might reign. 
 Had she not evil counsels ta'eu : 
 
 Fundamental laws she broke, 
 And still new favourites she chose, 
 Till up in arms my passions rose, 
 
 And cast away her yoke, 
 
 Mary then, and gentle Aime, 
 Both to reign at once began ; 
 
 Alternately they swayed, 
 And sometimes Maiy was the fair 
 And sometimes Anne the crown did wear 
 
 And sometimes both I obeyed. 
 Another Mary then arose. 
 Who did rigorous laws impose, 
 
 A mighty tyrant she ! 
 Long, alas 1 should I have been 
 Under that iron-sceptred queen. 
 
 Had not Rebecca set me free. 
 
A LITEEAET LIFE. 4S 
 
 When fair Rebecca set me free, 
 'Twai5 then a golden time with me, 
 
 But soon those pleasures fied ; 
 For the gracious princess died, 
 In her youth and beauty's pride, 
 
 And Judith reigned in her stead. 
 
 One month, three days, and half an hour, 
 Judith held the sovereign power : 
 
 Wondrous beautiful her face, 
 But so weak and small her wit. 
 That she to govern was unfit. 
 
 And so Susannah took her place. 
 
 But when Isabella came, 
 Armed with a resistless flame ; 
 
 By the artillery of her eye. 
 Whilst she proudly marched about. 
 Greater conquest to find out. 
 
 She beat out Susan, by the bye. 
 
 But in her place I then obeyed 
 Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid. 
 
 To whom ensued a vacancy. 
 Thousand worse passions then possessed 
 The interregnum of my breast, — 
 
 Bless me from such an anarchy ! 
 
 Gentle Henrietta then. 
 
 And a third Mary next began ; 
 
 Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria, 
 And then a pretty TJlomasine, 
 And then another Catherine, 
 
 And then a long et cetera. 
 
 But should I now to you relate 
 
 The strength and riches of their state. 
 
 The powder, patches, and the pins, 
 The ribands, jewels, and the rings. 
 The lace, the paint, and warlike things. 
 
 That make up all their magazines ; 
 
 If I should tell the politic arts 
 To take and keep men's hearts, 
 
 The letters, embassies, and spies, 
 The frowns, the smiles, and flatterieii. 
 The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, 
 
 Numberless, nameless mysteries ! 
 
 And all the little lime-twigs laid 
 By Maohiavel the waiting-maid ; 
 
 I more voluminous should grow. 
 Chiefly if I, like them, should tell 
 All change of weather that befell, 
 
 Than Holinshed or Stowe. 
 
44 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 But I will briefer with them be, 
 Since few of them were long with me 
 
 An higher and a nobler strain 
 My present empress doth claim, 
 Heleonora, first o' the name, 
 
 Whom God grant long to reign ! 
 
 I add a few original stanzas, which show Cowley's charac- 
 teristic merits and defects ; — very few, since I must find room 
 for some of those translations from Anaereon, which for grace, 
 spirit, and delicacy- will never be surpassed. 
 
 OF SOLITUDE. 
 
 Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good ! 
 Hail, ye plebeian underwood ! 
 
 Where the poetic birds rejoice. 
 And for their quiet nests and plenteous food. 
 
 Pay with their grateful voice, 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Here let me careless and unthoughtful lying. 
 Hear the soft winds above me flying ; 
 
 With all their wanton boughs dispute. 
 And the more tuneful birds to both replying, 
 
 Nor be myself, too, mute. 
 
 A silver stream shall roll his waters near. 
 Gilt with the sunbeams here and there. 
 
 On whose enamelled bank I'll walk, 
 And see how prettily they smile. 
 
 And hear how prettily they talk. 
 Ah I -wretched and too solitary he. 
 Who loves not his own company ; 
 
 He'll feel the weight of it many a day, 
 Unless he call in sin or vanity 
 
 To help to bear it away. 
 
 -» » » * 
 
 THE ghasshoppeb. 
 From Anaereon. 
 Happy insect I what can be 
 In happiness compared to thee ? 
 Fed -with nonrishment divjue. 
 The dewy morning's gentle -wine ! 
 Nature waits upon thee still, 
 And thy verdant cup doth fill ; 
 'Tis filled wherever thou does tread. 
 Nature's self, thy Ganymede. 
 Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, 
 Happier than the happiest king ! 
 All the fields which thou dost see, 
 All the plants belong to thee ; 
 
A LITBKAET LIFE. 45 
 
 All that sunimor hours produce, 
 
 Fertile made with early juice : 
 
 Man for thee doth sow and plough, 
 
 Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 
 
 Thou doat innocenlly joy, 
 
 Nor dost thy luxury destroy. 
 
 The shepherd gladly heareth thee, 
 
 More harmonious than he. 
 
 Thee oounti-y hinds with gladness hear, 
 
 Prophet of the ripened year ! 
 
 Thee Phoebus loves and doth inspire ; 
 
 Phoebus is himself thy sire. 
 
 To thee, of all things upon earth, 
 
 Life is no longer than thy mirth. 
 
 Happy insect ! happy thou. 
 
 Dost neither age nor winter know ; 
 
 But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung 
 
 Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, 
 
 (Voluptuous and wise withal. 
 
 Epicurean animal !) 
 
 Sated with thy summer feast. 
 
 Thou retir'st to endless rest. 
 
 DKINKINQ. 
 
 From Anacreon. 
 The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
 And drinks and gapes for drink again ; 
 The plants suck in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair ; 
 The sea itself, which, one would think, 
 Should have but little need of drink, 
 Drinks ten thousand rivers up. 
 So filled that they o'erSow the cup. 
 The busy sun, and one would guess 
 By's drunken fiery face, no less. 
 Drinks up the seri, and, when he's done. 
 The moon and stars drink up the sun. 
 They drink and dance by their own light, 
 They drink and revel all the night. 
 Nothing in nature's sober found. 
 But an eternal health goes round. 
 Fill up the bowl, then fill it high ! 
 Fill all the glasses there ! for why 
 Should every creature drink but I ! 
 Why, men of morals, tell me why ? 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 From Anacreon. 
 A Juighty pain to love it is. 
 And 'tis a pain that pain to miss ; 
 But of all pain, the greatest pain, 
 It is to love, and love in vain. 
 
48 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Virtue now nor noble blood. 
 Nor wit by love is understood. 
 Gold alone does passion move. 
 Gold monopolises love ! 
 A curse on her, and on the man 
 Who this traffic first began ! 
 A curse on him who found the ore ! 
 A curse on him who digged the store ! 
 A curse on him who did refine it ! 
 A curse on him who first did coin it ! 
 A curse, all curses else above. 
 On him who used it first in love ! 
 Gold begets in brethren hate ; 
 Gold in families debate ; 
 Gold does friendship separate ; 
 Gold does civil wars create ; 
 These the smallest harms of it ! 
 Gold, alas ! does love beget. 
 
 I cannot conclude without a word of detestation towards 
 Sprat, who, Goth and Vandal that he was, destroyed Cowley's 
 familiar letters. 
 
 V. 
 COMIC POETS. 
 
 A WET MORNING. 
 
 My acquaintance with " The Pleader's Guide " commenced 
 some five-and-forty years ago, after the following fashion. 
 
 It had happened to mo to make one of a large Christmas 
 party in a large country mansion, the ladies whereof were 
 assembled one morning dolefully enough in an elegant draw- 
 ing-room. It was what sportsmen are pleased to call " a fine 
 open day ; " which, being interpreted according to the feminine 
 version, means every variety of bad weather of which our 
 climate is capable, excepting frost. Dirt, intolerable dirt, it 
 always means, and rain pretty often. On the morning in 
 question, it did not absolutely rain, it only " mizzled ; " but 
 the clouds himg over our heads in a leaden canopy, threaten- 
 ing a down pour : and all the signs of the earth testified to 
 the foregone deluge that had already confined us to the house 
 until our patience was worn to a thread. Heavy drops fell 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 47 
 
 from the eaves, the trees in the park were dripping from 
 every bough, the fallen leaves under the trees dank with 
 moisture, the grass as wet as if it grew in a ford, the gravel- 
 walks soft and plashy, the carriage-drives no better than mud. 
 In short, it was the very dismalest weather that ever answered 
 to the name of " a fine open day ; " and our sportsmen accord- 
 ingly had all sallied forth to enjoy it, some to join Sir John's 
 hounds, some to a great coursing meeting at Streatley. 
 
 As we stood at the windows bemoaning our imprisonment, 
 we saw that the drizzle was fast settling into steady rain, and 
 that there was no more chance of a ride on horseback, or a 
 drive in an open carriage, than of the exhilarating walk which 
 is the proper exercise of Christmas. All the pets about the 
 park sympathised in our afflictions. The deer dropped off to 
 their closest covert ; the pied peacock, usually so stately and 
 so dignified as he trailed his spotted train after him, when he 
 came to the terrace to tap at the window for his dole of cake, 
 actually sneaked away when summoned, in pure shame at his 
 draggled tail ; the swans looked wet through. The whole 
 party seemed chilled and dismal, and I was secretly meditating 
 a retreat to my mother's dressing-room, to enjoy in quiet a 
 certain volume of " Causes Celebres," which I had abstracted 
 from the library for my own private solace, when everybody 
 was startled by a proposal of the only gentleman left at home ; 
 a young barrister, who had had sufiicient courage to confess 
 his indiiference to field sports, and who now, observing on the 
 ennui that seemed to have seized upon the party, ofiered to use 
 his best efforts to enliven us by reading aloud — by reading a 
 law-book. Fancy the exclamations at a medicine so singularly 
 ill-adapted to the disease ! For my own part, I was not so 
 much astonished. T suspected that the young gentleman had 
 got hold of another volume of my dearly beloved " Causes 
 Celebres," and was about to minister to our discontent by 
 reading a French trial. But the rest of the party laughed and 
 exclaimed, and were already so much aroused by the proposal, 
 that the cure might be said to be more than half accompHshed, 
 before our learned teacher opened the pages of the " Pleader's 
 Guide." 
 
 I wish I could communicate to my extracts the zest that 
 his selections derived from his admirable reading, and from 
 the humorous manner in which he expounded the mystery of 
 
48 BECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 the legal phrases, which I shaU do my best to avoid, not to 
 overtask my reader's ingeunity. 
 
 It is an old lawyer instructing a young one : — 
 
 " But chiefly thou, dear Job, my friend, 
 My kinsman, to my verse attend ; 
 By education formed to shine 
 Conspicuous in the pleading line ; 
 For you, from five years old to twenty 
 Were crammed with Latin words in plenty ; 
 Were bound apprentice to the Muses, 
 And forced with hard words, blows, and bruises 
 To labour on poetic ground. 
 Dactyls and spondees to confound 
 And when become in fictions wise. 
 In Pagan histories and lies. 
 Were sent to dive at Granta's cells 
 For truth in dialectic wells ; 
 Tliere duly bound for four years more 
 To ply the philosophic oar. 
 Points metaphysical to moot, 
 Chop logic, wrangle, and dispute ; 
 And now, by far tlie most ambitious 
 Of all the sons of Bergersdiscius, 
 Present the law with all the knowledge 
 You gathered both at school and college, 
 StiU bent on adding to your store 
 The graces of a Pleader's lore. 
 And, better to improve your taste. 
 Are by your parents' fondness placed 
 Among the blest, the chosen few 
 (Bleat if their happiness they knew). 
 Who, for three hundred guineas paid 
 To some great master of the trade. 
 Have, at his rooms, by special favour, 
 His leave to use their best endeavour. 
 By drawing pleas from nine till four. 
 To earn him twice three hundred more ; 
 And after dinner may repair 
 To 'foresaid rooms, and then and there 
 Have 'foresaid leave, from five till ten, 
 To draw the aforesaid pleas again." 
 
 Then he favours his pupil with a bit of his own history, 
 which seems to me capital : — 
 
 " Whoe'er has drawn a special plea 
 Has heard of old Tom Tewksbury ; 
 Deaf as a post, and thick as mustard, 
 He aimed at wit, and bawled and blustered. 
 And died a Nisi priiis leader — 
 That genius was my special pleader. 
 
A LITERARY LIPB. 49 
 
 That great man's office I attended, 
 
 By Hawk and Buzzard recommended ; 
 
 Attorneys both of wondrous skill 
 
 To pluck the goose and drive the quill. 
 
 Three years I sat his smoky room in. 
 
 Pens, paper, pounce and ink consuming ; 
 
 The fourth, when Essoign day begun. 
 
 Joyful I hailed the auspicious sun, 
 
 Bade Tewksbury and clerk adieu ; 
 
 'Purification Eighty-two 
 
 Of both I washed my hands ; and though 
 
 With nothing for my cash to show 
 
 But precedents, so scrawled and blurred 
 
 I scarce could read one single word. 
 
 Nor in my book of common-place 
 
 One feature of the law could trace. 
 
 Save Buzzard's nose and visage thin, 
 
 And Hawk's deficiency of chin, 
 
 Which I, while lolling at my ease, 
 
 Was wont to draw instead of pleas ; 
 
 Yet chambers I equipt complete, 
 
 Hired books, made friends, and gave to eat. 
 
 If, haply, to regale'my friends on, 
 
 My mother sent a haunch of ven'son, 
 
 I most respectfully entreated 
 
 The choicest company to eat it ; 
 
 To wit, old Buzzard, Hawk, and Crow, 
 
 Item Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co., 
 
 Attorneys all, as keen and staunch 
 
 As e'er devoured a client's haunch ; 
 
 E"or did I not their clerks invite 
 
 To taste said vension hashed at night 
 
 For well I knew that hopeful fry 
 
 My rising merit would descry. 
 
 The same litigious course pursue. 
 
 And, when to fish of prey they grew. 
 
 By love of food and contest led. 
 
 Would haimt the spot where once they fed. 
 
 Thus having with due circumspection 
 
 Formed my professional connexion, 
 
 My desk with precedents I strewed. 
 
 Turned critic, danced, or penned an ode, 
 
 Studied the ton, became a free 
 
 And easy man of gallantry ; 
 
 But if, while capering at my glass, 
 
 Or toying with some fovourite lass, 
 
 I heard the aforesaid Hawk adeeming, 
 
 Or Buzzard on the staircase humming, 
 
 At once the fair angelic maid 
 
 Into my coal-hole I conveyed ; 
 
 * The Purification of the Virgin Maiy is one of the return days 
 of Hilary Term. 
 
 E 
 
50 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 At once, with serious look profonnd, 
 
 And eyes commeromg witli the ground, 
 
 I seemed as one estranged to sleep, 
 
 And, fixed in cogitation deep, 
 
 Sate motionless ; while in my hand I 
 
 Held my Doctrina Plaoitandi. 
 
 And though I never read a page in 't, 
 
 Thanks to that shrewd well-judging agent. 
 
 My sister's husband, Mr. Shark, 
 
 Soon got six pupils and a clerk. 
 
 Five pupils were my stint, the other 
 
 I took to compliment his mother." 
 
 Thia piece of autobiography seema to me admirable for ita 
 neatiie.sa and point, its humour and ita good-humour. The 
 termination of the poem is a trial of matchless pleasantry 
 between John-a-Gull and John-a-Gudgeon, for an assault at an 
 election. I transcribe the commencement and part of the 
 opening speech — a piece of legal comedy which will make ita 
 way even with the least learned reader : — 
 
 THE TKIAL.* 
 JOHN-A-GULL, ■) 
 
 at St. V In Trespass. 
 
 JOHN-A-G0DGEON, ) 
 
 For the Plaintif, Mr. Counsellor Botheb'um. — For the Defmdant, 
 Mr. Counsellor Bore' an. —Mr. Bother'um opens the pleadings. 
 His speech at length : — 
 
 " I rise with pleasure, I assure ye. 
 With transport to accost a jury 
 Of your known conscientious feeling, 
 Candour, and honourable dealing. 
 From Middlesex f discreetly chosen 
 (A worthy and an upright dozen), [_Aside. 
 
 This action, gentlemen, is brought. 
 By John-a-Gudgeon for a tort — " 
 
 Our French will aerve us for this legal word, which is, I 
 suppose, old Norman-French, pronounced English-wise, but 
 signifying a wrong, as one might guess from the modern 
 tongue : — 
 
 " By Johu-a-Gudgeon for a tort ; 
 The pleadings state ' that John-a-Qull, 
 "With envy wrath and malice full, 
 
 ' As taken by an eminent short-hand writer. 
 
 + Middlesejc This being an election affray, the venue is sup- 
 posed to have been changed upon the usual affidavit, for the sake ol 
 a more fair and impartial trial before a Middlesex jury. 
 
A LIIEKART LIFE. 51 
 
 ■With swords, knives, sticks, staves, fist and bludgeon. 
 Beat, bruised, and wounded Johu-a-Gudgeon.' " 
 
 This prodigious accumulation of weapons, as well as tlie 
 " twelve pots, twelve mugs," and so forth, to which we are 
 coming, is an imitation of the real law fictions and endless 
 repetitions which result from the circumstance of nothing 
 being allowed to be proven at a trial that has not been named 
 in the indictment, whereas there is no rule to compel tho 
 proof of more than the counsel think essential to the case ; 
 it is, therefore, really usual to provide against all contin- 
 gencies by enumerating far more particulars than are likely to 
 be brought forward. Lawyers will best feel the satire, but aU 
 can enjoy the fun : — 
 
 " First count's for that with divers jugs, 
 To wit, twelve pots, twelve cups, twelve mugs, 
 Of certain vulgar drink, called toddy. 
 Said Gull did sluice said Gudgeon's body. 
 The second count's for other toddy. 
 Thrown by said Gull on Gudgeon's body ; 
 To wit, his gold-laoed hat and hair on. 
 And clothes which he had then and there on ; 
 To wit, twelve jackets, twelve surtouts, 
 Twelve pantaloons, twelve pair of boots, 
 Which did thereby much discompose 
 Said Gudgeon's mouth, eyes, ears, and nose. 
 Back, stomach, neck, thighs, feet, and toes ; 
 By which and other wrongs unheard of. 
 His clothes were spoilt and life despaired of : 
 To all these counts the plea I find 
 Is son assault and issue's joined." 
 
 Here our French helps us again, and the common expres- 
 sion of joining issue. Now for Counsellor Bother'um's history 
 of the battle. The watery names are very happy : — 
 
 " Such, gentlemen, is word for word 
 The story told on this record. 
 The fray was at a feast or revel, 
 At Toadland, on the Bedford Level, 
 Given, as was usual at elections, 
 By Gudgeon to his Fen connections. 
 They'd had a meeting at the ' Swan' 
 The day before the poll began. 
 And hence adjourned it to make meriy 
 With Mr. Coot, who keeps the ' Ferry.' 
 Now John-a-Gull, who thrusts his nose 
 Wherever Johna-Gudgeon goes, 
 To this same feast, without suspicion, 
 Unasked, it seems, had gained admiasion. 
 e2 
 
52 EECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 Coot had just finished an oration, 
 
 And Gudgeon, with much approbation. 
 
 Was singing an election ballad, 
 
 Penned by the ingenious Doctor Mallard, 
 
 (That orthodox and learned writer, 
 
 Who bids so fairly for a mitre,) 
 
 When Gull, who heard this song or sonnet, 
 
 With Mr. Gudgeon's comments on it ; 
 
 This Gull, whose very name denoted 
 
 The character for whom he voted. 
 
 Flourished his knuckles in derision. 
 
 And, with much promptness of decision, 
 
 Began to pummel and belabour 
 
 The short ribs of his peaceful neighbour ; 
 
 But first with tweaks assailed his nose, 
 
 And interspersed said tweaks with blows. 
 
 Gudgeon explained, and Gull recourse had 
 
 To other tweaks like tweak aforesaid. 
 
 Heaven knows a milder gentler creature 
 
 Never was seen in human nature 
 
 Than the forbearing and well-judging, 
 
 Discreet and gentle John-a-Gudgeon ! 
 
 And, gentlemen, there 's no man's face is 
 
 Better received at all your races. 
 
 Wells, mouths and water-drinking places ; 
 
 Was alderman and mayor elect. 
 
 Once had the honour to be pricked 
 
 For sheriff, which important station 
 
 He gained without solicitation. 
 
 No doubt his lordship recognises 
 
 The coat he had on at assizes, 
 
 A velveret, genteel and neat, 
 
 With tabby lined and frogs complete, 
 
 Made for Squire Gudgeon's wedding ball, 
 
 When first he came to Webfoot Hall, 
 
 An ancient seat in the Isle of Ely, 
 
 Where all the Gudgeons lived genteelly ; 
 
 Which coat, so trimmed, so frogged, said Gull 
 
 Did spoil, besmear, and disannul 
 
 With the most villanous libations 
 
 Of the most vile of vile potations ; 
 
 For proof we '11 call Gull's worthy friend. 
 
 Who keeps a school at Toadland's end ; 
 
 One Simon Trout, a pious pastor. 
 
 And Dr. Tench, who spread the plaister ; 
 
 And Farmer Chubb, an honest yeoman. 
 
 Who speaks the truth and cares for no man 
 
 But, above all, to prove our case, 
 
 We'll show you Mr. Gudgeon's face. 
 
 Where every injured feature pleads 
 
 'Gainst John-a-GuU's atrocious deeds ; 
 
 What facts, what species of excuse, 
 
 My brother Bore'um will produce. 
 
A LITBEARr LIFE. 63 
 
 What case he'll make, and how maintaiu 
 
 His plea of son assault demesne. 
 
 Wise as he looks, you may rely on't, 
 
 He knows no more than his own client. 
 
 'T is for you, gentlemen, to say 
 
 What damage John-a-GuU shall pay ; 
 
 'Tis in your wisdom, gentlemen, to pull 
 
 So wide the purse-strings of this factious Gull, 
 
 That he no more may triumph and parade 
 
 The streets of Cambridge in a blue cockade," &c. &c. 
 
 Here follows a grand and solemn peroration, such as may 
 often be heard in a court of Justice, and read in the " Times." 
 
 Then comes a most graphic and dramatic examination of 
 witnesses. Simon Trout, dissenting minister and school- 
 master, is examined by Mr. Bother'um, and cross-examined 
 by Mr. Bore'um. At first Mr. Trout will speak according to 
 hearsay, what Chubb told him, and Tench ; there is no keeping 
 him to what he himself heard and saw, and Bother'um and 
 Bore'um wrangle over him accordingly. At last, in the middle 
 of much rambling, he swears point blank to the assault com- 
 mitted by Gull, and then Bother'um, feeling him to be a 
 dangeroiis witness, says — 
 
 Both. Come, Sir, we won't detain you. GuH, 
 
 You're sure, smote Gudgeon oa the skull ? 
 Trout. He did. 
 Bore. Stay, Mr. What-dy'e-call'em, 
 
 You say you saw Gull bruise and maul him ? 
 Trovi. Yes. 
 Bore. And you never go to dinners 
 
 To feast with publicans and sinners ! 
 
 What ! was the bludgeon pretty thick ? 
 Trovi. I cannot say I saw the stick. 
 Bore. Stay, Sir, I think that you're a teacher ! 
 
 and so forth ; and, in a dexterous cross-examination, he ex- 
 torts the admission that there has been some provocation, 
 and that it merged into a regular fight. Then we have the 
 medical witness. Dr. Tench, surgeon and apothecary, ad- 
 mirably technical, translating the commonest word into 
 Latin : — 
 
 " The fauces is in a sad condition, 
 Between the nares no partition ;" 
 
 (the results of the two tweaks ;) 
 
 " But both so joined into conjunction, 
 The olfactories declined their function ; 
 
fi4 RECOLLECTIOKS OP 
 
 Some teeth were broke, and some were lost, 
 
 The incisores suffered most ; 
 
 Much mischief done to the molares — 
 
 And what a very strange affair is, 
 
 Not the least symptom could I see 
 
 Of dentes sapientije." 
 The Doctor is dismissed, and Fanner Chubb appears, at first 
 a stolid stupid witness, from whom it is difficult to extort 
 a word, and who has a mind to break away : — 
 
 " My lord, I wishes to be going. 
 For 'tis a charming time for sowing." 
 
 (Lent assizes, I presume !) 
 
 Both. Stay, Mr. Chubb; speak out, Sir, do ! 
 
 Did Gull beat Gudgeon ? Is that true ? 
 Ck-uhh. Beat him ! He beat him black and blue. 
 
 I never see'd a prettier hght, 
 
 So full of malice like, and spite. 
 Bore. A fight I Ho ! ho ! the truth's come out, 
 
 A fair set-to — a boxing bout ? 
 Both. And this you positively swear. 
 Chubb. Ay, sure ; why Simon Trout was there. 
 
 And then it appears that the schoolmaster had done all he 
 could to promote the fray, and had endeavoured to persuade 
 Chubb to act as bottle-holder to one of the parties. Chubb 
 is dismissed, and Bore'um makes a most characteristic defence 
 — cites half-a-dozen books — upon which Bother'um cites some- 
 where about a score ; they hurl argument against argument, 
 case against case, and get into a prodigious fury. Bore'um 
 vows — 
 
 " If all that I've advanced this day 
 Be not good law, my lord, and sound 
 As e'er was broached on legal ground, 
 Soon as to chambers I return 
 AU my black-letter books I'll bum." — 
 " Hold, hold" (quoth Bother'um), " 'twould be cruel 
 To turn your fixtures into fuel, 
 Those precious tomes with cobwebs spread, 
 Which sleep so peaceful o'er your head ; 
 Ere yet sentence is decreed 'em, 
 Do read 'em. Master Bore'um, read 'em ! " 
 
 After which piece of malice both parties suddenly cool 
 down : — 
 
 " Both lovingly agreed at once to draw 
 A special case, and save the point in law, 
 That so the battle, neither lost or won 
 Continued ended, and again begun, 
 Might still survive, and other suits succeed 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 55 
 
 For future heroes of the gown to lead, 
 And future bards in loftier verse to plead." 
 
 Although I am copying from the sixth edition, this pleasant 
 poem is now so scarce, that, after a long search in London, 
 I fairly gave up all hopes of succeeding, and only obtained 
 the volume at Bath, the birth-place of the author, who was 
 the son of Christopher Anstey, the well-known writer of the 
 Bath Guide. 
 
 The law of this book is said to be excellent. It is recorded 
 of I know not what great legal luminary, that the only poem 
 he ever read in the course of his life was "The Pleader's 
 Guide," and that he had the triumph and satisfaction of dis- 
 covering a flaw therein. 
 
 TI. 
 AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 HENRT WADSWORTH LONOrBLLOW. 
 
 The representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race across the 
 Atlantic — our cousins I do not know how many degrees re- 
 moved — have in no way better proved their kindred than by 
 the growing pith and substance of their literature. Of such 
 prose writers as Channing, Norton, Prescott, Ware, Cooper, 
 and Washington Irving, together with the many who, where 
 there are such leaders, are sure to press close upon their foot- 
 steps, any country might be proud. But one want they had ; 
 and although not particularly fond of pleading guilty to defi- 
 ciencies of any sort, they confessed it themselves : the want 
 of a great poet. Of elegant versifiers there was no lack. 
 I doubt if, for the fifty years that preceded the French Revo- 
 lution, England herself had been better ofi' in the way of 
 smooth and polished rhyme. But they are an ambitious race 
 these transatlantic kinsmen of ours, commonly called Ameri- 
 cans; they like to have the best that can be obtained in every 
 department, and they do not dislike to vaunt of their posses- 
 sions ; and now that their great literary want is supplied in 
 the person of Henry Wads worth Longfellow, they may glorify 
 themselves to their heart's content, certain that every lover 
 
56 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 of poetry, whether bom under the red-cross banner of Queen 
 Victoria, or the stripes and stars of the States, will join the 
 general All Hail ! 
 
 I do not know a more enviable reputation than Professor 
 Longfellow has won for himself in this country — won too 
 with a rapidity seldom experienced by our own native poets. 
 The terseness of diction and force of thought delight the old ; 
 the grace and melody enchant the young ; the unaffected and 
 all-pervading piety satisfies the serious ; and a certain slight 
 touch of mysticism carries the imaginative reader fairly off 
 his feet. For my own part, I confess, not only to the being 
 captivated by all these qualities (mysticism excepted), but to 
 the farther fact of yielding to the charm of certain lines, I 
 cannot very well tell why, and walking about the house 
 repeating to myself such figments as this : — • 
 " I give the first watch of the night 
 To the red planet Mars," 
 as if I were still eighteen. I am not sure that this is not as 
 great a proof of the power of the poet as can be given. 
 
 In speaking of Professor Longfellow's popularity in England, 
 I refer chiefly to the smaller pieces, which form, however, the 
 larger portion of his collected works. The " Spanish Student," 
 although beautifully written, is too little dramatic, and, above 
 all, too Spanish for our national taste ; and " Evangeline," 
 with its experiments in English versification, and its strange 
 union of a semi-ideal passion with the m.ost real and posi- 
 tive of all Dutch painting, must be regarded as still upon 
 its trial. 
 
 The shorter poems are enough. I would fain have enriched 
 my pages with the " Excelsior " and the " Psalm of Life," but 
 they have been long enough printed to have found their way 
 to many hearths and hearts. I prefer, therefore, quoting fi-om 
 the later volumes, which have only recently become known in 
 England, although I could not resist the temptation of insert- 
 ing the noble tribute to the painter and the bard, which makes 
 the glory of the stirring lyric on Nuremberg : — 
 
 HUEEMBEKO. 
 
 In the valley of the Pagnitz, where across broad meadow-lauds 
 Bise the blue Franoonian mountains, Nuremberg the ancient stands. 
 Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song. 
 Memories haunt thy pointed gables, Uke the rooks that round them 
 throng ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 57 
 
 Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 
 Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old ; 
 And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme. 
 That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime. 
 
 In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band, 
 Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cuniguuda's hand : 
 On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days 
 Sat the poet Melohior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise. 
 Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of ai t — 
 Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common 
 
 mart 
 And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone. 
 By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own. 
 In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust. 
 And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust ; 
 In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare, 
 Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. 
 Here, when art was still religion, with a simple reverent heart. 
 Lived and laboured Albrecht Diirer, the Evangelist of Art. 
 Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand, 
 Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land. 
 Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies ; 
 Dead he is not — but departed — for the artist never dies. 
 Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair 
 That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air ! 
 Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal 
 
 lanes 
 Walked of yore the Master-Singers, chanting rude poetic strains. 
 From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild, 
 Bunding nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows buUd. 
 As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, 
 And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime ; 
 Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy 
 In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom, [bloom 
 
 Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft, 
 Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sung and laughed. 
 
 But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely-sanded floor. 
 And a garland in the window, and his face above the door ; 
 
 Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Pusohman's song, [long. 
 As the old man, grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and 
 
 And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care. 
 Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair. 
 
 Vanished is the ancient splendour, aid before my dreamy eye 
 Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry. 
 
 Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard. 
 But thy painter, Albrecht Diirer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard. 
 
58 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Thus, Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away [lay ; 
 
 As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless 
 Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil, 
 The nobility of labour, the long pedigree of toil. 
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW. 
 
 The old house by the lindens 
 
 Stood silent in the shade, 
 And on the gravelled pathway 
 
 The light and shadow played. 
 I saw the nursery window 
 
 Wide open to the air ; 
 But the faces of the children 
 
 They were no longer there. 
 The large Newfoundland house-dog 
 
 Was standing by the door ; 
 He looked for his little playmates 
 
 Who would return no more. 
 They walked not under the lindens. 
 
 They played not in the hall ; 
 But shadow and silence and sadness 
 
 Were hanging over all. 
 
 The birds sang in the branches 
 
 With sweet familiar tone ; 
 But the voices of the children 
 
 Will be heard in dreams alone ! 
 
 And the boy that walked beside me 
 
 He could not understand 
 Why closer in mine, — ah, closer ! — 
 
 I pressed his warm, soft hand ! 
 
 The charming touch in the last stanza has a pathos peculiar 
 to Professor Longfellow. The next poem is also one which, 
 if printed anonymously, we should, I think, be ready to assign 
 to the right author. 
 
 THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIBS. 
 
 LVtemite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans 
 cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaus : 
 Toujours — jamais! Jamais — toujours ! — Jacques Bbioaine. 
 Somewhat back from the village street 
 Stands the old-fashioned country seat. 
 Across its antique portico 
 Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw 
 And from iti station in the hall 
 An ancient time-piece says to all : 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 "^ever — forever." 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 59 
 
 HaK way up the stairs it stands, 
 And points and beckons with its hands 
 From its case of massive oak, 
 Like a monk, who, under his cloak, 
 Crosses himself, and sighs, alas 1 
 With sorrowful voioe to all who pass : 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Never — ^forever ! " 
 
 Through days of sorrow and of mirth, 
 
 Through days of death and days of birth, 
 
 Through every swift vicissitude 
 
 Of changeful time, unchanged it stood, 
 
 As if, like God, it aU things saw. 
 
 It calmly repeats those words of awe : 
 
 " Forevei- — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 In that mansion used to be 
 Free-hearted Hospitality ; 
 His great fires up the chimney roared ; 
 The stranger feasted at his board ; 
 But, like the skeleton at the feast, 
 That warning time-piece never ceased : 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Never— forever ! " 
 
 There groups of merry children played ; 
 There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed ; 
 precious hours ! golden prime 
 And affluence of love and time ! 
 Even as a miser counts his gold 
 Those hours the ancient time-piece told : 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 From that chamber, clothed in white. 
 The bride came forth on her wedding-night ! 
 There, in that silent room below, 
 The dead lay in his shroud of snow ! 
 And in the hush that followed the prayer, 
 Was heard the old clock on the stair : 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Never — ^forever !" 
 
 All are scattered now and fled, 
 Some are married, some are dead ; 
 And when I ask, with throbs of pain. 
 Ah ! when shall they all meet again 
 As in the days long since gone by ? 
 The ancient time-piece makes reply : 
 
 f Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever ! " 
 
 Never, here, forever there. 
 Where all jiarting, pain and care. 
 
60 RECOLLECa'IONS OF 
 
 And death and time shall disappear ! 
 Forever there, but never here ! 
 The horologe of Eternity 
 Sayeth this incessantly : 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Kever — forever 1 " 
 
 The twilight is sad and cloudy, 
 
 The wind blows vrild and free. 
 And, like the wings of sea-birds. 
 
 Flash the wild caps of the sea. 
 But in the fisherman's cottage 
 
 There shines a ruddier light. 
 And a little fa«e at the window 
 
 Peers out into the night. 
 Close, close it is pressed to the window. 
 
 As if those childish eyes 
 Were looking into the darkness. 
 
 To see some form arise. 
 And a woman's waving shadow 
 
 Is passing to and fro. 
 Now rising to the ceiling. 
 
 Now bowing and bending low. 
 What tale do the roaring ocean. 
 
 And the night-wind bleak and wUd, 
 As they beat at the crazy casement. 
 
 Tell to that little child ? 
 And why do the roaring ocean. 
 
 And the night-wind wild and bleak, 
 As they beat at the heart of the mother, 
 
 Drive the colour from her cheek ? 
 
 EESIQNAIION. 
 
 There is no flock, however watched and tended. 
 
 But one dead lamb is there I 
 There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
 
 But has one vacant chair ! 
 The air is full of farewells to the dying 
 
 And mournings for the dead ; 
 The heart of Eachel, for her children crying. 
 
 Will not be comforted ! 
 Let us be patient ! These severe afflictions 
 
 Not from the ground arise. 
 But oftentimes celestial benedictions 
 
 Assume this dark disguise. 
 We see but dimly through the mists and vapours 
 
 Arai(Mhese earthly damps, 
 What seem to us but sad funereal tapers. 
 
 May be heaven's distant lamps. 
 
A LTTEHAST LIFE 61 
 
 There is no death ! What aeems bo Is transition ; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 Is but a suburb of the life Elyaian, 
 
 Whose portal we call Death. 
 
 She is not dead, the child of our affection, 
 
 But gone unto that school 
 Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 
 
 And Christ himself doth rule. 
 
 In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion 
 
 By guardian angels led, 
 Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, 
 
 She lives, whom we call dead. 
 
 Day after day, we think what she is doing 
 
 In those bright realms of air ; 
 Tear after year, her tender steps pursuing, 
 
 Behold her grown more fair. 
 
 Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken 
 
 The bond which Nature gives, 
 Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, 
 
 May reach her where she lives. 
 
 Not as a child shall we again behold her. 
 
 For when, with raptures wild, 
 In our embraces we again enfold her. 
 
 She will not be a child ; 
 
 But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion. 
 
 Clothed with celestial grace ; 
 And beautiful, with all the soiil's expansion, 
 
 Shall we behold her face. 
 
 And though at times impetuous with emotion 
 
 And anguish long suppressed. 
 The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean. 
 
 That cannot be at rest, — 
 
 We will be patient and assuage the feeling 
 
 We may not wholly stay ; 
 By silence sanctifying, not concealing. 
 
 The grief that must have way. 
 
 £ add one simile from the "Address to a Child :" 
 
 By what astrology of fear or hope 
 
 Dare I to cast thy horoscope ! 
 
 Like the new moon thy life appears 
 
 A little strip of silver-light. 
 
 And, widening outward into night, 
 
 The shadowy disk of future years ! 
 
 And yet, upon its outer rim, 
 
 A luminous circle faint and dim, 
 
 And scarcely visible to us here, 
 
 Rounds and completes the perfect sphere. 
 
C2 R300LLEOTIONS OP 
 
 A prophecy and intimation, 
 A pale and feetle adumbration, 
 Of the great world of light that lies 
 Beyond all human destinies ! 
 
 The concluding extract has a stronger recommendation than 
 any other that I can give ; it is Mrs. Browning's favourite 
 among the poems of Longfellow : 
 
 THE ABEOW AND THE SONG. 
 
 I shot an arrow into the air. 
 It fell to earth I knew not where ; 
 For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
 Could not follow in its flight. 
 
 I breathed a song into the air. 
 It fell to earth I knew not where ; 
 For who has sight so keen and strong 
 That it can follow the flight of song ? 
 
 Long, long afterwards, in an oak 
 I found the arrow still unbroke ; 
 And the song, from beginning to end, 
 I found again in the heart of a frieni 
 
 I venture to add an anecdote new to the English public. 
 
 Professor Longfellow's residence at Cambridge, a picturesque 
 old wooden house, has belonging to it the proudest historical 
 associations of which America can boast : it was the head- 
 qxiarters of Washington. One night the poet chanced to look 
 out of his window, and saw by the vague starlight a figure 
 riding slowly past the mansion. The face could not be dis- 
 tinguished ; but the tall erect person, the cocked hat, the 
 traditional costume, the often-described white horse, all were 
 present. Slowly he paced before the house and then returned, 
 and then again passed by, after which neither horse nor rider 
 were seen or heard of 
 
 Could it really be Washington? or was it some frolio- 
 masquerader assuming his honoured form ? For my part I 
 hold firmly to the ghostly side of the story ; so did my inform- 
 ant, also a poet and an American, and as worthy to behold 
 the spectre of the illustrious warrior as Professor Longfellow 
 himself. I can hardly say more. 
 
A LETERAKT LIFE. 63 
 
 VII. 
 
 AUTHORS SPRUNG FROM THE PEOPLE. 
 
 THOMAS HOLCBOI'T. 
 
 I RBMBMBEE Saying one day to a woman of high genius that 
 a mutual friend of hers and mine proposed to give a series of 
 lectures on authors sprung from the people, from the masses 
 as it is the fashion to say now-a-days, and her replying quickly : 
 " Why all authors who are worth reading are sprung from the 
 people ; — it is the well-born who are the exceptions." And 
 then she ran through a bead-roll of great names from Chaucer 
 to Bums : nevertheless, this repartee was not quite accurate ; 
 not a whit more accurate than a repartee usually is ; for the 
 number of educated writers must always preponderate. But 
 still the class of self-educated writers is large, increasingly 
 large ; and truthful biographies of such persons must always 
 be amongst the most interesting books in the world, as show- 
 ing better than any other books the development and growth 
 of individual minds. 
 
 Mr. Bamford's "Life of a Radical," and Mr. Somerville's 
 account of his own career, have much of this merit ; but the 
 most curious of all these memoirs, both for the vicissitudes of 
 the story and the indomitable character of the man, is the 
 " Life of Thomas Holcroft," begun by himself and concluded 
 by HazUtt. 
 
 Of his strength of character no better evidence can be 
 offered than that the first seventeen chapters were dictated 
 by him dtiring his last illness, whilst he was in such a state 
 that he was frequently obliged to pause several minutes be- 
 tween every word, and yet the events are as clearly narrated, 
 and the style is as lucid and as lively, as if it had been 
 written in his most vigorous day. 
 
 He was born in London in the winter of 1745 ; his father 
 being by trade a shoemaker, but of a disposition so unsteady 
 that he never could remain long in any place or at any occu- 
 pation. Here is the account his son, a most dutiful and 
 affectionate son, who maintained him to his death, gives of 
 these rambling propensities : — 
 
 "Having been bred to an employment for which he was 
 
64 EECOIXBOTIONS OF 
 
 very ill fitted, the habit that became most rooted and most 
 fatal to my father was a fickleness of disposition, a thorough 
 persuasion after he had tried one means of providing for him- 
 self and his family for a certain time, that he had discovered 
 another far more profitable and secure. Steadiness of pursuit 
 was a virtue at which he never could arrive ; and I believe 
 few men in the kingdom had in the course of their lives been 
 the hucksters of so many small wares, or more enterprising 
 dealers in articles of a halfpenny value. 
 
 " I should mention that to carry on these itinerant trades 
 my father had begun vrith purchasing an ass, and bought 
 more as he could ; now and then increasing his store by the 
 addition of a ragged pony or worn-out weather-beaten Rosi- 
 nante. In autumn he turned his attention to fruit, and con- 
 veyed apples and pears in hampers from villages to market 
 towns. The bad nourishment I met with, the cold and 
 wretched manner in which I was clothed, and the excessive 
 weariness I endured in following these animals day after day, 
 and being obliged to drive creatures perhaps still more weary 
 than myself, were miseries much too great, and loaded my 
 little heart with sorrows far too poignant ever to be forgotten. 
 By-roads and high-roads were alike to be traversed, but the 
 former far the oftenest, for they were then almost innumer- 
 able, and the state of them in winter would hardly be believed 
 at present. 
 
 " My father became by turns a collector and vendor of rags, 
 a hardware-man, a dealer in buttons, buckles, and pewter 
 spoons — in short, a trafficker in whatever could bring gain. 
 But there was one thing which fixed his attention longer than 
 any other, and which, therefore, I suppose he found the most 
 lucrative, which was to fetch pottery from the neighbourhood 
 of Stoke in Stafibrdshire, and to hawk it all through the north 
 of England. Of aU other travelling this was the most con- 
 tinual, the most severe, and the most intolerable. * * * 
 
 " Towards Litchfield on the right, lay Cannock heath and 
 town, and adjoining to this heath on the left there were coal- 
 pits situated in a remarkably heavy clay country. Desirous 
 of employing his asses, yet averse to go himself, my father 
 frequently sent me to these coal-pits to get a single ass loaded, 
 and to drive him over the heath to Rugeley, there to find a 
 customer for my coals. The article was so cheap and so near 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 05 
 
 that the profits could be but very small, yet they were some- 
 thing. Had the weather been fine when I was sent on these 
 errands, the task would not have been so difficult, nor the 
 wonder so great ; but at the time I was unfortunately sent 
 there I have a perfect recollection of deep ruts, of cattle, both 
 asses and horses, unable to drag their legs through the clay, 
 and of carts and waggons that were set fast in it. 
 
 " One day my ass had passed safely through the clay-ruts 
 and deep roads, and under my guidance had begun to ascend 
 a bill we had to cross on Cannock heath on our way to Euge- 
 ley. The wind was very high, though while we were on low 
 ground I had never suspected its real force. But my appre- 
 hensions began to increase with our ascent, and when on the 
 summit of the hill, nearly opposite to two clumps of trees 
 which are pictured to my imagination as they stood there at 
 that time, it blew gust after gust too powerful for the loaded 
 animal to resist, and down it came. Through life I have 
 always had a strong sense of the grief and utter despair I then 
 felt. But what a Uttle surprises me is that I have no recol- 
 lection whatever of the means by which I found relief, but 
 rather of the naked and desolate place in which I was, and 
 my inability to help myself. Could I have unloaded the ass, 
 it would not have been much matter ; but the coals were 
 brought from the pits in such masses that three of them 
 were generally an ass-load, any one of which was usually 
 beyond my strength. I have no doubt, however, but I got 
 them by some means or other to Kugeley, and brought the 
 money for them to my father, whom I could not help secretly 
 accusing of insensibility, though that was the very reverse of 
 his character. 
 
 "The coal-pits were situated on the extremity of an old 
 forest inhabited by large quantities of red deer. At these I 
 always stopped to look ; but what inspired and delighted me 
 most was the noble stag, for to him the deer appeared insig- 
 nificant. Him I often saw bounding along, eyeing objects 
 without fear, and making prodigious leaps over obstacles that 
 opposed his passage. In this free state, indesd, he cannot 
 but excite our admiration. 
 
 "One little anecdote I must not omit. The reader will 
 naturally suppose that from the time I began to travel the 
 country with my father and mother I had little leisure or 
 
bb RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 opportunity to acquire any knowledge by reading. I was too 
 mucli pressed by fatigue, hunger, cold, and nakedness. Still, 
 however, I cannot but suppose, as weU from my own pro- 
 pensity to obey the will of God as from my father's wish to 
 encourage ray inclinations of this kind, that I continued to 
 repeat my prayers and catechism morning and evening, and 
 on Sundays to read the Prayer-book and Bible. At all events, 
 I had not forgotten to read : for while we were at the house 
 near Eugeley, by some means or other the song of ' Chevy 
 Chase' came into my possession, which I read over with great 
 delight at our fireside. My father, who knew that my memory 
 was tolerably retentive, and saw the great number of stanzas 
 the ballad contained, said to me, ' Well, Tom, can you get that 
 song by heart 1 ' To this question I very readily answered, 
 'Yes.' 'In how long a timeT 'Why, father, you know I 
 have got such and such work for to-morrow, and what you 
 will set me for the following days I can't tell ; however, I can 
 get it in three days.' 'What, perfectly?' 'Yes.' 'Well, if 
 you do that, I'll give you a halfpenny.' Rejoiced at my 
 father's generosity, ' Oh, then, never fear,' said I. I scarcely 
 need add that my task was easily accomplished, and that 
 I then had. the valuable sum of a halfpenny at my own 
 disposal." 
 
 This way of life lasted until he was nine or ten years old ; 
 then came a spell of shoemaking, and a violent attack of 
 asthma, aggravated by the stooping position, which continued 
 a year or two longer. The disease was at length removed by 
 the skill of a country apothecary, and a fresh impulse was 
 given to the poor boy's aspirations by the sight of a strongly- 
 contested horse-race at Nottingham. His longings to be 
 allowed to minister in some way to that noble animal became 
 irrepressible ; he confided them to his father, and was for- 
 tunate enough to be received into the service of a respectable 
 man who kept a training stable near Newmarket. There being 
 placed on a horse too spirited for his youth, his feebleness, 
 and his inexperience, he got a terrible fall, and, what he 
 grieved far more, a dismissal. He was received by another 
 trainer, and dismissed again. At last he made a third appli- 
 cation : — 
 
 " It was no difficult matter to meet with John Watson : he 
 was so attentive to stable hours, that, except on extraordinary 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 67 
 
 occasions, he was always to be found. Being first careful to 
 make myself look as like a stable-boy as I could, I came at the 
 hour of four, and ventured to ask if I could see John Watson. 
 The immediate answer was in the affirmative. John Watson 
 came, looked at me with a serious but good-natured coun- 
 tenance, and accosted me first with, 'Well, my lad, what is 
 your business 1 I suppose I can guess ; you want a place ? ' 
 ' Yes, Sir.' ' Who have you lived with t ' ' Mr. Woodcock, on 
 the forest. One of your boys, Jack Clarke, brought me with 
 him from Nottingham.' ' How came you to leave Mr. Wood- 
 cock ! ' 'I had a sad fall from an iron-grey filly, that almost 
 killed me.' ' That ia bad indeed. And so you left him ? ' 
 ' He turned me away. Sir.' ' That is honest. I like your 
 speaking the truth. So you are come from him to me ? ' At 
 this question, I cast my eyes down and hesitated ; then fear- 
 fully answered, ' No, Sir.' ' No ! What, change masters twice 
 in so short a time ? ' I can't help it. Sir, if I am turned 
 away.' This last answer made him smile." 
 
 So his character proving satisfactory, he is hired. 
 " My station was immediately assigned me. There was a 
 remarkably quiet three years old colt lately from the dis- 
 cipline of the breaker, and of him I was ordered to take 
 charge, instructed by one of the upper boys in everything 
 that was to be done, and directed to back him and keep pace 
 with the rest when they went out to exercise, only taking care 
 to keep a straight line, and to walk, canter, and gallop the 
 last. » * * * I did not long ride a quiet colt at the tail 
 of the string (on whose back John Watson soon put a new 
 comer), but had a dun horse, by no means a tame or safe one, 
 committed to my care. I contrived to ride the dun horse 
 through the winter. It was John Watson's general practice 
 to exercise his horses over the flat, and up Cambridge Hill, on 
 the west side of Newmarket ; but the rule was not invariable. 
 One wintry day he ordered us up to the Bury hills. It mizzled 
 a very sharp sleet, the wind became uncommonly cutting, and 
 Dun, the horse I rode, being remarkable for a tender skin, 
 found the wind and the sleet, which blew directly up his 
 nostrils, so very painful, that it suddenly made him out- 
 rageous. He started from the rank in which he was walking, 
 tried to unseat me, endeavoured to set off fuU speed, and 
 when he found he could not master me so as to get head, 
 1-2 
 
68 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 began to rear, snorted most violently, tlirew out behind, 
 plunged, and used every mischievous exertion of which the 
 muscular powers of a blood-horse are susceptible. I, who felt 
 the uneasiness he suffered before his violence began, being 
 luckily prepared, sat him as steady and upright as if this had 
 been his usual exercise. John Watson was riding beside his 
 horses, and a groom (I beheve it was old Cheevers) broke 
 out into an e.xelamation — ' I say, John, that is a fine lad ! ' 
 'Ay, ay,' replied Watson, highly satisfied, 'you will find 
 some time or other that there are few in Newmarket that will 
 match him.' To have behaved with true courage, and to meet 
 with applause like this, especially from John Watson, was a 
 triumph such as I could at this time have felt in no other way 
 vrith the same sweet satisfaction. My horsemanship had been 
 seen by all the boys, my praises had been heard by them 
 all ! * * » « 
 
 " Horses, generally speaking,, are of a generous and kindly 
 nature. Of their friendly disposition towards their keepers, 
 there is a trait known tO' every boy that has the' care of one 
 of them, which ought not to be omitted. The custom is to 
 rise very early, even between two and three in the morning, 
 when the days lengthen. In the course of the day, horses and 
 boys have much to doi About half-past eight, perhaps, in 
 the evening, the horse has his last feed of oats, which he 
 generally stands to enjoy in the centre of his smooth, carefully- 
 made bed of clean, long straw, and by the side of him the 
 weary boy will often he down, it being held as a maxim, a 
 rule without exoeptiony that were he to he even tiU morning, 
 the horse would never he down himself, but stand stiU, careful 
 to do his keeper no harm. » « * * 
 
 " Except by accident, the race-horse never trots. He must 
 either walk or gallop ; and in exercise, even when it is the 
 hardest, the gallop begins slowly and gradually, and increases 
 till the horse is nearly at full speed. When he has galloped 
 half a mile, the boy begins to push him forward without 
 relaxation for another half mile. This is at the period when 
 the horses are in full exercise, to which they come by de- 
 grees. The boy that can best regulate these degrees among 
 those of Kght weight is generally chosen to lead the gallop ; 
 that is, he goes first out of the stable, and first returns. 
 
 " In the time of long exercise, this is the first bmsldng 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 69 
 
 gallop. A brushing gallop signifies that the horses are nearly 
 at full speed before it is over, and it is commonly made at 
 last rather up hill. Having all pulled up, the horses stand 
 some two or three minutes, and recover their wind ; they 
 then leisurely descend the hill, and take a long walk ; after 
 which they are brought to water. But in this, as in every- 
 thing else (at least as soon as long exercise begins!, everything 
 to them is measured. The boy counts the number of times 
 the horse swallows when he drinks, and allows him to take 
 no more gulps than the groom orders, — the fewest to the 
 hardest exercise, and one horse more or less than another, 
 according to the judgment of the groom. After watering, a 
 gentle gallop is taken, and after that another walk of con- 
 siderable length ; to which succeeds the second and last 
 brushing gallop, which is by far the most severe. When it is 
 over, another pause, thoroughly to recover their wind, is 
 allowed them ; then a long walk is begun, the limits of which 
 are prescribed, and it ends in directing their ride homeward. 
 
 " The morning's exercise often extends to four hours, and 
 the evening's to much about the same time. * * * « 
 
 " In every stud of horses there are frequent changes ; and 
 as their qualities are discovered, one horse is rejected and 
 sold, or perhaps a stranger bought and admitted. It hap- 
 pened on such an occasion that a little horse was brought us 
 from another stud, whence he had been rejected for being 
 unmanageable. He had shown himself restive, and, besides 
 the suafSe, was ridden in a check-rein. I was immediately 
 placed on his back, and what seemed rather more extra- 
 ordinary, ordered to lead the gallop as usual. I do not know 
 how it happened, but under me he showed very little dis- 
 position to become refractory ; and whenever the humour 
 occurred, it was soon overcome. That he was, however, watch- 
 ful for an opportunity to do mischief, the following incident 
 will discover. Our time for hard exercise had begun perhaps 
 a fortnight or three weeks. As that proceeds, the boys are 
 less cautious, each having less suspicion of his horse. I was 
 leading the gallop one morning, and had gone more than half 
 the way towards the foot of Cambridge Hill, when something 
 induced me to call and speak to a boy behind me ; for which 
 purpo.se I rather unseated myself, and, as I looked back, rested 
 on my left thigh. The arch-traitor no sooner felt the pre- 
 
70 EECOLLECrrlONS OS 
 
 carious seat I had taken, then he suddenly plunged from the 
 path, had his head between his legs, his heels in the air, and 
 exerting all his power of bodily contortion, flung me from the 
 saddle, with only one foot in the stirrup, and both my legs on 
 the off side. I immediately heard the whole set of boys 
 behind shouting triumphantly, 'A calf, a calf!' a phrase of 
 contempt for a boy that is thrown. Though the horse was 
 then in the midst of his wild antics, and increasing his pace 
 to fuU speed, as far as the tricks he was playing would permit, 
 still, finding I had a foot in the stirrup, I replied to their 
 shouts by a whisper to myself, ' It is no calf yet.' The horse 
 took his usual course, turned up Cambridge Hill, and now 
 rather increased his speed than his mischievous tricks. This 
 opportunity I took, with that rashness of spirit which is 
 peculiar to boys, and, notwithstanding the prodigious speed 
 and irregular motion of the horse, threw my left leg over the 
 saddle. It was with the utmost difficulty that I could pre- 
 serve my balance ; but I did, though by this effort I lost hold 
 of the reins, both my feet were out of the stirrup, and the 
 horse for a moment was entirely his own master. But my 
 grand object was gained — I was once more firmly seated, the 
 reins and stirrups were recovered. In a twinkling the hoi-se, 
 instead of being pulled up, was urged to his utmost speed ; 
 and when he came to the end of the gallop, he stopped of 
 himself with a very good will, as he was heartily breathed. 
 The .short exclamations of the boys, at having witnessed what 
 they thought an impos.sibility, were the gratifications I re- 
 ceived, and the greatest, perhaps, that could be bestowed. 
 
 " I once saw an instance of what may be called the grandeur 
 of alarm in a horse. In winter, during short exercise, I was 
 returning one evening on the back of a hunter that was put 
 in training for the Hunter's Plate. There had been some little 
 rain, and the channel, always dry in summer, was then a small 
 brook. As I must have rubbed his legs dry, if wetted, I gave 
 him the rein and made him leap the brook, which he under- 
 stood as a challenge for play ; and beginning to gambol, after 
 a few antics, he reared very high, and plunging forward with 
 great force, alighted with his fore-feet on the edge of a deep 
 gravel-pit, half-filled with water, so near that a very few inches 
 farther he must have gone headlong down. His first astonish- 
 ment and fear were so great, that he stood for some time 
 
A LIIEEARy LIFE. 71 
 
 breathless and motionless : then gradually recollecting him- 
 self, his back became curved, his ears erect, his hind and fore 
 logs in a position for sudden retreat ; his nottrils, from an 
 inward snort, burst into one loud expression of horror, and 
 rearing on his hind legs, he turned short round, expressing all 
 the terrors he had felt by the utmost violence of plunging, 
 kicking, and other bodily exertions. I was not quite so much 
 frightened as he had been, but I was heartily glad, when he 
 became quiet again, that the accident had been no worse. 
 The only little misfortune I had was the loss of my cap, and 
 being obliged to ride back some way, in order to recover it." 
 
 By this time young Holoroft was sixteen, and had begun to 
 feel a craving for knowledge of a different nature from any 
 that he could obtain at Newmarket ; although even there he 
 had contrived to read every book that came in his way, to 
 perfect himself in arithmetic, and to acquire a scientific know- 
 ledge of vocal music, which was of great use to him in his 
 after career. He had made this progress, too, chiefly from his 
 own efforts ; so that the great process of self-instruction which 
 distinguished him through life was now begun, and he already 
 knew enough to feel an ardent desire to know more. London, 
 where his father was now living as a cobbler, offered at least 
 the hope of education ; accordingly, to the great amazement 
 and regret of good John Watson, who had been uniformly kind, 
 to him, and to whom he could hardly summon courage to 
 announce his determination, he abandoned the field in which 
 his success had been so encouraging, took leave of his com- 
 panions, biped and quadruped, and made his way to the 
 great city. 
 
 Here a long series of disappointments awaited him. He 
 became, indeed, a skilful and rapid worker at the shoemaking 
 trade ; but the position and confinement disagreed with him 
 (well they might after the free seat on horseback, the exercise, 
 and the pure air of Newmarket), and his habit of idling his 
 time in. reading, as the phrase goes, prevented his earning more 
 than the bare necessaries of his abstemious life. He tried 
 various schemes ; taught an evening school ; kept a day school 
 somewhere in the country, with such indifferent success that 
 he had but one pupil, and Hved upon potatoes and buttermilk 
 for three months ; authorship, too, he tried in a small way, 
 creeping into notice in the most obscure newspapers and the 
 
72 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 smallest magazines ; and at about the age of twenty, when 
 barely able to support himself, he married. It is to be noted 
 that throughout his whole hfe he was eminently a marrying 
 man, having married three wives, and left a young widow, the 
 daughter of Monsieur Mercier, author of the " Tableau de 
 Paris." Shortly after his first marriage, of which we hear but 
 little, although he was eminently kind and indulgent in his 
 domestic character, he seems to have been induced, by his 
 success in a spouting club, to try his fortune on the stage. 
 He has left a characteristic account of his application to 
 Foote :— 
 
 " He had the good fortune to find the manager at breakfast 
 with a young man, whom he employed partly on the stage, 
 and partly as an amanuensis. ' Well,' said he, ' young gentle- 
 man, I guess your business by the sheepishness of your 
 manner ; you have got the theatrical cacoethes; you have 
 rubbed your shoulder against the scene : nay, is it not so ? ' 
 Holoroft answered that it was. ' "Well, and what great hero 
 should you wish to personate ? Hamlet, or Richard, or Othello, 
 or who ? ' Holcrof t replied that he distrusted his capacity for 
 performing any that he had mentioned. ' Indeed ! ' said he, 
 ' that's a wonderful sign of grace. I have been teased these 
 many years by all the spouters in London, of which honour- 
 able fraternity I dare say you are a member ; for I can perceive 
 no stage varnish, none of your true strolling brass lacker on 
 your face.' ' No, indeed. Sir.' ' I thought so. Well, Sir, I 
 never saw a spouter before that did not want to surprise the 
 town in Pierre, or Lothario, or some character that demands 
 all the address and every requisite of a master in the art. 
 But, come, give us a touch of your quality — a speech. There's 
 a youngster,' pointing to his secretary, ' will roar Jaffier against 
 Pierre. Let the loudest take both.' Accordingly, he held the 
 book, and at it they fell. The scene they chose was that of 
 the before-mentioned characters in ' Venice Preserved.' For a 
 little while after they began, it seems that Holoroft took the 
 hint that Foote had thro^yn out, and restrained his wrath. 
 But this appeared so insipid, and the ideas of rant and excel- 
 lence were so strongly connected in his mind, that when 
 Jaffier began to exalt his voice, he could no longer contain 
 himself, but, as Nick Bottom says, ' they both roared so, that 
 it would have done your heart good to hear them.' Foote 
 
A LITEBARY LIFE. 73 
 
 smiled, and, after enduring this vigorous attack upon his 
 organs of hearing as long as he was able, interrupted them. 
 
 " Far from discouraging our new beginner, he told him that, 
 with respect to giving the meaning of the words, he spoke 
 much more correctly than he bad expected. ' But,' said he, 
 ' hke other novices, you seem to imagine that all excellence 
 lies in the lungs ; whereas such violent exertions should be 
 '.ised very sparingly, and upon extraordinary occasions ; for if 
 an actor make no reserve of his powers, how is he to rise 
 according to the tone of the passion 1 ' He then read the 
 scene they had rehearsed, and with so much propriety and 
 ease, as well as force, that Holcroft was surprised, having 
 hitherto supposed the risible faculties to be the only ones 
 over which he had any great power." 
 
 Thomas Holcroft came away from this celebrated wit, de- 
 lighted with the ease and frankness of his behaviour, and 
 elated with his prospect of success. Unluckily, however, he 
 had already entered into a negotiation with a very different 
 person ; and tempted by an offer nominally higher, in point 
 of salary, agreed with Macklin for a small engagement in a 
 theatre in Dublin. The brutal manners of Macklin are well 
 known. Hazlitt says that until the age of forty he could not 
 even read ; an assertion which, considering the undoubted 
 merit of his play, " The Man of the World," appears all but 
 incredible. It is, however, certain that he was coarse, illi- 
 terate, and unfeeling ; and the manner in which he suffered 
 the Dublin manager to depart from the engagements into 
 which he had entered with poor Holcroft does very little 
 honour to his principles. 
 
 For the next seven years our luckless adventurer was tossed 
 about the world as a strolling player, taking all parts, but 
 succeeding best in old men and low comedy, singing in cho- 
 ruses, filling the post of prompter, — always penniless, and 
 sometimes nearly starved. At the end of that time, his pros- 
 pects improved ; some family connexion (it is not said what) 
 threw him upon the powerful protection of the GreviUes and 
 the Crewes, and we find him numbered in the Drury Lane 
 company, and complaining in a letter to Sheridan of walking 
 in processions, and playing the part of a dumb steward in 
 " Love for Love." 
 Nevertheless, matters are mending. He takes a house in 
 
74 RECOLLECTIONS 01' 
 
 London, marries a second wife, becomes a recognised author, 
 and is employed by the London booksellers to write an 
 account of the riots of 1780. Whilst attending the Old Bailey 
 trials for that purpose, he was happy enough to save the life 
 of an innocent man, who had nearly been condemned through 
 the mistake of a witness. 
 
 Things go better. He brings out his less-known novels, his 
 least celebrated, but still successful plays ; and becomes one 
 of the best and most voluminous translators upon record. If 
 ever one happens to take up an English version of a French 
 or German book of that period,—" Memoirs of Baron Trenck," 
 or " Caroline de Litchfield,"— and if that version have in it 
 the zest and savour of original writing, we shaE be sure to find 
 the name of Thomas Holoroft in the title-page. 
 
 One of his translating feats was remarkable. Beaumarchais' 
 wonderful play of " Figaro " was carrying the world before it 
 in Paris, and would be sure to make the fortune of an English 
 theatre. But the comedy was unpublished, and no copy could 
 be procured from any quarter. Holoroft made up his mind to 
 attend the performance every evening, until he had fixed the 
 whole work in his memory. He took a friend with him, and 
 they wrote down their several recollections on their return, 
 very literally comparing notes. When it is remembered that 
 the " Marriage of Figaro " is the longest play in the French 
 language, the efibrt of a foreigner bringing the whole away in 
 a week or ten days will appear most extraordinary, for not 
 the slightest memorandum could be made in the theatre. His 
 translation, under the name of " Follies of a Day," appeared 
 almost immediately at Covent Garden, producing him six 
 hundred pounds from the manager, besides a large sum for 
 the copyright. 
 
 This was perhaps the happiest time of Mr. Holoroft's life— 
 this and a few succeeding years. His comedies, " Duplicity," 
 " The School for Arrogance," and the " Road to Ruin," evinced 
 talent (I had well-nigh written genius) of the highest order. 
 The serious parts above all are admirable. Perhaps no scenes 
 have ever drawn so many tears as those between the father 
 and the son in the last-mentioned play. The famous " Good 
 Night " is truly the one touch of nature that makes the whole 
 world kin ; and although I have seen it played as well as any- 
 thing can be played by Munden and EUiston, I have always 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 75 
 
 felt that the real merit belonged to the author. His greater 
 novels, too, " Anna St. Ives " and " Hugh Trevor," were full 
 of powerful writing, and he seemed destined to a long course 
 of literary prosperity. A terrible domestic grief came to 
 break the course of this felicity. I transcribe J!ilr. Hazlitt's 
 narrative : — 
 
 " William Holcroft was his only son, and favourite child ; 
 and this very circumstance, perhaps, led to the catastrophe 
 which had nearly proved fatal to his father, as well as to him- 
 self. He had been brought up, if anything, with too much 
 care and tenderness ; he was a boy of extraordinary capacity, 
 and Mr. Holcroft thought no pains should be spared for his 
 instruction and improvement. From the first, however, he 
 had shown an unsettled disposition ; and his propensity to 
 ramble was such from his childhood, that when he was only 
 four years old, and under the care of an aunt in Nottingham, 
 he wandered away to a place at some distance, where there 
 was a coffee-house, into which he went, and read the news- 
 papers to the company, by whom he was taken care of, and 
 sent home. This propensity was so strong in him that it 
 became habitual, and he had run away six or seven times 
 before the last. 
 
 " On Sunday, November 8th, 1789, he brought his father 
 a short poem. A watch, which had been promised to him as 
 a reward, was given to him ; his father conversed with him in 
 the most affectionate manner, praised, encouraged him, and 
 told him that, notwithstanding his former errors and wan- 
 derings, he was convinced he would become a good and excel- 
 lent man. But he observed, when taking him by the hand to 
 express his kindness, that the hand of the youth, instead of 
 returning the pressure as usual, remained cold and insensible. 
 This, however, at the moment, was supposed to be accidental. 
 He seemed unembarrassed, cheerful, and asked leave without 
 any appearance of design or hesitation, to dine with a friend 
 in the city, which was immediately granted. He thanked his 
 father, went down stairs, and several times anxiously inquired 
 whether his father were gone to dress. As soon as he was 
 told that he had left his room, he went up stairs again, broke 
 open a drawer, and took out forty pounds. With this, the 
 watch, a pocket-book, and a pair of pistols of his father's, he 
 hastened away to join one of his acquaintances, who was going 
 
76 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 to the West Indies. He waa immediately pursued to Graves- 
 end, but inefi'ectually. It was not discovered till the following 
 Wednesday that he had taken the money. After several days 
 of the most distressing inquietude, there appeared strong pre- 
 sumptive proof that he, with his acquaintance, was on board 
 the 'Fame,' Captain Carr, then lying in the Downs. The 
 father and a friend immediately set off, and travelled post all 
 Sunday night to Deal. Their information proved true, for he 
 was found to be on board the ' Fame,' where he had assumed 
 a false name, though his true situation was known to the 
 Captain. He had spent all his money except fifteen pounds, 
 in paying for his passage, and purchasing what he thought he 
 wanted. He had declared he would shoot any person who 
 came to take him ; but that if his father came he would shoot 
 himself. His youth, for he was but sixteen, made the threat 
 appear incredible. The pistols, pocket-book, and remaining 
 money were looked up in safety for him by his acquaintance. 
 But he had another pair of pistols concealed. Mr. Holcroft 
 and his friend went on board, made inquiries, and understood 
 he was there. He had retired into a dark part of the steerage. 
 When he was called and did not answer, a hght was sent for ; 
 and as he heard the ship's steward, some of the sailors, and 
 his father, approaching, conscious of what he had done, and 
 unable to bear the presence of his father, and the open shame 
 of detection, he suddenly put an end to his existence. 
 
 " The shock which Mr. Holcroft received was almost mortal. 
 For three days he could not see his own family, and nothing 
 but the love he bore that family could probably have pre- 
 vented him from sinking under his affliction. He seldom went 
 out of his house for a whole year afterwards ; and the impres- 
 sion was never completely effaced from his mind." 
 
 After recovering from this calamity, Mr. Holcroft was sur- 
 prised by one of a totally different nature, which came in the 
 form of an indictment for high treason. Nothing but the 
 panic into which the minds of men were thrown by the crimes 
 and excesses of the first French Revolution can explain the 
 virulence with which every one who stood suspected of 
 cherishing liberty, or desiring reform, was assailed during that 
 evil day. It was the cruel and unreasoning persecution that 
 is born of fear ; and in Mr. Holcroft's case the wrong was 
 more glaring than in that of most others, inasmuch as he was 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. -77 
 
 a purely speculative politician, and his speculations, althougli 
 sufficiently visionary and Utopian, were anything rather than 
 sanguinary or violent. One of his friends said of him, that 
 he was a sort of natural Quaker. And certainly it would be 
 as wise to jiroseoute a member of the Peace Society, or a 
 writer on the millennium, as one whose dreams were of the 
 perfectibility of human nature, the extinction of warfare, and 
 the ti'iumph of wisdom and justice upon earth. 
 
 He belonged, it is true, to the Society for Constitutional 
 Information, but had moved none of the resolutions, had 
 seldom spoken, and, except for his literary eminence, was one 
 of the least prominent members of the association. Never- 
 theless, his name, together with those of Hardy, Thelwall, 
 Home Tooke, and eight others, appeared in the bill presented 
 to the Grand Jury at Hicks's Hall. Mr. Holoroft in some 
 measure retaliated upon the Crown lawyers the surprise they 
 had occasioned him, by unexpectedly presenting himself befoi-e 
 Chief-Justice Eyre, and surrendering himself to the Court 
 without waiting for the execution of the warrant. The man- 
 liness and firmness of his conduct, accompanied by perfect 
 respectfulness and self-command, obtained for him more 
 civihty than was shown to the other parties included in the 
 indictment. 
 
 The issue is well known. Thomas Hardy, the first man 
 put into the dock, was acquitted, and the other prisoners 
 were discharged without being brought to trial. 
 
 But the efi'eot of this accusation did not terminate in the 
 Court of Justice. The demon of party hatred was evoked. 
 Even such a man as Mr. Windham, high-minded, large-hearted, 
 chivalrous as he was, did not disdain to talk of " acquitted 
 felons ;" and, as a dramatic writer, Mr. Holcroft was especially 
 amenable to public opinion. Every fresh play was a fresh 
 battle ; and a battle, whatever be the issue, is in itself fatal to 
 a great success ; so that, at last, comedies, which had no more 
 to do with politics than " The Merry Wives of Windsor," were 
 fain to be brought out under the name of a fictitious author. 
 
 It is not many years ago that I and another lover of the 
 drama, an old and valued friend, were disputing as to the 
 writer of " He's Much to Blame." Both possessed the play 
 and both were certain as to the name printed in the title-page. 
 Neither were wrong. It was the story of the two knights and 
 
78 EECOLIiECIIONS OF 
 
 the shield. My friend's copy was the first edition, with the 
 feigned name; mine the seventh, when the ordeal was passed, 
 and the true author restored to his rightful place. May 
 Heaven avert from us the renewal of such prejudice and such 
 injustice ! 
 
 Wearied out with these conflicts, Mr. Holcroft retired first 
 to Hamburgh, and then to France, where he resided many 
 years, occasionally sending to England translations of popular 
 foreign books. His last original work was one on France, of 
 great merit. Few knew the people better, or could describe 
 them so well. His stories are pleasant and characteristic : — 
 
 " My wife was one day buying some fish; while she was 
 undetermined, the girl said to her, ' Prenez cela, ear voire mari 
 est mi brave homme V My wife replied, ' Qui, cela, se pent biea; 
 mais comment savez-vous qi^il est tin brave Komme ?' ' C'est egal,' 
 answered the girl, ' cela fait plaisir a entendre.' This girl's 
 maxim is sound morality wherever I have been in France." 
 
 This is characteristic, too, in the best sense ; a charming 
 mixture of goodness and grace , — 
 
 " A poor musician, who usually brought a small pianoforte 
 in the afternoon to the Champs Elysees, and played that those 
 who were pleased might reward him by a trifle, having played 
 in vain one evening, was sorrowfully returning home. He was 
 seen by EUeviou (a famous actor), remarked, and questioned. 
 The poverty and ill success of the wandering musician moved 
 the pity of the actor, who desired the instrument might again 
 be put down ; and, stepping aside, he said he would return 
 instantly. His wife and friend had passed on, and he brought 
 them back. It was nearly dark. Pradere, his friend, sat down 
 to the pianoforte, and accompanied Elleviou, who began to 
 sing, to the astonishment of numbers that were soon assem- 
 bled. The men had drawn the hat over the brow ; Madame 
 Elleviou let down her veil, and went round to collect. The 
 pleasingness of her manner, the little thankful curtsies she 
 dropt to all who gave, the whiteness of her hand, and the 
 extraordinary music they heard, rendered the audience so 
 liberal, that she made several tours, and none ineffectually. 
 Elle^aou, however, could not long remain unknown ; and find- 
 ing themselves discovered, Madame Elleviou gave all, and it 
 was supposed more than all, she had collected from the crowd 
 to the poor musician. The sum amounted to thirty shillings, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 79 
 
 and among the pence and halfpence there were crown pieces, 
 which no doubt were given by the actors. The feelings of the 
 man, as the audience dispersed, are not easilj' to be described. 
 The unexpected relief afforded to him who was departing so 
 disconsolate was great indeed ; but it was forgotten in the 
 charming behaviour of those who relieved him — in their 
 almost divine music, and in the strangeness of the adventure. 
 The surrounding people were scarcely less moved ; so kind 
 an act from a man in such high public estimation excited 
 more than admiration ; and the tears of gratitude shed by 
 the musician drew sympathising drops from many of the 
 spectators." 
 
 Mr. Holcroft wrote little verse ; but, had he chosen that 
 medium of thought, would probably have excelled in it. The 
 story of " Gaffer Gray " has in common with many short 
 poems of Southey, written at the same period, the great fault 
 of setting class against class — a fault which generally involves 
 a want of truth ; but it does its work admirably, and produces 
 exactlv the effect intended in the fewest possible words : — 
 
 " Ho I why dost thou shiver and shake, 
 
 Gaffer Gray, 
 And why doth thy nose look so blue?" 
 " 'Tis the weather that's cold, 
 'Tis I'm grown very old. 
 And my doublet is not very new, 
 Well-a-day ! " 
 
 " Then line thy worn doublet with ale, 
 
 Gaffer Gray, 
 And warm thy old heart with a glass." 
 " Nay, but credit I 've none. 
 And my money's all gone ; 
 Then say how may that come to pass ? 
 AYell-a-day ! " 
 
 " Hie away to the house on the brow, 
 
 Gaffer Gray, 
 And knock at the jolly priest's door.'' 
 " The priest often preaches 
 Against worldly riches ; 
 But ne'er gives a mite to the poor, 
 WeU-a-day ! " 
 
 " The lawyer lives under the hill. 
 
 Gaffer Gray, 
 Warmly fenced both in back" and in front." 
 
80 HECOLLECIIONS OP 
 
 " He will fasten his locks, 
 And will threaten the stocks, 
 Should he ever more find me in want, 
 Well-a-day ! " 
 
 " The squire has fat beeves and brown ale, 
 
 Gafier Gray, 
 And the season will welcome you there.'' 
 " His fat beeves and his beer. 
 And his merry new year. 
 Are all for the flush and the fair, 
 Well-a-day ! " 
 
 " My keg is but low, T confess. 
 
 Gaffer Gray : 
 What then ? While it lasts, man, we'll live." 
 " The poor man alone, 
 When he hears the poor moan. 
 Of his morsel a morsel will give, 
 Well-a-day ! " 
 
 This author, so gifted, so various, and so laborious, one of 
 the most remarkable of self-educated men, died in London on 
 the 3rd of March, 1809, after a long and painful illness, at the 
 age of sixty-three ; I fear, poor. 
 
 VIII. 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 SITTING IN THE LANE. 
 BEAUMONT AND PLETCHER. 
 
 There are some places that seem formed by nature foi- 
 doubling and redoubling the delight of reading and dreaming 
 over the greater poets. Living in the country, one falls into 
 the habit of choosing out a fitting nest for that enjoyment, 
 and with Beaumont and Fletcher especially, to whose dramatic 
 fascinations I have the hapjjy knack of abandoning myself, 
 without troubling myself in the least about their dramatic 
 faults (I do not speak here of graver sins, observe, gentle 
 reader). Their works never seem to me half so delightful as 
 when I pore over them in the silence and solitude of a certain 
 green lane, about half a mile from home ; sometimes seated 
 on the roots of an old fantastic beech, sometimes on the 
 
A LITERAHT LIFE. 81 
 
 trunk of a felled oak, or sometimes on tlie ground itself, with 
 my back propped lazily against a rugged elm. 
 
 In that very lane am I writing on this sultry June day, 
 luxuriating in the shade, the verdure, the fragrance of hay- 
 field and of bean-field, and the absence of all noise, except 
 the song of birds, and that strange mingling of many sounds, 
 the whir of a thousand forms of insect life, so often heard 
 among the general hush of a summer noon. 
 
 Woodcock Lane is so called, not after the migratory bird 
 so dear to sportsman and to epicure, but from the name of a 
 family, who, three centuries ago, owned the old manor-house, 
 a part of which still adjoins it, just as the neighbouring emi- 
 nence of Beech Hill is called after the ancient family of De 
 la Beche, rather than from the three splendid beech-trees 
 that still crown its summit : and this lane would probably be 
 accounted beautiful by any one who loved the close recesses 
 of English scenery, even though the person in question should 
 happen not to have haunted it these fifty years as I have done. 
 
 It is a grassy lane, edging off from the high road, nearly 
 two miles in length, and varying from fifty to a hundred 
 yards in width. The hedgerows on either side are so thickly 
 planted with tail elms as almost to form a verdant wall, for 
 the greater part doubly screened by rows of the same stately 
 tree, the down-dropping branches forming close shady foot- 
 paths on either side, and leaving in the centre a broad level 
 strip of the finest turf, just broken, here and there, by 
 cart-tracks, and crossed by slender rills. The effect of these 
 tall solemn trees, so equal in height, so unbroken, and so 
 continuous, is quite grand and imposing as twilight comes 
 on ; especially when some slight bend in the lane gives to the 
 outline almost the look of an amphitheatre. 
 
 On the southern side, the fields slope with more or less 
 abruptness to the higher lands above, and winding footpaths 
 and close woody lanes lead up the hill to the breezy common. 
 To the north the fields are generally of pasture land, broken 
 by two or three picturesque farm-houses, with their gable 
 ends, their tall chimneys, their trim gardens, and their 
 flowery orchards ; and varied by a short avenue leading to 
 the equally picturesque old manor-house of darkest brick and 
 quaintest architecture. Over the gates, too, we catch gUmpses 
 of more distant objects. The large white mansion where my 
 
 O 
 
82 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 youth was spent, rising from its plantations, and the small 
 church, embowered in trees, whose bell is heard at the close 
 of day, breathing of peace and holiness. 
 
 Towards the end of the lane a bright clear brook comes 
 dancing over a pebbly bed, bringing with it all that water is 
 wont to bring of life, of music, and of colour. Gaily it 
 bubbles through banks adorned by the yellow flag, the flower- 
 in'' rush, the willow herb, the meadow-sweet, and the forget- 
 me-not ; now expanding into a wide quiet pool, now contracted 
 into a mimic rapid between banks that almost meet ; and so 
 the httle stream keeps us company, giving on this sunny day 
 an indescribable feeling of reireshment and coolness, until we 
 arrive at the end of the lane, where it slants away to the 
 right, amidst a long stretch of water-meadows ; whilst we 
 pause to gaze at the lovely scenery on the other hand, where 
 a bit of marshy ground leads to the park paling and grand old 
 trees of the Great House at Beech Hill through an open grove 
 of oaks, terminated by a piece of wild woodland, so wild, that 
 Robin Hood might have taken it for a glade in his own Forest 
 of merry Sherwood. 
 
 Except about half a mile of gravelly road, leading from the 
 gate of the manor-house to one of the smaller farms, and 
 giving, by its warm orange tint, much of richness to the 
 picture, there is nothing like a passable carriage-way in the 
 whole length of the lane, so that the quiet is perfect. 
 
 Occasional passengers there are, however, gentle and simple ; 
 my friend, Mr. B., for instance, has just cantered past on his 
 blood-horse, with a nod and a smile, saying nothing, but 
 apparently a good deal amused with my arrangements. And 
 here comes a procession of cows going to milking, with an 
 old attendant, still called the cow-boy, who, although they 
 have seen me often enough, one should think, sitting under- 
 neath H, tree writing, with my little maid close by hemming 
 flounces, and my dog, Fanohon, nestled at my feet — still wih 
 start as if they had never seen a woman before in their lives. 
 Back they start and then they rush forward, and then the old 
 drover emits certain sounds, which it is to be presumed the 
 cows understand ; sounds so horribly discordant, that little 
 Fanohon — although to her, too, they ought to be familiar, if 
 not comprehensible — starts up in a fright on her feet, de- 
 ranging all the economy of my extempore desk, and well-nigh 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 83 
 
 upsetting the inkstand. Very much frightened is my pretty 
 pet, the arrantest coward that ever walked upon four legs ! 
 And so she avenges herself, as cowards are wont to do, by 
 following the cows at safe distance, as soon as they are fairly 
 past, and beginning to bark amain when they are nearly out' 
 of sight. Then follows a motley group of the same nature, 
 colts, yearlings, calves, heifers, with a shouting boy and his 
 poor shabby mongrel cur for driver. The poor cur wants to 
 play with Fanchon, but Fanchon, besides being a coward, is 
 also a beauty and holds her state ; although I think, if he 
 could but stay long enough, that the good humom- of the poor 
 merry creature would prove infectious and beguile the little 
 lady into a game of romps. Lastly, appears the most solemn 
 troop of all, a grave company of geese and goslings with the 
 gander at their head, marching with the decorum and dignity 
 proper to the birds who saved Rome. Fanchon, who once 
 had an aifair with a gander in which she was notably worsted, 
 retreats out of sight and ensconces herself between me and 
 the tree. 
 
 Besides these mere passing droves, we have a scattered 
 little flock of ewes and lambs belonging to an industrious 
 widow on the hill, and tended by two sunburnt smiling 
 children, her son and daughter ; a pretty pair, as innocent as 
 the poor sheep they watch beside, never seen apart. And 
 peasants returning from their work, and a stray urchin, birds- 
 nesting: and that will make a complete catalogue of the 
 frequenters of our lane — except, indeed, that now and then a 
 village youth and village maiden will steal along the sheltered 
 path. Perhaps they come to listen to the nightingales, for 
 which the place is famous ; perhaps they come to listen to 
 the voice which each prefers to all the nightingales that ever 
 sang — who knows 1 
 
 Such are our passers-by. Sometimes, however, we have 
 what I T/as about to call settled inhabitants in the shape oi 
 a camp of gipsies. 
 
 Just where the lane;, enlivened by a rustic bridge, suddenly 
 expands to nearly double its proper width, a nook appears, so 
 dry, so snug, so shady, so cozy, that it is almost worth while 
 to be a gipsy to live in it. Here, at almost every season, 
 between May and November, may be seen two or three low 
 tents with a cart or so drawn up under the hedge, an old 
 
 g2 
 
84 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 horse and sundry donteys grazing round about. At safe dis- 
 tance from the encampment appears a fire, glimmering and 
 vapoury by day, glowing into an intensity of blaze and com- 
 fort in the twilight. Sometimes a, pot is hung on by the 
 primitive contrivance of three sticks united at the top, some- 
 times a copper kettle dazzlingly bright and clean, and around 
 it the usual group of picturesque women and children. The 
 men, who carry on a small trade in forest ponies, are seldom 
 visible at the camp : the children make baskets, the women 
 sell them and tell fortunes; the former calling affording an 
 excuse and an introduction to the less ostensible, but not less 
 profitable craft. 
 
 Baskets they make, and baskets they sell at about double 
 the price at which they might be bought at the dearest shop 
 in the good town of Belford Regis ; of this I am myself a 
 living instance, having been talked into buying a pair at that 
 rate only the last Saturday that ever fell. 
 
 I confess to liking the gipsies : strange, wild, peculiar 
 people, whose origin, whose history, whose very language is a. 
 mystery ! I do not like them the less that I have never ezpe- 
 rienced at their hands the slightest incivility or the most 
 trifling wrong — for this affair of the baskets can hardly be 
 called such, it being wholly at my option to buy or to refuse. 
 
 Last Saturday I happened to be sitting on a fallen tree, 
 somewhat weary ; my little damsel working as usual at the 
 other end, and Fanchon balancing herself on the trunk be- 
 tween us, the curls of her brown coat — she is entirely brown — 
 turning into gold as the sunshine played upon them through 
 the leaves. 
 
 In this manner were we disposed, when a gipsy, with a 
 pair of light baskets in her hand, came and offered them for 
 sale. She was a middle-aged woman, who, in spite of her 
 wandering life, — perhaps, because of that hardy, out-of-door 
 life,— had retained much of her early beauty, the flashing 
 eyes, the pearly teeth, the ruddy cheeks, the fine erect figure. 
 It happened that, not wanting them, my companion had 
 rejected these identical baskets, when brought to our door in 
 the morning. She told me so, and I quietly declined them. 
 My friend the gipsy apparently gave the matter up, and, 
 claiming me as an old acquaintance, began to inquire after 
 my health, and fell into the pleasantest strain of conversation 
 
A LITERAEY LIFE. 85 
 
 possible ; spoke of my father, who, she said, had^beeu kind to 
 her and to her tribe (no doubt she said truly ; he was kind to 
 everybody, and had a liking for the wandering race) ; spoke 
 of her children at the gipsy school in Dorsetshire ; of the 
 excellent Mr. Crabbe, the friend of her people, at Southamp- 
 ton ; then she began stroking Fanchon (who actually, to my 
 astonishment, permitted the liberty : in general she suffers 
 no one to touch her that is not gentleman or lady) : Fanchon 
 she stroked, and of Plush, the dear old dog, now lying under 
 the rose-tree, she talked ; then, to leave no one unpropitiated, 
 she threw out a word of pleasant augury, a sort of gratuitous 
 fortune-telling, to the hemmer of flounces ; then she attacked 
 me again with old recollections, trusting, with singular know- 
 ledge of human nature, to the power of the future upon the 
 young, and of the past upon the old — to me she spoke of 
 happy memories, to my companion of happiness to come ; and 
 so (how could I help it ?) I bought the baskets. 
 
 I seem to have wandered pretty widely from my subject ; 
 but the old dramatists loved these commoners of nature. 
 Broome, in the " Jovial Crew," has constructed a pleasant and 
 genial comedy out of no higher materials, and our authors 
 themselves, in "Beggar's Rush," have made most dramatic 
 and effective use of these outlawed wanderers, and would, 
 I am sure, have been the last to blame me for dallying in 
 their company. 
 
 I extract some of the charaing lyrics interspersed through 
 their plays, not starting from them, as Ben Jonson's do, a 
 shining gem in a dusky mine, but incorporate with the golden 
 ore as rich and precious as themselves. 
 
 I-ROM THE "maid's TRAGEDY." 
 
 Lay a garland on my hearse, 
 
 Of the dismal yew ; 
 Maidens willow branches bear, 
 
 Say I died true. 
 My love was false, but I was firm 
 
 From my hour of birth ; 
 Upon my buried body lie 
 
 Lightly, gentle earth. 
 
 FROM THK "LITTLE FBENOH LAWYER." 
 
 This way, this way, come and hear, 
 You that hold these pleasures dear ; 
 
86 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 / Fill your earn with our sweet sound, 
 WhUe we melt the frozen ground. 
 This way, come : make haste, fair ! 
 Let your clear eyes gild the air. 
 Come and bless us with your sight ; 
 This way, this way, seek delight 1 
 
 FROM THE "elder BBOTHEK." 
 
 Beauty clear and fair. 
 Where the air 
 
 Bather like a perfume dwells ; 
 Where the violet and the rose 
 Their blue veins in blush disclose, 
 
 And come to honour nothing else. 
 
 Where to live near 
 
 And planted there, 
 
 Is to live, and stUl live new ; 
 Where to gain a favour is 
 More than light, perpetual bliss, 
 
 Make me live by serving you. 
 
 Dear, back again recall, 
 To this light : 
 
 A stranger to himself and all. 
 
 Both the wonder and the story 
 Shall be yours, and eke the glory ; 
 
 I am your perpetual thrall. 
 
 PROM " TALENTIKIAN." 
 
 The following songs are strikingly illustrative of a peou- 
 liai'ity that has often struck me in reading the dramas of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher — ^the absence of any mark of antiquity, 
 either in the diction or the construction. Hardly anything in 
 their verse smacks of the age. They were contemporary with 
 Ben Jonson, and yet how rugged is his English compared with 
 their fluent and courtly language ! They were almost contem- 
 porary with a greater than he — a greater far than any or all ; 
 and yet Shakespeare's blank verse has an antique sound when 
 read after theirs. Dryden, himself so perfect a model as 
 regards style, says in one of those masterpieces of criticism, 
 the prefaces to his plays, that in Beaumont and Fletcher our 
 language has attained to its perfection. I doubt if it have 
 much improved since, nor has it for the uses of poetry very 
 materially altered. This " Invocation to Sleep " might, for 
 diction and rhythm, have been written to-day, always sup- 
 posing that we had anybody capable of writing it : — 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 87 
 
 Care-oliarmiug Sleep, thou easer of all woes, 
 Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose 
 On this afflicted Prifloe I Fall like a cloud 
 In gentle showers ; give nothing that is loud 
 Or painful to his slumbers; easy, light, 
 And as a purling stream thou son of night 
 Pass by his troubled senses ; sing his pain. 
 Like hollow-murmuring wind or silver rain ! 
 Into this Prince, gently, oh gently slide, 
 And kiss him into slumbers like a bride 1 
 
 The same may be said of the next. 
 God Lyseus, ever young. 
 Ever honoured, ever sung; 
 Stained with blood of lusty grapes. 
 In a thousand lusty shapes. 
 Dance upon the mazer's brim. 
 In the crimson liquor swim ; 
 From the plenteous hand divine, 
 Let a river run with wine. 
 
 God of youth, let this day here 
 Enter neither care nor fear ! 
 
 PROM " BOLLO." 
 
 Take, oh, take those lips away. 
 
 That so sweetly were forsworn ; 
 And those eyes, the break of day. 
 
 Lights that do mislead the morn. 
 But my kisses bring again, — 
 Seals of love, though sealed in vain. 
 Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow, 
 
 Which thy frozen bosom bears, 
 On whose tops the pinks that grow 
 
 Are of those that April wears. 
 But first set my poor heart free. 
 Bound in those icy chains by thee. 
 
 We are irresistibly reminded of the " Penseroso " in read- 
 ing the fine song that follows, as we are of " Com\]s " in the 
 "Faithful Shepherdess." That Milton had Fletcher in his 
 thoughts caimot be doubted ; but the great epic poet added 
 so much from his own rich store, that the imitation may well 
 be pardoned by the admirers of both, the rather that the 
 earlier bard stands the test of such a comparison well. 
 Both are crowned poets ; but they wear their bays with a 
 difference. 
 
 FROM THE "KICB VALOTJE, OB THE PASSIONATE MADMAN." 
 
 Hence all you vain delights, 
 As short as are the nights, 
 
 Wherein you speed your folly ! 
 
88 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 There's nought in this life aweet, 
 If men were wise to see't, 
 
 But only melancholy, 
 
 Oh sweetest melancholy ! 
 
 Welcome, folded arms, and fixM eyes, 
 A sigh that piercing mortifies, 
 A look that's fastened to the ground, 
 A tongue chained up without a sound ! 
 Fountain heads and pathless groves. 
 Places which pale passion loves ! 
 Moonlight walks, when all the fowls 
 Are warmly housed, save bats and owls ! 
 
 A midnight bell, a parting groan. 
 
 These are the sounds we feed upon. 
 Then stretch our bones in a stiU gloomy valley, 
 Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy. 
 
 THE SATYB'S speech, TEOM THE " EAITHEnL SHEPHERDESS.' 
 
 Through yon same bending plain. 
 
 That flings his arms down to the main, 
 
 And thro' these thick woods have I ran 
 
 Whose bottom never kissed the sun, 
 
 Since the lusty Spring began. 
 
 All to please my master Pan, 
 
 Have I trotted without rest 
 
 To get him fruit ; for at a feast 
 
 He entertains this coming night 
 
 His paramour, the Syrinx bright. 
 
 But behold, a fairer sight ! 
 
 By that heavenly form of thine. 
 
 Brightest fair, thou art divine ; 
 
 Sprung from great immortal race 
 
 Of the gods ; for in thy face 
 
 Shines more awful majesty, 
 
 Than dull weak mortality 
 
 Dare with misty eyes behold 
 
 And live ! Therefore on this mould 
 
 Lowly do I bend my knee 
 
 In worship of thy deity. 
 
 Deign it, goddess, from my hand 
 
 To receive whate'er this land 
 
 From her fertile womb doth send 
 
 Of her choice fruits ; and but lend 
 
 Belief to that the satyr tells : 
 
 Fairer by the famous wells 
 
 To this present day ne'er grew. 
 
 Never better nor more true. 
 
 Here be grapes, whose lusty blood 
 
 Is the learned poet's good ; 
 
 Sweeter yet did never crown 
 
 The head of Bacchus ; nuts more brown 
 
A LITBRAEY LIFE. 89 
 
 Than the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em ; 
 
 Deign, oh I fairest fair, to take 'em 1 
 
 For these black-eyed Dryope 
 
 Hath oftentimes commanded me 
 
 With my clasped knee to climb : 
 
 See, how well the lusty time 
 
 Hath decked their rising cheeks in red. 
 
 Such as on your lips is spread. 
 
 Here be berries for a queen, 
 
 Some be red, some be green ; 
 
 These are of that luscious meat 
 
 The great god Pan himself doth eat : 
 
 All these, and what the woods can yield, 
 
 The hanging mountain, or the field, 
 
 I freely offer, and ere long 
 
 Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;. 
 
 Till when humbly leave I take. 
 
 Lest the great Pan do awake. 
 
 That sleeping lies in a deep glade. 
 
 Under a broad beech's shade. 
 
 I must go, I must run, 
 
 Swifter than the fiery sun. 
 
 The charming pastoral from whence this beautiful speech 
 is taken, was irrevocably condemned in the theatre on the 
 first and only night of representation ; which catastrophe, 
 added to a similar one that befell Oongreve's best comedy, 
 " The Way of the World," both authors being at the time in 
 the very flood-tide of popularity, has been an unspeakable 
 comfort to unsuccessful dramatists ever since. I recall it 
 chiefly to mention the hearty spirit with which two of the 
 most eminent of Fletcher's friendly rivals came to the rescue 
 with laudatory verses. The circumstance does so much 
 honour to all parties, and some of the lines are so good, that 
 I cannot help quoting them. George Chapman says that the 
 poem — 
 
 Renews the golden world, and holds through all 
 
 The holy laws of homely Pastoral ; 
 
 Where flowers and founts and nymphs and semi-gods 
 
 And all the graces find their old abodes ; 
 
 Where forests flourish but in endless verse, 
 
 And meadows, nothing fit for purchasers : 
 
 This iron age — 
 
 (Think of that in the days of James the First !) 
 
 This iron age that eats itself will never 
 Bite at your golden world, that others ever 
 Loved as itself. 
 
90 BECOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 Ben Jonson, first characterising the audience after a fashion 
 by no means complimentary, says that the play faUed because 
 it wanted the laxity of moral and of language which they 
 expected and desired. He continues : — 
 
 I that am glad thy innocence was thy guilt, 
 
 And wish that all the Muses' blood were spilt 
 
 In such a martyrdom, to vex theireyes, 
 
 Do crown thy murdered poem, which shall rise 
 
 A glorified work to time, when fire 
 
 Or moths shall eat what all these fools admire. 
 
 For the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, that mine of 
 superb and regal poetry, I have no room now. They must 
 remain untouched. 
 
 IX. 
 FASHIONABLE POETS. 
 
 WINTHKOP MACKWOBTH PEAED. 
 
 It is now nearly thirty years ago that two youths appeared 
 at Cambridge, of such literary and poetical promise as the 
 University had not known since the days of Gray. What is 
 rarer still, the promise was kept. One of these " marvellous 
 boys " turned out a man of world-wide renown — the spirited 
 poet, the splendid orator, the brilliant historian, the delightful 
 essayist— in a word, Thomas Babington Macaulay, now, I sup- 
 pose, incontestibly our greatest living writer. The other was 
 the subject of this paper. 
 
 Winthrop Mackworth Praed — (I wish it had pleased his god- 
 fathers and godmothers to bestow upon him a plain Enghsh 
 Christian name, and spare him and me the vulgar abomina- 
 tion of this conglomeration of inharmonious sounds !) — 
 Winthrop Mackworth Praed was bom in London, in the 
 beginning of this century, of parents belonging to the great 
 banking-house, which still remains in the family. Sent early 
 to Eton, he, while yet a schoolboy, followed the example of 
 Canning, who appears to have been the object of his emula- 
 tion in more pomts than one, and in conjunction with Mr. 
 Moultrie set up a paper called the " Etonian," to which he 
 was the principal contributor, and which was so successful 
 that it went through four editions, and established for the 
 
A LITERAET lilFE. 91 
 
 chief -writer a high, reputation for precocious talent. At Cam- 
 bridge this reputation was more than sustained. He was the 
 pride and glory of Trinity, and left college with an almost 
 unprecedented number of prizes, for Greek ode and Latin 
 epigram. Even the greater world of London, where University 
 fame so often melts away and is seen no more, was equally 
 favourable to Mr. Praed. He and his friendly rival, Mr. 
 Macaulay, gave their valuable assistance to "Knight's Quarterly 
 Magazine," and every fresh article made its impression. He 
 wrote also in the " New Monthly," and in the annuals, then 
 seen on every table, with still increasing brilliancy ; contri- 
 buted pungent political satire to other journals, and finally 
 entered Parliament with such hopes and expectations as his 
 talents might well warrant, but which have seldom been 
 excited by an untried member. 
 
 In the House of Commons he did quite enough to justify 
 the warmest anticipations of his friends, and to earn for 
 himself the name of a " rising man," that most auspicious of 
 all names to a political aspirant. 
 
 What he might have become had life been spared, it were 
 now vain to conjecture. He married happily, he died young. 
 Light, hvely, brilhant, the darling of every society that he 
 entered, he was yet most beloved by those who knew him 
 best. To me it seems that had he outlived the impetuosity 
 of youth, he would have become something higher and better 
 than a political partisan, however clever, or a fashionable poet, 
 however elegant. There was through all his poetry — and it is 
 its deepest although not its most obvious charm — a love of 
 the genuine and the true, a scorn for the false and the pre- 
 tending, which is the foundation of all that is really good in 
 eloquence as well as in poetry, in conduct and in character, 
 as well as in art. The germ of the patriot and the statesman 
 is to be found in the love of truth and the hatred of pretence ; 
 and never were they more developed than in the poems of 
 Winthrop Mackworth Praed. 
 
 That these poems are the most graceful and finished verses 
 of society that can be found in our language, it is impossible 
 to doubt. At present they are so scarce that the volume from 
 which I transcribe the greater part of the following extracts 
 is an American collection, procured with considerable diffi- 
 culty and delay from the United States. Others of the poems 
 
92 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 are taken from his own manuscripts, most kindly lent to me 
 by one of his nearest connexions, whom I am happy enough 
 to call my friend ; and one or two of the charades I have 
 copied from the "Penny Magazine" of the author's early 
 friend, Mr. Charles Knight, where they are strangely enough 
 called enigmas. 
 
 THE VIOAE. 
 
 Some years ago, ere Time and Taste 
 
 Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, 
 When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, 
 
 And roads as little known as scurvy. 
 The man who lost his way between 
 
 St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, 
 Was always shown across the Green, 
 
 And guided to the Parson's wicket. 
 
 Back flew the bolt of lissom lath ; 
 
 Fair Margaret in her tidy kirtle 
 Led the lorn traveller up the path. 
 
 Through olean-clipt rows of box and myrtle ; 
 And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, 
 
 Upon the parlour steps collected. 
 Wagged all their tails and seemed to say : 
 
 *' Our master knows you; you're expected." 
 
 Up rose the Eeverend Doctor Brown, 
 
 Up rose the Doctor's "winsome marrow;" 
 The lady laid her knitting down, 
 
 Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow. 
 Whate'ev the stranger's caste or creed, 
 
 Pundit or papist, saint or sinner. 
 He found a stable for his steed. 
 
 And welcome for himself and dinner. 
 
 If, when he reached his journey's end. 
 
 And warmed himself in court or college. 
 He had not gained an honest friend, 
 
 And twenty curious scraps of knowledge ; 
 If he departed as he came. 
 
 With no new light on love or liquor. 
 Good sooth the traveller was to blame. 
 
 And not the Vicarage or the Vicar 
 His talk was like a stream which runs 
 
 With rapid change from rocks to roses ; 
 It shpped from politics to puns ; 
 
 It passed from Mahomet to Moses • 
 Beginning with the laws which keep 
 
 The planets in then- radiant com'ses. 
 And ending with some precept deep 
 
 For dressing eels or shoeing horses. 
 
A LITERAEY LIPE. 93 
 
 He was a shrewd and sound divine, 
 
 Of loud dissent the mortal terror ; 
 And when by dint of page and line. 
 
 He 'stablished truth or startled error, 
 The Baptist found him far too deep. 
 
 The Deist sighed with saving sorrow, 
 And the lean Levite went to sleep 
 
 And dreamt of eating pork to-morrow. 
 
 His sermon never said or showed 
 
 That earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, 
 Without refreshment on the road 
 
 From Jerome or from Athanasius : 
 And sure a righteous zeal inspired 
 
 The hand and head that penned and planned them, 
 For all who understood admired, 
 
 And some who did not understand them. 
 
 He VTTote too, in a quiet way. 
 
 Small treatises and smaller verses, 
 And sage remarks on chalk and clay, 
 
 And hints to noble lords and nurses ; 
 True histories of last year's ghost ; 
 
 Lines to a ringlet or a turban, 
 And trifles for the " Morning Post," 
 
 And notliings for Sylvanus Urban. 
 
 He did not think all mischief fair, 
 
 Although he had a knack of joking ; 
 He did not make himself a bear, 
 
 Although he had a taste for smoking. 
 And when religious sects ran mad. 
 
 He held, in spite of all his learning. 
 That if a mr.n's belief is bad 
 
 It will not be improved by burning. 
 
 And he was kind and loved to sit 
 
 In the low hut or garnished cottage, 
 And praise the farmer's homely wit. 
 
 And share the widow's homelier pottage. 
 At his approach complaint grew mild. 
 
 And when his hand unbarred the shutter, 
 The clammy lips of fever smiled 
 
 The welcome that they could not utter 
 
 He always had a tale for me 
 
 Of Julius Cassar or of Venus ; 
 From him I learned the rule of three, 
 
 Cat's-oradle, leap-frog, and Quse genus. 
 I used to singe his powdered wig, 
 
 To steal the staff he put such trust in 
 And make the puppy dance a jig 
 
 When he began to quote Augustine. 
 
94 KECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 Alack the change ! In vain I look 
 
 For haunts in which by boyhood trifled ; 
 The level lawn, the trickling brook, 
 
 The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled I 
 The church is larger than before, 
 
 You reach it by a carriage entry ; 
 It holds three hundred people more. 
 
 And pews are fitted for the gentry. 
 
 Sit in the Vicai's seat : you'll hear 
 
 The doctrine of a gentle Johnian ; 
 Whose hand is white, whose voice is clear. 
 
 Whose tone is very Ciceronian. 
 Where is the old man laid ? Look down 
 
 And construe on the slab before you — 
 " Hie jacet Gulielmus Brown, 
 
 Vir nulla non donandus lauro." 
 
 The man who wrote the above admirable portrait was as 
 good as he was clever. The next has equal merit : — 
 
 QUINOK 
 
 Near a small village in the West, 
 
 Where many very worthy people 
 Eat, drink, play whist, and do their best 
 
 To guard from evil church and steeple, 
 There stood — alas, it stands no more ! — 
 
 A tenement of brick and plaster, 
 Of which for forty years and foui', 
 
 My good friend Quince was lord and master. 
 
 Welcome was he in hut and hall. 
 
 To maids and matrons, peers and peasants ; 
 He won the sympathies of all 
 
 By making puns and making presents. 
 Though all the parish was at strife. 
 
 He kept his counsel and his carriage, 
 And laughed, and loved a quiet life, 
 
 And shrunk from chancery-suits and marriage. 
 
 Sound was his claret and his head. 
 
 Warm was his double ale and feelings ; 
 His partners at the whist-club said 
 
 That he was faultless in his dealings. 
 He went to church but once a-week. 
 
 Yet Dr. Poundtext always found him 
 An upright man who studied Greek, 
 
 And liked to see his friends around him. 
 
 Asylums, hospitals, and schools 
 
 He used to swear were made to cozen ; 
 
 AU who subscribed to them were fools — 
 And he subscribed to half-a-dozen. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 95 
 
 It was his doctrine that the poor 
 
 Were always able, never willing ; 
 And so the beggar at the door 
 
 Had first abuse and then a shilling. 
 
 Some public principles he had, 
 
 But was no flatterer nor fretter; 
 He rapped his box when things were bad. 
 
 And said I cannot make them better. 
 And much he loathed the patriot's snort, 
 
 And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle, 
 And cut the fiercest quarrels short 
 
 With, " Patience, gentlemen, and shuffle ! " 
 
 For full ten years his pointer. Speed, 
 
 Had couched beneath his master's table. 
 For twice ten years his old white steed 
 
 Had fattened in his master's stable. 
 Old Quince averred upon his troth 
 
 They were the ugliest beasts in Devon : 
 And none knew why he fed them both 
 
 With his own hands six days in seven. 
 
 Whene'er they heard his ring or knock, 
 
 Quicker than thought the village slatterns 
 Flung down the novel, smoothed the frock. 
 
 And took up Mrs. Glasse or patterns. 
 AHce was studying baker's bills ; 
 
 Louisa looked the queen of knitters ; 
 Jane happened to be hemming frills ; 
 
 And Nell by chance was making fritters. 
 
 But all was vain. And while decay 
 
 Came like a tranquil moonlight o'er him, 
 And found him gouty still and gay, 
 
 With no fair nurse to bless or bore him ; 
 His rugged smile and easy chair. 
 
 His dread of matrimonial lectures, 
 His wig, his stick, his powdered hair 
 
 Were themes for very strange conjectures. 
 
 Some sages thought the stars above 
 
 Had crazed him with excess of knowledge ; 
 Some heard he had been crossed in love 
 
 Before he came away from college ; 
 Some darkly hinted that His Grace 
 
 Did nothing, great or small, without him ; 
 Some whispered, with a solemn face, 
 
 That there was something odd about him. 
 
 I found him at three score and ten 
 
 A single man, but bent quite double. 
 Sickness was coming on him then 
 
 To take him from a world of trouble. 
 
96 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 He prosed of sliding down the hill, 
 
 Discovered he grew older daily ; 
 One frosty day he made his -wiU, 
 
 The next he sent for Dr. Baillie. 
 And so he lived, and so he died ; 
 
 When last I sat beside his pillow. 
 He shook my hand ; "Ah me ! " he cried, 
 
 " Penelope must wear the willow ! 
 Tell her I hugged her rosy chain 
 
 While life was flickering in the socket, 
 And say that when I call again 
 
 I 'H bring a licence in my pocket. 
 
 " I 've left my house and grounds to Fag, 
 
 (I hope hia master's shoes will suit him !) 
 And I've bequeathed to you my nag. 
 
 To feed him for my sake, or shoot him. 
 The vicar's wife will take old Fox ; 
 
 She'll find him an uncommon mouser. 
 And let her husband have my box. 
 
 My Bible and my Assmanshauser. 
 
 " Whether I ought to die or not, 
 
 My doctors cannot quite determine ; 
 It 's only clear that I shall rot, 
 
 And be, like Priam, food for vermin. 
 My debts are paid. But Nature's debt 
 
 Almost escaped my recollection ! 
 Tom, we shall meet again ; and yet 
 
 I cannot leave you my direction ! " 
 
 The next poem, whicli describes a first flirtation (for it 
 hardly deserves the name of first love), is as true as if it had 
 been wi-itten in prose by Jane Austen. 
 
 THE BELLE Or THE BA.LL. 
 
 Tears, years ago, ere yet my dreams 
 
 Had been of being wise or witty ; 
 Ere I had done with writing themes. 
 
 Or yawned o'er this infernal " Chitty," 
 Tears, years ago, while all my joys 
 
 Were in my fowling-piece and filly, 
 In short, whUe I was yet a boy, 
 
 I fell in love with Laura Lilly. 
 
 I saw her at a country ball. 
 
 There where the sound of flute and fiddle 
 Gave signal, sweet in that old hall, 
 
 Of hands across and down the middle ; 
 Hers was the subtlest spell by far, 
 
 Of all that sets young hearts romancing. 
 She was our queen, our rose, our star. 
 
 And when she danced — Oh, heaven i her dancing ! 
 
A LITEEARY LIFE. 97 
 
 Dark was her hair ; her hand was white ; 
 
 Her voice was exquisitely tender ; 
 Her eyes were full of liquid light ; 
 
 I never saw a waist so slender. 
 Her every look, her every smile, 
 
 Shot right and left a score of arrows ; 
 I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, 
 
 And wondered where she' d left her sparrows ! 
 
 She talked of politics or prayers, 
 
 Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets. 
 Of daggers, or of dancing bears. 
 
 Of battles, or the last new bonnets ; 
 By candle-light, at twelve o'clock, 
 
 To me it mattered not a tittle, 
 If those bright lips had quoted Locke, 
 
 I might have thought they murmured Little. 
 
 Through sunny May, through sultry June 
 
 I loved her with a love eternal ; 
 I spoke her praises to the moon, 
 
 I wrote them for the Sunday journal. 
 My mother laughed ; I soon found out 
 
 That ancient ladies have no feeling. 
 My father frowned ; but how should gout 
 
 Find any happiness in kneeling ? 
 
 She wag the daughter of a dean. 
 
 Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic ; 
 She had one brother just thirteen, 
 
 "Whose colour was extremely hectic ; 
 Her grandmother for many a year 
 
 Had fed the parish with her bounty ; 
 Her second cousin was a peer. 
 
 And lord-Keuteuant of the county. 
 
 But titles and the three per cents. 
 
 And mortgages and great relations. 
 And India Bonds, and tithes, and rents. 
 
 Oh ! what are they to love's sensations ? 
 Black eyes, fair foreheads, clustering locks. 
 
 Such wealth, such honours Cupid chooses ; 
 He cares as little for the stocks. 
 
 As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. 
 
 She sketched : the vale, the wood, the beach 
 
 Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading ; 
 She botanized : I envied each 
 
 Young blossom in her boudoir fading ; 
 She warbled Handel : it was grand. 
 
 She made the Catalani jealous ; 
 She touched the organ : I could stand 
 
 For hours and hours and blow the bellows. 
 H 
 
98 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 She kept an album, too, at home, 
 
 Well filled with all an album's glories ; 
 Paintings of biitterflies and Rome ; 
 
 Patterns for trimming; Persian stories; 
 Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo ; 
 
 Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter, 
 And autographs of Prince Le Boo, 
 
 And recipes for elder-water. 
 
 And she was flattered, worshipped, bored. 
 
 Her steps were watched, her dress was noted. 
 Her poodle dog was quite adored. 
 
 Her sayings were extremely quoted. 
 She laughed, and e-pery heart was glad 
 
 As if the taxes were abolished ; 
 She frowned, and every look was sad. 
 
 As if the opera were demolished. 
 
 She smiled on many just for fun— 
 
 I knew that there was nothing in it ; 
 I was the first, the only one. 
 
 Her heart' had thought of for a minute. 
 I knew it, for she told me so. 
 
 In phrase that was divinely moulded ; — 
 She wrote a charming hand, and oh ! 
 
 How neatly all her notes were folded. 
 
 Our love was like most other loves, — 
 
 A little glow, a little shiver ; 
 A rosebud and a pair of gloves. 
 
 And "Fly not yet," upon the river; 
 Some jealousy of some one's heir ; 
 
 Some hopes of dying broken-hearted ; 
 A miniature ; a look of hair ; 
 
 The usual vows ; — and then we parted. 
 
 We parted ; months and years rolled by ; 
 
 We met again some summers after ; 
 Our porting was all sob and sigh ! 
 
 Our meeting was all mirth and laughter ! 
 For in my heart's most secret cell 
 
 There had been many other lodgers ; 
 And she was not the ball-room belle. 
 
 But only Mistress — something — ^Rogers ! 
 
 The political satire is equally good-humoured, equally cha- 
 racteristic, and equally clever, perhaps cleverer — if that can 
 be — ^than these specimens. Some of the objects of that keen 
 and pungent verse still remain alive, although many are, like 
 the author, removed from this transitory scene. I abstain, 
 therefore, from inserting what might by possibility cause 
 pain. The following cavalier version of the great fight of 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. i(9 
 
 Marston Moor is transcribed from the author's own manu- 
 script, apparently the first sketch. It is wonderful how little 
 that fertile and fluent pen found to alter or to amend. 
 
 To horse ! to liorse 1 Sir Nicholas, the clarion's note is high I 
 
 To horse ! to horse ! Sir Nicholas, the big drum makes reply ! 
 
 Ere this hath Lucas marched, with his gallant cavaliers, 
 
 And the bray of Eupert's trumpets grows fainter in our ears. 
 
 To horse ! to horse I Sir Nicholas ! White Guy is at the door. 
 
 And the raven wets his beak o'er the field of Marston Moor. 
 
 Up rose the Lady Alice from her brief and broken prayer. 
 
 And she brought a silken banner down the narrow turret-stair ; 
 
 Oh ! many were the tears that those radiant eyes had shed, 
 
 As she traced the bright word "Glory,"' in the gay and glancing thread ; 
 
 And mournful was the smile which o'er those lovely features ran. 
 
 As she said, " It is your lady's gift ; unfurl it in the van ! " 
 
 " It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride. 
 
 Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons of Pride ; 
 
 The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel * sickly qualm, 
 
 And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm ; 
 
 When they see my lady's gew-gaw flaunt proudly on their wing, 
 
 And hear her loyal soldier's shout, 'For God and for the King.' 
 
 'Tis noon. The ranks are broken, along the royal line 
 
 They fly, the braggarts of the court I the bullies of the Ehine ! 
 
 Stout Langdale's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's helm is down, 
 
 And Rupert sheathes his rapier with a curse and with a frown, 
 
 And cold Newcastle muttei'S, as he follows in their flight, 
 
 " The German boar had better far have supped in York to-night." 
 
 The knight is left alone, his steel cap cleft in twain. 
 
 His good bufl" jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain ; 
 
 Yet stiU he waves his banner, and cries amid the rout, 
 
 " For Church and King, fair gentlemen ! spur ou and fight it out ! " 
 
 And now he wards a Roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave. 
 
 And now he quotes a stage play, and now he fells a knave. 
 
 God aid thee now, Sir Nicholas ! thou hast no thought of fear ; 
 
 God aid thee now. Sir Nicholas I for fearful odds are here 1 
 
 The rebels hem thee in, and at every cut and thrust, 
 
 " Down, down," they cry, " with Belial I down with him to the dust." 
 
 " I would,' quoth grim old Oliver, "that Belial's trusty sword 
 
 This day were doing battle for the Saints and for the Lord ! " 
 
 The Lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower. 
 The grey-haired warder watches from the castle's topmost tower ; 
 "What news? what news, old Hubert?" — "The battle's lost and 
 The royal troojis are melting, hke mist before the sun ! [won ; 
 
 And a wounded man approaches ; —I 'm blind aud cannot see. 
 Yet sure I am that sturdy step, my master's step must be ! " 
 
 " I 've brought thee back thy banner, wench, from as rude and red a 
 As e'er was proof of soldier's thew, or theme for minstrel's lay ! [fiuy. 
 Here, Hubert, bring the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suif. 
 I '11 make a shift to drain it yet, ere I part with boots and buff; — 
 h2 
 
100 EECOLLBOTIONS OF 
 
 Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing forth his life. 
 And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and faithful wife ! 
 " Sweet ! we will fiU our money-bags, and freight a ship for France, 
 And mourn in. merry Paris for this poor land's mischance ; 
 For if the worst befal me, why better axe and rope. 
 Than life with Lenthall for a king, and Peters for a pope ! 
 Alas ! alaa ! my gallant Guy ! — curse on the crop-eared boor, 
 Who sent me, with my standard, on foot from Marston Moor ! 
 
 I pass some poems that have been greatly praised, " The 
 Bed Fisherman," " Lilian," and " The Troubadour," to come 
 to the charades — the charming charades— which, in their form 
 of short narrative poems, he may be said to have invented. 
 I insert a few taken almost at random from his brilliant 
 collection : — 
 
 I. 
 I graced Don Pedro's revelry. 
 
 All dressed in fire and feather ; 
 When loveliness and chivalry 
 Were met to feast together. 
 He flung the slave who moved the Ud, 
 
 A purse of maravedis ; — 
 And this that gallant Spaniard did, 
 
 For me and for the ladies. 
 He vowed a vow, that noble knight, 
 
 Before he went to table. 
 To make his only sport the fight. 
 
 His only couch the stable. 
 Till he had dragged as he was bid 
 Five score of 'Turks to Cadiz ; — 
 And this that gallant Spaniard did. 
 
 For me and for the ladies. 
 To ride through mountains, where my First 
 
 A banquet would be reckoned ; 
 Throvigh deserts where to quench their thirst 
 
 Men vainly turn my Second. 
 To leave the gates of fair Madrid, 
 And dare the gates of Hades ; — 
 And this that gallant Spaniard did. 
 For me and for the ladies. 
 
 u. 
 Morning is beaming o'er brake and bower; 
 Hark ! to the chimes from yonder tower t 
 Call ye my First from her chamber now. 
 With her snowy veil and her jewelled brow. 
 Lo ! where my Sew/id, in gorgeous array. 
 Leads from his stable her beautiful bay, 
 Looking for her as he curvets by 
 With an arching neck and a glancing eye. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 101 
 
 Spread Is the banquet and studied the song, 
 
 Eanged in meet order the menial throng, 
 
 Jerome is ready with book and with stole, 
 
 And the maidens strew flowers — but where is my Whole ? 
 
 Look to the hill ! is he climbing its side ? 
 Look to the stream I is he crossing its tide ? 
 Out on the false one ! he comes not yet — 
 Lady, forget him ! yea, scorn and forget 1 
 
 The next is a surname, and one of the most beautiful com- 
 pliments ever offered to a great poet : — 
 
 Come from my First, ay, come I 
 
 The battle dawn is nigh ; 
 And the screaming trump and the thundering drum 
 
 Are calling thee to die ! 
 
 Kght as thy father fought ; 
 
 Fall as thy father fell ; 
 Thy task is taught ; thy shroud is wrought ; 
 
 So, — forward and farewell ! 
 
 Toll ye my Second I toll ! 
 
 Fling high the flambeau's light ; 
 And sing the hymn for a parted soul 
 
 Beneath the silent night 1 
 
 The wreath upon his head. 
 
 The cross upon his breast, 
 Let the prayer be said, and the tear he shed, 
 
 So, — take him to his rest ! 
 
 Call ye my Whole, ay, call 
 
 The lord of lute and lay ; 
 And let him greet the sable pall 
 
 "With a noble song to-day : 
 
 Go, call him by his name ! 
 
 N"o fitter hand may crave 
 To light the flame of a soldier's fame 
 
 On the turf of a soldier's grave. 
 
 1 add a few more of these graceful pleasantries : — 
 
 He talked of daggers and of darts, 
 
 Of passions and of pains. 
 Of weeping eyes and wounded hearts. 
 
 Of kisses and of chains ; 
 He said, though love was kin to grief, 
 
 He was not born to grieve ; 
 He said, though many rued belief, 
 
 She safely might believe. 
 
102 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 But still the lady shook her head. 
 And swore by yea and nay, 
 
 My Wliole was all that he had said 
 And all that he could say. 
 
 He said my First whose silent car 
 
 Was slowly wandering by, 
 Veiled in a vapour faint and far 
 
 Through the unfathomed sky. 
 Was like the smile whose rosy light 
 
 Across her young lips passed, 
 Yet, oh ! it was not half so bright. 
 
 It changed not half so fast. 
 But still the lady shook her head, 
 
 And swore by yea and nay. 
 My Whole was all that he had said 
 
 And all that he could say. 
 
 And then he set a cypress wreath 
 
 Upon his raven hair, 
 And drew his rapier from its sheath— 
 
 Which made the lady stare ; 
 And said his life-blood's purple glow 
 
 My Second there should dim. 
 If she he loved and worshipped so. 
 
 Would only weep for him. 
 But still the lady shook her head, 
 
 And swore by yea and nay, 
 My Whole was all that he had said 
 
 And all that he could say. 
 
 My First came forth in booted state. 
 
 For fair Valencia bound ; 
 And smiled to feel my Second's weight. 
 
 And hear its creaking sound. 
 
 " And here's a gaoler sweet," quoth he, 
 " You cannot bribe or cozen ; 
 
 To keep one ward in custody 
 Wise men will forge a dozen." 
 
 But daybreak saw a lady guide 
 
 My Whole across the plain, 
 With a handsome cavalier beside. 
 
 To hold her bridle-rein : 
 
 And "blessings on the bonds," quoth ho, 
 " Which wrinkled age imposes ; 
 
 If woman must a prisoner be. 
 Her chain should be of roses." 
 
A LlTBRAny LIFE. 103 
 
 VL 
 Sly First was dark o er earth and air, 
 
 As dark as she could be ! 
 The stars that gemmed her ebon hair 
 
 Were only two or three : 
 King Cole saw thrice as many there 
 
 As you or I could see. 
 
 "Away, King Cole," mine hostess said, 
 
 " Fhigon and fliisk ai'e dry ; 
 Your steed is neighing in the shed, 
 
 For he knows a storm is nigh." 
 She set my Second on his head, 
 
 And she set it aU awry. 
 
 ■VII. 
 Sir Hilary charged at Aginoourt,— 
 
 Sooth 't was an awful day ! 
 And though in that old age of sport 
 The rufflers of the camp and court 
 
 Had little time to piay, 
 'T is said Sir Hilary muttered there 
 Two syllables by way of prayer. 
 
 My First to all the brave and proud 
 
 Who see to-morrow's sun ; 
 My Jfext with her cold and quiet cloud 
 To those who iind their dewy shroud 
 
 Before to-day's be done ; 
 And both together to all blue eyes 
 That weep when a warrior nobly dies. 
 
 This charade is still a mystery to me. Solve it, fair 
 readers f 
 
 X. 
 PEASANT POETS. 
 
 JOHN OLAKE. 
 
 Neaeit at the same period, when Macaulay and Pi'aed 
 sprang into public life, the world of letters was startled by 
 the announcement of a new poet, a Northamptonshire peasant, 
 whose claims to distinction were vouched for by judges of no 
 ordinary sagacity, little given to mistake, and by no means 
 addicted to enthusiasm. His character was blameless and 
 amiable. Although of a frame little suited to severity of toil, 
 he had for many years supported his aged parents by manual 
 labour ; and in bringing his powers .into the light of day, he 
 had undergone more than the ordinary amount of delay, of 
 
104 EECOLLEOIIONS OP 
 
 suspense, of disappointment, and of " the hope deferred that 
 maketh the heart sick." 
 
 From the prefaces to his three publications, the " Poems, 
 descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery," " The Village Minstrel," 
 and " The Rural Muse," his early history may be collected. 
 At the age of thirteen, when he could read tolerably, and 
 knew something of writing and arithmetic, he met, acci- 
 dentally, with " Thomson's Seasons," a book which not only 
 awakened in his mind the love of poetry, but led him at 
 once to the kind of poetry in which, from situation and from 
 natural aptitude, he was most hkely to succeed. For another 
 thirteen years his brief leisure was fiUed with attempts, more 
 or less successful, to clothe, m the language of verse, his own 
 
 i feelings and observations. His chief trial, during this long 
 probation, must have been his entire loneUness of mind — ^the 
 absence of all companionship or sympathy. At this time he 
 met with the " Patty " whom he afterwards married, and, in 
 the hope of improving his circumstances, began to consider 
 seriously about publishing a small volume by subscription ; 
 and having ascertained that the expense of three hundred 
 copies of a prospectus would not be more than a pound, he 
 set himself resolutely to work, and by hard labour, day and 
 night, at length succeeded in accumulating the required sum. 
 " I distributed my papers," said the poor author, "but as 
 I could get no way of pushing them into higher circles than 
 those with whom I was acquainted, they consequently passed 
 off as quietly as if they had still been in my possession, un- 
 printed and not seen." For a long while the number of sub- 
 scribers stood at seven. At length, however, a copy of the 
 proposals won their way to London. Messrs. Taylor and 
 Hessey gave twenty pounds for the Poems ; and, what was far 
 better for the author, contrived to obtain for them immediate 
 publicity. 
 ) The little volume was striking in what it had and in what 
 \ it wanted. The very struggle between original thought and 
 i imperfect expression sometimes resulted in happiness and 
 beauty. One thing was certain : John Clare was no imitator. 
 "Persons of taste and generosity in the higher classes took him 
 by the hand. Lord Exeter sent for him to Burleigh, and 
 hearing that he earned thirty pounds per annum by field 
 labour, settled an annuity of fifteen pounds upon him, with 
 
A. LITERARY LIFE. 105 
 
 a view to his devoting half his time to agricultural occupa- 
 tions, and half to literary pursuits. This benevolent proposal, 
 which sounds so hopefully, proved a notable failure, chiefly in 
 consequence of oxir national failing of running after every- 
 thing and everybody that has attained a suflacient portion 
 of notoriety. Poor Clare became as great a lion as if he had 
 committed two or three murders. He was frequently inter- 
 rupted, as often as three times a-day, during his labours in 
 the harvest-field, to gratify the curiosity of admiring visitors ; 
 and a plan, excellent in its principle, was abandoned perforce. 
 Other wealthy and liberal noblemen joined in the good work. 
 Lord Spencer gave ten pounds per annum. A subscription 
 was set on foot by Lord Eadstock, to which the present King 
 of the Belgians, Lord FitzwiUiam, and Lord John EusseU con- 
 tributed generously, and which, together with the profits of 
 his works — for "llie Village Minstrel" had now been pub- 
 lished — realized for him altogether an annual income of five- 
 and-forty pounds. This appeared af&uence to our poet, and 
 he married. 
 
 Praised by the " Quarterly," and befriended by noble patrons 
 and generous booksellers, his prospects seemed more than com- 
 monly smiling. His third publication, too, " The Rural Muse," in 
 spite of its unpromising title, more than justified all that had 
 been done for him. The improvement was most remarkable. 
 That he should gain a greater command over language, a 
 choicer selection of words, and the knowledge of grammatical 
 construction, which he had wanted before, was to be expected ; 
 but the habit of observation seemed to have increased in fine^ 
 ness and accuracy in proportion as he gained the power of ) 
 expression, and the delicacy of his sentiment kept pace with / 
 the music of his vei-siflcation. What can be closer to nature 
 than his description of the nightingale's nest ? 
 
 Up this green woodland ride let's Boftly rove, 
 And Ust the Nightingale ; she dwells just here. 
 Hush ! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear 
 The noise might drive her from her home of love ; 
 For here I 've heard her many a merry year, 
 At morn, at eve, nay, all the livelong day, 
 As though she lived on song. This very spot 
 Just where that old man's-beard all wildly trails 
 Rude arbours o'er the road, and stops the way; 
 And where the child its blue-bell flowers hath got. 
 Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails; 
 
106 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 There have I hunted like a very boy, 
 Creeping on handa and knees through matted thorn, 
 To find her nest, and see her feed her young. 
 And vainly did I many hours employ : 
 All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn. 
 And where those crumpling fern-leaves ramp among 
 The hazels under boughs, I've nestled down 
 And watched her while she sang ; and her renown 
 Hcith made me marvel that so famed a bird 
 Should have no better dress than russet brown. 
 Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy, 
 And feathers stand on end, as 'twere with joy, 
 And mouth wide open to release her heart 
 Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part 
 Of Summer's fame she shared, for so to me 
 Did happy fancies shapen her employ. 
 But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred. 
 All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain : 
 The timid bird had left the hazel-liush, 
 . And oft in distance hid to sing again. 
 Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves, 
 Rich ecstasy would pour its luscious strain, 
 Till envy spurred the emulating Thrush 
 To start less wild and scarce inferior songs ; 
 For while of half the year Care him bereaves, 
 To damp the ardour of his speckled breast. 
 The Nightingale to Summei's life belongs, 
 And naked trees and Winter's nipping wrongs 
 Are strangers to her music and her rest. 
 Her joys are ever green, her world is wide ! 
 Hark ! there she is, as usual. Let's be hush ; 
 For in this black-thom clump, if rightly guessed, 
 Her curious house is hidden. Part a.-side 
 Those hazel-branches in a gentle way, 
 And stoop right cautious 'neath the rustling boughs, 
 For we will have another search to-day. 
 And hunt tuis fern-strewn thoru-clump round and round. 
 And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows 
 We'll wade right through ; it is a likely nook. 
 In such like spots, and often on the ground ■ 
 They 'U build where rude boys never think to look ; — 
 Aye, as I live ! her secret nest is here 
 Upon this white-thorn stump ! I 've searched about 
 For hours in vain. There, put that bramble by,— 
 Nay, trample on its branches, and get near. 
 How subtle is the bird ! She started out. 
 And raised a plaintive note of danger nigh 
 Ere we were past the brambles; aud now, near 
 Her nest, she sudden stops, as choking fear 
 That minht betray her home. So even now 
 We '11 leave it as we found it ; safety's guard 
 Of pathless solitudes shall keep it still. 
 * « * » 
 
A LITERARY LIFE, 107 
 
 We will not plunder music of its dower, 
 
 Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall, 
 
 For melorty seems hid in every flower 
 
 That blossoms near thy home. These bluebells all 
 
 Seem bowing with the beautiful in aong ; 
 
 And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves. 
 
 Seems blushing of the singing it has heard. 
 
 How curious is the nest ! No other bird 
 
 Uses such loose materials, or weaves 
 
 Its dwellings in such spots ! Dead oaken leaves 
 
 Are placed without, and velvet moss within. 
 
 And little scraps of grass, and scant and spare, 
 
 What hardly seem materials, down and hair ; 
 
 For from men's haunts she nothing seems to win. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Snug lie her curious eggs, in number five. 
 Of deadened green, or rather olive-brown, 
 And the old prickly thorn-bush guards them well. 
 So here we '11 leave them, still unknown to wrong. 
 As the old woodland's legacy of song. 
 
 la not this nature itself ? And again, another nest, as true 
 every whit in its difference. 
 
 THE PETTIOHAP'B UEST. 
 
 Well ! in my many walks I 've rarely found 
 A place less likely for a bird to form 
 Its nest ; close by the rut-gulled waggon-road. 
 And on the almost bare foot-trodden ground. 
 With scarce a clump of grass to keep it warm. 
 Where not a thistle spreads its spears abroad. 
 Or prickly bush to shield it from harm's way ; 
 And yet so snugly made, that none may spy 
 It out, save peradveuture. You and I 
 Had surely passed it in our walk today 
 Had chance not led us by it ! Nay, e'en now. 
 Had not the old bird heard us trampling by, 
 And fluttered out, we had not seen it lie 
 Brown as the road-way side. Small bits of hay 
 Pluckt from the old propt haystack's pleachy brow. 
 And withered leaves, made up its outward wall. 
 Which from the gnarled oak-dotterel yearly fall, 
 And in the old hedge-bottom rot away. 
 Built like an oven, through a little hole. 
 Scarcely admitting e'en two fingers in, 
 Hard to discern, the birds snug entrance win. 
 'T is lined with feathers, warm as silken stole, 
 Softer than seats of down for painless ease. 
 And full of eggs scarce bigger e'en than peas. 
 Here's one most delicate, with spots as small 
 As dust, and of a faint and pinky red. 
 * * * * 
 
108 RECOLLECTIONS OS 
 
 And they are left to many dangerous ways. 
 A green grasshopper's jnmp might break the shells ; 
 Yet lowing oxen pass them morn and night. 
 And restless sheep around them hourly stray. 
 * * * * 
 
 I add yet another : — 
 
 THE TBLLOWHAMMEK'B NEST. 
 
 Just by the wooden bridge a bird flew up. 
 Seen by the cow-boy as he scrambled down 
 To reach the misty dewberry. Let us stoop 
 And seek its nest. The brook we need not dread, — 
 'T is scarcely deep enough a bee to drown, 
 As it sings harmless o'er its pebbly bed. 
 — Aye, here it is ! Stuck close beside the bank. 
 Beneath the bunch of grass that spindles rank 
 Its husk-seeds tall and high : 'tis rudely planned 
 Of bleached stubbles and the withered fare 
 That last year's harvest left upon the land, 
 Lined thinly with the horse's sable hair. 
 Five eggs, pen-scribbled o'er with ink their shells, 
 Eesembliug writing scrawls, which Fancy reads 
 As Nature's poesy and pastoral spells : 
 They are the Tellowhammer's ; and she dwells, 
 Most poet like, 'mid brooks and flowery weeds. 
 * m * * 
 
 I question if the great bird-paintei', Wilson, or our own 
 Australian ornithologist, Mr. Gould (he is a Berkshire man, 
 I am proud to say), or Auduboii, or White of Selborne, or 
 Mr. Waterton himself — and all those careful inquirers into 
 nature are more or less poets, seldom as they have used the 
 conventional language of poetry — I question if any of these 
 eminent writers have ever exceeded the minuteness and 
 accuracy of these birds' nests. 
 
 The Poem called " Insects" is scarcely less beautiful. 
 
 These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard. 
 And happy units of a numerous herd 
 Of playfellows, the laughing summer brings ; 
 Mocking the sunshine on their glittering wings. 
 How merrily they creep, and run, and fly ! 
 No kin they bear to labour's drudgery. 
 Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose, 
 And where they fly for dinner no one knows ; 
 The dew-drops feed them not ; they love the shine 
 Of noon, whose suns may bring them golden wine. 
 All day they 're playing in their Sunday dress ; 
 When night reposes they can do no less ! 
 Then to the heath-bell's purple hood they fly. 
 And, like to princes in their slumbers, lie 
 
A UTEBAKT LIFE. 109 
 
 Secure from rain and droppiag dews, and all 
 On silken beds and roomy painted hall. 
 So merrily they spend their summer day, 
 Now in the corn-fields, now the new-mown hay. 
 One almost fancies that such happy things. 
 With coloured hoods and riohly-bui-nished wings, 
 Are fairy folk in splendid masquerade 
 Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid, 
 Keeping their joyous pranks a mystery still, 
 Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill. 
 
 And as I have said above, other qualities too had super- 
 vened- The delicacy of sentiment in the following stanzas 
 bears no touch of the uncultivated peasant. 
 
 WEST LOVB S BBOOLLEOTIONS. 
 
 First love will with the heaii; remain 
 
 When all its hopes ai'e by. 
 As frail rose-blossoms still retain 
 
 Their fragrance when they die. 
 And joy's first dreams will haunt the mind 
 
 With shades from whence they sprung, 
 As summer leaves the stems behind 
 
 On which spi-ing's blossoms hung. 
 
 Mary I I dare not call thee dear, 
 
 I 've lost that right so long. 
 Yet once again I vex thine ear 
 
 With memory's idle song. 
 Had time and change not blotted out 
 
 The love of former days, 
 Thou wert the' first that I should doubt 
 
 Of pleasing with my praise. 
 
 When honied tokens from each tongue 
 
 Told with what truth we loved. 
 How rapturous to thy lips I clung, 
 
 Whilst nought but smiles reproved. 
 But now, methinks if one kind word 
 
 Was whispered an thine ear, 
 Thou'dst startle like an untamed bird. 
 
 And blush with wilder fear. 
 
 How loth to part, how fond to meet. 
 
 Had we two used to be, 
 At sunset vrith what eager feet 
 
 I hastened unto thee ! 
 Scarce nine days passed us ere we met. 
 
 In spring, nay, wintry weather ; 
 Now nine years' suns have risen and set, 
 
 Nor found us once together. 
 
110 KECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 Thy face was so familiar grown. 
 
 Thyself so often by, 
 A moment's memory when alone 
 
 Would bring thetj to mine eye. 
 But now my very dreams forget 
 
 That witching look to trace ; 
 And though thy beauty lingers yet, 
 
 It wears a strangei-'s face. 
 
 I felt a pride to name thy name, 
 
 But now that pride hath flown ; 
 My words e'en seem to blush for shams 
 
 That own I love thee on. 
 I felt I then thy heart did share, 
 
 Nor urged a binding vow ; 
 But much I doubt if thou couldst spare 
 
 One word of kindness now. 
 
 And what is now my name to thee, 
 
 Though once nought seemed so dear ? 
 Perhaps a jest in hours of glee, 
 
 To please some idle ear. 
 And yet like counterfeits with me 
 
 Impressions linger on, 
 Though all the gilded finery 
 
 That passed for truth is gone. 
 
 Ere the world smiled upon my lays 
 
 A sweeter meed was mine ; 
 Thy blushing look of ready praise 
 
 Was raised at every line. 
 But now methiuks thy fervent love 
 
 Is changed to scorn severe ; 
 And songs that other hearts approve. 
 
 Seem discord to thine ear. 
 
 When last thy gentle cheek I pressed 
 
 And heard thee feign adieu, 
 I little thought that seeming jest 
 
 Wo\ild prove a word so true. 
 A fate like this hath oft befell 
 
 E'en loftier hopes than ours; — 
 Spring bids full many buds to swell, 
 
 That ne'er can grow to flowers. 
 
 That was John Clare's last vohime, published in 1839, and 
 although generously noticed by the press, it did not sell. 
 Perhaps the vei-y imperfections of the earlier works had made 
 a part of their charm. There is a certain pleasure in being 
 called upon to show indulgence to one whose high gifts are 
 indisputable. Besides the complacency always attending a 
 sense of superiority of any kind, it flatters one's self-love most 
 agreeably (I am speaking of readers, not of critics) to be able 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. Ill 
 
 to detect and to point out beauties under tlie veil of defects. 
 Still greater was the pride of being amongst the first dis- 
 coverers of such endowments. With the novelty, that pleasure 
 vanished. Every child boasts the violet of his own finding, 
 and cherishes and caresses it — while it is fresh ; then it dis- 
 appears and is no more thought of. Woe to us if so we treat 
 a still tenderer flower ! 
 
 However, it happened the popularity diminished as the 
 merit increased. The public, usually so just in its ultimate 
 estimate of authors, failed in this particular instance to re- 
 cognise the strong ~and honest claim upon a fair and liberal 
 patronage possessed by one who had been taken from his 
 own humble avocation, from the homely work but the certain 
 reward of the plough, to cixltivate the always uncertain, and 
 too often barren and unthankful fields of literature. Such, I 
 fear, poor Clare found them. Improvement had come, but 
 with improvement came sickness and anxiety. The little 
 income had soon been found inadequate to the wants of his 
 aged parents, and the demands of an increasing family : for 
 they will marry, these poets ! Poverty overwhelmed him, 
 and sickness — and they who still took a kindly interest in 
 one who had crept so close to the heart of nature in coppice 
 and in field, heard with sorrowful sympathy that the sickness 
 was of the mind. 
 
 It has been said that pecuniary difiiculties were the real 
 cause of the malady, and that the removal of all anxiety as to 
 the means of living would at once cure the delusions under 
 which ho labours, and restore him to his home and to his 
 family. I wish it were so, for I think, if that were true 
 (and certainly the fact ought to be ascertained, as nearly 
 as anything of that nature can be ascertained by medical 
 examination), that they who so benevolently lent their aid to 
 lift him from his original obscurity, would, aided by others 
 of a like spirit, step forward to rescue from a still deeper 
 darkness one whose talents had so well justified their former 
 bounty. 
 
 In the meanwhile it is an alleviation to the painful feeling 
 excited by such a narrative to know that the poor poet, per- 
 fectly gentle and harmless, enjoys, in the asylum where he is 
 placed, the wise freedom of person and of action whicn is the 
 triumph of humanity and of science in the present day. 
 
112 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 A few years ago he was visited by a friend of mine, himself 
 a poet of the people, who gave me a most interesting account 
 of the then state of his intellect. His delusions were at that 
 time very singular in their character. Whatever he read, 
 ■whatever recurred to him from his former reading, or happened 
 to be mentioned in conversation, became impressed on his 
 mind as a thing that he had Witnessed and acted in. My 
 fxiend was strack with a narrative of the execution of Charles 
 the Pirst, recounted by Clare, as a transaction that occurred 
 yesterday, and of which he was an eye-witness — a narrative 
 the most graphic and minute, with an accuracy as to costume 
 and manners far exceeding what would probably have been 
 at his command if sane. It is such a lucidity as the disciples 
 of Mesmer claim for clairvoyainoe. Or he would relate the 
 battle of the Nile and the death of Lord Nelson, with the 
 same perfect keeping, especially as to seamanship, fancying 
 himself one of the saOors who had been in the action, and 
 dealing out nautical phrases with admirable exactness and 
 accuracy, although it is doubtful if he ever saw the sea in 
 his life. 
 
 About three years before my friend's visit, Mr. Cyrus Bedding 
 went to see him, and has given a very interesting description 
 of the poet, and of his state of mind, in the "English Journal" 
 He says that during his stay he appeared free from all delusion, 
 except once when some allusion was made to prize-fighting, 
 and represents him as regretting the absence of female society, 
 and as continuing to write verse of 'much merit. I have 
 myself some fragments, written with a pencil, which show all 
 his old power over rhythm.* 
 
 ^ * About a hundred years ago, CSiristopher Smart, srized with a 
 similar malady, confined in a madhouse, and deprived of the use of 
 pen, mk, and paper, contrived to mdent his Song of David upon the 
 wainscot with the end of a key. I add three stanzas of this fine 
 poem as a psychological curiosity. Times are changed for the better. 
 John Clare has aU encouragement to write as often and as much as 
 he chooses. "iui.ii « 
 
 He sang of God, the mighty source 
 Of all things, the stupendous force 
 
 On which all strength depends ■ ' 
 From whose right arm, beneath whose eyes 
 AU period, power, and enterprise. 
 
 Commences, reigns, and ends. ' rijijjg 
 
A LITERART LITE. 113 
 
 Mr. Redding gives several examples of these poems. They 
 are distinguished from those of his earlier days by several I 
 differences, especially by the change from the rich level | 
 meadows of Northamptonshire to the hill and dale of Epping 
 Forest. Here is one which is said to be reminiscent of his 
 
 Patty : 
 
 Maid of Walkherd meet again 
 By the wilding in the glen ; 
 By the oak against the door, 
 Where we often met hefore. 
 By thy bosom's heaving snow. 
 By thy fondness love shall know ; 
 Maid of Walkherd meet again 
 By the wilding in the glen. 
 By thy hand of slender make, 
 By thy love 1 11 ne'er forsake, 
 By thy heart I '11 ne'er betray, 
 Let me kiss thy tears away. 
 I will live and love thee ever, 
 Love thee and forsake thee never. 
 Though far in other lands to be. 
 Yet never far from love and thee. 
 
 The next specimen has much of his fine observation of 
 natural objects, and his old love of birds breaks through 
 everything : — 
 
 The forest meets the blessings of the spring. 
 The chestnut throws her sticky buds away, 
 And shows her pleasant leaves and snow-white flowers. 
 * » » * 
 
 I 've often tried, when tending sheep or cow. 
 
 With hits of grass and peels of oaten straw. 
 
 To whistle like the birds. The thrush would start 
 
 To hear her song of praise, and fly away ; 
 
 The blackbird never cared, but sang again ; 
 
 The world, the clustering spheres he made. 
 The glorious light, the soothing shade, 
 
 Dale, champaign, grove, and hill ; 
 The multitudinous abyss, 
 Where Secresy remains in bliss, 
 
 And Wisdom hides her skill. 
 
 Tell them I Am, Jehovah said. 
 
 To Moses ; whilst earth heard in dread. 
 
 And smitten to the heart. 
 At once above, beneath, around. 
 All Nature, without voice or sound, 
 
 Eeplied, Lord, Thou art ! 
 
 Devotional poetiy has nothing grander even in Milton. 
 I 
 
114 KECOLLECa'IONS OP 
 
 The uighfmgiile'a pure song I could not 117-. 
 
 And when the thrush would mock her song, she paused, 
 
 And sang another song no bird could do ; 
 
 She sang when all were done, and beat them all. 
 
 I've often sat, and watched them half the day 
 
 Behind the hedgerow thorn or buUaoe-tree ; 
 
 I thought how nobly I would act in crowds. 
 
 The woods and fielHs were all the books I knew, 
 
 And every leisure thought was love or fame. 
 
 There is some intention, I believe, of publishing a volume 
 of these poems. It will be interesting on many accounts, and, 
 for the sake of the poet and of his family, I heartily wish it 
 every success. 
 
 We cannot, I repeat, do too much for John Clare ; lie has a 
 claim to it as a man of genius suffering under the severest 
 visitation of Providence. But let us beware of indulging our- 
 selves by encouraging the class of pseudo-peasant poets who 
 spring up on every side, and are amongst the most pitiable 
 objects in creation. One knows them by sight upon the path- 
 way, from their appearance of vagrant misery — an appearance 
 arising from the sense of injustice and of oppression imder 
 which they suffer, the powerless feehng that they have claims 
 Which the whole world refuses to acknowledge, a, perpetual 
 and growing sense of injury. It is a worse insanity than John 
 Clare's, and one for which there is no asylum. Victims to 
 their own day-dreams are they ! They have heard of Burns 
 and of Chatterton ; they have a certain knack of rhyming, 
 although even that is by no means necessary to such a delu- 
 sion ; they find an audience whom their intense faith in their 
 own power con.spires to delude ; and their quiet, their content, 
 their every prospect is ruined for ever. It is this honest and 
 unconquerable persuasion of their own genius that makes it 
 impossible to reason with or convince them. Their faith in 
 their own powers — ^their racking sense of the injustice of all 
 about them, makes one's heart ache. It is impossible for the 
 sternest or the sturdiest teller of painful truths to disenchant 
 them ; and the consequence is as obvious as it is miserable. 
 For that shadow every substance is foregone. They believe 
 poetry to be their work, and they will do no other. Then 
 comes utter poverty. They haunt the alehouse, they drink, 
 they sicken, they starve. I have known many such. 
 
 Happily there is one cure, not for individual cases, but for 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 115 
 
 the entire class — a slow but a sure remedy. Let the sunlight 
 in, and the night-phantoms vanish. Education, wide and 
 general, not mere learning to read, but making discreet and 
 wise use of the power, and the nuisance will be abated at once 
 and for ever. Let our peasants become as intelligent as our 
 artisans, and we shall have no more prodigies, no more 
 martyrs. 
 
 XL 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 A COUNTRY WEDDING — MY FIRST VISIT TO LONDON. 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect 
 certain passages of my thrice-happy early life, I cannot hav 
 the slightest doubt about the matter, although it contradicts 
 all foregone conclusions, all nursery and schoolroom morality, 
 to say so. But facts are stubborn things. Spoilt I was. 
 Everybody spoilt me, most of aU the person whose power in 
 that way was greatest — the dear papa himself Not content 
 with spoiling me in-doors, he spoilt me out. How weU I re- 
 member his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulderj 
 holding fast my little three-year-old feet, whilst the little 
 hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those 
 were days of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily 
 that sometimes the ribbon would come oflF between my fingers, 
 and send his hair floating, and the powder flying down his 
 back. That climax of mischief was the crowning joy of all. 
 I can hear our shouts of laughter now. 
 
 Nor were these my only rides. This dear papa of mine, 
 whose gay and careless temper all the professional etiquette 
 of the world could never tame into the staid gravity proper to 
 a doctor of medicine, happened to be a capital horseman ; and, 
 abandoning the close carriage, which, at that time, was the 
 regulation conveyance of a physician, almost wholly to my 
 mother, used to pay his country visits on a favourite blood- 
 mare, whose extreme docility and gentleness tempted him, 
 after certain short trials round our old course, the orchard, 
 into having a pad constructed, perched upon which I might 
 occasionally accompany him, when the weather was favourable, 
 I 2 
 
116 KEOOLLECTTIOKS OF 
 
 and the distance not too great. A groom, who had been bred 
 up ia my grandfather's family, always attended us ; and I do 
 think that both Brown Bess and George liked to have me 
 with them almost as well as my father did. The old servant, 
 proud, as grooms always are, of a fleet and beautiful horse, 
 was almost as proud of my horsemanship ; for I, cowardly 
 enough. Heaven knows, in after-years, was then too young and 
 too ignorant for fear — if it could have been possible to have 
 had any sense of danger when strapped so tightly to my 
 father's saddle, and inclosed so fondly by his strong and loving 
 arm. Very delightful Were those rides across the breezy 
 Hampshire downs on a sunny summer morning ; and grieved 
 was I when a change of residence from a small town to a large 
 one, and going among strange people, who did not know our 
 ways, put an end to this perfectly harmless, if somewhat 
 unusual pleasure. 
 
 But the dear papa was not my only spoiler. His example 
 was followed, as bad examples are pretty sure to be, by the 
 rest of the household. My maid Nancy, for instance, before we 
 left Hampshire, married a young farmer ; and nothing would 
 serve her but I must be bridesmaid ! And so it was settled. 
 
 She was married from her own home, about four miles from 
 our house, and was to go to her husband's after the ceremony. 
 I remember the whole scene as if it were yesterday ! how my 
 father took me himself to the churchyard-gate, where the 
 procession was formed, and how I walked next to the young 
 couple hand-in-hand with the bridegroom's man, no other 
 than the village blacksmith, a giant of six feet three, who 
 might have served as a model for Hercules. Much trouble 
 had he to stoop low enough to reach down to my hand ; and 
 many were the rustic jokes passed upon the disproportioned 
 pair, who might fitly have represented Brobdignag and Lil- 
 iiput. My tail colleague proved, however, as well-natured as 
 giants commonly are everywhere but in fairy tales, and took 
 as good care of his little partner as if she had been a proper 
 match for him in age and size. 
 
 In this order, followed by the parents on both sides, and a 
 due number of uncles, aunts, and cousins, we entered the 
 church, where I held the glove with all the gravity and im- 
 portance proper to my ofBce ; and so contagious is emotion, 
 and so accustomed was I to sympathise with Nancy, that 
 
A LITERAET LIFE. ] 17 
 
 when the bride cried, I could not help crying for company. 
 But it was a love-match, and between smiles and blushes 
 Nancy's tears soon disappeared, and so by the same contagion 
 did mine. The happy husband helped his pretty wife into her 
 own chaise-cart, my friend the blacksmith Hfted me in after 
 her, and we drove gaily to the large comfortable farmhouse 
 where her future life was to be spent. 
 
 It was a bright morning in May, and I still remember, when 
 we drove up to the low wall which parted the front garden 
 from the winding village road, the mixture of affection and 
 honest pride which lighted up the face of the owner. The 
 square, substantial brick house, covered with a vine, the brick 
 porch garlanded with honeysuckles and sweetbriar, the espa^ 
 lier apple-trees on either side the path in full flower, thet 
 double row of thrift with its dull pink bloom, the stocks and 
 wallflowers under the window, the huge barns full of corn, 
 the stacks of all shapes and sizes in the rick-yard, cows and 
 sheep and pigs and poultry, told a pleasant tale of rural 
 comfort and rural affluence. 
 
 The bride was taken to survey her new dominions by her 
 proud bridegroom ; and the blacksmith, finding me, I suppose, 
 easier to carry than to lead, followed close upon their steps, 
 with me in his arms. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the good-nature of my country beau ; 
 he pointed out bantams and pea-fowls, and took me to see a 
 tame lamb and a tall, staggering calf, born that morning ; but 
 for all that, I do not think I should have submitted so quietly 
 to the indignity of being carried,— I, who had ridden thither 
 on Brown Bess, and was at that instant filling the ostensible 
 place of bridesmaid, — ^if it had not been for the chastening 
 influence of a little touch of fear. Entering the poultry-yard, 
 I had caught sight of a certain turkey-cock, who erected that 
 circular tail of his, and swelled out his deep-red comb and 
 gills after a fashion famihar to that truculent bird, but which 
 up to the present hour I am far from admiring. A turkey at 
 Christmas, well roasted, with bread-sauce, may have his 
 merits; but if I meet him alive in his feathers, especially 
 when he swells them out and sticks up his tail, I commonly 
 get out of his way even now, much more sixty years ago. So 
 I let the blacksmith carry me. 
 Then we went to the dairy, so fresh and cool and clean — 
 
118 EECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 glittering with cleanliness ! overflowing with creamy riches ! 
 and there I had the greatest enjoyment of my whole day, the 
 printing with my own hands a pat of butter, and putting it 
 up in a little basket covered with a vine leaf, to take home 
 the dear mamma's tea. Then we should have gone to the 
 kitchen, the back kitchen, the brewhouse, the washhouse, and 
 the rest of the bride's new territories, but this part of the 
 domicile was literally too hot to hold us ; the cooking of the 
 great wedding dinner was in fuU activity, and the bridegroom 
 himself was forced to retreat before his notable mother, who 
 had come to superintend all things for the day. 
 
 So back we drew to the hall, a large square bricked apart- 
 ment, with a beam across the ceiling, a wide yawning chimney, 
 and wooden settles with backs to them ; where many young 
 people being assembled, and one of them producing a fiddle, 
 it was agreed to have a country-dance until dinner should be 
 ready, the bride and bridegroom leading off, and I following 
 with the bridegroom's man. 
 
 Oh, the blunders, the confusion, the merriment of that 
 country-dance ! No two people attempted the same figure ; 
 few aimed at any figure at all ; each went his own way : many 
 stumbled ; some fell, and everybody capered, laughed, and 
 shouted at once. My partner prudently caught me up in his 
 arms again, for fear of my being knocked down and danced 
 over, which, considering some of the exploits of some of the 
 performers, seemed by no means impossible, and would have 
 been a worse catastrophe than an onslaught of the turkey-cock. 
 
 A summons to dinner put an end to the glee. Such a 
 dinner ! The plenty of Camacho's wedding was but a type 
 of my Nancy's. Pish from the great pond, roast beef and 
 Yorkshire pudding, boiled fowls and a gammon of bacon, a 
 green goose and a sucking pig, plum puddings, apple pies, 
 cheese-cakes and custards, formed a part of the bill of fare, 
 followed by home-brewed beer and home-made wine, by 
 syllabub, and by wedding cake. Everybody ate enough for 
 four, and there was four times more than could by any possi- 
 bility be eaten. I have always thought it one of the strongest 
 proofs of sense and kindness in my pretty maid, that she 
 rescued me from the terrible hospitality of her mother-in-law, 
 and gave me back unscathed into my father's hands, whan 
 about three o'clock he arrived to reclaim me. 
 
A LITBRAKY LIFE. Il9 
 
 The affluence and abundance of that gala day — the great 
 gala of a lifetime — in that Hampshire farmhouse, I have 
 never seen surpassed. 
 
 This was my first appearance as a bridesmaid. My next, 
 which took place about a twelvemonth after, was of a very 
 different description. 
 
 A first cousin of my father, the daughter of his uncle and 
 guardian, had by the death of her mother's brother, become 
 a wealthy heiress : and leaving her picturesque old mansion 
 in Northumberland, Little Harle Tower, a true border 
 keep overhanging the War.sbeck, for a journey to what the 
 Northumbrians of that day emphatically called " the South," 
 came after a season in London to pass some months with us. 
 At our house she became acquainted with the brother of a 
 Scotch Duke, an Oxford student, who, passing the long vaca- 
 tion with his mother, had nothing better to do than to fall in 
 love. Each had what the other wanted — the lady money, the 
 gentleman rank ; and as his family were charmed with the 
 match, and hers had neither the power nor the wish to oppose 
 it, everything was arranged with as little delay as lawyers, 
 jewellers, coachmakers, and mantua-makers, would permit. 
 
 How the first step in the business, the inevitable and awful 
 ceremonial of a declaration of love and a proposal of marriage, 
 was ever brought about, has always been to me one of the 
 most unsolvable of mysteries — an enigma without the word. 
 
 Lord Charles, as fine a young man as one should see in ^ 
 summer's day, tall, well made, with handsome features, fair 
 capacity, excellent education, and charming temper, had an 
 infirmity which went nigh to render all these good gifts of no 
 avail: a shyness, a bashfulness, a timidity most painful to 
 himself, and distressing to all about him. It is not uncom- 
 mon to hear a quiet, silent man of rank, unjustly suspected 
 of pride and haughtiness ; but there could be no such mistake 
 here — his shamefacedness was patent to all men. I myself, a 
 child not five years old, one day threw him into an agony of 
 blushing, by running up to his chair in mistake for my papa. 
 Now I was a shy child, a very shy child, and as soon as I 
 arrived in front of his Lordship, and found that I had been 
 misled by a resemblance of dress, by the blue coat and buff 
 waistcoat, I first of all crept under the table, and then flew to 
 hide my face in my mother's lap ; my poor fellow-sufferer, 
 
120 RECOLLECTIOXS W 
 
 too big for one place of refuge, too old for the other, had 
 nothing for it but to run away, which, the door being luckily- 
 open, he happily accomplished. 
 
 That a man with such a temperament, who could hardly 
 summon courage to say " How d'ye do ? " should ever have 
 wrought himself up to the point of putting the great 
 question, was wonderful enough ; that he should have sub- 
 mitted himself to undergo the ordeal of what was called in 
 those days a public wedding, is more wonderful still. 
 
 Perhaps the very different temper of the lady may offer 
 some solution to the last of these riddles ; perhaps (I say it 
 in all honour, for there is no shame in offering some encourage- 
 ment to a bashful suitor) it may assist us in expounding them 
 both. 
 
 Of a certainty, my fair cousin was pre-eminently gifted with 
 those very qualities in which her lover was deficient. Every, 
 thing about her "was prompt and bright, cheerful and self- 
 possessed. Nearly as tall as himself, and quite as handsome, it 
 was of the beauty that is called showy — a showy face, a showy 
 figure, a showy complexion. We felt at a glance that those 
 radiant, well-opened hazel eyes had never quailed before 
 mortal glance, and that that clear round cheek, red and white 
 like a daisy, had never been guilty of a blush in its whole life. 
 Handsome as she was, it was a figure that looked best in a 
 riding-habit, and a face that of all head-dresses best became 
 a beaver hat ; just a face and figure for a procession ; ahe 
 would not have minded a coronation : on the contrary, she 
 would have been enchanted to have been a queen-regnant ; 
 but as a coronation was out of the question, she had no ob- 
 jection, taking the pnblicity as a part of the happiness, to a 
 wedding as grand as the resources of a country town could 
 make it. 
 
 So a wedding procession was organized, after the fashion of 
 Sir Charles Grandison, comprising the chief members of each 
 family, especially of the ducal one : an infinite number of 
 brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins and clansfolk, 
 friend,? and acquaintances, all arranged in different carriages, 
 according to their rank ; ladies, gentlemen, servants, and 
 horses, decorated with white and silver favours, in so Ion" a 
 line that it extended from Oolney Avenue to St. Mary's 
 Church. The first carriage, a low phaeton, drawn by ponies 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 121 
 
 led by grooms, containing three children, two of five and six 
 years old, niece and nephew of the bridegroom, who, with 
 myself (already a lady of experience in that line), were to offi- 
 ciate as bride-maidens and bridegroom's man ; the last, also 
 an open carriage, with only the bride and my dear papa, who 
 gave her away. 
 
 How well I recollect the crowd of the street, the crowd of the 
 churchyard, the crowd of the church ! There was no crying at 
 this wedding though ; no crying, and far fewer smiles. 
 
 The young couple proceeded to Bath and Clifton from the 
 church door ; and the rest of the procession returned to our 
 house to eat bridecake, drink to the health of the new-married 
 pair, and be merry at their leisure ; after which many dis- 
 persed, but the members of the two families and the more 
 intimate friends remained to dinner : and in the confusion of 
 preparing to entertain so large a party, the servants, even 
 those belonging to the nursery, were engaged in different 
 ways, and we children left to our own devices, and finding 
 nearly the whole house free to our incursions, betook ourselves 
 to a game at hide and seek. 
 
 Now in honour of the day, and of the grand part we had 
 filled in the grand ceremony of the morning, we small people 
 had been arrayed in white from top to toe ; Master Martin in 
 a new suit of jean, richly braided, his sister and myself in 
 clear muslin frocks, edged with lace, and long Persian sashes, 
 the whole width of the silk, fringed with silver, whilst all 
 parties, little boys and little girls, had white beaver hats and 
 heavy ostrich plumes. "We young ladies had, as a matter of 
 course, that instinctive respect for our own finery which 
 seems an innate principle in womankind ; moreover, we were 
 very good children, quiet, orderly, and obedient. Master 
 Martin, on .the other hand, our elder by a year, had some way 
 or other imbibed the contempt at once for fine clothes and 
 for the authorities of the nursery, which is not uncommon 
 amongst his rebellious sex ; so, the first time it fell to his lot 
 to hide, he ensconced himself in the very innermost recesses 
 of the coalhole, from which delightful retirement he was 
 dragged, after a long search, by his own maid, who had at 
 last awakened from the joys of gossiping and making believe 
 to help in the housekeeper's room, to the recollection that 
 Lady Mary might possibly inquire after her children. The 
 
122 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 state of his apparel and of lier temper may be more easily 
 imagined than described. He, Duke's grandson though he 
 were, looked like nothing better or worse than a chimney, 
 sweeper. She stormed like a fury. But, aa all the storming 
 in the world would not restore the young gentleman or his 
 bridal suit to their pristine state of cleanliness, she took wit 
 in her anger and put him to bed, as a measure partly of 
 punishment, partly of concealment ; — the result of which was 
 that he, the culprit, thoroughly tired with excitement and 
 exercise, with play and display, and well stuffed with dainties 
 to keep him quiet, was consigned to his comfortable bed, 
 whilst we, pattern little girls, had to undergo the penalty of 
 making our appearance and our curtsies in the drawing-room, 
 amongst all the fine folks of our Camacho's wedding, and to 
 stay there, weariest of the many weary, two or three hours 
 beyond our accustomed time. With so little justice are the 
 rewards and punishments of this world distributed — even in 
 the nursery ! 
 
 Not long after this, I made my first visit to London, under 
 the auspices and in company of the dear papa. Business 
 called him thither in the middle of July, and he suddenly 
 announced his intention of driving me up in his gig — such 
 was the then word for a high, open carriage holding two 
 persons ! — unencumbered by any other companion, male or 
 female. George only, the old groom, was sent forward with a 
 spare horse over-night to Maidenhead Bridge (ah ! that charm- 
 ing inn is un-inned now-a-days by the railways !), and the 
 dear papa conforming to my nursery hours, we dined at Oran- 
 ford Bridge (I dare say that that hotel, with its pretty garden 
 and its Portugal laurels, has disappeared also), and reached 
 Hatchett's Hotel, Piccadilly (the New White Horse Cellar of 
 the old stage-coaches), early in the afternoon. There a steady, 
 civil barmaid undertook the care of me during our stay ; but, 
 as he had foreseen, I was too much awake and aUve with 
 novelty and amusement, too strong in my happiness, to want 
 anybody to take care of me except the dear papa himself. 
 
 I had enjoyed the drive past all expression, chattering all 
 the way, and faUing into no other mistakes than those com- 
 mon to larger people than myself, of thinking that London 
 began at Brentford, and wondering in Piccadilly, when the 
 crowd v/ould go by ; and I was so httle tired when we arrived 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 123 
 
 that, to lose no time, we betook ourselves that night to the 
 Haymarket Theatre, the only one then open. I had been at 
 plays in the country, in a barn iu Hampshire, and at a regular 
 theatre at our new home ; and I loved them dearly, with that 
 confiding and uncritical pleasure which is the wisest and the 
 best. But the country play was nothing to the London play, 
 a lively comedy, with the rich cast of those days — one of the 
 comedies that George III. enjoyed so heartily. I enjoyed it 
 as much as he, and laughed and clapt my hands, and danced 
 on my father's knee, and almost screamed with delight ; so 
 that a party in the same box, who had begun by being half 
 angry at my restlessness, finished by being amused with my 
 amusement. 
 
 The next day, my father, having an appointment at the 
 Bank, took the opportunity of showing me St. Paul's and the 
 Tower. 
 
 At St. Paul's, I saw all the wonders of the place — whispered 
 in the whispering-gallery, and walked up the tottering wooden 
 stairs, not into the ball itself, but to the circular balustrade 
 of the highest gallery beneath it. I have never been there 
 since, but I can still recall most vividly that wonderful pano- 
 rama, the strange diminution produced by the distance, the 
 toylike carriages and horses, and men and women moving 
 noiselessly through the toylike streets ; and (although not 
 frightened then) still more vividly do I recall the dangerous 
 state of the decaying stairs, the swaying rope to hold by, the 
 light showing through the crevices of the wood. My father 
 held me carefully by the hand, and I have no recollection of 
 having felt the slightest fear ; nevertheless, the impression of 
 danger must have been very great, since, for many years of 
 my life, falling through those stairs was my bad dream, the 
 dream that gives such sure warning of physical ill, when fever 
 is impending, or any derangement occurs in the system. 
 Then we proceeded to the Tower, that place so striking by 
 force of contrast ; its bright lights and strong shadows ; the 
 jewels, the armour, the armoury, glittering in stern magni- 
 ficence amidst the gloom of the old fortress ; and the stories 
 of great personages imprisoned, beheaded, buried within its 
 walls — a dreary thing it seemed to be a Queen ! But at night 
 I went to Astley's, and I forgot the sorrows of Lady Jane Grey 
 and Anne Boleyn in the wonders of the horsemanship and the 
 
124 KEOOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 tricks of the clown. After all, Astle/s, although very well in 
 its way, was not the play, and we agreed that the next night, 
 the last we were to spend in London, we would go again to 
 the Haymarket. 
 
 Into that last day we crowded all the sight-seeing possible; 
 the Houses of Lords and Commons, where I sat upon the 
 woolsack and in the Speaker's chair, about the smallest person, 
 I suppose, that ever fiUed those eminent seats. Then West^ 
 minster Abbey, where, besides the glorious old building and 
 the tombs, figured at that time certain figures in waxwork — 
 Queen Anne and Queen Elizabeth, as ugly as life, and General 
 Monk, holding out his cap for money. I remember my father 
 giving me a shilling to drop in, as our share of the contribu- 
 tion, and my wondering what became of it. (Are those figures 
 in existence now ? and does the General still hold forth the 
 eleemosynary cap ?). Thence we proceeded to Cox's Museum, 
 in Spring Gardens, and saw and heard a little bird, who seemed 
 made of diamonds and rubies, who clapt its wings and sang. 
 There too (it was a place full of strange deceptions) I sate 
 down upon a chair, and the cushion forthwith began to squeak 
 like a cat and kittens — so like a cat and kittens, that I more 
 than half expected to be scratched. And then to the Leverian 
 Museum, in the Blackfriars Road, a delightful abode of birds 
 and butterflies ; where I saw, dead, and stuffed with a reahty 
 that wanted nothing but life, nearly all the beautiful creatures 
 that little girls see now alive at the Zoological. The promised 
 visit to the Haymarket Theatre formed a fit conclusion to 
 this day of enchantment. We saw another capital comedy 
 (I think Colman's " Heir-at-Law"), capitally acted, and laughed 
 until we could laugh no longer. And then, the next day, we 
 drove home, without a moment's weariness of mind or body. 
 
 Such was my first journey to Loudon. 
 
 Upon looking back to that journey of nearly sixty years ago, 
 what strikes me most is the small dimensions to which the 
 capital of England was then confined, compared with those 
 which it now covers. When I stood on the topmost gallery of 
 St. Paul's, I saw a compact city, spreading along the river, it 
 is true, from Billingsgate to Westminster, but clearly defined 
 to the north and to the south ; the West End beginning at 
 Hyde Park Corner, and bordered by Hyde Park on the one 
 Ride, and the Green Park on the other. Then, in spite of my 
 
A LITBEAKT LIFE. 125 
 
 mistaking the atones of Brentford, for the stones' of London, 
 Belgravia was a series of pastures, and Paddington a village. 
 New squares and terraces are closing round the terminus of 
 the Great Western, and the stateliest mansions of the metro- 
 polis cover the green fields which separated Sloane Street 
 from Pimhco. People wonder at the size of the Great Exhibi- 
 tion ; but the town of which it forms a part, that great throb- 
 bing heart of a great nation, seems to me more wonderful far. 
 To describe London as it is, or even in a few pages to 
 enumerate the sights which we should show to a child now, 
 would be as impossible a task as to crowd into the same 
 space the marvels contained in Mr. Paxton's wonderful house 
 of glass. 
 
 Par more impossible ! for a very few lines would comprise 
 the chief impression produced upon me when, escorted by 
 my excellent friend, Mr. Lucas, and guided by the fine taste of 
 that most tasteful of painters, I walked through the Great 
 Exhibition this summer. Next, perhaps, to the building itself, 
 with the statues and hangings to which it owes its distinctive 
 character, and the fountains and people who give to it move- 
 ment and life, — next to the vastness, the lightness, the ex- 
 quisite fitness of the building, — and excepting, perhaps, only 
 that triumph of modern sculpture, Kiss's bold, expressive, 
 impassioned group, — that which most filled the eye aud the 
 mind seemed to me to be the Indian tissues, however called, 
 with their delicious harmony of colour, and their strange 
 power of interweaving the precious metals with their silken 
 textures. There is one shawl where, upon a white ground, the 
 same pattern is repeated, now in gold and now in silver, which 
 seems to me actually to emit light. Those Indian draperies 
 are poems which have no need of words — poems invented 
 thousands of years ago, and repeated from dynasty to dynasty, 
 from empire to empire. So are those Tunisian vases, forms 
 of ineffable grace, such as may have been carried to the foun- 
 tain or the well by the captive queens of Grecian fable, or the 
 Hebrew maidens of sacred history. Is it that those ancient 
 nations of the East and of the South have in them the great 
 principle of permanence which is a sort of earthly immor- 
 tality — that having once seized the Beautiful, they are content 
 to abide by it, and to produce and reproduce the same grace 
 of form and harmony of colour, just as Nature herself is con- 
 
126 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 tent to produce and reproduce her marvels of vegetable life, 
 her lotus on the river, her magnolia in the wood ? If so, let 
 us strive to copy them, not in such a combination of hues, or 
 such lines of contour, but in the greater wisdom of loving and 
 admiring beauty because it is beautiful, and not because, 
 according to the caprice of the hour, it happens to be new or 
 to be old. 
 
 It is now full time to come to Dr. Johnson. 
 
 The London which I saw sixty years ago was not materially 
 different from that in which he had lived and reigned— the 
 king of conversation, and almost of literature. One proof of 
 this supremacy was afforded at that very time, when my 
 father, by no means a bookish man, and a most ardent Whig, 
 stopped the coach two or three times, during our drive to the 
 Bank, to show me Bolt-court, and various other courts distin- 
 guished by the residence of the great lexicographer. Bos- 
 well's iuimitable life had, of course, its share in this interest ; 
 but, independently of that remarkable book, the feeling was 
 deep and was general : and when we consider that the society 
 of which he was the acknowledged head comprised such names 
 as Burke and Fox and Reynolds and Goldsmith, we cannot 
 doubt but, in spite of his virulent prejudices, his absurd 
 superstition, and his latinized EngUsh, Samuel Johnson was 
 not only a good man but a great man. 
 
 One who was pre-eminently both. Dr. Channing, Republican 
 by nation and opinion, Unitarian by creed, has a passage 
 relating to Johnson, which, while alleging nearly all that can 
 be said against him, always struck me as admirable for justice 
 and for candour — the candour of an adversary and an oppo- 
 nent. It occurs in a " Review of the Writings and Character 
 of Milton," in which the American author had, as a matter of 
 course, controverted the decisions of the EngUsh critic. He 
 says — I omit much that relates only to Milton — he says : — 
 
 " We wish not to disparage Johnson. We could find no 
 pleasure in sacrificing one great man to the manes of another. 
 He did not and he could not appreciate Milton. We doubt 
 whether two other minds, having so little in common as those 
 of which we are now speaking, can be found in the higher 
 walks of literature. Johnson was great in his own sphere, 
 but that sphere was comparatively of the earth, whilst Mil- 
 ton's was onlv inferior to that of angels. It was customary in 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 127 
 
 tlie day of Johnson's glory to call him a giant, to class him with 
 a mighty but still an earth-born race. Milton we should rank 
 among seraphs. Johnson's mind acted chiefly on man's actual 
 condition, on the realities of life, on the springs of human 
 action, on the passions which now agitate society, and he 
 seems hardly to have dreamed of a higher state of the human 
 mind than was then exhibited. * * * In religion, Johnson was 
 gloomy and inclined to superstition, and on the subject of 
 government leaned to absolute power, and the idea of reform- 
 ing either never entered his mind but to disturb and provoke 
 it. How could Johnson be just to Milton ? The comparison 
 which we have instituted has compelled us to notice Johnson's 
 defects ; but we trust we are not blind to his merits. His 
 stately march of style, his pomp and power of language, his 
 strength of thought, his reverence for virtue and religion, his 
 vigorous logic, his practical wisdom, his insight into the 
 springs of human action, and the solemn pathos which occa- 
 sionally pervades his descriptions of hfe and his references to 
 his own history, command our willing admiration. That he 
 wanted enthusiasm and creative imagination and lofty senti- 
 ment was not his fault. We do not blame him for not being 
 Milton. We would even treat what we deem the faults of 
 Johnson with a tenderness approaching respect ; for they 
 were results to a degree which man cannot estimate of a dis- 
 eased, irritable, nervous, unhappy, physical temperament, and 
 belonged to the body more than to the mind." 
 
 So far the great American. Would that all critics had his 
 chai'ity ! 
 
 In none of Dr. Channing's praises of Johnson do I join 
 more cordially than in the admiration with which he speaks 
 of his occasional references to his own history. I subjoin 
 the letter to Lord Chesterfield which comprises so many of 
 the distinguishing characteristics of his style, together with 
 a pungency, a truth, and a pathos, which belong even more 
 to personal character than to literary power. It explains 
 itself : — 
 
 " Mt Lokd, 
 " I have lately been informed by the proprietor of ' The 
 World,' that two papers in which my Dictionary is recom- 
 
128 BECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 mended to the publick were written by your Lordship. To 
 be so distinguished is an honour which, being very little 
 accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how 
 to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. 
 
 "When upon some slight encouragement I first visited 
 your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, 
 by the enchantment of your address ; and could not forbear 
 to wish that I might boast myself Ze vainqueur du vainqueur de 
 la ierre, that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the 
 world contending ; but I found my attendance so little en- 
 couraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to 
 continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in 
 publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired 
 and unoourtly scholar can possess. I had done all I could ; 
 and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it 
 ever so little. 
 
 " Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in 
 your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during 
 which time I have been pushing on my work through dif&- 
 culties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it 
 at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assist- 
 ance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. 
 Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron 
 before. 
 
 " The Shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, 
 and found him a native of the rocks. 
 
 " Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern 
 on a man struggling for life iu the water, and when he has 
 reached ground encumbers him with help 1 The notice which 
 you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been 
 early had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indif- 
 ferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot 
 impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is 
 no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no 
 benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the publick 
 should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence 
 has enabled me to do for myself. 
 
 « Having carried on my work, therefore, with so little obli- 
 gation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed 
 though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less : for 
 
A LITEEAKY LIFE. 129 
 
 I have been long wakened from that dream of hope in which 
 I once boasted myself with so much exultation, 
 " My Lord, 
 " Your Lordship's most humble, 
 
 " Most obedient Servant, 
 
 "Samuel Johnson." 
 
 My concluding extract is of a very different description — 
 as different as the character and situation of the two persons 
 to whom the letter and the stanzas relate. These verses again 
 tell their own story, though they do not tell the whole, for 
 Johnson, poor himself, was to the poor apothecary a generous 
 patron and an unfailing friend. The poem has much of the 
 homely pathos, the graphic truth of Crabbe, and is so free 
 from manner, that it might rather pass for his than for 
 Dr. Johnson's. 
 
 ON THE DEATH-BED Off KOBEET LEVETT. 
 
 Condemned to Hope's delusive mine. 
 
 As on we toil from day to day, 
 By sudden blast or slow decline 
 
 Our social comforts drop away. 
 
 Well tried through many a varying year. 
 
 See Levett to the grave descend 
 Of&cious, innocent, sincere. 
 
 Of every friendless name the friend. 
 
 Yet still he Alls Affection's eye 
 
 Obscurely wise and coarsely liind, 
 Nor lettered arrogance deny 
 
 Thy praise to merit unrefined. 
 When fainting nature called for aid, 
 
 And hovering Death prepared the blow. 
 His vigorous remedy displayed 
 
 The power of Art without the show. 
 
 In misery's darliest caverns known, 
 
 His ready help was ever nigh, 
 Where helpless anguish poured his groan. 
 
 And lonely want retired to die. 
 
 No summons mocked by chill delay. 
 
 No petty gains disdained by pride ; 
 The modest wants of every day. 
 
 The toil of every day supplied. 
 
 His virtues walked their narrow round. 
 
 Nor made a pause, nor left a void ; 
 And sure the Eternal Master found. 
 
 His single talent well employed. 
 K 
 
130 RECOLLECTIOHS OF 
 
 The busy day, the peaceful night, 
 XJnfelt, uncounted, glided by ; 
 
 His fame was firm, his powers were bright. 
 Though now his eightieth year was nigh. 
 
 Then with no throbs of fiery pain. 
 No cold gradations of decay ; 
 
 Death broke at once the vital chEbin, 
 And freed his soul the nearest way. 
 
 XII. 
 OLD POETS. 
 
 ROBERT HERRIOK — GEORGE WITHER. 
 
 Nothing seems stranger in the critics of the last century 
 than their ignorance of the charming lyrical poetry of the 
 times of the early Stuarts and the Commonwealth. One 
 should think that the songs of the great dramatists, whose 
 genius they did acknowledge — Shakespeare, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, and Ben Jonson — might have prepared them to re- 
 cognise the kindred melodies of such versifiers as Marlowe 
 and Raleigh, and Wither and Marvell. His Jacobite prejudices 
 might have predisposed Dr. Johnson in particular to find some 
 harmonious stanzas in the minstrels of the cavaliers, Lovelace 
 and the Marquis of Montrose. But so complete is the silence 
 in which the writers of that day pass over these glorious 
 songsters, that it seems only charitable to suppose that these 
 arbiters of taste had never met with their works. With the 
 honourable exceptions of Thomas Warton and Bishop Percy, 
 there is not a critic from Johnson downward, who does not 
 cite Waller as the first poet who smoothed our rugged tongue 
 into harmonious verse. And the prejudice lingers still in 
 places where one does not expect to find it. The parish clerk 
 of Beaoonsfield is by no means the only, although by far the 
 most excusable authority who, standing bare-headed before 
 his pyramidal tomb in the cliurchyard, assured me with the 
 most honest conviction that Waller was the earliest and finest 
 versifier in the language. 
 
 Herrick is one of the many whose lyrics might be called 
 into court to overturn this verdict. Originally bred to the 
 bar, he took orders at a comparatively late period, and ob- 
 
A IiITBBART LIFE. 131 
 
 taiued a living in Devonshire, from which he fled during the 
 strict rule of the Lord Protector, concealing himself under 
 a lay habit in London, and returning to his parsonage with 
 the return of the monarch, whose birth had formed the subject 
 of one of his earliest pastorals. 
 
 More than any eminent writer of that day Herrick's collec- 
 tion requires careful sifting : but there is so much fancy, so 
 much delicacy, so much grace, that a good selection would 
 well repay the publisher. Bits there are that are exquisite : 
 as when in enumerating the cates composing '•' Oberon's 
 Feast" in his "Fairyland," he includes, amongst a strange 
 farrago of unimaginable dishes, 
 
 " The broke heart of a nightingale 
 O'ercome in music." 
 
 Some of his pieces, too, contain curious illustrations of the 
 customs, manners, and prejudices of our ancestors. I shall 
 quote one or two from the division of the Hesperides that he 
 calls " charms and ceremonies," beginning with the motto : — 
 
 nrVINATION BT A DArFODIL. 
 
 When a daffodil I see, 
 Hanging down his head toward me, 
 Guess I may what I may be : 
 First, I shall decline my head ; 
 Secondly, I shall be dead ; 
 Lastly, safely buried. 
 
 The adorning the houses with evergreens seems then to 
 have been as common as our own habit of decking them with 
 flowers : — 
 
 CEBEMONIES FOB CANDLEMAS EVE. 
 
 Down with rosemary and bays, 
 
 Down with the mistletoe, 
 Instead of holly now upraise 
 
 The greener box for show. 
 
 The holly hitherto did sway ; 
 
 Let box now domineer. 
 Until the dancing Easter day 
 
 Or Easter's Eve appear. 
 
 Then youthful box, which now has grace 
 
 Your houses to renew, 
 Grown old, surrender must his place 
 
 Unto the crisped yew. 
 k2 
 
132 BECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 When yew is out, then birch comes in 
 
 And many flowers beside, 
 Both of a fresh and fragrant kin 
 
 To honour Whitsuntide. 
 
 Green rushes then and sweetest bents, 
 
 With cooler oalteu boughs, 
 Come in for comely ornaments 
 To re-adorn the house. 
 Thus times do shift ; each thing his turn does hold, 
 New things succeed as former things gro* old. 
 
 THE BELLKiN. 
 
 From noise of scare-fires rest ye free, 
 From murders Benedicite ; 
 From all mischances that may fright 
 Your pleasing slumbers in the ni(ght, 
 Mercy secure ye all, and keep 
 The goblin from ye while ye sleep. 
 Past one o'clock, and ^most two. 
 My masters all, good day to you ! 
 
 The description of a steer in one of his " Bucolics," is 
 graphic and life-like. The herdswoman is lamenting the loss 
 of her favourite : — 
 
 I have lost my lovely steer, 
 
 That to me was far more dear 
 
 Thau these kine that I milk here ; 
 
 Broad of forehead, large of eye. 
 
 Party-coloured like a pie. 
 
 Smooth in each limb as a die ; 
 
 Clear of hoof, and clear of horn. 
 
 Sharply pointed as a thorn ; 
 
 With a neck by yoke unworn, 
 
 From the which hung down, by strings, 
 
 Balls of cowslip, daisy rings 
 
 Interlaced by ribbonings. 
 
 Faultless every way for shape. 
 
 Not a straw could him escape ; 
 
 Ever gamesome as an ape. 
 
 But yet harmless as a sheep, 
 
 Pardon, Lacon, if I weep. 
 
 But his real delight was amongst flowers and bees, and 
 nymphs and cupids; and certainly these graceful subjects 
 were never handled more gracefully : — 
 
 THE CAPTIVE BEE. 
 As Julia once a slumbering lay, 
 It chanced a bee did fly that way. 
 After a dew or dew-like shower, 
 To tipple freely in a flower. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 133 
 
 For some rich flowdr he took the lip 
 
 Of Julia and began to sip ; 
 
 But when he felt he sucked from thence 
 
 Honey, and in the quintessence, 
 
 He drank so much he scarce could stir. 
 
 So Julia took the pilferer. 
 
 And thus surprised, as filchers use. 
 
 He thus began hims3lf to excuse : 
 
 " Sweet lady-flower I I never brought 
 
 Hither the least one thieving thought ; 
 
 But, taking those rose-lips of yours 
 
 For some fresh fragrant luscious flowers, 
 
 I thought I there might take a taste 
 
 Where so much syrup ran at waste. 
 
 Besides, know this, I never sting 
 
 The flower that gives me nourishing , 
 
 But with a kiss of thanks do pay 
 
 Po* homey that I bear away." 
 
 This said, he laid his little scrip 
 
 Of honey 'fore her ladyship '^ 
 
 And told her, as some tears did fall. 
 
 That that he took, and that was all. 
 
 At which she smiled, and balde him go 
 
 And take his bag ; but thus inuch know, 
 
 When next he came a pilfering so. 
 
 He should froto' her full lips derive 
 
 Honey enough to fill his hive. 
 
 THE BAO or THE BEE. 
 
 About the sweet bag of a bee 
 
 Two Cupids fell at odds ; 
 And whose the pretty prize should be, 
 
 They vowed to ask the gods. 
 
 Which, Venus hearing, thither came. 
 
 And for their boldness strij)i them ; 
 And taking thence from each his flame, 
 
 With rods of myrtle whipt them. 
 
 Which done, to still their wanton cries 
 
 When qui^t growni she 'd seen them. 
 She kissed and wiped their dove-like eyes. 
 
 And gave the bag between them. 
 
 TO THE WILLOW TEEE. 
 
 Thou art to all lost love the best, 
 
 The only true plant found, 
 Wherewith young men and maids, distrest 
 
 And left of love are crowned. 
 
 When once the lover's rose is dead 
 
 Or laid asid'e forlorn, 
 Then willow gairlarnds 'bout the head, 
 
 Bedewed with tears are worn. 
 
134 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 When with neglect, the lover's bane. 
 
 Poor maids rewarded be 
 For their love lost ; their only gain 
 
 Is but a wreath from thee. 
 And underneath thy cooling shade. 
 
 When weary of the light. 
 The love-spent youth and love-siok maid 
 
 Come to weep out the night. 
 « « « » 
 
 THE rUKEBAL EITES OP THE BOSK. 
 
 The rose was sick, and smiling died ; 
 And being to be s.inctified, 
 About the bed there sighing stood 
 The sweet and flowery sisterhood. 
 Some hung the head, while some did bring. 
 To wash her, water from the spring ; 
 Some laid her forth while others wept. 
 But all a solemn fast there kept. 
 The holy sisters some among 
 The sacred dirge and treutal simg ; 
 But ahl what sweets smelt everywhere 
 As heaven had spent all perfumes there ! 
 At last, when prayers for the dead 
 And litea were all accomplished, 
 They, weeping, spread a lawny loom, 
 And closed her up as in a tomb. 
 
 Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may, 
 
 Old Time is still a flying ; 
 And this same flower that smiles to-d-iy. 
 
 To-morrow will be dying. 
 
 The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun. 
 
 The higher he 's a getting. 
 The sooner will his race be run. 
 
 The nearer he's to setting. 
 
 The age is best which is the first. 
 When youth and blood are warmer ; 
 
 But, being spent, the worse and worse 
 Times stUl succeed the former. 
 
 Then be not coy, but use your time. 
 And, whilst ye may, go marry ; 
 
 For having lost but once your prime. 
 You may for ever tarry. 
 
 TO UEADOWS. 
 
 Ye have been fresh and green. 
 Ye have been filled with flowers ; 
 
 And ye the walks have been. 
 Where maids have spent their hours. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 135 
 
 Ye have beheld where they 
 
 With wicker arks did come ; 
 To kiss and bear away 
 
 The richer cowslips home. 
 
 Tou ' ve heard them sweetly sing, 
 
 And seen them in a round ; 
 Each virgin like the spring, 
 
 With honeysuckles crowned. 
 
 But now we see none here, 
 
 Whose silvery feet did tread ; 
 And, with dishevelled hair, 
 
 Adorned this smoother mead. 
 
 Like unthrifts, having spent 
 
 Tour stock, and needy grown, 
 Y ou 're left here to lament 
 
 Your poor estates alone. 
 
 TO DAFFODILS. 
 
 Fair daffodils, we weep to see, 
 
 Tou haste away so soon ; 
 As yet the early rising sun 
 
 Has not attained its noon. 
 Stay, stay, 
 
 Until the hasting day 
 Has run. 
 
 But to the even-song, 
 And, having prayed together, we 
 
 Will go with you along. 
 
 We have short time to stay as you, 
 
 We have as short a spring ; 
 As quick a growth to meet decay 
 
 As you or any thing. 
 We die. 
 
 As your hours do, and dry 
 Away, 
 
 Like to the summer's rain. 
 Or, as the pearls of morning dew, 
 
 Ne'er to be found again. 
 
 THE NIGHT-PIECE. — TO JULIA. 
 
 Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee. 
 The shooting stars attend thee ; 
 
 And the elves also, 
 
 Whose little eyes glow 
 Like the sparks of fire, befriend theo. 
 
 No tfill-o'-th'-wisp mislight thee ; 
 Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee ; 
 
 But on, ou thy way. 
 
 Not making a stay. 
 Since ghost there is none to affright thee. 
 
13S RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Let not the dark thee cumber, 
 
 What though the moon doth slumber ? 
 
 The stars of the night 
 
 Will lend thee their light 
 Like tapers clear without number. 
 
 TO BLOSSOMS, 
 
 Fair pledges of a faithful tree. 
 
 Why do ye fall so fast ? 
 
 Tour date is not so past 
 But you may yet stay here awhile 
 
 To blush and gently smile. 
 And go at last. 
 
 What were ye born to be 
 
 An hour or half s delight. 
 
 And so to bid good-night ? 
 'T was pity Nature brought yo forth. 
 
 Merely to show your worth. 
 And lose you quite. 
 
 But you are lovely leaves, where we 
 May read how soon things have 
 Their end, though ne'er so brave ; 
 
 And after they have shown their pride. 
 Like you, awhile they glide 
 Into the grave. 
 
 The want in these graceful and delicate lyrics is thew and 
 sinew. And yet they are what they pretend to be— airy petals 
 of the cherry-blossom, hinting of fruit, bees fluttering and 
 musical, giving token of honey. 
 
 The Muse fares iU in civil contentions. As Herrick fled 
 before the Roundheads, so was George Wither oppressed by 
 the Cavaliers. The following noble praise of poetry was 
 written in a prison : in a prison the poor poet passed many of 
 his latter years, and it is still a question whether he actually 
 died in confinement, or perished of want and misery after 
 his release. 
 
 But, alas ! my muse is slow ; 
 
 For thy pace she flags too low. 
 
 But though for her sake I am crost. 
 
 Though my best hopes I have lost. 
 
 And knew she would make my trouble 
 
 Ten times more than ten times double ; 
 
 I would love and keep her too 
 
 Spite of all the world could do. 
 
 For though banished from my flocks. 
 
 And confined within these rocks. 
 
 Here I waste away the light, 
 
 And consume the sullen night ; 
 
A LITBEART LIFE. 137 
 
 She doth for my comfort stay, 
 
 And keeps many cares away. 
 
 Though I misa the floweiy fields, 
 
 And those sweets the spring-tide yields ; 
 
 Though I may not see those groves. 
 
 Where the shepherds chant their loves, 
 
 And the lasses more excel 
 
 Than the sweet-voiced Philomel ; 
 
 Though of all those pleasures past 
 
 Nothing now remains at last. 
 
 But remembrance, poor relief 
 
 That more makes than mends my grief ; 
 
 She's my mind's companion still 
 
 Maugre Envy's evil will ; 
 
 Whence she should be driven too, 
 
 Weret in mortal's power to do. 
 
 She doth tell me where to borrow 
 
 Comfort in the midst of sorrow ; 
 
 Makes the deaolatest place 
 
 In her presence be a grace ; 
 
 And the blackest discontents 
 
 Be her fairest ornaments. 
 
 In my former days of bliss 
 
 Her divine skill taught me this, 
 
 That from everything I saw 
 
 I could some invention draw ; 
 
 And raise Pleasure to her height 
 
 Through the meanest object's sight : 
 
 By the murmur of a spring. 
 
 Or the least bough's rustling ; 
 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spiead 
 
 Shut when Titan goes to bed ; 
 
 On a shady bush or tree 
 
 She could more infuse in me 
 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 
 In some other wiser man. 
 
 By her help I also now 
 
 Make this churlish place allow 
 
 Some things, that may sweeten gladness 
 
 In the very gall of sadness : 
 
 The dull loneness, the black shade 
 
 That these hanging vaults have made, 
 
 The strange music of the waves 
 
 Beating on these hollow caves. 
 
 This black den, which rocks emboss 
 
 Overgrown with eldest moss ; 
 
 The rude portals that give light 
 
 More to terror than delight ; 
 
 This my chamber of neglect 
 
 Walled about with disrespect ; 
 
 From all these, and this dull air 
 
 A fit object for despair, 
 
138 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 She hath brought me by her might 
 To draw comfort and delight. 
 
 Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, 
 I will cherish thee for this ! 
 Poetry, thou sweet'st content 
 That e'er Heaven to mortals lent ; 
 Though they as a trifle leave thee 
 Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee ; 
 'i'hough thou be to them a scorn 
 That for nought but earth are born ; 
 Let my life no longer be 
 Than I am in love with thee ! 
 Though our wise ones call it madness, 
 Let me never taste of gladness 
 If I love not thy maddest fits 
 Above all their greatest wits ! 
 And though some, too seeming holy, 
 Do account thy raptures folly, 
 Thou dost teach me to contemn 
 What makes knaves and fools of them 1 
 
 " The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient 
 and modern times ; strange powers have been ascribed to it 
 of influence over animate and inanimate auditors ; its force 
 over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged: but before 
 Wither no one had celebrated its power at home ; the wealth 
 and strength which this divine gift confers upon its possessor." 
 This line criticism, worthy of the poetry which it celebrates, 
 is by Charles Lamb. 
 
 XIIL 
 FEMALE POETS. 
 
 JOANNA BAILLIE.* — CATHERINE FAHSHAWE. 
 
 Beloved, admired, appreciated by the best spirits of her 
 time, it is with no little triumph that I, who plead guilty to 
 some of that esprit de corps which may be translated into 
 
 * Since writing this paper, this gifted authoress and admirable 
 woman has passed from this world to the higher and happier state 
 which was ever in her thoughts. A letter from her to a mutual 
 friend, written a very few days before her death, expresses her 
 satisfaction in having received the sacrament with her sister the 
 Sunday previous. In this letter, for the fii-st time during a long 
 correspondence, she breaks off somewhat suddenly, complaining of 
 bodily fatigue, although no one then thought her M, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 139 
 
 " pride of sex," write the name of our great female dramatist 
 — of the first woman who won high and undisputed honours 
 in the highest class of English poetry. The pleasure of ren- 
 dering her a faint and imperfect justice is all the greater that 
 I have the honour of claiming acquaintance with this most 
 gifted person, and that she is in her domestic relations the 
 very iiattern of what a hterary lady should be— quiet, unpre- 
 tending, generous, kind, admirable in her writings, excellent 
 in her life. 
 
 Anil yet of Mrs. Joanna Baillie, the praised of Scott and of 
 all whose praise is best worth having for half a century, what 
 can I say, but that many an age to come will echo back their 
 applause ! 
 
 Her tragedies have a boldness and a grasp of mind, a firm- 
 ness of hand, and resonance of cadence, that scarcely seem 
 within the reach of a female writer ; whilst the tenderness 
 and sweetness of her heroines — the grace of the love-scenes 
 — and the trembling outgushings of sensibility, as in Orra, 
 for iustance, in the fine tragedy on Fear — would seem exclu- 
 sively feminine, if we did not know that a true dramatist — as 
 Shakespeare or Fletcher — has the wonderful power of throw- 
 ing himself, mind and body, into the character that he por- 
 trays. That Mrs. Joanna is a true dramatist, as well as a great 
 poet, I, for one, can never doubt, although it has been the 
 fashion to say that her plays do not act. 
 
 It must be above fifty years ago that I, then a girl of 
 thirteen, in company with my old and dear friend, Mr. 
 Harness, the bosom friend of Thomas Hope, the friend and 
 correspondent of Lord Byron (and, be it observed, of all his 
 correspondents, the one who seems to have impressed the 
 daring poet with the most sincere respect), then a boy consi- 
 derably younger than myself, witnessed the representation of 
 " De Montfort," by John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Forty 
 years after, we had the pleasure of talking over that repre- 
 sentation with the authoress, in Lady Dacre's drawing-room, 
 a place where poets " most do congregate," and we both agreed 
 that the impression which the performance had made upon 
 us remained indelible. Now, the qualities in an acted play 
 that fixed themselves upon the minds of children so young, 
 must have been purely dramatic Purely dramatic, too, are 
 many of the finer traits that strike us in reading, as, when 
 
140 BECOLLEOTIONE OF 
 
 De Montfort, with his ear quickened by hatred, announces the 
 approach of Rezemelt, and Vreberg exclaims : — 
 
 " How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound ! 
 I hear him not — " 
 
 and many others scattered through the tragedies. 
 
 I concede, however, very willingly, that Mrs. Joanna is a 
 most charming lyrical poetess ; as witness the beautiful 
 Morning Song in the "Beacon," which breathes the very 
 spirit of hope : — 
 
 Up ! quit thy bower ; late wears the hour ; 
 Long have the rooks cawed round thy tower ; 
 On flower and tree loud hums the bee ; 
 The wilding kid sports merrily : 
 A day so bright, so fresh, so clear, 
 Showeth when good fortune's near. 
 
 Up ! lady fair, and braid thy hair. 
 
 And bathe thee in the breezy air ; 
 
 The rolling stream that soothed thy dream 
 
 Is dancing in the sunny beam ; 
 
 And hours so sweet, so bright, so gay, 
 
 Will waft good fortune on its way. 
 
 Up ! time will tell ; the friar's bell 
 Its service sound hath chimed well ; 
 The aged crone keeps house alone. 
 And reapers to the fields are gone ; 
 The active day, so fair and bright. 
 May bring good fortune ere the night. 
 
 There is a remarkable freedom in the diction and versifica- 
 tion of the following beautiful song ; the more remarkable 
 that it is written for a Welsh air ; — 
 
 THB BLACK COCE. 
 
 Good morrow to thy sable beak. 
 And glossy plumage, dark and sleek, 
 Thy crimson moon and azure eye. 
 Cock of the heath so wildly shy ! 
 I see thee slowly cowering, through 
 That wiry web of silver dew, 
 That twinkle.? in the morning air, 
 Like casement of my lady fair. 
 
 A maid there is in yonder tower. 
 Who, peeping from her early bower. 
 Half shows, like thee, with simple wile 
 Her braided hair and morning smile. 
 
A LITEBABY LIFE. 141 
 
 The rarest things, with wayward will. 
 Beneath the covert hide them still ; 
 The rarest things to light of day 
 Look shortly forth and break away. 
 
 One fleeting moment of delight 
 I warmed me in her cheering sight, 
 And short, I ween, the time will be 
 That I shall parley hold with thee. 
 Through Snowdon's mist red beams the day ; 
 The climbing hei-d-boy chants his lay : 
 The gnat-fiies dance their sunny ring ; 
 Thou art already on the wing. 
 
 This song is distinguished by the same delicious freedom, 
 and was also written to music. Truly, the Muse can dance in 
 fetters : — 
 
 welcome bat and owlet grey. 
 Thus winging low your airy way ! 
 And welcome moth and drowsy fly, 
 That to mine ear come humming by ! 
 And welcome shadows dim and deep. 
 And stars that through the paJe sky peep ; 
 welcome all ! to me ye say 
 My woodland love is on her way. 
 Upon the soft wind floats her hair, 
 Her breath is on the dewy air ; 
 Her steps are in the whispered sound 
 That steals along the stilly ground. 
 dawn of day, in rosy bower, 
 "What art thou to this witching hour ? 
 noon of day, in sunshine bright. 
 What art thou to this fall of night ? 
 
 I cannot resist indulging myself by transcribing the follow- 
 ing Scottish ballad, a delightful specimen of quaint archness 
 and quiet humour : — 
 
 FY, LET VS a' to THE WBDDINS. 
 
 {An Avid Song Neio Bvskit.) 
 
 Fy, let us a' to the wedding, 
 
 For they will be lilting there ; 
 For Jock 's to be married to Maggie, 
 
 The lass wi' the gowden hair. 
 
 And there will be jibing and jeering. 
 
 And glancing of bonny dark een. 
 Loud laughing, and smooth-gabbit speering 
 
 0' questions baith pawky and keen. 
 
142 HEC0LLECTI0N8 OP 
 
 And there will be Bessy the beauty, 
 Wha raises her cookup sae hie, 
 
 And giggles at preachings and duty, — 
 O-uid grant that she gang na' ajee ! 
 
 And there will be auld Geordie Tanner, 
 Wha coft a young wife wi' his gowd ; 
 
 She'll flaunt wi' a silk gown upon her. 
 But, wow ! he looks dowie and cow'd. 
 
 And brown Tibbie Fowler the heiress 
 Will perk at the tap o' the ha', 
 
 Encircled wi' suitors, wha 's care is 
 To catch up her gloves when they fa', 
 
 Repeat a' her jokes as they're cleckit. 
 And haver and glower in her face. 
 
 While tocherless mays are negleckit, — 
 A crying and scandalous case. 
 
 And Maysie, wha's clavering aunty 
 Wad match her wi' Lowrie the laird. 
 
 And learns the young fule to be vaunty. 
 But neither to spin nor to caird. 
 
 And Andrew, wha's granny is yearning 
 To see him a clerical blade. 
 
 Was sent to the college for learning, 
 And cam' back a coof as he gaed. 
 
 And there will be auld Widow Martin, 
 That ca's hersel thirty and twa ; 
 
 And thraw-gabbit Madge, wha, for certain. 
 Was jilted by Hab o' the Shaw. 
 
 And Elspy the sewster sae genty, 
 A pattern o' bavins and sense, 
 
 Will straik on her mittens sae genty. 
 And crack wi' Mess John i' the spence. 
 
 And Angus, the seer of fairlies. 
 That sits on the stane at his door. 
 
 And tells about bogles, and mair lies 
 Than tongue ever uttered before. 
 
 And there will be Bauldie the boaster, 
 Sae ready wi' hands and wi' tongue ; 
 
 Proud Paty and silly Sam Foster, 
 Wha quarrel wi' auld and wi' young. 
 
 And Hugh the town-writer, I 'm thinking, 
 That trades in his lawyerly skill, 
 
 Will egg on the fighting and drinking, 
 To bring after-grist to his milL 
 
 And Meggie— ha I ha ! will be civil, 
 And let the wee bridle a-be : 
 
 A vilipend tongue is the devil, 
 And ne'er was encouraged by me. 
 
A LITBRA.RT LIFE. 143 
 
 Then fy, let us a' to the wedding, 
 
 For they will be lilting there, 
 Piae mony a far-distant ha'ding, 
 
 The fun and the feasting to share. 
 
 For they will get sheep's-head and haggio, 
 
 And browst o' the barley-mow ; 
 Even he that comes latest and lag is 
 
 May feast upon dainties enow. 
 
 Veal florentines in the o'en baken, 
 
 Weel planished wl' raisins and fat. 
 Beef, mutton, and chuckles, a' taken 
 
 Het reeking frae spit or frae pat. 
 
 And glasses (I trow 't is na' said ill). 
 To drink the young couple good luck, 
 
 Weel fill'd wi' a braw beechen ladle, 
 Frae punch-bowl as big as Dumbuck. 
 
 And then will come dancing and daffing, 
 
 And reelin' and crossin' o' ban's. 
 Till even auld Luokie is laughing, 
 
 As back by the aumry she stan'a. 
 
 Sic bobbing, and flinging, and whirling, 
 While fiddlers are making their din, 
 
 And pipers are droning and skirling, 
 As loud aa the roar of the linn. 
 
 Then fy, let us a' to the wedding. 
 
 For they will be lilting there, 
 For Jock's to be married to Maggie, 
 
 The lass wi' the gowden hair. 
 
 CATHERINE EANSHAWE. 
 
 It has always seemed to me that one of the happiest posi- 
 tions — ^let me say, the very happiest position — that a woman 
 of great talent can occupy in our high civilisation, is that of 
 living a beloved and distinguished member of the best literary 
 society ; enjoying, listening, admiring ; repaying all that she 
 receives by a keen and willing sympathy ; cultivating to per- 
 fection the social faculty ; but abstaining from the wider field 
 of authorship, even while she throws out here and there such 
 choice and chosen bits as prove that nothing but disinclina- 
 tion to enter the arena debars her from winning the prize. 
 How much better to belong to that portion of the audience 
 which gives fame to the actor — that class of readers to whom 
 the writer looks for reputation — than to figure as actor or as 
 author oneself ! 
 
 Besides the infinite wisdom of re.sting in such a position, 
 
144 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 seated midway on the hill of Fame, enjoying all the beauties 
 of the prospect, and shielded from the storms of the summit, 
 and the perils of the steep and rocky way, — besides its 
 security, its happiness, and its wisdom, such a choice has 
 always appeared to me indicative of the very finest qualities, 
 mental and moral ; — feminine, modest, generous, pure. I look 
 up to a woman who, with powers to command the most 
 brilliant literary success, contents herself with a warm and 
 unenvying sympathy in the success of others, with a mixture 
 of reverence and admiration greater than I can accord to mere 
 genius, however high. Eare are such women beyond all rare- 
 ness ; but that they do exist, my friend Miss Goldsmid is a 
 living instance ; and that there was one such most eminent in 
 the last generation, was felt by all who had the happiness and 
 the privilege of knowing Catherine Fanshawe. 
 
 The name of this gifted woman is connected with the whole 
 of that glorious society which formed the pride and ornament 
 of London during the early part of the present century — the 
 society which, after a short interregnum, succeeded the illus- 
 trious circle that had formed the great literary club in the 
 days of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and Reynolds. Even 
 with these names, their successors may well bear a com- 
 parison. To mention them is enough : Scott, Southey, Rogers, 
 Moore, Joanna BaiUie, Maria Edgeworth, Madame d'Arblay, 
 Wordsworth, Grabbe, Mrs. Siddons, Sotheby, Sharp, W. E. 
 Spencer, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir James Mackintosh, Lord 
 Erskine, Lord Holland, William Harness, Sydney Smith, Camp- 
 bell, Canning, Thomas Hope : — there is no telling where to 
 stop. And amongst this society, at once so dazzling and so 
 charming, there was no name more distinguished for brilliant 
 and various talent, or for every attractive quality, than that 
 of Catherine Fanshawe. 
 
 Coheiress with two obher daughters of an ancient gentle- 
 man's family, the three Uved together in that happy sisterly 
 union peculiar to our country. Besides her remarkable talent 
 for graceful and polished pleasantry, whether in prose or in 
 verse, Miss Catharine Fanshawe was admirable as a letter- 
 writer, as a reader of Shakespeare, and as a designer in almost 
 every style. One of the few survivors of that brilliant society, 
 himself a first-rate judge of art, says of her : — " Her drawings 
 and etchings are those of an artist ; and so different are they 
 
A LITERARY HFE. 145 
 
 in kind, that I have seen a large drawing, called ' The Genius 
 of the Storm,' which, if I were not afraid of my own prepos- 
 sessions, I should say is sublime ; whilst there are groups of 
 children by her, which no one has ever surpassed for their 
 beauty, simplicity, and truth ; and I have hanging up over 
 my study fireplace a long aqua-tinted etching of hers, called 
 ' An After-dinner Conversation,' which is as comical as any- 
 thing by Bunbury, and a great deal better than anything of his, 
 because, while quite as humorous, it is less caricatured." 
 
 Of course, the secret of this variety, and of this exoellance, 
 lay in her power and her habit of observation. " She saw 
 everything," says that excellent friend of hers and of mine, to 
 whom I owe the account of her drawings ; " she saw every- 
 thing — the whole of it" and was only restrained from turning 
 it into the most finished comedy by those feelings of a gentle- 
 woman and a Christian (how nearly those words are synony- 
 mous !) which prevented her from running the risk of giving 
 a moment's pain to any human being. I have a theory that 
 the very highest talent commonly keeps very good company ; 
 and no better illustration of its truth could be found than 
 this admirable person, whose Christian graces were quite on 
 a par with her mental endowments. 
 
 Far too few of her poems have been published. Those 
 which I subjoin have been taken from a volume, now very 
 scarce, consisting of miscellaneous pieces, by many authors, 
 edited by Mrs. Joanna Baillie, for the benefit of a friend. The 
 volume was published by subscription, and is remarkable not 
 only for these charming pieces of pleasantry, and for some of 
 the best poems of the editor, but as containing Sir Walter 
 Scott's most successful dramatic effort, "Mac Duffs Cross,'' 
 and Mr. Merivale's " Devon's Poly-Olbion," and also for having 
 introduced to the world Southey's whimsical and charac- 
 teristic experiment upon rhyme and language, called " The 
 Cataract of Lodore." 
 
 I plunge at once into one of the pleasantest of Miss Cathe- 
 rine Fanshawe's poems, " The Abrogation of the Birth-night 
 Ball, by a Beau of the last Century." The description of the 
 minuet is admirable. 
 
 For ever at his lordly call 
 TJprosa the spangled night ; 
 Leading in gorgeous splendour bright 
 The minuet and the ball. 
 L 
 
146 RBOOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 And balls each frolie hour may bring 
 That revels through the maddening spring, 
 Shaking with hurried step the painted floor, 
 But minuets are no more ! 
 
 No more the well-taught feet shall tread 
 
 The figure of the mazy zed ; 
 
 The beau of other times shall mourn 
 
 As gone, and never to return, 
 
 The graceful bow, the curtsy low. 
 
 The floating forms that undulating glide, 
 
 (Like anchor'd vessels on the swelling tide,) 
 
 That rise and sink alternate as they go, 
 
 Now bent the knee, now lifted on the toe ; 
 
 The sidelong step that works its even way. 
 
 The slow pas-grave and slower balancg ; 
 
 Still with fix'd gaze he eyes the imagined fair 
 
 And turns the comer with an easy air. 
 
 Not so his partner. From her tangled train 
 To free her captive foot she strives in vain ; 
 Her tangled train the struggling captive holds 
 (Like great Atrides) in its fatal folds ; 
 The laws of gallantry his aid demand, 
 The law of etiquette withhold his hand. 
 Such pains, such pleasures, now alike are o'er 
 And beaus and etiquette shall soon exist no more. 
 In their stead behold advancing 
 Modern men and women dancing ! 
 
 Step and dress alike express, 
 Above, below, from heel to toe, 
 Male and female awkwardness, 
 Without a hoop, without a rufSe, 
 One eternal jig and shuffle. 
 Where's the air, and where 's the gait ? 
 Where's the feather in the hat? 
 Where the frizz'd toupee ? and where. 
 Oh ! Where's the powder for the hair ? 
 
 » * * * 
 
 Mark the pair whom favouring fortune 
 
 At the envied top shall place ; 
 Humbly they the next importune 
 
 To vouchsafe a little space ; 
 
 Not the graceful arm to wave in. 
 
 Or the silken robe expand ; 
 All superfluous action saving. 
 
 Idly drops the lifeless hand. 
 
 Her downcast eye the modest beauty 
 
 Sends as doubtful of their sKiU, 
 To see if feet perform their duty, 
 
 And their endless task fulfil. 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 147 
 
 Footing, footing, footing, footing, 
 
 Footing, footing, footing still. 
 While the rest, in hedgerow state. 
 
 All insensible to sound, 
 With more than human patience wait. 
 
 Like trees fast-rooted in the ground. 
 
 Not such as once, with sprightly motion, 
 To distant music stirrd their stumps. 
 
 And tript from Peliou to the ocean, 
 Performing avenues and clumps : 
 
 What time old Jason's ship, the Argo, 
 
 Orpheas fiddling at the helm, 
 From Colchis bore her golden cargo, 
 
 Dancing o'er the azure realm. 
 
 But why recur to ancient story, 
 
 Or balls of modern date ? 
 
 Be mine to trace the minuet's fate, 
 And mourn its fallen glory. 
 
 To ask who rang the passing bell ? 
 If Testris ran the solemn dirge to hear ? 
 Genius of Valoiiy, didst thou hover near? 
 
 Shade of Lepicq ! and spirit of Gondel ! 
 
 Now their ausry forms arise, 
 
 Where wreaths of smoke involve the skies, 
 
 Above St. James's steeple. 
 I heard them curse our heavy heel. 
 The Irish step, the Highland reel, 
 
 And all the United People. 
 
 To the dense air the curse adhesive clung. 
 Repeated since by many a modish tongue 
 In words that may be said, but never shall be sung. • 
 
 What cause untimely urged the minuet's fate? 
 Did war subvert the manners of the state ? 
 Did savage nations give the barbarous law, 
 The Gaul Cisalpine or the Gonoquaw ? 
 Its fall was destined to a peaceful land, 
 A sportive pencil and a courtly hand. 
 They left a name that time itself might spare 
 To grinding organs, and the dancing bear. 
 ♦ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 My next extract is a restoration. I have it myself, printed in 
 two editions of Lord Byron's works ; the one English, the other 
 American. The friend already quoted says of it, — " The letter 
 H (I mean the Enigma so called, ascribed to Lord Byron,) she 
 
 * " Go to the devil and shake yourself." The tune of a favourite 
 country-dance. 
 
 l2 
 
148 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 wrote at the Deepdene. I well remember her bringing it 
 down at breakfast and reading it to us, and my impression is 
 that she had then just composed it." 
 
 A KIDDLE. 
 
 'Twas in heaven pronounced, and 'twas mutter'd in hell. 
 
 And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell ; 
 
 On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest, 
 
 And the depths of the ocean its presence oonfess'd ; 
 
 'TwUl be found in the sphere when 'tis riven asunder. 
 
 Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder. 
 
 'Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath, 
 
 Attends him at birth, and awaits him in death, 
 
 Presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health. 
 
 Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth. 
 
 In the heaps of the miser 'tis hoarded with care, 
 
 But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir. 
 
 It begins every hope, every wish it must bound. 
 
 With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crown'd. 
 
 Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam, 
 
 But woe to the wretch who expels it from home ! 
 
 In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found, 
 
 Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drown'd. 
 
 'Twill not soften the heart ; but though deaf be the ear, 
 
 It will make it acutely and instantly hear. 
 
 Yet in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower. 
 
 Ah ! breathe on it softly — ^it dies in an hour. 
 
 Now for another riddle — a charade — which my fair friends 
 shall have the pleasure of discovering for themselves. 
 Inscribed on many a learned page, 
 In mystic characters and sage, 
 
 Long time my First has stood ; 
 And though its golden age be past. 
 In wooden walls it yet may last 
 Till clothed in flesh and blood. 
 
 My Second is a glorious prize 
 
 'For all who love their v.randering eyes 
 
 With curious sights to pamper ; 
 But 'tis a sight — which should they meet, 
 Air improvise in the street, 
 
 Ye gods I how they would scamper ! 
 
 My tout 's a sort of wandering throne. 
 To women limited alone, 
 
 The Salique law reversing ; 
 But while the imaginary queen 
 Prepares to act this novel scene, 
 
 Her royal part rehearsing, 
 O'erturning her presumptuous plan. 
 Up climbs the old usurper — ^man, 
 And she jogs after as she can. 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 149 
 
 It is not often that so trifling a subject has been rendered 
 so graceful and so pleasant as in the following pleadings of 
 two initials, C. versus K. 
 
 BrlSTLE TO EAEL HABGOUET, 
 
 On his wishing her to spell her name of Catherine with a K. 
 
 And can his antiquarian eyes 
 
 My Anglo-Saxon C despise ? 
 
 And does Lord Harcourt, day by day, 
 
 Regret t,he extinct initial K ? 
 
 And still, with ardour unabated, 
 
 Labour to get it reinstated ? 
 
 I know, my lord, your generous passion 
 
 For every long-exploded fashion ; 
 
 And own the Katherine you delight in 
 
 Looks irresistibly inviting, 
 
 Appears to bear the stamp and mark 
 
 Of English used in Noah's Ark ; 
 
 " But all that glitters is not gold," 
 
 Nor all things obsolete are old. 
 
 Would you but take the pains to look 
 
 In Doctor -Johnson's quarto book 
 
 (As I did, wishing much to see 
 
 The aforesaid letter's pedigree), 
 
 Believe me t would a tale unfold 
 
 Would make your Norman blood run cold. 
 
 My lord, you '11 find the K's no better 
 
 Than an interpolated letter — 
 
 A wandering Greek, a franchised alien. 
 
 Derived from Cadmus or Deucalion, 
 
 And, why or wherefore none can tell, 
 
 Inserted 'twixt tiie I and L. 
 
 The learned say our English tongue 
 
 On Gothic beams is built and hung : 
 
 Then why the solid fabric piece 
 
 With motley ornaments from Greece ? 
 
 Her lettered despots had no bowels 
 
 For Northern consonants and vowels ; 
 
 The Norman and the Greek grammarian 
 
 Deemed us and all our words barbarian, 
 
 Till those hard words and harder blows 
 
 Had silenced all our haughty foes, 
 
 And proud they were to kiss the sandals 
 
 (Shoes we had none) of Goths and Vandals. 
 
 * » » * 
 
 But since our Saxon line we trace 
 Up to this all-subduing race. 
 Who from their " sole dominion " hurled 
 The giants of the ancient world, 
 Their boasted languages confounding, 
 
150 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 And with such mortal gutturals woundiug, 
 
 That Greek or Latin fell or fled. 
 
 And soon were numbered with the dead ; 
 
 Befits it us, BO much their betters, 
 
 To spell our names with conquered letters ? 
 
 And shall they rise and prate again, 
 
 Like Falstaff from among the slain ? 
 
 A licence quite of modern date 
 
 Which no long customs consecrate ; 
 
 For since this K, of doleful sound, 
 
 First set his foot on British ground, 
 
 'Tis not, as antiquaries know, 
 
 A dozen centuries ago. 
 
 That darling theme of English stoiy. 
 For learning famed and martial glory, 
 Alfred, who quelled the usurping Dane, 
 And burst indignant from his chain ; 
 Who slaves redeemed to reign o'er men, 
 Changing the falchion for the pen, 
 Alfred, whom yet these realms obey. 
 In all his kingdom owned no K, 
 From foreign arms and letters free. 
 Preserved his Cyngly dignity, 
 And wrote it with a Saxon C. 
 
 « * * » 
 
 But grant this specious plea prevailing. 
 And all my legal learning failing, 
 There yet remains so black a charge, 
 Kot only 'gainst the K's at large. 
 But the individual K in question. 
 You'd tremble at the bare suggestion. 
 Nor ever more a wish reveal 
 So adverse to the public weal. 
 
 Dear gentle Earl, you little know 
 
 That wish might work a world of woe ; 
 
 The ears that are unborn would rise 
 
 In judgment 'gainst your lordship's eyes ; 
 
 The ears that are unborn would rue 
 
 Your letter i^atent to renew 
 
 The dormant dignity of shrew. 
 
 The K restored takes off the attainder. 
 
 And grants the title, with remainder 
 
 In perpetuity devised 
 
 To Katherines lawfully baptised. 
 
 What has not Shakespeare said and sung 
 
 Of otir pre-eminence of tongue ! 
 
 His glowing pen has writ the name 
 
 In characters of fire and flame ; 
 
 Not flames that mingle as they rise 
 
 Innocuous with their kindred skies ; 
 
 Some ohemic lady-like solution, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 151 
 
 Shown at the Koyal Institution : 
 
 But such as still mth ceaseless clamour. 
 
 Dance round the anvil and the hammer. 
 
 See him the comic muse invoking, 
 
 (The merry nymph with laughter choking,) 
 
 While he exhibits at her shrine 
 
 The unhallowed form of Katherine ; 
 
 And there the Gorgon image plants, — 
 
 Palladium of the termagants. 
 
 He formed it of the rudest ore 
 
 That lay in his exhaustless store. 
 
 Nor from the crackling furnace drew. 
 
 Which still the breath of genius blew. 
 
 Till (to preserve the bright allusion) 
 
 The mass was in a state of fusion. 
 
 Then cast it in a Grecian mould, 
 
 Once modelled from a living scold ; 
 
 When from her shelly prison burst 
 
 That finished vixen, Kate the curst. 
 
 If practice e'er with precept tallies. 
 
 Could Shakespeare set down aught in malice I 
 
 From Nature all his forms he drew 
 
 And held the mirror to her view ; 
 
 And if an ugly wart arose. 
 
 Or freckle upon Nature's nose, 
 
 He flattered not the unsightly flaw. 
 
 But marked and copied what he saw ; 
 
 Strictly fulfilling all his duties 
 
 Alike to blemishes and beauties : 
 
 So that in Shakespeare's time 'tis plain 
 
 The Katherines were scolds in grain. 
 
 No females louder, fiercer, worse. 
 
 Now contemplate the bright reverse ; 
 
 And say amid the countless names 
 
 Borne by contemporary dames, — 
 
 Exotics, fetched from distant nations. 
 
 Or good old English appellations, — 
 
 Names hunted out from ancient books, 
 
 Or found 'mid dairy-maids and cooks. 
 
 Genteel, familiar, or pedantic, 
 
 Grecian, Roman, or romantic, 
 
 Christian, Infidel or Jew, 
 
 Heroines, fabulous or true, 
 
 Ruths, Rebeccas, Rachels, Sarahs, 
 
 Charlottes, Harriets, Emmas, Claras, 
 
 Auroras, Helens, Daphnes, Delias, 
 
 Martias, Portias and Cornelias, 
 
 Nannys, Fannys, Jennys, Hettys, 
 
 Dollys, Mollys, Biddys, Bettys, 
 
 Sacharissaa, Melusinas, 
 
 Dulcibellas, Celestinas, — 
 
 Say is there one more. free from blame. 
 
 One that enjoys a fairer fame. 
 
152 KBCOLIECTIONS OF 
 
 One more endowed with Christian graces 
 
 (Although I say it to our faces, 
 
 And flattery we don't delight in), 
 
 Than Catherine at this present writing ? 
 
 Where then can all the difference be ? 
 
 Where hut between the K and C ? 
 
 Between the graceful curving line 
 
 We now prefix to atherine, 
 
 Which seems to keep in mild police. 
 
 Those rebel syllables in peace, 
 
 Describing in the line of duty 
 
 Both physical and moral beauty. 
 
 And thit impracticable K 
 
 Who led them all so much astray ? 
 
 Was never seen in black and white 
 
 A character more full of spite ! 
 
 That stubborn back, to bend unskilful. 
 
 So perpendicularly wilful ! 
 
 With angles hideous to behold 
 
 Like the sharp elbows of a scold. 
 
 In attitude, when words shall fail 
 
 To fight their battles tooth and nail. 
 
 In page the first you're sagely told 
 That " all that glitters is not gold ;" 
 Fain would I quote one proverb more, — 
 " N'^veillez pas le chat qui dort." 
 Here some will smile as if suspicious 
 The simile was injudicious. 
 Because in C A T they trace 
 Alliance with the feline race. 
 But we the name alone inherit, 
 C has the letter, K the spirit ; 
 And woe betide the man who tries. 
 Whether or no the spirit dies ! 
 Though dormant long, it yet survives 
 With its full complement of lives ; 
 The nature of the beast is still 
 To scratch and claw if not to kill ; 
 For royal oats to low-born wrangling 
 Will superadd the gift of strangling. 
 Witness in modern times the fate 
 Of that unhappy potentate. 
 Who from his palace near the Pole 
 Where the ohUl waves of Neva roll. 
 Was snatched, while yet alive and meriy. 
 And sent on board old Charon's feriy, 
 The Styx he traversed execrating 
 A Katherine of his own creating. 
 « « » w 
 
 In evil hour this simple Czar, 
 Impelled by some malignant star. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 153 
 
 Bestowed upon hia new Czarina 
 The fatal name of Katerina ; 
 And as Monseigneur I'Aroheveque 
 Chose to baptize her a la Greoque, 
 'T was Katerina with a K : 
 He rued it to his dying day. 
 Nay, died, as I observed before, 
 The sooner on that very score. 
 The Princess quickly leamt her cue. 
 Improved upon the part of shrew, 
 And as the plot began to thicken, 
 She wrung his head off like a chicken ; 
 In short, this despot of a wife 
 Robbed the poor man of crown and life ; 
 And robbing Peter paid not Paul, 
 But cleared the stage of great and small. 
 * * « » 
 
 Besides these genial pleasantries, many shorter poems on 
 local and temporary subjects enlivened the brilliant circle of 
 which Miss Catherine Fanshawe formed so precious an orna- 
 ment. Many have perished, as occasional verses will pei-ish, 
 however bappy. I insert one specimen to show how her 
 lively fancy could embellish the merest trifle. 
 
 When tbe Eegeut's Park was first laid out, she parodied the 
 two well-known lines from Pope's " Elegy on an Unfortunate 
 Lady :" 
 
 " Here shall the spring its earliest sweets bestow. 
 Here the first roses of the year shall blow," 
 
 and by only altering one word of the first line, and a single 
 letter of the second, changed their entire meaning, and ren- 
 dered them appUcable to the new resort of the Londoners : 
 
 " Here shall the spring its earliest coughs bestow. 
 Here the first moses of the year shall blow." 
 
 One wonders what Pope would have thought of such a 
 parody. It is really a great honour. But would he have 
 thought so ? 
 
154 KECOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 XIV. 
 MARRIED POETS. 
 
 ELIZABETH EAEBETI BBOWNING. — ^EOBEBT EEOWMINa. 
 
 Married poets ! Charming words are these, significant of 
 congenial gifts, congenial labours, congenial tastes ; — quiet 
 and sweet resoiirces of mind and of heart, a long future of 
 happiness live in those two words. And the reality is aa rare 
 as it is charming. Married authors we have had of all ages 
 and of all countries ; from the Daciers, standing stiff and 
 stately under their learning, as if it were a load, down to the 
 Guizots, whose story is so pretty that it would sound hke a 
 romance to all who did not know how often romance looks 
 pale beside reality ; from the ducal pair of Newcastle, walking 
 stately and stiff under their strawberry-leafed coronets, to 
 William and Mary Howitt, ornaments of a sect to whom 
 coronets are an abomination. Married authors have been 
 plentiful as blackberries, but married poets have been rare 
 indeed ! The last instance, too, was rather a warning than an 
 example. When Caroline Bowles changed her own loved and 
 honoured name, to become the wife of the great and good 
 man Robert Southey, all seemed to promise fairly, but a slow 
 and fatal disease had seized him even before the wedding-day, 
 and darkened around him to the hour of his death. In the 
 pair of whom I am now to speak, the very reverse of this sad 
 destiny has happily befallen, and the health of the bride, 
 which seemed gone for ever, has revived under the influence 
 of the cUmate of Italy, of new scenes, new duties, a new and 
 untried felicity. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning is too dear to me as a friend to 
 be spoken of merely as a poetess. Indeed, such is the in- 
 fluence of her manners, her conversation, her temper, her 
 thousand sweet and attaching qualities, that they who know 
 her best are apt to lose sight altogether of her learning and of 
 her genius, and to think of her only as the most charming 
 person that they have ever met. But she is known to so few, 
 and the pecuUar characteristics of her writings,— their purity,' 
 
A LITER ABY LIFE. 155 
 
 their tenderness, their piety, aud their intense feeling of 
 humanity and of womanhood, — have won for her the love of 
 • so many, that it will gratify them, without, I trust, infringing 
 on the saoredness of private intercourse, to speak of her not 
 wholly as a poetess, but a little as a woman. When in listen- 
 ing to the nightingale, we try to oatoh a glimpse of the shy 
 songster, we are moved by a deeper feeling than curiosity. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced 
 about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most 
 interesting persons that I had ever seen. Everybody who 
 then saw her said the same ; so that it is not merely the 
 impression of my partiality, or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, 
 delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either 
 side of a most expressive face, laige tender eyes, richly fringed 
 by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, aud such a look of 
 youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, 
 in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the 
 translatress of the " Prometheus " of .dlschylus, the authoress 
 of the "Essay on Mind," was old enough to be introduced 
 into company, in technical language was out. Through the 
 kindness of another invaluable friend, to whom I owe many 
 obligations, but none so great as this, I saw much of her 
 during my stay in town. We met so constantly and so 
 familiarly that, in spite of the difference of age, intimacy 
 ripened into friendship, and after my return into the country, 
 we corresponded freely and frequently, her letters being just 
 what letters ought to be — her own talk put upon paper. 
 
 The next year was a painful one to herself and to all who 
 loved her. She broke a blood-vessel upon the lungs which 
 did not heal. If there had been consumption in the family, 
 that disease would have supervened. There were no seeds of 
 the fatal English malady in her constitution, and she escaped. 
 StUl, however, the vessel did not heal, and, after attending 
 her for above a twelvemonth at her father's house in Wimpole 
 Street, Dr. Chambers, on the approach of winter, ordered her 
 to a milder climate. Her eldest brother, a brother in heart 
 and in talent worthy of such a sister, together with other 
 devoted relatives, accompanied her to Torquay, and tliere 
 occurred the fatal event which saddened her bloom of youth, 
 and gave a deeper hue of thought and feeling, especially of 
 devotional feeling, to her poetry. I have so often been asked 
 
156 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 what could be the shadow that had passed over that young 
 heart, that, now that time has softened the first agony, it 
 seems to me right that the world should hear the story of an 
 accident in which there was much sorrow, but no blame. 
 
 Nearly a twelvemonth had passed, and the invalid, still 
 attended by her affectionate companions, had derived much 
 benefit from the mild sea-breezes of Devonshire. One fine 
 summer morning, her favourite brother, together with two 
 other fine young men, his friends, embarked on board a small 
 sailing vessel, for a trip of a few hours. Excellent sailors all, 
 and familiar with the coast, they sent back the boatmen, and 
 undertook themselves the management of the little craft. 
 Danger was not dreamt of by any one — after the catastrophe 
 no one could divine the cause ; but, in a few minutes after 
 their embarkation, and in sight of their very windows, just as 
 they were crossing the bar, the boat went down, and all who 
 were in her perished. Even the bodies were never found. I 
 was told by a party who were travelling that year in Devon- 
 shire and Cornwall, that it was most affecting to see on the 
 corner houses of every village street, on every church-door, 
 and almost on every cliff, for miles and miles along the coast, 
 handbills, offering large rewards for linen cast ashore, marked 
 with the initials of the beloved dead ; for it so chanced that 
 all the three were of the dearest and the best — one, I believe,- 
 an only son, the other the son of a widow. 
 
 This tragedy nearly killed Elizabeth Barrett. She was 
 utterly prostrated by the horror and the giief, and by a 
 natural but a most unjust feeling that she had been, in some 
 sort, the cause of this great misery. It was not until the fol- 
 lowing year that she could be removed in an invalid carriage, 
 -and by journeys of twenty miles a day, to her afflicted family 
 and her London home. The house that she occupied at Tor- 
 quay had been chosen as one of the most sheltered in the 
 place. It stood at the bottom of the cliffs, almost close to the 
 sea ; and she told me herself that, during that whole winter, 
 the sound of the waves rang in her ears like the moans of one 
 dying. Still she clung to literature and to Greek ; in all pro- 
 bability she would have died without that wholesome diver- 
 sion to her thoughts. Her medical attendant did not always 
 ■understand this. To prevent the remonstrances of her friendly 
 physician. Dr. Barry, she caused a small edition of Plato to be 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 167 
 
 SO bound as to resemble a novel. He did not know, skilful 
 and kind though he were, that to her such books were not an 
 arduous and painful study, but a consolation and a delight. 
 
 Returned to London, she began the life which she continued 
 for so many years, confined to one large and commodious but 
 darkened chamber, admitting only her own affectionate family 
 and a few devoted friends (I, myself, have often joyfully tra- 
 velled five-and-forty nailes to see her, and returned the same 
 evening, without entering another house) ; reading almost 
 every book worth reading, in almost every language, and 
 giving herself heart and soul to that poetry of which she 
 seemed born to be the priestess. 
 
 Gradually her health improved. About four years ago she 
 married Mr. Browning, and immediately accompanied him to 
 Pisa. They then settled at Florence ; and this summer I have 
 had the exquisite pleasure of seeing her once more in London, 
 with a lovely boy at her knee, almost as well as ever, and 
 telling tales of Italian rambles, of losing herself in chestnut 
 forests, and scrambling on mule-back up the sources of eztinct 
 volcauoes. May Heaven continue to her such health and such 
 happiness ! 
 
 In her abundant riches, it is difficult to select extracts. If 
 I did not know her scorn of her own earlier works (for she 
 was the most precocious of authoresses, wrote largely at ten 
 years old, and more than well at fifteen) — if I were not aware 
 of her fastidiousness, I should be tempted to rescue certain 
 exquisite stanzas which I find printed at the end of her first 
 version of the "Prometheus Bound" — for, dissatisfied with 
 her girlish translation of the grand old Greek, she recom- 
 menced her labour, and went fairly through the drama from 
 the first line to the last ; but she has condemned the poem, 
 and therefore I refrain. 
 
 Perhaps there is some personal preference in the selection 
 I do make ; since I first received it written in her own clear 
 and beautiful manuscript on the fly-leaf of another volume, 
 which she has also withdrawn from circulation. Besides being 
 one of the earliest, it is amongst the most characteristic of 
 her smaller poems. 
 
 THE SEAMEW. 
 
 How joyously the young seamew 
 Lay dreaming on the waters blue, 
 
158 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Whereon our little bark had thrown 
 A forward shade, the only one, 
 (But shadows aye wiU men pursue.) 
 
 Familiar with the waves, and free 
 As if their own white foam were he ; 
 His heart upon the heart of ocean 
 Lay learning all its mystic motion 
 And throbbing to the throbbing sea. 
 
 And such a brightness in his eye. 
 As if the ocean and the sky 
 Within him had lit up and nurst 
 A. soul God gave him not at first 
 To comprehend their mystery. 
 
 We were not cruel, yet did sunder 
 
 His white vring from the blue waves under, 
 
 And bound it ; — while his fearless eyes 
 
 Looked up to ours in calm surprise, 
 
 As deeming us some ocean wonder. 
 
 We bore our ocean bird unto 
 A grassy place where he might view 
 The flowers that curtsy to the bees, 
 The waving of the tall green trees, 
 The falling of the silver dew. 
 
 The flowers of earth were pale to him 
 Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim ; 
 And when earth's dew around him lay 
 He thought of ocean's wingfid spray, 
 And his eye waxed pale and dim. 
 
 The green trees round him only made 
 A prison with their darksome shade : 
 And drooped his wing and moumfid he 
 For his own boundless glittering sea, — 
 Albeit he knew not they could fade. 
 
 Then One her gladsome face did bring. 
 Her gentle voice's murmuring. 
 In ocean's stead his heart to move, 
 And teach him what was human love — 
 He thought it a strange mournful thing. 
 He lay down in his grief to die, 
 (First looking to the sea-like slqr 
 That hath no waves,) because, alas ! 
 Our human touch did o'er him pass, 
 And with our touch, our agony. 
 
 Perhaps the very finest of Mrs. Browning's poems is " The 
 Lady Geraldine's Courtship," written (to meet the double 
 exigency of completiug the uniformity of the original two 
 volumes, and of catching the vessel that was to carry the 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 159 
 
 proofs to America) in the incredible space of twelve hours. 
 That delicious ballad must have been lying unborn in her 
 head and in her heart ; but when we think of its length and 
 of its beauty, the shortness of time in which it was put into 
 form appears one of the most stupendous efforts of the 
 human mind. And the writer was a delicate woman, a con- 
 firmed invalid, just dressed and supported for two or three 
 hours from her bed to her sofa, and so back again. Let me 
 add, too, that the exertion might have been avoided by a new 
 arrangement of the smaller poems, if Miss Barrett would only 
 have consented to place " Pan is Dead " at the end of the first 
 volume instead of the second. The difference does not seem 
 much : but she had promised Mr. Kenyon that ' ' Pan is Dead " 
 should conclude the collection ; and Mr. Kenyon was out of 
 town, and could not release her word. To this delicate con- 
 scientiousness we owe one of the most charming love-stories 
 in any language. It is too long for insertion here ; and I no 
 more dare venture an abridgement than I should venture to 
 break one of the crown jewels. So the Dead Pan shall take 
 the place. It were mere pedantry to compare Schiller's 
 " Gods of Greece " to this glorious gallery of classical statues, 
 fresh and life-like, as if just struck into beauty by the chisel 
 of Phidias. 
 
 I transcribe Mrs. Browning's own modest and graceful 
 introduction : — 
 
 THE DEAD PAN. 
 
 " Excited by Schiller's ' Qotter Griechenlands,' and partly 
 founded on a well-known tradition, mentioned in a treatise of 
 Plutarch ('De Oraculorum Defectu'), according to which, at 
 the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of ' Great Pan is Dead ! ' 
 swept across the waves, in the hearing of certain mariners, 
 and the oracles ceased. 
 
 " It is in all veneration to the memory of the deathless 
 Schiller, that I oppose a doctrine still more dishonouring to 
 poetry than to Christianity. 
 
 " As Mr. Kenyon 's graceful and harmonious paraphrase ot 
 the German poem was the first occasion of my turning my 
 thoughts in this direction, I take advantage of the pretence to 
 indulge my feelings (which overflow on other grounds), by 
 inscribing my lyric to that dear friend and relative, with the 
 
160 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 earnestness of appreciating esteem as well as of affectionate 
 gratitude,— E. B. B." 
 
 Gods of Hellaa ! gods of Hellas ! 
 Can ye listen in your silenee ? 
 Can your mystic voices tell us 
 Where ye hide ? In floating islands 
 Witt a wind that evermore 
 Keeps you out of sight of shore ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 In what revels are ye sunken 
 
 In old ^Ethiopia ? 
 
 Have the Pygmies made you di-unken, 
 
 Bathing in Mandragora 
 
 Your divine pale lips, that shiver 
 
 Like the lilies in the river ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Do ye sit there still in slumber, 
 In gigantic Alpine rows ? 
 The black poppies out of number. 
 Nodding, dripping from your brows 
 To the red lees of your wine, 
 And so kept alive and fine ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Or lie crushed your stagnant corses 
 Where the silver spheres roll on, 
 Stung to life by centric forces. 
 Thrown like rays out from the sun ! 
 While the smoke of your old altars 
 Is the shroud that round you weltei-s '! 
 Great Pan is dead. 
 
 " Godf3 of Hellas, gods of Hellas ! " 
 Said the old Hellenic tongue. 
 Said the hero-oaths, as well aa 
 Poet's songs the sweetest sung ! 
 Have ye grown deaf in a day ? 
 Can ye speai not yea or nay — 
 
 Since Pan is dead ? 
 
 Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
 
 All alone, Naiadea ! 
 
 While your drenched looks dry slow in 
 
 This cold feeble sun and breeze ? 
 
 Not a word the Naiads say 
 
 Though the rivers run for aye, — 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 From the glooming of the oak-wood, 
 
 0, ye Dryads, could ye flee ? 
 
 At the rushing thunder-stroke, would 
 
A HTERAET LIFE. 161 
 
 No sob tremble through the tree ? 
 Not a word the Dryads say, 
 Though the forests wave for aye. 
 
 For Pan is deads 
 
 Have ye left the moimtain places, 
 Oreads wild for other tryst ? 
 Shall we see no sudden faces 
 Strike a gloiy through the mist? 
 Not a sound the silence thrills 
 Of the everlasting hills. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead 
 
 0, twelve gods of Plato'sVision 
 Crowned to starry wanderings, — 
 "With your chariots in procession 
 And your silver clash of wings. 
 Very pale ye seem to rise, 
 Ghosts of Grecian deities. 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 Jove ! that right hand is unloaded. 
 Whence the thunder did prevail. 
 While in idiotcy of godhead 
 Thou art staring, the stars pale ! 
 And thine eagle blind and old 
 Roughs his feathers in the cold. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Whex'e, Juno ! is the glory 
 Of thy regal look and tread ? 
 Will they lay for evermore, thee 
 On thy dim straight golden bed ? 
 Will thy queendom all lie hid 
 Meekly under either lid ? 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Ha, Apollo ! Moats his golden 
 Hair, all mist-like where he stands ; 
 While the Muses hang enfolding 
 Knee and foot with faint wild hands. 
 'Neath the clanging of thy bow 
 Niobe looked lost as thou ! 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Shall the casque with its brown iron 
 Pallas' broad blue eyes eclipse. 
 And no hero take inspiring 
 From the God-greek of her lips ? 
 'Neath her olive dost thou sit, 
 Mars the mighty, cursing it ? 
 
 Pan^ Pan is dead. 
 
 Bacchus, Bacchus ! on the Panther 
 He swoons, bound with his own vines ! 
 And his Maenads slowly saunter, 
 M 
 
162 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Head aside among the pines, 
 While they murmur dreamingly, 
 Erohe — ah — evohe ! 
 
 Ah, Pan is dead. 
 
 Neptune lies beside his trident, 
 Dull and senseless as a stone : 
 And old Pluto, deaf and silent. 
 Is cast out into the sun. 
 Ceres smiles stern thereat, 
 We all now are desolate — 
 
 Now Pan is dead. 
 
 Aphrodite ! dead and driven 
 -A s thy native foam thou art ; 
 With the cestus long done heaving 
 On the white calm of thine heart ! 
 A i Adonis ! At that shriek 
 Not a tear runs down her cheek- — 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 And the doves we used to know from 
 One another — huddled lie 
 Frore as taken in a snow-stomi 
 Close beside her tenderly, — 
 As if each had weakly tried 
 Once to kiss her ere he died. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 What, and Hermes ? Time enthralleth 
 All thy cunning, Hermes, thus, — 
 And the ivy blindly crawleth 
 Round thy brave caduceus ? 
 Hast thou no new message for us 
 Full of thunder and Jove's glories ? 
 
 Nay! Pan is dead. 
 
 Crown&d Cybele's great turret 
 Rocks and crumbles on her head ; 
 Roar the lions of her chariot 
 Toward the wilderness unfed : 
 Scornful children are not mute, — 
 " Mother, mother, walk afoot, — 
 
 Since Pan is dead." 
 In the fiery-hearted centre 
 Of the solemn Universe, 
 Ancient Vesta, — who could enter 
 To consume thee with this curse ? 
 Drop thy grey chin on thy knee, 
 0, thou palsied Mystery 1 
 
 For Pan is dead. 
 
 Gods ! we vainly do adjure you, — 
 Ye return nor words nor sign : 
 Not a votary could secure you 
 
A LITER ART LIFE. 163 
 
 Even a grave for your Divine ! 
 Not a grave to show thereby 
 Here those grey old gods do lie. 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 Even that Greece who took your wages 
 
 Calls the Obolus outworn. 
 
 And the hoarse deep-throated ages 
 
 Laugh your godships unto scorn — 
 
 And the poets do disclaim you 
 
 Or grow colder if they name you — 
 
 And Fan is dead. 
 
 Gods bereaved, gods belated, — 
 With your purples rent asunder ! 
 Gods discrowned and desecrated, — 
 Disinherited of thunder ! 
 Now the goats may climb and crop 
 The soft grass on Ida's top — 
 
 Now Pan is dead 
 
 Calm of old, the bark went onward. 
 When a cry more loud than wind 
 Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward, 
 From the piled Dark behind : 
 And the sun shrank and grew pale 
 Breathed against by the great wail — 
 
 " Pan, Pan is dead." 
 
 And the rowers from the benches 
 Fell, each shuddering on his face — 
 While departing Influences 
 Struck a cold back through the place : 
 And the shadow of the ship 
 Reeled along the passive deep — • 
 
 Pan, Pan is dead. 
 
 I have no room for the rest ; but I must find a place for 
 one exquisite stanza ; — ■ 
 
 0, ye vain false gods of Hellas, 
 Ye are silent evermore ! 
 And I dash down this old chalice 
 Whence libations ran of yore. 
 See ! the wind crawls in the dust 
 Worm-like — as your glories must ! 
 
 Since Pan is dead. 
 
 The last edition of Mrs. Browning's poems closes with 
 three-and-forty sonnets from the Portuguese — glowing with 
 passion, melting with tenderness. True love was never mora 
 fitly sung : — 
 
 u2 
 
164 RECOLLECTIONS OV 
 
 What can I give thee back, liberal 
 
 And princely giver ! . . . who hast brought the gold 
 
 And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, 
 
 And laid them on the outside of the wall 
 
 For such as I to take or leave withal 
 
 In unexpected largesse 1 Am I cold, 
 
 Ungrateful, that for these most manifold 
 
 High gifts I render nothing back at all ? 
 
 STot so. Not cold ! — but very poor instead ! 
 
 Ask God, who knows ! for frequent tears have run 
 
 The colours from my life, and left so dead 
 
 And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done 
 
 To give the same as pillow to thy head. 
 
 Go farther ! Let it serve to trample on. 
 
 There is a deep truth in this which follows :— 
 
 Yet love, mere love, is beautiful indeed 
 
 And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright 
 
 Let temple burn or flax ! An equal light 
 
 Leaps in the flame from cedar plant or weed. 
 
 And love is fire : and when I say at need, 
 
 / love thee — mark ! — / love thee ! in thy sight 
 
 I stand transfigured, glorified aright 
 
 With conscience of the new rays that proceed 
 
 Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low 
 
 In love, when love the lowest : meanest creatures 
 
 Who love God, God accepts while loving so. 
 
 And what \feel, across the inferior features. 
 
 Of what I am doth flash itself, and show 
 
 How that great work of love enhances Nature's. 
 
 The same visit to London that brought me acquainted with 
 my beloved friend, Elizabeth Barrett, first gave me a sight of 
 Mr. Browning. It was at a period that forms an epoch in 
 the annals of the modern drama — the first representation 
 of « Ion." 
 
 I had the honour and pleasure of being the inmate of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Serjeant Talfourd (my aocompUshed friend has since 
 worthily changed his professional title— but his higher title 
 of poet is indelible) ; having been, I beUeve, amongst the first 
 who had seen that fine play in manuscript. The dinner-party 
 consisted merely of Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Landor, and I think 
 Mr. Forster. By a singular coincidence it was our host's 
 birthday ; and no one present can forget the triumph of the 
 evening— a triumph of no common order as regarded the 
 number, the quality, or the enthusiasm of the audience ; the 
 boxes being crammed to the ceiling, and the pit filled, as in 
 an elder day, with critics and gentlemen. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 165 
 
 A large party followed the poet home to supper, a party 
 oomprising distinguished persons of almost every class ; law- 
 yers, authors, actors, artists, aU were mingled around that 
 splendid board ; healths were drunk and speeches spoken, 
 and it fell to the lot of the young author of " Paracelsus " to 
 respond to the toast of "The Poets of England." That he 
 performed this task with grace and modesty, and that he 
 looked still younger than he was, I weE remember ; but we 
 were not introduced, and I knew him only by those successive 
 works which redeemed the pledge that " Paracelsus " had 
 given, until this very summer, when going to London pur- 
 posely to meet my beloved friend, I was by her presented to 
 her husband. Ah ! I hope it will not be fifteen years before 
 we look each other in the face again ! 
 
 I never see those two volumes of his collected works which 
 correspond so prettily with the last edition of Mrs. Browning's 
 poems — a sort of literary twins — without wishing again and 
 again, and again, that we had actors and a stage. Besides 
 " The Blot on the Scutcheon " which has been successfully 
 produced at two metropolitan theatres, " Colombe's Birthday " 
 and " Luria" show not only what he has done, but what with 
 the hope of a great triumph before him he might yet do as 
 a dramatist. I could show what I mean by transcribing the 
 last act of " Colombe's Birthday." I could make my meaning 
 clearer still by transcribing the whole play. But as these 
 huge borrowings are out of the question, I must limit myself 
 to a couple of dramatic lyrics, each of which tells its own 
 story :— 
 
 MT LAST DUCHESS. — FEBEABA. 
 
 That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
 Looking as if she were alive ; I call 
 That piece a wonder now ; Prk Paudolf 's hands 
 Workfed busily a day, and there she stands. 
 Wlirt please you sit and look at her ? I said 
 " Frk Pandolf " by design, for never read 
 Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 
 The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 
 But to myself they turned (since none puts by 
 The curtain I have drawn for you but I), 
 And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 
 How such a glance came there ; so not the first 
 Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not 
 Her husband's presence only, called that spot 
 Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps 
 Fra Pandolf chanced to say " Her mantle laps 
 
166 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Over my lady's wrist too much," or " Paint 
 
 Must never hope to reproduce the faint 
 
 Half-flush that dies along her throat ;" such stuff 
 
 Was courtesy she thought ; and cause enough 
 
 For calling up that spot of joy. She had 
 
 A heart — ^how shall I say ? — too soon made glad. 
 
 Too easily imprest ; she liked whate'er 
 
 She look'd on, and her looks went everywhere. 
 
 Sir, 'twas all one ! my favour at her breast 
 
 The dropping of the daylight in the West, 
 
 The bough of cherries some officious fool 
 
 Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 
 
 She rode with round the terrace— all and each 
 
 Would draw from her alike the approving speech. 
 
 Or blush at least. She thanked men — good ; but thanked 
 
 Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 
 
 My gift of a nine-hundred years old name 
 
 With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 
 
 This sort of trifling ? Even had yon skill 
 
 In speech — (which I have not) — ^to make your will 
 
 Quite clear to such an one, and say ; " Just this 
 
 Or that in you disgusts me; — here you miss 
 
 Or there exceed the mark ;" and if she let 
 
 Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 
 
 Her wits to yours forsooth and make excuse, 
 
 — E'en then would be some stooping, and I chuse 
 
 Never to stoop. Oh, Sir, she smiled no doubt 
 
 Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 
 
 Much the same smile ? This grew ; I gave commands, 
 
 Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands . 
 
 As if alive. WiU't please you rise ? We'll meet 
 
 The company below, then. I repeat 
 
 The Count your master's known munificence 
 
 Is ample warrant that no just pretence 
 
 Of mine for dowry wiU be disallowed ; 
 
 Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 
 
 At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 
 
 Together down. Sir ! Notice Neptune though 
 
 Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity 
 
 Which Clans of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me. 
 
 Poor dead Duohasa ! and poor living one too ! for that com- 
 plaisant Ambassador who listened so silently would hardly 
 give warning, even if the father were likely to take it ; and 
 we feel as they walk down the Palace stairs that another 
 victim comes. 
 
 The pathos of the next lyric is of a different order. 
 
 HOW IHET BROtTGHT THE GOOD NEWS PKOM GHENT TO ilX 
 
 [16-.] 
 I sprang to the stirrup, and loris and he ; 
 I galloped, Dirok galloped, we galloped all three ; 
 
A LrCERARY LIFE. 1G7 
 
 " Good speed I " cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew 
 " Speed !" echoed the wall to ua galloping through; 
 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest. 
 And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
 
 Not a word to each other : we kept the great pace 
 Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; 
 I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
 Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right, 
 KebuoHed the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
 Nor galloped less steadily Eoland a whit. 
 
 'Twas moonset at starting, but while we drew near 
 
 Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; 
 
 At Boom a great yellow star came out to see; 
 
 At Uiiffeld 'twas morning as plain as could be ; 
 
 And from Mechelm church-steeple we heard the half chime, 
 
 So loris broke silence with " Yet there is time !" 
 
 At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the aun, 
 And against him the cattle stood black every one, 
 To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 
 And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last. 
 With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
 The haze as some bluff river headland its spray. 
 
 And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 
 For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
 And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
 O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 
 And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 
 His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 
 
 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried loris, " Stay spur ! 
 Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her 
 We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze 
 Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees. 
 And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flauk^ 
 As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 
 
 So we wei-e left galloping, loris and I, 
 
 Past Loos and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
 
 The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
 
 'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff ; 
 
 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
 
 And " Gallop," gasped loris, " for Aix is in sight I 
 
 " How they'll greet us ! " — and all in a moment his roan 
 Rolled neck and crop oven l^y dead as a stone ; 
 And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
 Of the news, which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
 With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim. 
 And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 
 
168 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Then I cast loose my buff-coat, eaoli holster let fall, 
 
 Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all. 
 
 Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
 
 Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
 
 Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise bad or good. 
 
 Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 
 
 And all I remember is friends flocking round, 
 
 As I sat with his head twixt my knees on the ground, 
 
 And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine. 
 
 As I poured down his throat one last measure of wine. 
 
 Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
 
 Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent. 
 
 Although we have cause to hope that the good steed re- 
 covered, yet his trial of speed and strength is too painful to 
 conclude with. I add a few hnes from the " Englishman in 
 Italy," a long poem, so pulpy, so juicy, so fuU of bright colour 
 and of rich detail, that it is just like a picture by Eubens. 
 Selection is difficult — but I choose the passage in questiou 
 because its exceeding truth was first pointed out to me by 
 Mr. Ruskin. 
 
 But to-day not a boat reached Salerno, 
 
 So back to a man 
 Came our friends with whose help in the vineyards 
 
 Grape-harvest began : 
 In the vat half-way up on our house-side 
 
 Like blood the juice spins, 
 While your brother all bare-legged is daueiug 
 
 Till breathless he grins. 
 Dead beaten in effoii on effort 
 
 To keep the grapes under. 
 Since still when he seems all but master 
 
 In pours the fresh plunder 
 From girls who keep coming and going 
 
 With basket on shoulder — 
 * * * « 
 
 Meanwhile see the grape-bunch they 've brought you 
 
 The rain water slips 
 O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe, 
 
 Which the wasp to your lips 
 Still follows with fretful persistence 
 
 Nay taste while awake 
 This half of a cui-d-white smooth cheese-ball 
 
 That peels flake by flake 
 Like an onion's each smoother and whiter ■ 
 
 Next sip this weak wine 
 From the thin green glass flask with its stopper 
 
 A leaf of the vine — 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 169 
 
 And end with the prickly pear's red flesh. 
 
 That leaves through its juice 
 The stony black seeds on your pearl teeth — 
 
 and so ou. 
 
 XV. 
 PROSE PASTOEALS. 
 
 THE LOST CANE. 
 
 SIB PHILIP Sydney's aeoadia. — isaao Walton's complete anglek. 
 
 During this warm summer, and above all during this dry 
 burning harvest weather, which makes my poor little roadside 
 cottage (the cottage which for that reason, amongst others, 
 I am about to leave) so insupportable from glare, and heat, 
 and dust in the fine season, I have the frequent, almost daily 
 habit of sallying forth into the charming green lane, the 
 grassy, turfy, shady lane of which I have before made men- 
 tion, and of which I share the use and the enjoyment with 
 the gipsies. Last summer I was able to walk thither, but in 
 the winter I was visited by rheumatism and cannot walk so 
 far without much heat and fatigue ; so my old pony-phaeton 
 conveys me and my little maid, and my pet dog Fanchon, and 
 my little maid's needlework of flounces and fineries, and my 
 books and writing-case, as far as the road leads, and some- 
 times a little farther ; and we proceed to a certain green 
 hillock under down-hanging elms, close shut in between a 
 bend in the lane on our own side, and an amphitheatre of oak 
 and ash and beach trees opposite ; where we have partly found 
 and partly scooped out for ourselves a turfy seat and turfy 
 table redolent of wild thyme and a thousand fairy flowerKS, 
 delicious in its coolness, its fragrance, and its repose. 
 
 Behind the thick hedge on the one hand stretch fresh water 
 meadows, where the clear brook wanders in strange meanders 
 between clumps of alder-bushes and willow-pollards ; fringed 
 by the blue forget-me-not, the yellow loosestrife, the purple 
 willow-herb, and the creamy tufts of the queen of the meadow ; 
 on the other hand we catch a glimpse over gates of large tracts 
 of arable land, wheat, oat, clover and bean fields, sloping up- 
 ward to the sun ; and hear, not too closely, the creaking wagon 
 and the sharpening scythe, the whistle, the halloo, and the 
 
170 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 kugh, all that forms the pleasant sound of harvest labour. 
 Just beyond the bend in the lane too, are two fires, belonging 
 to two distinct encampments of gipsies ; and the children, 
 dogs, and donkeys of these wandering tribes are nearly the 
 only living things that come into sight, exciting Fanohon now 
 to pretty defiance, now to prettier fear. 
 
 This is my constant resort on summer afternoons ; and 
 there I have the habit of remaining engaged either with my 
 book or with my pen until the decline of the sun gives token 
 that we may gather up our several properties, and that, aided 
 by my staff, I may take a turn or two in the smoothest part 
 of the lane, and proceed to meet the pony-chaise at a gate lead- 
 ing to the old Manor House which forms the usual termination 
 of my walk. 
 
 Now this staff, one of the oldest friends I have in the world, 
 is pretty nearly as well known as myself in our Bei-kshire 
 village. 
 
 Sixty years ago, it was a stick of quality and belonged to a 
 certain Duchess Dowager of AthoU, that Duchess of AthoU 
 who was in her own right Baroness Strange and Lady of 
 Mann, with whom we had some acquaintance because her 
 youngest son mamed a first cousin of my father's, and took 
 the name of Aynsley, as his wife had done before him, as a 
 condition of inheriting an estate in Northumberland. I have 
 a dim recollection of the Duchess, much such an one as Dr. 
 Johnson had of Queen Anne, as " a stately lady in black silk." 
 Well ! in her time the stick was a stick of distinction, but on 
 her leaving her Berkshire house it was left behind and huddled 
 by an auctioneer into a lot of old umbrellas, watering-pots, and 
 flower-stands, which my father bought for a song. I believe 
 that he made the purchase chiefly for the sake of this stick, 
 which he presented to my mother's faithful and favourite old 
 housekeeper, Mrs. Mosse, who lived in our family sixty years, 
 and was sufficiently lame to find such a support of great use 
 and comfort in her short and unfrequent walks. Durincr her 
 time, and for her sake, I first contracted a familiar and friendly 
 acquaintanceship with this ancient piece of garniture. It 
 was indeed a stick of some pretension, of the order commonly 
 called a crook, such as may be seen upon a chimney-piece 
 figuring in the hand of some trim shepherdess of Dresden 
 china. "What the wood might have been I cannot tell : light 
 
A LITEBABT LIFE. 171 
 
 Btraight, slender, strong it certainly was, polished and veined, 
 and as I first remember it, yellowish in colour, although it 
 became darker as it advanced in age. It was amongst the 
 tallest of its order ; nearly five feet high, and headed with a 
 crook of ivory, bound to the wood by a broad silver rim — as 
 ladylike a stick as could be seen on a summer's day. The 
 only one of the sort I ever met with had belonged to the 
 great-grandmother of a friend of mine, and was handed down 
 as a family relique ; that crook, probably of the same age as 
 ours, was more ornate and elaborate, it had a curious carved 
 handle, not unlike the hilt of a sword, decorated with a leather 
 tassel, so to say a stick-knot. 
 
 Well, poor Mossy died ; and the stick, precious upon her 
 account, became doubly so when my own dear mother took 
 to using it during her latter days, and when she also followed 
 her old servant to a happier world. And then everybody 
 knows how the merest trifles which have formed part of the 
 daily life of the loved and lost, especially those things which 
 they have touched, are cherished and cared for and put aside ; 
 how we dare not look upon them for very love ; and how by 
 some accident that nobody can explain they come to light in 
 the course of time, and after a momentary increase of sadness 
 help to familiarise and render pleasant the memory by which 
 they are endeared. It is a natural and right process, like the 
 springing of a flower upon a grave. So the stick reappeared 
 in the haU, and from some whim which I have never rightly 
 understood myself, I — who had no more need of such a sup- 
 porter than the youngest woman in the parish, who was indeed 
 the best walker of my years for a dozen miles round, and 
 piqued myself not a little upon so being — took a fancy to use 
 this stick in my own proper person, and most pertinaciously 
 carried this fancy into execution. Much was I laughed at for 
 this crotchet, and I laughed too. Friends questioned, strangers 
 stared ; but impassive to stare or to question, I remained 
 constant to my supporter. Except when I went to London 
 (for I paid so much homage to public opinion as to avoid such 
 a display there), I should as soon have thought of walking out 
 without my bonnet as without my stick. That stick was my 
 inseparable companion. 
 
 To be sure we met with a few misadventures in our com- 
 panionship. Once I left my prop behind me in a marquee 
 
172 RECOLLECTIONS O? 
 
 at a orioket-matoh, and it had weU-nigli been tossed away 
 amongst the tent-poles ; once it was stuck against a bush in 
 a copse where I happened to be nutting, and got weU thrashed 
 (according to the notable example of Sancho with the galley- 
 slaves), in company with its brethren the hazel-rods ; once it 
 was lost in a fair (I am not sure that it was not cried upon 
 that occasion) ; often forgotten in halls and vestibules ; and 
 once fairly stolen by a mischievous schoolboy from a friend's 
 portico. 
 
 This last calamity cost me a ten-mile walk, undertaken with 
 an alacrity which proved how little I really needed my trusty 
 supporter. Before I had discovered my loss— for that same 
 prop of mine had passed many a summer night, leaning 
 against the pillars of that portico— before I had even dreamt 
 of the mishap, the papa and mamma of the delinquent 
 chancing to have old-fashioned notions of good breeding, sent 
 a servant with a magnificent note in the third person, setting 
 forth in the choicest terms their regret and displeasure, de- 
 precating my anger, and entreating me to fix the day and the 
 hour on which they and the culprit might be permitted to 
 wait upon me 'to renew their excuses in person. Such a note ! 
 In diction, in caligraphy, in folding, it would have done 
 honour to "The Polite Letter-writer:" the paper stamped 
 with an oak-wreath, and breathing of attar of roses, and the 
 seal as big as that bearing her Majesty's arms from a public 
 office, were real works of art. I could as soon have answered 
 such a letter, or have sat in state to receive the threatened 
 apology, as I could have taken a journey in the air upon a 
 broomstick. Greatly preferring the offence to the reparation, 
 I had nothing for it but to forestall the visit, shake hands 
 with the poor boy, who turned out a fine spirited lad, and try, 
 by laughing over the matter with his parents, to bring about 
 a general pacification, in which attempt, they being less 
 formidable in person than on paper, I happily succeeded. 
 
 Manifold have been our escapes. One was from an adventure 
 natural to the stick-genus— a battle. 
 
 Walking past a farmhouse by the side of a fair neighbour, 
 with no other companions than our dogs ; — ^hers a beautifal 
 King Charles, mine a no less beautiful and far rarer spaniel of 
 the old brown cocking breed, Plush, the father of Fanchon ; 
 — our poor pets were set upon by a furious yard-dog un- 
 
A LITERABY LIFE. 173 
 
 luckily let loose, a tremendous mastiff, dangerous to man and 
 beast. The King Charles fled to his mistress, who instantly- 
 caught him up. Flush stood his ground, and would, I verily 
 believe, have been killed but for me and my weapon. We did 
 battle valiantly, and contrived to keep the foe at bay until, in 
 a space of time which seemed very long, and was, I suppose, 
 very short, the din brought forth the farmer, who, in the midst 
 of a storm of screaming, scolding, growling, and barking, 
 choked off his brute, and left my friend and me, the danger 
 being over, so frightened that we could hardly get home. 
 Although she had naturally consulted the safety of her own 
 pet first, she had done her duty womanfuUy, so far as scream- 
 ing went. That was the first fight I ever was in in my life, 
 and I hope it will be the last. 
 
 Another misfortune, so to say personal, which befel my 
 staff, was the loss of its own head, the ivory crook, which 
 came off in the act of pulling down a rich branch of woodbine 
 from the top of a hedge. A deep muddy ditch received the 
 poor crook, which sank instantly, and, in spite of efforts many 
 and various, covdd never be recovered. The worst part of 
 this mutilation was, as often happens to living patients, the 
 cure. Being sent to a parasol-shop to have a new crook put 
 on, the stupid people first docked many inches of its height, 
 and then stuck on so clumsily a heavy bone umbrella-top, 
 that it fell off in a few days of its own accord without any 
 accident at all. And the poor stick might have remained for 
 ever headless and " curtailed of his fair proportion," but that 
 a friend of mine (one of those persons who know how to do 
 kind things in little as well as in great) happened to remember 
 that she had an ebony top that would just fit it ; and her 
 husband, with equal kindness, completed the good action by 
 fastening on the shining black knob so adroitly, that, although 
 it has been now four or five years in wear, it remains as firm 
 as the first day, looking only a little graver, and more fit for 
 the poor old mistress, who, having at first taken to a staff in 
 sport, is now so lame as to be unable to walk without one. 
 
 And since the black head has supplanted the white one, 
 another association has come to endear this friend of sisty 
 years. A little boy, called Henry, the child of the house (son, 
 by the way, to the hemmer of flounces), has, ever since he 
 has been four years old, watched my ways, and ministered 
 
174 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 unbidden to my wants and fancies. Long before he could 
 open the outer door, before indeed he was half the height of 
 the wand in question, there he would stand, the stick in one 
 hand, and if it were summer time, a flower in the other, 
 waiting for my going out, the pretty Saxon boy, with his 
 upright figure, his golden hair, his eyes like two stars, and his 
 bright intelligent smile ! We were so used to see him there, 
 silent and graceful as a Queen's page, that when he returned 
 to school after the holidays, and somebody else presented the 
 stick and the rose, I hardly cared to take them. It seemed 
 as if something was wrong, I missed him so. Most punctual 
 of petted children ! What would Henry have said to-day ? 
 
 I might have observed, if I had only seen what passed 
 before my eyes, that something was amiss in our small 
 household ; that Sarah answered the bell, and that the 
 hemmer of flounces, when she did appear, seemed flurried 
 and fatigued. But I was thinking of Sir Philip Sydney, of 
 the "Defence of Poetry," of the "Arcadia,'' and of my own 
 resolution to proceed to the green lane, and to dissect that 
 famous pastoral, and select from the mass, which even to 
 myself I hardly confessed to be ponderous, such pages as 
 might suit an age that by no means partakes of my taste for 
 folios. So I said to her, "That the afternoon being cool, and 
 I less lame than usual, I thought we should not need Sam and 
 the pony-chaise, but that I could manage to walk by the help 
 of my stick." 
 
 At that word out burst the terrible tidings. My stick, my 
 poor old sticky my life-long friend, the faithful companion of 
 so many walks, was missing, was gone, was lost ! Last night, 
 on our return from the lane, the place in the pony-chaise 
 where Sam and I had carefully deposited it was found vacant. 
 Sam himself, that model of careful drivers and faithful 
 servants, had run back the moment he had unharnessed the 
 pony, had retraced every step of the road, beating the ground 
 like a pointer, questioning everybody, offering rewards, visit- 
 ing ale-house and beer-house (places that, without special 
 cause, Sam never does visit), to make proclamation of the 
 loss, and finishing all by getting up at four o'clock in the 
 morning, and beating the beaten ground over again. She 
 herself, who so seldom stirs without me, and so seldom lets 
 me stir without her, that she may pass for my shadow or 
 
A LITERARV LIFE. 175 
 
 (without offence be it spoken) for a sort of walking-stick 
 herself, she had sallied forth, visiting lane and field, road and 
 naeadow, questioning reaper and gipsy, a sort of living hue 
 and cry. 
 
 "And really. Ma'am," quoth she, "there is some comfort in 
 the interest the people take in the stick ! If it were anything 
 alive, the pony, or Fanchon, or little Henry, or we ourselves, 
 they could not be more sorry. Master Brent, Ma'am, at the 
 top of the street, he promises to speak to everybody ; so does 
 William Wheeler, who goes everywhere ; and Mrs. Bromley, 
 at the shop ; and the carrier and the postman. I dare say 
 the whole parish knows it by this time! I have not been 
 outside the gate to-day, but a dozen people have asked me if 
 we had heard of ow stick ! It must turn up soon. If one 
 had but the slightest notion where it was lost ! I do declare. 
 Ma'am," continued she, interrupting her lamentations, "that 
 you don't seem to be so much troubled about the poor stick 
 as I am ! " And with all her regard for me, I think she was 
 a little scandalised at my philosophy. 
 
 "Why you and Sam seem to have done all that can be 
 done," replied I ; " and perhaps if we go into the lane we may 
 hear some tidings of my poor staff, for I shall be sorry to lose 
 such an old friend ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said she, " if one did but know where it dropped 
 out of the chaise ! " 
 
 And so we set forth, I with a new stick of Sam's purveying, 
 a provisional stick, whose very roughness and imperfection 
 proved that that faithful adherent by no means despaired of 
 recovering my legitimate supporter. 
 
 My little damsel was not wrong in accusing me of being 
 calmer than she thought quite becoming under so severe a 
 calamity ; but as her inquietude and nervousness proceeded 
 mainly from the state of feverish and impatient expectation, 
 the mixture of hope and fear, in which she had passed the last 
 twenty hours, so the absence of suspense and expectation had 
 much to do with my resignation. I had some suspicion as to 
 the place in which the stick had dropt, and no great hope of 
 finding it. 
 
 Day by day, as the sun went down, we had the habit of 
 being taken up at the gate of the short avenue that leads to 
 the old Manor House — an abrupt turn, where the soft turf of 
 
176 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 the wide lane ends, and the gravel road begins. This road, 
 not much frequented in general, is full of the harvest popula- 
 tion during this harvest month— groups of reapers, men and 
 women, full-grown girl and half-grown boy, and little child — 
 the little child who watches by the baby in the cradle whilst 
 the mother reaps. On that side, too, they had just begun to 
 carry the yellow sheaves which studded so richly the grea,t 
 open corn-fields that bordered one edge of the winding road, 
 as the grounds of the old mansion, with their tall elms and 
 rustic paling, bordered the other. Just in front, crossing the 
 road, and meandering after its own wilful fashion, came the 
 brook, traversed, at the choice of the wayfarer, by a low two- 
 arched bridge, or by a wide shallow ford, just below. 
 
 Now, this has been a summer of great drought hereabouts ; 
 and we suffer much from summer drought in the cottage 
 which we are about to leave, as places that feel most the 
 winter damp very frequently do — the mud of one season 
 baking into a brick-like clay at another ; the ponds becoming 
 dry under the same sunny influence, and the wells (for we 
 have two) failing altogether, just when they are most wanted. 
 I think the thing of aU others which has most reconciled me 
 to quitting the poor old place — ^the old home, with all its 
 faults — is the contrast which the new cottage offers as to 
 water. There we shall have a pump, that is never dry ; two 
 springs, to which the whole parish resorts, the men with yokes 
 and pails, the women with pitchers — almost classical. Two 
 clear gushing springs, a pond and a river ! 
 
 However, we have not yet moved, and this delicious wateri- 
 ness to come has little profited us during this sultry August. 
 The fourfooted part of our family has particularly felt, not 
 the absolute want — for we fetch, and beg, and buy, and all but 
 steal — but the limitation of that prime luxury of nature. So 
 Sam always drives through the ford, to cool the pony's feet, 
 and commonly stops long enough in the middle to allow of 
 his enjoying a good drink of the clear glittering pool ; whilst 
 Panchon, who during the rainy season is as tender of wetting 
 her pretty paws as a cat, has latterly condescended to walk 
 out of the little carriage, in which it is her delight to sit 
 perched, to v/alk, trembling and gingerly — something as a fine 
 lady steps out of a bathing-machine — but still to walk down 
 the steps, and drop into the water — drinking in the same 
 
A LITBRABT LIFE. 177 
 
 slow, minoing, haJf-reluctamt manner, but still drinking, and 
 then pausing upon the brink, to be taken home. Yesterday 
 evening, I remembered that instead of walking leisurely down 
 the steps, stopping half a minute upon one, and a whole 
 minute upon the other, according to her usual mode, poor 
 Fanchon, doubtless in a paroxysm of thirst, had fairly jumped 
 out of the phaeton, giving the whole vehicle such a jolt as her 
 weight hardly seemed capable of producing. Then and there 
 I suspected went the stick, carried off by the slow current, 
 until it became entangled by the sedges on the banks, or sank 
 in one of the deep pools not unfrequent in the stream. So I 
 gave up my poor old friend as drowned beyond all hope of 
 resuscitation, and tried to comfort my little damsel by setting 
 her a very creditable example of resignation. 
 
 It was hardly possible to be quite unhappy in a scene of so 
 much healthy stir and bustle as this usually quiet lane 
 exhibited. 
 
 My friends, the gipsies, had no less than three camps, with 
 fires glimmering under the hedge, looking beautiful in the dark 
 shadow, as fii'e always does, or sending up wreaths of curling 
 smoke among the trees, a thin blue vapour, more beautiful 
 still. There they were, in every picturesque form of work or 
 idleness, making saucepans, weaving baskets, lying on the 
 grass, — three camps, at small but not unfriendly distance, 
 with one movable house, a grey horse, and two donkeys. 
 
 Then the wheat-caiTying, threatened yesterday, was in full 
 activity to-day ; and wagons, some loaded, some empty, 
 passed up and down the lane, escorted by stalwart carters 
 and shouting boys. Eeapers, too, were there in abundance, 
 passing to and fro, and troops of children leasing in the cleared 
 fields, and following the wagons along the lane. Most of 
 these good people had heard of our loss, and questioned my 
 little damsel as to its recovery. Our friends, the gipsies, were 
 particularly interested in the subject ; and there was one 
 black-haired urchin, the laziest of the tribe, a musical genius, 
 whom I had never seen before without a fiddle in his hands, 
 but whom we now found, by way of variety, twanging a jew's- 
 harp, who intermitted his melody to affirm with so much 
 assurance that he had passed his whole day in the search, 
 that it was utterly impossible not to give him sixpence. 
 Well ! we at last sat down on our old turf seats, not far 
 
 N 
 
178 EECOLLBCIIOKS OF 
 
 from the entrance of a field where an accident had evidently- 
 taken place ; a loaded waggon must have knocked against the 
 gate, and spilt some of its topmost sheaves. The sheaves 
 were taken away, but the place was strewed with relics of the 
 upset, and a little harvest of the long yeUow straw and the 
 rich brown ears remained to tempt the gleaners ; and as we 
 were talking over this mischance, and our own, and I was 
 detailing my reasons for believing that my poor stick had 
 found a watery grave, we became aware of two little girls, 
 who stole timidly and quietly up to the place, and began 
 gladly and thankfully to pick up the scattered corn. 
 
 Poor little things, we knew them weU ! — ^we had known 
 their father, dead of consumption scarcely a month ago ; and 
 affecting it was to see these poor children, dehcate girls of 
 seven and five years old, already at work to help their widowed 
 mother, and rejoicing over the discovery of these few ears of 
 fallen wheat, as if it were the gold mines of California. A 
 drove of pigs was looming in the distance ; and my little 
 damsel flung down her work, and sprang up at once to help 
 the poor children. She has a taste for helping people, has my 
 little maid, and puts her whole heart and soul into such kind- 
 nesses. It was worth something to see how she potmced 
 upon every straggling straw, clearing away all round the out- 
 side, and leaving the space within for the little girls. She 
 even hinted to me that my new stick would be an efficient 
 weapon against the pigs ; and I might have found myself 
 engaged in another combat, but that the ground was cleared 
 before the drove came near. 
 
 Pleasant it was to see her zealous activity, and the joy and 
 surprise of the little creatures, who, weak, timid, and lonely, 
 had till then only collected about a dozen ears, when they 
 found themselves loaded with more than they could carry. 
 Their faded frocks — not mourning frocks; to wear black every 
 day for a father is too great a luxury for the poor — their frocks 
 were, by her contrivance, pinned up about them, filled with 
 the golden wheat-ears, and the children went home happy. 
 That home had once been fuU of comfort and of plenty ; for 
 John Kemp, a gentleman's servant, had married the daughter 
 of a small farmer, and had set up a little trade as a baker and 
 shopkeeper. Civil, honest, sober, and industrious, the world 
 went well with them for a while, and the shop prospered. But 
 
A MTBEART LIFE. 179 
 
 children came many and fast, their largest debtor died in- 
 solvent, a showy competitor set up next door, and long before 
 John Kemp was attacked by the fatal malady of England, 
 which finally carried him off, poverty had knocked hard at his 
 door. The long illness, the death, the funeral, had still further 
 exhausted their small means, and now little was left, except 
 that which is best of all — strong family affection, an unstained 
 name, an humble reliance upon Providence, and those habits 
 of virtuous industry and corn-age to take the world as it is, 
 which seldom fail to win an honest living. The mother and 
 the elder brother undertook the baking and the shop, the 
 eldest daughter carried round the bread, the two next brothers 
 were working in the fields, and the youngest of all we have 
 seen in their efforts to contribute to the general support. 
 Well ! it is a hard trial, but it is a good education — an educa- 
 tion that can hardly fail to come to good. Many a rich mother 
 might be proud of the two gleaners that we have seen this 
 afternoon. 'They were so pleased and so thankful to carry 
 their poor store to that poor home — they carried thither 
 better things than wheat. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Where, amid all this hai-vest-work, is the 
 "Arcadia V Between asking questions and answering them, 
 listening to condolences and thanking the condolers, talking 
 to leasers and leasing ourselves, the afternoon has slipt away 
 with little thought of the good knight. Sir Phihp Sydney. 
 The sun, which hardly showed his bright face until we reached 
 the lane, is now setting in his glory ; and we must wind our 
 way to the avenue-gate, or we may chance to have a hue and 
 cry sent forth about us, as lost ourselves. So' home we came. 
 About ten o'clock, after some jiffiing of the latch, a patter- 
 ing of childish feet, and an eager consultation of childish 
 voices, the front gate was tremblingly opened ; and, after a 
 short pause, another little sound of unassured footsteps, and 
 another brief dialogue, a low knock was heard at the haU-door ; 
 then the little feet advanced into the house, and the little 
 tongues gained courage to tell their good news. Mary Kemp 
 and her brother Tom had brought back the lost stick. 
 
 It appeared that the child had overheard my suspicion, 
 
 that the missing wand had been dropt in the brook during 
 
 Panchon's immersion, and had confided the story to her 
 
 brother Tom, as soon as he returned from his labours in the 
 
 M 2 
 
180 KBOOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 harvest-field. Tom, a bold urcldn of ten years old, happened 
 to be one of those boys who may be properly called amphi- 
 bious ; pools, puddles, ponds, seemed to be his natural element, 
 and paddling in the brook his prime enjoyment. Before he 
 left off his petticoats, he haunted the water-side, angling with 
 a bit of string tied on a wUlow rod, and a crooked pin for 
 a hook, and, what is more wonderful, contriving to catch with 
 that inartificial contrivance such small fry, roach and dace 
 and minnows, as the stream afforded. Tom knew every inch 
 of the brook, and, charmed at the very sound, forgot his long 
 day's work, and set forth on the search, without even stopping 
 to eat his supper. His little sister followed him to the 
 meadows ; and just where the winding rivulet takes a bold 
 sweep round a woody cape of rich pasture, where the willows 
 and the alders are mixed with tall bulrushes, thither the slow 
 current had carried it; and there it stuck, caught between 
 two stalks of the seeded meadow-sweet, and stiU further 
 entangled by the leaves of the water-lily, a part of whose long 
 slimy stalk, ghstening in the moonlight, remained twisted 
 around the ebony knob, a token of its involuntary bath, its 
 perils, and its escape. I do not know whether the poor 
 children, my little damsel, or I, were most rejoiced at the 
 conclusion of the adventure. 
 
 But what room has it left for Sir Philip ? 
 
 Alas ! that bravest and most chivalrous of poets, that 
 younger, gentler, more lettered Bayard, our knight, without 
 fear, and without reproach, is fated in the per&on of his 
 famous pastoral, at least, to be "lightHed" (if I may borrow 
 a word from a fine old ballad) by those most bound to . 
 do him honour. It cannot be much less than fifty years 
 ago that I heard the following terrible anecdote told quite 
 innocently, without any perception of the reproach that it 
 involved. 
 
 A governess at Wilton House, happening to read the 
 " Arcadia," had discovered between two of the leaves, folded 
 in paper, as yellow from age as the printed pages between 
 which it reposed, a lock of hair, and on the envelope, inclosing 
 the lock, was written in Sir PhUip Sydney's well-known auto- 
 graph, an inscription purporting that the hair was that of her 
 gracious Majesty, Queen EUzabeth. None of the family had 
 ever heard of the treasure. So this identical volume, not 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 181 
 
 only dedicated to his beloved sister but entitled by himself 
 " The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia," * had remained for 
 two centuries in the library of her descendants, without any 
 one of them ever taking the trouble to open the book ! The 
 governess only — ^no Sydney, no Herbert — had taste enough or 
 curiosity enough to take down the prose poem. I have not 
 the honour of knowing the present master of Wilton, but 
 judging by reputation I do not think that such a neglect 
 could happen now. 
 
 After all, the "Arcadia" is one of those books which may 
 be best appreciated by specimens. This description of scenery 
 for instance : — 
 
 "There were hills which garnished their proud heights 
 with stately trees ; humble valleys whose base estate seemed 
 comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers ; meadows 
 enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers ; thickets 
 which being lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed 
 so to by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds ; 
 each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security ; 
 while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved the 
 dam's comfort ; here a shepherd's boy, piping as though he 
 should never be old ; there a young shepherdess, knitting and 
 withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her 
 hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music." 
 
 The account of a stag-hunt is even more characteristic. It 
 abounds in the faults as well as the beauties of the author. 
 
 "Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander 
 entertaining them with pleasant discoursing — ^how well he 
 loved the sport of hunting when he was a young man, how- 
 much in the comparison thereof he disdained all chamber 
 delights, that the sun (how great a journey soever he had to 
 make) could never prevent him with earliness, nor the moon 
 with her sober countenance dissuade him from watching till 
 midnight for the deer's feeding. 0, said he, you wiU never 
 live to my age without you keep yourself in breath with exer- 
 cise and in heart with joyfulness ; too much thinking doth 
 
 * Others, too, have loved the " Arcadia," always the delight of 
 poets. Happening to look into that neglected but interesting book, 
 " The Life of Hayley," I see that, during a tedious recovery from a 
 severe illness in his childhood, his chief amusement was derived 
 from listening to his mother as she read to him this famous Pastoral. 
 
182 RECOLMOTIONS OF 
 
 consume the spirits; and oft it falls out, that, while one 
 thinks too much of his doing, he leaves to do the effect of his 
 thinking. Then, spared he not to remember how much 
 Arcadia was changed since his youth ; activity and good- 
 fellowship being nothing in the price it was then held in ; 
 but, according to the nature of the old-growing world, still 
 worse and worse. Then would he tell them stories of such 
 gallantry as he had known ; and so with pleasant company 
 beguiled the time's haste, and shortened the way's length, till 
 they came to the side of the wood, where the hounds were in 
 couples staying their coming, but with a whining accent 
 craving liberty ; many of them in colour and marks so re- 
 sembling that it showed they were of one kind. The hunts- 
 men handsomely attired in their green liveries, as though 
 they were children of summer, with staves in their hands, to 
 beat the guiltless earth when the hounds were at a fault ; and 
 with horns about their necks to sound an alarm upon a silly 
 fugitive ; the hounds were straight uncoupled, and ere long 
 the stag thought it better to trust to the nimbleness of his 
 feet than to the slender fortification of his lodging ; but even 
 his feet betrayed him, for howsoever they went, they them- 
 selves uttered themselves to the scent of their enemies, who, 
 one taking it of another, and sometimes beUeving the wind's 
 advertisements, sometimes the view of their feithful coun- 
 sellors, the huntsmen, with open mouths then denounced war, 
 when the war was already begun. Their cry being composed 
 of so well-sorted mouths, that any man would perceive therein 
 some kind of proportion, but the skilful woodmen did find a 
 music. Then delight and variety of opinion drew the horse- 
 men sundry ways, yet cheering their hounds with voice and 
 horn, kept still as it were together. The wood seemed to 
 conspire with them against its own citizens, disperaing then- 
 noise through all his quarters ; and even the nymph Echo 
 left to bewail the loss of Narcissus, and became a hunter. 
 But the stag was in the end so hotly pui'sued, that leaving 
 his flight, he was driven to make courage of despair ; and so, 
 turning his head, made the hounds with change of speech to 
 testify that he was at a bay ; as if from hot pursuit of their 
 enemy they were suddenly come to a parley." 
 
 So far. Sir Philip. Here is another bit of pastoral scenery 
 from the hand of that gentle brother of the angle, Master 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 183 
 
 Izaak Walton, whose portrait of a country milkmaid may vie 
 with " the shepherd's boy piping as though he should never 
 grow old," of the " Arcadia." Pisoator and his scholar, Venator, 
 are returning to their inn, after a day's angling. Venator says : 
 
 " Fen. — A match, good master : let's go to that house, for 
 the linen looks white, and smells of lavender. Let's be going, 
 good master, for I am hungry again with fishing. 
 
 " fisc. — Nay, stay a little, good scholar. I caught my last 
 trout with a worm, now I will put on a minnow, and try a 
 quauter of an hour about yonder trees for another, and so 
 walk towards our lodging. Look you, scholar, thereabouts 
 we shaU. have a bite presently or not at all. Have with you, 
 Sir ! 0' my word I have hold of him. Oh it is a great 
 lubber-headed chubb ; come, hang him upon that wiUow 
 twig, and let ua be going. But turn out of the way a little, 
 good scholar, towards yonder high honeysuckle iedge : there 
 we'll sit and sing, whilst this shower falls so gently upon the 
 teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely 
 flowers that adorn these verdant meadows. 
 
 " Look, under that broad beech-tree, I sate down when I 
 was last here a fishing, and the birds in the adjoining grove 
 seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose 
 dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow 
 of that primrose hill : there I sate viewing the silver streams 
 glide sUently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea, yet 
 sometimes opposed by ragged roots and pebble-stones, which 
 broke their waves, and turned them into foam : and some- 
 times I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some 
 leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported 
 themselves in the cheerful sun, and saw others craving 
 comfort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. 
 As I thus sat, these and other sights had so fully possessed 
 my soul with content, that I thought, as the poet has happUy 
 expressed it, 
 
 " I was for that time lifted above earth. 
 And possessed joys not promised at my birth. 
 
 "As I left this place, and entered the next field, a second 
 pleasure entertained me. It was a handsome milkmaid, that 
 had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her 
 mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too 
 many men often do ; but she cast away all care, and sang like 
 
184 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 a nightingale : her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it. 
 It was that smooth song, which was made by Kit Marlowe, 
 now at least fifty years ago ; and the milkmaid's mother sung 
 an answer to it, which was made by Sir "Walter Ealeigh in my 
 youpger days. 
 
 " They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good ; I think 
 much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion at 
 this critical age. Look yonder ! On my word, yonder they 
 both be a milking again. I will give her the chubb, and 
 persuade them to sing those two songs to us. 
 
 " God speed you, good woman ! I have been a fishing, and 
 am goipg to Bleak Hall to my bed, and having caught more 
 fish than wiU sup myself and my friend, I wiU bestow this 
 upon you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. 
 
 " Mil&-woman,-^M.a.TTy, God requite you, Sir, and we'U eat it 
 cheerfully ; and if you come this way a fishing two months 
 hence, a grace of God I'U give you a syllabub of new verjuice 
 in a pew-made haycock for it ; and my Maudlin shall sing you 
 one of her best ballads, for she and I both love aU anglers, 
 they be such honest, civil, quiet men ; in the meantime, will 
 you drink a draught of red cow's milk ? You shall have it 
 freely ! 
 
 " Pise. — No, I thank you ; bat I pray you do us a courtesy 
 that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet 
 we wiU think ourselves still something in your debt. It is 
 but to sing us a song that was sung by your daughter when I 
 last passed over this meadow, eight or nine days since. 
 
 " Milk-woman. — What song was it, I pray ? Was it, ' Come, 
 shepherds, deck your herds ? ' or • As, at noon, Dulcina 
 rested ? ' or ' Phillida flouts me ! ' or ' Chevy Chase ? ' or 
 ' Johnny Armstrong ? ' or ' Troy Town ? ' 
 
 "Pise. — No, it is none of those. It is a song that your 
 daughter sang the first part, and you sang the answer to it. 
 
 " Milk-woman. — 0, 1 know it now. I learned the first part in 
 my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daugh- 
 ter ; and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but 
 two or three years ago, when the cares of the world began to 
 take hold of me. But you shall, God willing, hear them both, 
 and sung as well as we can, for we both love anglers. Come 
 Ma,udlin, sing the first part to the gentlemen, with a merry 
 heart, and I'U sing the second when you have done. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 185 
 
 "THE milkmaid's BONa. 
 
 " Come live with me and be my love, 
 And we will aU the pleasures prove 
 That valleys, groves, or hills, or field, 
 Or woods and steepy mountains yield. 
 
 " "Where we will sit upon the roeks. 
 And see the shepherds feed our flocks 
 By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals. 
 
 " And I will make thee beds of roses. 
 And then a thousand fragrant posies, 
 A cap of flowers and a kirtle 
 Embroidered o'er with leaves of myrtle 
 
 "A gown made of the finest wool 
 Which from our pretty lambs we pull, 
 Slippers lined choicely for the cold. 
 With buckles of the purest gold. 
 
 " A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 With coral clasps and amber studs ; 
 And if these pleasures may thee move, 
 Come live with me and be my love. 
 
 " Thy silver dishes for thy meat. 
 As precious as the gods do eat. 
 Shall on an ivory table be 
 Prepared each day for thee and me. 
 
 " The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing 
 For thy delight each May-morning : 
 If these delights thy mind may move. 
 Then live with me and be my love. 
 
 " Ten. — ^Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly- 
 sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause 
 that our good Queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a 
 milkmaid all the month of May, because they are not troubled 
 with fears and cares, but sing sweetly all the day and sleep 
 securely all the night, and without doubt honest, innocent, 
 pretty Maudhn does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's 
 milkmaid's wish upon her, ' That she may die in the spring, 
 and, being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round 
 about her winding-sheet.' 
 
 "the milkmaid's mother's answer. 
 
 " If all the world and love were young. 
 And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee and be thy love. 
 
1S6 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " But time drives flocks from field to fold, 
 When rivers rage and rocks grow cold 
 Then Philomel beoometh dumb, 
 And age complains of care to come. 
 
 " The flowers do fade and wanton fields 
 To wayward Winter reckoning yields ; 
 A honey tongue, a heart of gall 
 Is fancy's Spring but sorrow's fall. 
 
 " Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
 Thy cap, thy kirtle and thy posies 
 Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten. 
 In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 
 
 " Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
 Thy coral clasps and amber studs. 
 All these in me no means can move 
 To come to thee and be thy love. 
 
 " What should we talk of dainties then. 
 Of better meat than 's fit for men ? 
 These are but vain ; that 's only good 
 Which God hath blest and sent for food. 
 
 " But could youth last and love still breed, 
 Had joys no date, nor age no need. 
 Then these delights my mind might move 
 To live with thee and be thy love. 
 
 " Mother. — ^Well, I have done my song." 
 
 And a delicious song it is. Certainly it "was not amongst 
 the least of the many excellencies of Izaak Walton's charming 
 book, that he helped to render popular so many pure and 
 beautiful lyrics. Marlowe's poem, indeed, could never die, for 
 it had been quoted by Shakespeare ; but Sir Walter Raleigh's 
 reply is still finer. 
 
 We wonder, in reading the milkwoman's list of songs and 
 ballads, which looks Uke a table of contents to one of the 
 books into which Bishop Percy divided his volumes, whether 
 the country lasses of those days — southern lasses, too, for the 
 coUoquy passes upon the banks of the Lea — did actually sing 
 border war-songs, hke "Chevy Chase," or classical legends, 
 like " Troy Town." I fear me that their more lettered suo- 
 oessors would select very inferior specimens of lyrical com- 
 position. 
 
 I must add one more extract, if only for the sake of " holy 
 Mr. Herbert's " four stanzas : — 
 
 " And now, scholar, my direction for fly-fishing is ended 
 vdth this shower, for it has done raining : and now look about 
 
A LITERAEY LIFE. 187 
 
 you, and see how pleasantly that meadow looks ; nay, and the 
 earth smeEs as sweetly too. Oome, let me teU you what holy 
 Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these ; and then 
 •we will thank God that -we enjoy them, and walk to the river, 
 and sit down quietly and try to catch the other brace of 
 trouts :■ — ■ 
 
 " Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. 
 The bridal of the earth and sky ; 
 Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night — 
 
 For thou must die. 
 " Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave. 
 Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye ! 
 Thy root is ever in the grave — 
 
 And thou must die. 
 " Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 
 A box where sweeta compacted lie ; 
 My music shows you have your closes — 
 
 And all must die. 
 
 " Only a sweet and virtuous soul. 
 Like seasoned timber never gives ; 
 But when the whole world turns to ooal — 
 
 Then chiefly lives.'' 
 
 Besides " The Complete Angler," Izaak Walton has left us 
 a volume, containing four or five lives of eminent men, quite 
 as fine as that great Pastoral, although in a very different way. 
 His life of Dr. Donne, the satirist and theologian, contains an 
 account of a vision (the apparition of a beloved wife in 
 England, passing before the waking eyes of her husband in 
 Paris), which, both for the clearness of the narration and the 
 undoubted authenticity of the event, is amongst the most 
 interesting that is to be found in the long catalogue of super- 
 natural visitations. 
 
 JCVI. 
 
 SPANISH BALLADS. 
 
 EvEEY one of any imagination — every one at all addicted to 
 that grand art of dreaming with the eyes open, and building 
 what are called castles in the air — has, I suppose, his own 
 peculiar realm of dreamland, his own chosen country, his own 
 favourite period ; and from my earliest hour of fanciful idle- 
 
1*38 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 ness, down to this present moment, Spain, as it existed when 
 the Moors ruled over the fairest part of that fair country, has 
 been mine. It is probable that I am not singular in my 
 choice. Our vivacious neighbours, the Gauls, when they call 
 their air-castles ehdteaux en Espagne, give some token of their 
 preference for that romantic locality ; and the finest creations 
 of Italian poetry, although tolerably anomalous as to place 
 and time, may yet, as a whole, be referred to the same period 
 and the same country. 
 
 My fancy for the Moors, however, long preceded my ac- 
 quaintance with Ariosto. What gave rise to it, I cannot tell. 
 Who can analyse or put a date to anything so impalpable ! — as 
 well try to grasp a rainbow. Perhaps it arose from the melo- 
 dious stanzas of " Almanzor and Zayda," the favourite of my 
 childhood; perhaps from the ballads in " Don Quixote," or 
 from Don Quixote himself, the darling of my youth ; perhaps 
 from an old folio translation of Mariana's history, a book 
 which I devoured at fifteen as girls of fifteen read romances, 
 finding the truth, if truth it were, fuUy as amusing as fiction ; 
 perhaps from the countless English comedies founded on 
 Spanish subjects ; perhaps from Oorneille's " Cid ;" perhaps 
 from Le Sage's "Gil Bias;" perhaps from Mozart's "Don 
 Juan ! " Who can teU from what plant came the seed, or what 
 wind wafted it 1 Certain it is, that at eighteen the fancy was 
 full blown, and that ever since it has been fed by countless 
 hands and nurtured by innumerable streams. Lord Holland's 
 charming book on Lope de Vega, Murphy's magnificent work 
 on Granada, Mr. Prescott's Spanish Histories, Washington 
 Irving's graphic Chronicles, a host of French and English tra 
 veUers in Spain, a host of Spanish travellers in South America, 
 the popular works of Eord and Borrow, of Dumas and Scribe, 
 Southe/s poetry. Sir Walter's prose— all conspired to keep 
 alive the fancy. 
 
 But, beyond a doubt, the works that have most fed the flame 
 have been Mr. Lookhart's spirited volume of Spanish ballads, 
 to which the art of the modern translator has given the 
 charm of the vigorous old poets ; and Mr. Ticknor's « History 
 of Spanish Literature "—that rarest of all works in these days, 
 when literature, like everything else, goes at railway speed,— 
 a conscientious book, which, being the labour of a lifetime 
 wiU remain a standard authority for many generations. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 189 
 
 In one of his recently-published letters, Soiithey — himself 
 a powerful though somewhat fantastic ballad-writer — denies 
 all merit to the Spanish ballads, accusing them of sameness, 
 of want of action, and of want of interest. To this there needs 
 but Mr. Lockhart's book to reply, even if the transmittal of so 
 long a series of poems floating upon the memories, and living 
 in the hearts of a whole people, were not answer enough — 
 even if the very materials and accessories of these ballads 
 were not sufficient : the felicity of climate, the mixture of 
 race ; of Moor and Christian ; of veiled beauty and armed 
 knight ; of fountained garden and pillared court ; of gigantic 
 cathedral and fantastic mosque ; of mountains crowned with 
 chestnut and cork-tree, and clothed with cistus and lavender ; 
 of streams winding through tufted oleanders, amid vineyards, 
 orange-groves, and olive-grounds ; of the rich halls of the 
 Alhambra ; of the lordly towers of Seville ; of shrine and 
 abbey ; of pilgrim and procession ; of bull-fight and tournar 
 ment ; of love and of battle ; of princely paladins and learned 
 caliphs, and stUl more learned Jews ! Why, this is the very 
 stuff of which poetry is made ; and strange indeed it would 
 have been, if, born amongst such beauty, and happy in a lan- 
 guage at once stately, flowing, and harmonious, the great old 
 minstrels — who, like their compeers of the Middle Ages, the 
 equally great old architects, have bequeathed to us their 
 works and not their names — had failed to find it. 
 
 The first specimen that I shall select is the ballad which 
 Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, when at Toboso, overheard a 
 peasant singing, as he was going to his work at day-break. 
 
 THE ADMIRAL GUABINOS. 
 
 The day of Roncesvalles was a dismal day for you, [two. 
 
 Ye men of France, for there the lance of King Charles was broke in 
 Te well may curse that rueful field, for many a noble peer 
 In fray or fight the dust did bite beneath Bernardo's spear. 
 
 Then captured was Guarinos, King Charles's Admiral, 
 Seven Moorish kings surrounded him, and seized him for their thrall ; 
 Seven times when all their chase was o'er, for Guarinos lots they cast ; 
 Seven time Marlotes won the throw, and the knight was his at last. 
 
 Much joy had then Marlotes, and his captive much did prize, 
 Above all the wealth of Araby, he was preoious in his eyes. 
 Within his tent at evening he made the best of cheer, 
 And thus, the banquet done, he spake unto hie prisoner. 
 
190 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " Now, for the sate of Allah, Lord Admiral Guarinos, 
 Be thou a Moslem, and much love shall ever rest between us. 
 Two daughters have I ! — all the day shall one thy handmaid be — 
 The other (and the fairest far) by night shall cherish thee. 
 
 " The one shall be thy waiting-maid, thy weary feet to lave. 
 To scatter perfumes on thy head, and fetch thee garments brave : 
 The other— she the pretty one — shall deck her bridal bower. 
 And my field and my city they both shall be her dower. 
 
 " If more thou wiahest, more I 'U give. Speak boldly what thy 
 
 thought is." 
 Thus earnestly and kindly to Guarinos said Marlotes : 
 But not a minute did he take to ponder or to pause. 
 Thus clear and quick the answer of the Christian Captain was. 
 
 " Now, God forbid ! Marlotes, and Mary his dear mother, 
 ■That I should leave the faith of Christ and bind me to another. 
 For women — I've one wife in France, and I'll wed no more in Spain, 
 I change not faith, I break not vow, for courtesy or gain." 
 
 Wroth waxed King Marlotes, when thus he heard him say. 
 And all for ire commanded, he should be led away ; 
 Away unto the dungeon-keep, beneath his vaults to lie. 
 With fetters bound in darkness deep, far off from sun and sky. 
 
 With iron bands they bound his hands ; that sore unworthy plight 
 Might well express his helplessness, doomed never more to fight. 
 Again, from cincture down to knee, long bolts of iron he bore. 
 Which signified the knight should ride on charger never more. 
 
 Three times alone in all the year it is the captive's doom 
 To see God's daylight bright and clear, instead of dungeon-gloom ; 
 Three times alone they bring him out, like Samson long ago. 
 Before the Moorish rabble-rout to be a sport and show. 
 
 On these high feasts they bring him forth, a spectacle to be — 
 The Feast of Pasnue and the great day of the Nativity ; 
 And on that morn, more solemn yet, when maidens strip the bowers. 
 And gladden mosque and minaret with the first fruits of the flowers. 
 
 Days come and go of gloom and show. Seven years are past and 
 
 gone. 
 And now doth fall the festival of the Holy Baptist John ; 
 Christian and Moslem tilts and jousts, to give it honour due, 
 And rushes on the path to spread, they force the sulky Jew. 
 
 Marlotes in his joy and pride a target high doth rear. 
 
 Below the Moorish knights must ride and pierce it with the spear ; 
 
 But 'tis so high up in the sky, albeit much they strain. 
 
 No Moorish lance may fly so far, Marlotes' prize to gain. 
 
 Wroth waxed King Marlotes, when he beheld them faQ, 
 The whisker trembled on his lip, and his cheek for ire was pale. 
 The herald'a proclamation made, with trumpets, through the town, 
 " Nor child shall suck, nor man shall eat, till the mark be tumbled 
 down I " 
 
A LITERAEY LIFE. 191 
 
 The cry of proclamation and the trumpet's haughty sound 
 Did send an echo to the Tault where the Admiral was bound.jloud ? 
 " Now help me, God 1 " the captive cries. " What means this cry so 
 0, Queen of Heaven I be vengeance given on these thy haters proud ! 
 
 " Oh I is it that some Paynim gay doth Marlotes' daughter wed, 
 
 And that they bear my scorned fair in triumph to his bed ? 
 
 Or is it that the day is come — one of the hateful three — 
 
 When they, with trumpet, fife, and drum, mate heathen game of me ? " 
 
 These words the jailer chanced to hear, and thus to him he said : 
 " These tabours, lord, and trumpets clear conduct no bride to bed, 
 Nor hath the feast come round again, when he that hath the right 
 Commands thee forth, thou foe of Spain, to glad the people's sight. 
 
 " This is the joyful morning of John the Baptist's day, 
 When Moor and Christian feast at home, each in his nation's way ; 
 But now our king commands that none his banquet shall begin, 
 Until some knight, by strength or sleight, the spearman's prize do 
 win." 
 
 Then out and spoke Guarinos : " Oh ! soon each man should feed. 
 
 Were I but mounted once again on my own gallant steed. 
 
 Oh, were I mounted as of old, and harnessed cap-a-pie. 
 
 Full soon Marlotes' prize I 'd hold, whate'er its price inay be. 
 
 " Give me my horse, my old grey horse, so be he is not dea<i. 
 All gallantly caparisoned with plate on breast and head ; 
 And give me the lance I brought from France, and if I win it not. 
 My life shall be the forfeiture, 1 '11 yield it on the spot." 
 
 The jailer wondered at his words. Thus to the knight said he : 
 " Seven weary years of chains and gloom have little humbled thee. 
 There 's never a man in Spain I trow, the like so well might bear. 
 An' if thou wilt I with thy vow Trill to the King repair." 
 
 The jailer put his mautle on and came unto the King, 
 He found him sitting on the throne within his listed ring ; 
 Close to his ear he planted him, and the story did begin. 
 How bold Guarinos vaunted him the spearman's prize to win. 
 
 That were he mounted but once more on his own gallant grey, 
 And armed with the lance he bore on the RoncesvaUes day. 
 What never Moorish knight could pierce, he would pierce it at a blow, 
 Or give with joy his life-blood fierce at Marlotes' feet to fiow. 
 
 Much marvelling, then said the King : " Biing Sir Guarinos forth, 
 And in the grange go seek ye for his grey steed of worth : 
 His arms are rusty on the wall, seven years have gone, I judge, 
 Since that strong horse hath bent him to be a common drudge. 
 
 " Now this will be a sight indeed to see the enfeebled lord 
 Essay to mount that ragged steed, and draw that rusty sword ; 
 And for the vaunting of his praise he well deserves to die : 
 So, jailer, gird his harness on, and bring your champion nigh." 
 
192 EEOOLLEOIIONS OF 
 
 They have girded on his shirt of mail, his cuisses well they Ve clasped, 
 And they 've barred the helm on his visage pale, and his hand the 
 
 lance hath grasped ; 
 And they have caught the old grey horse, the horse he loved of yore. 
 And he stands pawing at the gate caparisoned once more. 
 When the knight came out the Moors did shout, and loudly laughed 
 
 the King, 
 For the horse he pranced and capered and furiously did fling; 
 But Gtuarinos whispered in his ear, and looked into his face. 
 Then stood the old charger, like a lamb, with calm and gentle grace. 
 Oh 1 lightly did Guarinoa vault into the saddle tree. 
 And slowly riding down made halt before Marlotes' knee ; 
 Again the heathen laughed aloud. "ALL haU, Sir Knight ! " quoth he, 
 " Now do thy beat, thou champion proud ; thy blood I look to see." 
 With that Guarinoa, lanoe in rest, against the scoffer rode, 
 Pierced at one thrust his envious breast, and down his turban trode, 
 Now ride, now ride, Guarinos ! nor lance nor rowel spare, 
 Slay, slay, and gallop for thy life ! The land of France lies there ! 
 
 The " old grey steed" plays no mean part in the foregoing 
 story ; and of the many baJlada that celebrate the glory of 
 the Cid, I hardly know one more pleasing than that which 
 describes the mingled spirit and gentleness of his favourite 
 horse. 
 
 The King looked on him kindly, aa on a vassal true ; 
 Then to the King Euy Dias spake, after reverence due : 
 " King, the thing is shameful, that any man beside 
 The liege lord of Castile himself should Bavieca ride ; 
 
 " For neither Spain nor Araby could another charger bring 
 
 So good as he, and certes the best befits my King. 
 
 But that you may behold him and know him to the core, 
 
 I '11 make him go as he was wont, when his nostrils smelt the Moor. 
 
 With that the Cid, clad as he was in mantle furred and wide, 
 On Bavieca vaulting, put the rowel in his side : 
 And lip and down, and round and round so fierce was his career 
 Streamed like a pennon on the wind. Buy Dias' minivere. 
 
 And all that saw them praised them ; they lauded man and horse. 
 As matched well, and riyalless for gallantry and force ; 
 Ne'er had they looked on horseman might to this knight come near. 
 Nor on other charger worthy of such a cavalier. 
 
 Thus to and fro a-rushing, the fierce and furious steed 
 He snapt in twain his hither rein : — " God pity now the Cid ! 
 God pity Dias !" said the lords ; but when they looked again 
 They saw Buy Dias ruling him with the fragment of his rein ; 
 They saw him firmly ruling, with gesture firm and calm, 
 Like a true lord commanding — and obeyed as by a lamb. 
 
A LITEEART LIFE. 193 
 
 And so he led him prancing and panting to the King ; 
 But " No ! " said Don Alphonso, " it were a shameful thing 
 That peerless Bavieoa should ever be bestrid 
 By any mortal but Bivar : Mount, mount again, my Cid ! " 
 
 In these two ballads there is little mention of the ladies. 
 But two of the most charming of the Moorish series are 
 devoted to them exclusively. " The following," says Mr. Lock- 
 hart, " has been often imitated in Spain and in Germany." 
 Its elegance could scarcely be increased in any language : — 
 
 THE BEIDAL OS AKDALLA. 
 
 " Eise up, rise up, Sarifa, lay the golden oushion down ; 
 Rise up, come to the window, and gaze with all the town. 
 From gay guitar and vioUn the silver notes are flowing, 
 And the lovely lute doth speak between the trumpets lordly blowing ; 
 And banners bright from lattice light are waving everywhere. 
 And the tall, tall plume of our cousin's bridegroom floats proudly 
 Eise up, rise up, Xarifa, lay the golden cushion down ; [in the air. 
 Eise up, come to the window, and gaze with all the town. 
 
 Arise, arise, Sarifa ; I see Andalla's face ; 
 He bends him to the people with a calm and princely grace ; 
 Through all the land of Xeres, and banks of Guadalquiver, 
 Eode forth bridegroom so brave as he, so brave and lovely never. 
 Yon tall plume waving o'er his brow, of azure mixed with white, 
 I guess 't was wreathed by Zara, whom he will wed to-night. 
 Eise up, rise up, Xarifa, lay the golden cushion down ; 
 Eise up, come to the window, and gaze with all the town. 
 
 " What aileth thee, Xarifa ? what makes thine eyes look down ? 
 Why stay ye from the window far, nor gaze with all the town ? 
 I've heard you say on many a day, and sure you said the truth, 
 Andalla rides without a peer among all Granada's youth ; 
 Without a peer he rideth, and yon milk-white horse doth go 
 Beneath his stately master, with a stately step and slow. 
 Then rise, oh rise, Xarifa, lay the golden cushion down ; 
 Unseen here, through the lattice, you may gaze with all the town." ' 
 
 The Zegri lady rose not, nor laid her cushion down ; 
 
 Nor came she to the window, to gaze with all the town ; 
 
 But though her eyes dwelt on her knee, in vain her fingers strove, 
 
 And though her needle prest the silk, no flower Xarifa wove. 
 
 One bonny rose-bud she had traced before the noise drew nigh ; 
 
 That bonny bud a tear effaced, slow dropping from her eye. 
 
 " JSTo, no," she sighs, " bid me not rise, nor lay my cushion down. 
 
 To gaze upon Andalla with all the gazing town." 
 
 " Why rise ye not, Xarifa, nor lay your cushion down ? 
 Why gaze ye not, Xarifa, with all the gazing town ? 
 Hear, hear the trumpet how it swells ! and how the people cry ! 
 He stops at Zara's palace-gate. Why sit ye stiU ? Oh, why ? " 
 
 O 
 
194 BBCOIiBCTIOKS OF 
 
 — " At Zara's gate stops Zara's mate ; in him sliall I discover 
 The dark-eyed youth pledged me his truth with tears, and was my 
 I will not rise with weary eyes, nor lay my cushion down, [lover ? 
 To gaze on false Andalla with all the gazing town." 
 
 The next, still of a Moorish maiden, is even more charming : 
 
 zaka's ear-eings. 
 
 " My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! they 've dropt into the well, 
 And what to say to Mufa, I cannot, cannot tell." 
 'T was thus, Granada's fountain by, spoke Albuharez' daughter. 
 " The well is deep ; far down they lie, beneath the cold blue water. 
 To me did Muf a give them, when he spake his sad farewell ; 
 And what to say, when he comes back, alas ! I cannot tell. 
 
 " My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! they were pearls in sflver set, 
 That when my Moor was far away, I ne'er should him forget : 
 That I ne'er to other tongues should list, nor smile on others ta^e, 
 But remember he my lips had kissed, pure as those ear-rings pale, 
 When he comes back, and hears that I have dropped them in the well. 
 Oh ! what will Mufa think of me, I cannot, cannot tell ! 
 
 " My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! he '11 say they should have been 
 Not of pearl and of silver, but of gold and glittering sheen. 
 Of jasper and of onyx, and of diamond shining clear. 
 Changing to the changing light, with radiance insincere ; 
 That changeful mind unchangeful gems are not befitting well : 
 Thus will he think : — and what to say, alas ! I cannot tell I 
 
 " He '11 think, when 1 to market went, I loitered by the way ; 
 He '11 think a willing ear I lent to all the lads might say ; 
 He '11 think some other lover's hand, among my tresses noosed 
 From the ears where he had placed them my rings of pearl unloosed, 
 He'll think, when I was sporting so beside this marble well, 
 My pearls fell in :— and what to say, alas ! I cannot tell ! 
 " He'll say I am a woman, and we are all the same ; 
 He'll say I loved, when he was here, to whisper of his flame ; 
 But when he went to Tunis, my virgin troth had broken, 
 And thought no more of Mu^a, and cared not for his token. 
 My ear-rings ! my ear-rings ! Oh ! luckless, luckless well ! 
 For what to say to Mupa, alas ! I cannot tell ! 
 
 " I'll tell the truth to Mupa, and 1 hope he will believe 
 
 That I thought of him at morning, and thought of him at eve ; 
 
 That musing on my lover, when down the sun was gone, 
 
 His ear-rings in my hand I held, by the fountain all alone ; 
 
 And that my mind was o'er the sea, when from my hand they fell, 
 
 And that deep his love lies in my heart, as they lie in the well !" 
 
 These ballads are all from Mr. Lockhart's delightful book. 
 I add one or two extracts from the probably more literal 
 version of Mr. Ticknor ; the Brst is the " Lament of the Count 
 de Saldafia," who, in his solitary prison, complains of his son, 
 
A LITBEART LIFE. 195 
 
 ■wtio he supposes must know his descent, and of his wife, the 
 Infanta, whom he presumes to be in league with her royal 
 brother. After a description of the castle in which he is 
 confined, the Count says : — 
 
 The tale of my imprisoned life 
 
 WitMn these loathsome walls, 
 Each moment aa it lingers by 
 
 My hoary hair recalls ; 
 For when this castle first I saw, 
 
 My beard was scarcely grown, 
 And now, to purge my youthful sins. 
 
 Its folds hang whitening down. 
 Then where art thou, my careless son ? 
 
 And why so dull and cold ? 
 Doth not my blood within thee run ? 
 
 Speaks it not loud and bold? 
 Alas ! it may be so, but still 
 
 Thy mother's blood is thine ; 
 And what is kindred to the King 
 
 Will plead no cause of mine ; 
 And thus all three against me stand ; — 
 ■ For, the whole men to quell, 
 'Tis not enough to have our foes, 
 
 Our heart's blood must rebel. 
 Meanwhile, the guards that watch me here, 
 
 Of thy proud conquests boast ; 
 But if for me thou lead'st it not. 
 
 For whom then fights thy host ? 
 And since thou leav'st me prisoned here. 
 
 In cruel chains to groan, 
 Or I must be a guilty sire, 
 
 Or thou a guilty son ! 
 Yet pardon me, if I oflfend 
 
 By uttering words so free, 
 For, whUe oppressed with age I moan, 
 
 No words come back from thee. 
 
 Some of these old songs are sufficiently shrewd and hu- 
 morous ; witness the following, " in which an elder sister is 
 represented lecturing a younger one on first noticing in her 
 the symptoms of love : " 
 
 Her sister Miguela 
 
 Once chid little Jane, 
 And the words that she spake 
 
 Gave a great deal of pain. 
 
 " Toll went yesterday playing 
 
 A child like the rest ; 
 And now you come out, 
 
 More than other girls drest. 
 02 
 
196 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " Tou take pleasure in sighs. 
 
 In sad music delight ; 
 With the dawning you rise, 
 
 Yet sit up half the night. 
 " When you take up your work. 
 
 You look vacant, and stare ; 
 And gaze on your sampler, 
 
 Yet miss the stitch there. 
 
 " You 're in love, people say. 
 And your actions all show it ; 
 
 New ways we shall have, 
 
 When our mother shall know it, 
 
 " She '11 nail up the windows, 
 And lock up the door ; 
 
 Leave to frolic and dance 
 She will give us no more. 
 
 " Our old aunt will be sent for, 
 To tate us to mass ; 
 
 And to stop all our talk 
 With the girls as we pass. 
 
 " And when we walk out, 
 She will bid that old shrew 
 
 Keep a faithful account 
 Of whate'er our eyes do ; 
 
 " And mark who goes by. 
 If I peep through the blind ; 
 
 And be sure to detect us 
 In looking behind. 
 
 " Thus for youi- idle follies. 
 
 Must I suffer too ; 
 And though nothing I 've done, 
 
 Must be punished like you." 
 " Oh ! sister Miguela, 
 
 Your chiding pray spare . 
 That I 've troubles you guess, 
 
 But know not what they are. 
 " Young Pedro it is, 
 
 Old Don Ivor's fair youth; — 
 But he's gone to the wars. 
 
 And, oh ! where is his truth t 
 " I loved him sincerely, 
 
 Loved all that he said ; 
 But I fear he is fickle, 
 
 I fear he has fled. 
 
 " He is gone of free choice, 
 Without summons or call ; 
 
 And 't is foolish to love him, 
 Or like him at all." 
 
A LITEEART LIFE. 197 
 
 " Nay, pray morn and night 
 
 To the Virgin above, 
 Lest this Pedro return, 
 
 And again you should love," 
 
 (Said Miguela in jest, 
 
 As she answered poor Jane) ; 
 " For when love has been bought 
 
 At the cost of such pain, 
 
 " What hope ia there, sister, 
 
 Unless the soul part, 
 That the passion so cherished 
 
 Should leave your fond heart ? 
 
 " As your yeai's still increase. 
 
 So increase will your pains ; 
 And this you may learn 
 
 From the proverb's old strains ; 
 
 " That if, when but a child, 
 
 Love's dominion you own, 
 None can tell what you'll do, 
 
 When you older are grown." 
 
 This dialogue is three hundred years old at the very least. 
 1 do not think it would be quite impossible to match it now, 
 with a little change of names and of costume. Perhaps I may 
 have myself altered some of the lines, since I quote from 
 memory, and have not the book to refer to. 
 
 It is not the least gratifying tribute to Mr. Ticknor's 
 valuable work that it was recommended for pex'usal by Mr. 
 Macaulay to the Queen of England. 
 
 XVIL 
 FEMALE POETS. 
 
 ADVENTURE AT WILLIAM COBBETT'S. 
 MISS BLAMIKE — MKS. JAMES GRAY. 
 
 The name of Blamire has always a certain interest for me, 
 in consequence of a circumstance, which, as it took place 
 somewhere about five-and-forty years ago, and has reference 
 to a flirtation of twenty years previous, there cannot now be 
 much harm in relating. 
 
 Being with my father and mother on a visit about six mUes 
 from Southampton, we were invited by a gentleman of the 
 
198 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 neighbourhood to meet the wife and daughters of a certain 
 Dr. Blamire. " An old friend of yours and mine," quoth our 
 inviter to my father. "Don't you remember how you used 
 to flirt with the fair lady when you and Babington were at 
 Haslar? Faith, if Blamire had not taken pity on her, it 
 would have gone hard with the poor damsel ! However, he 
 made up to the disconsolate maiden, and she got over it. 
 Nothing like a new love for chasing away an old one. You 
 must dine with us to-morrow. I shall like to see the 
 meeting." ' 
 
 My father did not attempt to deny the matter. Men never 
 do. He laughed, as all that wicked sex do laugh at such sins 
 twenty years after, and professed that he should be very glad 
 to shake hands with his old acquaintance. So the next day 
 we met. 
 
 I was a little curious to see how my own dear mother, my 
 mamma that was, and the stranger lady, my mamma that 
 might have been, would bear themselves on the occasion. At 
 first, my dear mother, an exceedingly lady-hte, quiet person, 
 had considerably the advantage, being prepared for the rencontre 
 and perfectly calm and composed ; whilst Mrs. Blamire, taken, 
 i" suspect, by surprise, was a good deal startled and flustered. 
 This state of things, however, did not last. Mrs. Blamire 
 having got over the first shock, comported herself like what 
 she evidently was, a practised woman of the world — would 
 talk to no one but ourselves — and seemed resolved not only 
 to make friends with her successful rival, but to strike up an 
 intimacy. This by no means entered into my mother's calcu- 
 lations. As the one advanced the other receded, and, keeping 
 always within the limits of civility, I never heard so much 
 easy chat put aside with so many cool and stately monosyllables 
 in my life. 
 
 The most diverting part of this scene, very amusing to a 
 stander-by, was, that my father, the only real culprit, was the 
 only person who throughout maintained the appearance and 
 demeanour of the most unconscious innocence. He comph- 
 mented Mrs. Blamire on her daughters, (two very tine girls) 
 —inquired after his old friend the Doctor, who was attending 
 his patients in a distant town— and laughed and talked over 
 bygone stories with the one lady, just as if he had not jilted 
 her— and played the kind and attentive husband to the other, 
 
A LITERARI LIFK. 199 
 
 just as if he had never in all his days made love to anybody 
 except his own dear wife. 
 
 It was one of the strange domestic comedies which are 
 happening around us every day, if we were but aware of 
 them, and might probably have ended in a renewal of ac- 
 quaintance between the two families, but for a dispute that 
 occurred towai'ds the end of the evening between Mrs. Blamire 
 and the friend in whose house we were staying, which made 
 the lady resolve against accepting his hospitable invitation, 
 and I half suspect hurried her off a day or two before 
 her time. 
 
 This host of ours was a very celebrated person, — ^no other 
 than William Cobbett. Sporting, not politics, had brought 
 about our present visit and subsequent intimacy. We had 
 become acquainted with Mr. Oobbett two or three years before, 
 at this very house, where we were now dining to meet Mrs. 
 Blamire. Then my father, a great sportsman, had met him 
 while on a coursing expedition near Alton — had given him 
 a greyhound that he had fallen in love with — had invited him 
 to attend another coursing meeting near our own house in 
 Berkshire — and finally, we were now, in the early autumn, 
 with all manner of pointers, and setters, and greyhounds, and 
 spaniels, shooting ponies, and gun-cases, paying the return 
 visit to him. 
 
 He had at that time a large house at Botley, with a lawn 
 and gardens sweeping down to the Bursledon River, which 
 divided his (Mr. Cobbett's) territories from the beautiful 
 grounds of the old friend where we had been originally staying, 
 the great squire of the place. His own house— large, high, 
 massive, red, and square, and perched on a considerable emi- 
 nence—always struck me as being not unlike its proprietor. 
 It was filled at that time almost to overflowing. Lord Coch- 
 rane was there, then in the very height of his warlike fame, 
 and as unlike the common notion of a warrior as could be. 
 A gentle, quiet, mild young man, was this burner of French 
 fleets and cutter-out of Spanish vessels, as one should see iu a 
 summer-day. He lay about under the trees reading Selden on 
 the Dominion of the Seas, and letting the children (and chil- 
 dren alwajra know with whom they may take liberties) play all 
 sorts of tricks with him at then- pleasure. His ship's surgeon 
 was also a visitor, and a young midshipman, and sometimes an 
 
200 HECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 elderly lieutenant, and a Newfoundland dog ; fine sailor-like 
 creatures all. Then there was a very learned clergyman, a 
 great friend of Mr. Gifford, of the " Quarterly," with his wife 
 and daughter — exceedingly clever persons. Two literary gen- 
 tlemen from London and ourselves completed the actual party ; 
 but there was a large fluctuating series of guests for the hour or 
 guests for the day, of almost all ranks and descriptions, from 
 the Earl and his Countess to the farmer and his dame. The 
 house had room for all, and the hearts of the owners would 
 have had room for three times the number. 
 
 I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple, or 
 more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality, 
 the putting everybody completely at ease. There was not 
 the slightest attempt at finery, or display, or gentihty. They 
 called it a farm-house, and everything was in accordance with 
 the largest idea of a great English yeoman of the old time. 
 Everything was excellent — everything abundant — all served 
 with the greatest nicety by trim waiting-damsels : and every- 
 thing went on with such quiet regularity, that of the large 
 circle of guests not one could find himself in the way. I need 
 not say a word more in praise of the good wife, very lately 
 dead, to whom this admirable order was mainly due. She 
 was a sweet motherly woman, realising our notion of one of 
 Scott's most charming characters, Ailie Dinmont, in her sim- 
 plicity, her kindness, and her devotion to her husband and 
 her children. 
 
 At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his 
 political reputation ; but of politics we heard little, and 
 should, I think, have heard nothing, but for an occasional 
 red-hot patriot, who would introduce the subject, which our 
 host would fain put aside, and got rid of as speedily as 
 possible. There was something of Dandie Dinmont about him, 
 with his unfailing good humour and good spirits — his hearti- 
 ness — his love of field sports — and his liking for a foray. He 
 was a tall, stout man, fair, and sunburnt, with a bright smile, 
 and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to 
 which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contri- 
 buted not a little. He was, I think, the most athletic and 
 vigorous person that I have ever known. Nothing could tire 
 him. At home in the morning he would begin his active day 
 by mowing his own lawn, beating his gardener Robinson, the 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 201 
 
 best mower, except himself, in the parish, at that fatiguing 
 work. 
 
 For early rising, indeed, he had an absolute passion, and 
 some of the poetry that we trace in his writings, whenever 
 he speaks of scenery or of rural objects, broke out in his 
 method of training his children into his own matutinal habits. 
 The boy who was first down stairs was called the Lark for the 
 day, and had, amongst other indulgences, the pretty privilege 
 of making his mother's nosegay and that of any lady visitors. 
 Nor was this the only trace of poetical feeling that he dis- 
 played. Whenever he described a place, were it only to say 
 where such a covey lay, or such a hare was found sitting, you 
 could see it, so graphic — so vivid — so true was the picture. 
 He showed the same taste in the purchase of his beautiful 
 farm at Botley, Fairthorn : even in the pretty name. To be 
 sure, he did not give the name, but I always thought that it 
 unconsciously influenced his choice in the purchase. The 
 beauty of the situation certainly did. The fields lay along the 
 Bursledon River, and might have been shown to a foreigner 
 as a specimen of the richest and loveliest Enghah scenery. 
 In the cultivation of his garden, too, he displayed the same 
 taste. Few persons excelled him in the management of 
 vegetables, fruit, and flowers. His green Indian corn — his 
 Carolina beans — his water-melons could hardly have been 
 exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid, 
 and, much as flowers have been studied since that day, I 
 never saw a more glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden 
 than that at Botley, with its pyramids of hollyhocks, and its 
 masses of china-asters, of cloves, of miguionette, and of varie- 
 gated geranium. The chances of life soon parted us, as, 
 without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight 
 of one another ; but I shall always look back with pleasure 
 and regret to that visit. 
 
 While we were there, a grand display of English games, 
 especially of single-stick and wrestling, took place under 
 Mr. Cobbett's auspices. Players came from all parts of the 
 country — the south, the west, and the north — to contend for 
 fame and glory, and also, I believe, for a well-filled purse ; 
 and this exhibition, which — quite forgetting the precedent 
 set by a certain princess, dejure, called Eosalind, and another 
 princess, de facto, called Celia — she termed barbarous, was the 
 
202 EECOLLECIIONS OF 
 
 cause of his quarrel with my mamma that might have been, 
 Mrs. Blamire. 
 
 In my life I never saw two people in a greater passion. 
 Each was thoroughly persuaded of being in the right, either 
 would have gone to the stake upon it, and, of course, the 
 longer they argued, the more determined became their con- 
 viction. They said all manner of uncivil things ; they called 
 each other very unpretty names ; she got very near to saying, 
 "Sir, you're a savage;" he did say, "Ma'am, you're a fine 
 lady ;" they talked, both at once, until they could talk no 
 longer, and I have always considered it as one of the greatest 
 pieces of Christian forgiveness that I ever met with when 
 Mr. Cobbett, after they had both rather cooled down a little, 
 invited Mrs. Blamire to dine at his house the next day. She, 
 less charitable, declined the invitation, and we parted. As I 
 have said, my father and he had too much of the hearty English 
 character in common not to be great friends ; I myself was 
 somewhat of a favourite (I think because of my love for 
 poetry, though he always said not), and I shall never forget 
 the earnestness with which he congratulated us both on our 
 escape from such a wife and such a mother. "She'd have 
 been the death of you ! " quoth he, and he believed it. 
 Doubtless, she, when we were gone, spoke quite as ill of him, 
 and believed it also. Nevertheless, excellent persons were 
 they both ; only they had quarrelled about the propriety or 
 the impropriety of a bout at single-stick ! Such " a thing is 
 anger ! 
 
 Upon comparing names, and dates, and places, it seems 
 probable that the Miss Blamire, whose name figures at the 
 head of this paper, was the aunt of the Dr. Blamire, of whom 
 we have been speaking. She died unmarried at Carhsle, in 
 the year 1794, being then forty-seven years of age, the 
 daughter of a respectable Cumberland gentleman, and having 
 accompanied a married sister into Scotland many years before 
 — a happy circumstance to which she owes her command of 
 the pretty Doric that so becomes small pieces of poetry. 
 Her verses remained uncollected till 1842, when they were 
 published by Mr. Maxwell. They are well worth preserving, 
 especially the one entitled 
 
A LITERARY tlFE. 203 
 
 THE KEIURN. 
 
 When silent time wi' lightly foot 
 
 Had trod on thirty years, 
 I sought again my native land, 
 
 Wi' mony hopes and fears. 
 Wha kens gin the dear friends I left 
 
 May still continue mine ? 
 Or gin I e'er again shall taste 
 
 The joys I left langsyne ? 
 
 As I drew near my ancient pile, 
 
 My heart beat a' the way ; 
 Ilk place I passed seemed yet to speak 
 
 0' some dear former day. 
 Those days that followed uie afar, 
 
 Those happy days o' mine, 
 Whilk made me think the present joys 
 
 A' naething to langsyne. 
 
 The ivied tower now met my eye. 
 
 Where minstrels used to blaw ; 
 Nae friend stepped forth wi' open hand, 
 
 ISTae weel-kenned face I saw ; 
 TUl Donald tottered to the door, 
 
 Wham I left in his prime, 
 And grat to see the lad return 
 
 He bore about langsyne. 
 
 I ran to ilka dear friend's room, 
 
 As if to see them there ; 
 I knew where ilk ane used to sit. 
 
 And hung o'er mony a chair ; 
 Till soft remembrance flung a veil 
 
 Across these een o' mine, 
 I closed the door, and sobbed aloud. 
 
 To think on auld langsyne. 
 
 Some pensy ohiels, a new sprung race. 
 
 Wad next their welcome pay, 
 Wha shuddered at my Gothic wa's. 
 
 And wished my groves awa'. 
 " Cut, cut," they cried, " yon aged elms. 
 
 Lay low yon mournfu' pine :" 
 " Na ! na ! our fathers' names grow there,, 
 
 Memorials o' langsyne." 
 
 To wean me fra these mournfu' thoughts, 
 
 They took me to the town : 
 But sair on ilka weel-kenned face 
 
 I missed the youthfu' bloom. 
 At ba's they pointed to a nymph, 
 
 Whom a' declared divine ; 
 But sure her mother's blu.5hing cheeks 
 
 Were faii'er far langsyne. 
 
204 EECOLLECIIOlfS OF 
 
 In Tain I sought in music's sound 
 
 To find that magic art, 
 Which aft in Scotland's ancient lays 
 
 Hae thrilled through a' my heart ; 
 The sang had mony an artfu' turn, 
 
 My ear confessed 't was fine. 
 But I missed the simple melody 
 
 I listened to langsyne. 
 
 Ye sons to comrades o' my youth, 
 
 Forgie an auld man's spleen, 
 Wha midst your gayest scenes still mourns 
 
 The days he ance has seen. 
 When time has passed, and seasons fled. 
 
 Tour hearts will feel like mine, 
 And aye the song will maiat delight 
 
 That minds ye o' langsyne. 
 
 I add an example of a still bolder eflEbrt — an attempt to 
 make tender sentiment be felt under the disguise of the rude 
 dialect of Cumberland. Perhaps it may be the effect of Auld 
 Lang Syne on myself, that makes me think it eminently 
 successful : — 
 
 AULD KOBIN JOEBES. 
 
 And auld Eobin Forbes has gi'eu tern a dance 
 
 I pat on my speckets to see them aw prance ; 
 
 I thought o' the days when I was but fifteen. 
 
 And skepped wi' the best upon Forbes's green. 
 
 Of aw things that is, I think thout is meast queer ; 
 
 It brings that that's bypast, and sets it down here ; 
 
 I see Willy as plain as I din his bit leace, 
 
 When he tuik his cwoat lappet and deeghted his feace. 
 
 The lasses aw wondered what Willy cud see 
 
 In yen that was dark and hard-featured leyke me ; 
 
 And they wondered ay mair when they talked o' my wit, 
 
 And slily telt Willy that cud'nt be it. 
 
 But Willy he laughed, and he meade me his weyfe, 
 
 And wha was mair happy through aw his lang leyfe ? 
 
 It 's e'en my great comfort now Willy is geane. 
 
 That he often said nae place was leyke his own heame. 
 
 I mind when I carried my wark to yon steyle. 
 Where Willy was deykeu the time to beguile. 
 He wad fiing me a daisy to put in my breast, 
 And I hammered my noddle to make out a jest ; 
 But merry or grave, Willy often wad tell 
 There was nane o' the leave that was like my ain sel'- 
 And he spak what he thout, for I'd hardly a plaok 
 When we married, and nobbet ae gown to my back. 
 
A LITBEAEY LIFE. 205 
 
 When the clock had struck eight, I expected him heame. 
 
 And whiles went to meet him as far as Dumleane ; 
 
 Of aw hours it telt, eight was dearest to me, 
 
 And now when it strikes, there's a tear i' my e'e. 
 
 Oh, Willy ! dear Willy ! it never can be. 
 
 That age, time, or death can divide thee and me 
 
 For that spot on earth that 's aye dearest to me. 
 
 Is the turf that has covered my WiUy frae me.* 
 
 Mrs. James Gray is better known in England as Mary Anne 
 Browne, and, under that name, might have furnished the text 
 to another melancholy chapter on Prodigies — a chapter on 
 fine and promising girls, who have become martyrs to the 
 fond mistakes of parents, and the careless flatteries of friends, 
 and have lost the happy and healthful thoughtlessness of the 
 child in the premature cares, the untimely aspirations, the 
 fears, anxieties, and disappointments of the poetess. If, in 
 my humble career, I can look back to any part of my own 
 conduct with real satisfaction, it is that I have always, when 
 a young lady has been brought to me iu her character oi 
 prodigy, had the courage to give present pain, in order to 
 avert a future evil. I have always said, " Wait ;" certain that 
 the more real was the talent, the greater was the danger of 
 over-exciting the youthful faculties, of over-stimulating the 
 youthful sensibility. In Miss Mary Anne Browne's case, no 
 advice was asked. I saw her first, a fine tall girl of fourteen, 
 already a full-fledged authoress, unmercifully lauded by some, 
 as if verses, especially love verses, written at that age, could be 
 anything better than clever imitations ; and still more cruelly 
 depreciated by others, as if we had a right to expect all the 
 results of long study, of skilful practice, of observation, and 
 of experience, from one who was in everything but her quick 
 ear, and her fertile fancy, still a child. 
 
 Thus brought forward, praised to the skies one day, utterly 
 neglected the next, — taken, as if a woman, into London society, 
 and then thrown back upon a family circle in a provincial 
 town,— her health and spirits suffered ; and, if she had not 
 been in heart and temper a girl of a thousand, she would have 
 become soured and miserable for life. The real power was in 
 
 * Those who are fond of Scotch music may be glad to he re- 
 minded that the simply-pathetic song, 
 
 " What ails this heart of mine ? " 
 is also by Miss Susanna Blamire. 
 
aUb RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 her, however, and the depression was temporary. When taken 
 from the unhealthy atmosphere of the stove, the plant re- 
 covered its strength, and blossomed freely in the open air. 
 When no longer stimulated by factitious applause, she wrote 
 verses deserving of sincere admiration and enduring fame. 
 
 An accidental visit to Ireland introduced her poems to the 
 Editor of the " Dublin University Magazine ;" and under his 
 judicious encouragement she poured forth her various and 
 earnest lays with astonishing fertility and abundance. In 
 Ireland, too, she met the Scottish gentleman, Mr. James Gray, 
 the nephew of the Ettriok Shepherd, whom, after some delay 
 and difficulty, she married. 
 
 Her wedded life appears to have been singularly happy — as 
 happy as it was brief. After a short illness, she expired, while 
 still in the bloom of womanhood (she had not yet completed 
 her thirty-third year), and while rising daily in poetical power 
 and poetical reputation. 
 
 Her highest literary merit was, however, not known until 
 after her death. Of all poetesses, George Sand herself not 
 excepted, she seems to me to touch with the sweetest, the 
 firmest, the most delicate hand, the difficult chords of female 
 passion. There is a reality in her love, and in the verse that 
 tells it, which cannot be read without a deep and tender sym- 
 pathy. Beautiful and statuesque as her sketches from the 
 antique undoubtedly are, I prefer to quote from these post- 
 humous poems, written from her very heart of hearts, in 
 which passion seems to burst unconsciously into poetry. 
 love's memoet. 
 I wove a wreath, 't was fresh and fair. 
 
 Rich roses in their crimson pride, 
 And the blue harebell flowers were there; — 
 
 I wove and flung the wreath aside : 
 Too much did those bright blossoms apeak 
 Of thy dear eyes and youthful cheek. 
 I took my lute ; methought its strain 
 Might wile the heavy hours along ; 
 I strove to fill my heart and brain 
 
 With the sweet breath of ancient song : 
 In vain ; whate'er I made my choice 
 Was fraught with thy bewitching voice. 
 And down I laid the restless lute, 
 
 And turned me to the poet's page; 
 
 And vainly deemed that converse mute, 
 
 Unmingled might my heart engage : 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 207 
 
 But in the poet's work I find 
 The fellow essence of thy mind. 
 
 I wandered midst the silent wood, 
 
 And sought the greenest, coolest glade. 
 
 Where not a sun earn might intrude; 
 And in a chestnut's quiet shade 
 
 I sate, and in that leafy gloom. 
 
 Thought of th darkness of the tomb 
 
 And strove to lead my heart to drink 
 
 At the deep founts of wandering thought, 
 
 To ponder on the viewless link 
 
 Between our souls and bodies wrought ; 
 
 To quench my passionate dreams of thee 
 
 Awhile in that philosophy. 
 
 Yet, all the while, thine image bright, 
 
 Still flitted by my mind to win, 
 Casting through dreamy thoughts its light. 
 
 Like sunshine that would enter in ; 
 And every leaf and every tree 
 Seemed quivering with beams of thee. 
 
 Bejoved ! I will strive no more ! 
 
 Thine image, in vice-regal power. 
 Shall ruling sit all memories o'er. 
 
 Throned in my heart, until the hour 
 When thoii thyself shalt come again, 
 Kestoring there thine olden reign. 
 
 The next poem is also written in a hopeful mood : — 
 
 Fear not, beloved, though clouds may lower, 
 
 Whilst rainbow visions melt away. 
 Faith's holy star hath still a power 
 
 That may the deepest midnight sway. 
 Fear not ! I take a prophet's tone. 
 
 Our love can neither wane nor set ; 
 My heart grows strong in trust : mine own. 
 
 We shall be happy yet ! 
 
 What though long anxiotis years have passed, 
 
 Since this true heart was vowed to thine. 
 There comes for us a light at last. 
 
 Whose beam upon our path shall shine. 
 We, who have loved 'mid doubts and fears. 
 
 Yet never with one hour's regret ; 
 There comes a joy to gild our tears; 
 
 We shall be happy yet ! 
 
 Ay, by the wandering birds, that find 
 A home beyond the mountain wave, 
 
 Through wind, and rain, and hail, combined 
 To bow them to an ocean grave ; 
 
208 EBOOLLECTIONS OV 
 
 By summer suna that brightly riee. 
 
 Though erst in mournful tears they set ; 
 
 By all Love's hopeful prophesies, 
 We shall he happy yet ! 
 
 It is really pleasant to know that, although, the bliss was 
 short in duration, yet the vows of that faithful heart were 
 heard. Here is one other love-note : — 
 
 Another year is dying fast, 
 
 A cheoquered year of joy and woe. 
 And dark and light alike are past, 
 
 The rose and thorn at once laid low : 
 All things are changed ; — and I am changed. 
 
 Even in the love I knew before. 
 Not that my heart can he estranged, 
 
 But I have learnt to love thee more. 
 
 Tea, to mine ear thine accents all 
 
 Have grown more welcome and more glad. 
 Thy coming step more musical, 
 
 And thy departing tread more sad. 
 They say the first bright dawn of love 
 
 Hath bliss no other time can show ; 
 But 1 have lived and learned to prove 
 
 How dearer far its future glow. 
 
 Their disappointments we have proved. 
 
 Dark clouds across our path have been ; 
 Yet better through them all we loved. 
 
 As dark and drearier grew the scene. 
 Oh ! would this truth could bring relief 
 
 To thee, when earthly cares annoy. 
 That I would rather share thy grief 
 
 Than revel in another's joy. 
 
 A temperament so framed must, of necessity, take pleasure 
 in the beauties of Nature. I must make room for a few 
 stanzas of her 
 
 ANTICIPATIONS OS THE OOBNTRT. 
 
 The summer sunshine falls 
 O'er the hot vistas of the crowded towns, 
 
 Startling the dusty walls 
 With beauty and with glory not their own 
 
 The summer skies are bright, 
 A canopy of peace above the strife 
 
 Of human hearts that fight 
 And struggle on the battle-plain of life. 
 
 Summers have passed away 
 Since I a dweller mid this scene became, 
 
 And still their earliest ray 
 Hath sent a thirsty longing through my frame ; 
 
A LITBRART LIf8. 209 
 
 A longing to be far . . 
 
 In the green woodlands, in the pastures fair, 
 
 And not as travellers are ; 
 My heart hath yearned to be a dweller there. 
 
 It comes,' it comes at last : 
 All I have panted for is near me now ; 
 
 Ere many hours have past, 
 A cool untroubled breeze shall fan my brow. 
 
 The faint continuous hum 
 That hath been round me till 'twas scarcely heard. 
 
 No more shall near me come 
 To mar the melodies of bee or bird. 
 
 No more the sultry street 
 Shall echo to my quick uneasy tread ; 
 
 Gladly I turn my feet 
 To where the turf in daisied pride is spread. 
 
 No more the whirling wheel, 
 The tramping horses, and the people's shout ; — 
 
 Oh ! how my heart will feel 
 The pleasant quiet circling me about. 
 
 Blessed to go away 
 To where the wild-flower blooms and wood-bird sings, 
 
 And lightly o'er the spray 
 The purple vetch its wreathing garland flings. 
 » * » * 
 
 One more I must quote, of a still diiferent strain. It was 
 left without a title, a mere fragment amongst her papers ; but 
 the Editor of the " Dublin University Magazine " has called it 
 
 THE GIFTED. 
 
 Oh, woe for those whose dearest themes 
 
 Must rest within the bosom's fold ! 
 Oh, woe for those who live on dreams, 
 
 Unheeded by the coarse and cold. 
 They have a hidden life, akin 
 
 To nothing in this earthly sphere ; 
 They have a glorious world within. 
 
 Where nothing mortal may appear ; 
 A world of song, and flower, and gem, 
 
 Yit woe for them ! Oh, woe for them ! 
 Such his perplexing grief who seeks 
 
 A refuge upon stranger shores ; 
 In vain to foreign ears he speaks. 
 
 In vain their sympathy implores. 
 The same sad fate a bark might prove. 
 
 Laden with gold or princely store, 
 Without a guiding star above. 
 
 With an unmeasured deep before. 
 The world doth scorn them, gibe, condemn ; — 
 
 Woe for the gifted ! Woe for them ! 
 
.210 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Surely, this was a very remarkable woman ; and these 
 poems (there are many more of nearly equal beauty) should 
 not be left to the ijerishable record of a magazine. Her earliest 
 publications were, as I have said, of little worth ; but enough 
 of the highest merit might be collected to form an enduring 
 memorial of her genius and her virtues. 
 
 XVIU. 
 AMERICAN ORATOES. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 One of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of the living 
 orators of America, is, beyond all manner of doubt, Daniel 
 Webster. That he is also celebrated as a lawyer and a states- 
 man is a matter of course in that practical country, where 
 even so high a gift as that of eloquence is brought to bear on 
 the fortunes of individuals and the prosperity of the common- 
 wealth — no idle pilaster placed for ornament, but a, solid 
 column aiding to support the building. A column, indeed, 
 stately and graceful, with its Corinthian capital, gives no bad 
 idea of Mr. Webster ; of his tall and muscular person, his 
 massive features, noble head, and the general expression of 
 placid strength by which he is distinguished. This is a mere 
 fanciful comparison ; but Sir Augustus Callcott's fine figure of 
 Columbus has been reckoned very like him — a resemblance 
 that must have been fortuitous, since the picture was painted 
 before the artist had ever seen the celebrated orator. 
 
 When in England, some ten or twelve years ago, Mr. 
 Webster's calm manner of speaking excited much admiration, 
 and perhaps a little surprise, as contrasted with the astound- 
 ing and somewhat rough rapidity of progress which is the 
 chief characteristic of his native land ; and yet that calmness 
 of manner was just what might be expected from a country- 
 man of Washington, — earnest, thoughtful, weighty, wise. No 
 visitor to London ever left behind him pleasanter recollec- 
 tions, and I hope that the good impression was reciprocal. 
 Everybody was delighted with his geniality and taste ; and he 
 oould hardly fail to like the people who so heartily liked him. 
 Amongst our cities and our scenery, he admired that most 
 
A LITEKART LII'K. £1:1 
 
 whirfi was most worthy of admiration ; preferring, in common 
 with many of the most gifted of his countrymen, our beautiful 
 Oxford, whose winding street exhibits such a condensation of 
 picturesque architecture, mixed with water, trees, and gardens, 
 with ancient costume, with eager youth, with by-gone associa- 
 tions, and rising hopes, certainly to any of our new com- 
 mercial towns, and perhaps, as mere picture, to London her- 
 self i and carrying home with him, as one of the most precious 
 and characteristic memorials of the land of his forefathers, a 
 large collection of architectural engravings, representing our 
 magnificent Gothic cathedrals, and such of our If orman castles 
 and Tudor manor-houses as have escaped the barbarities of 
 modern improvers. "We are returning ourselves to that style 
 now ; but, twelve years ago, it was his own good taste, and 
 not the fashion of the day, that prompted the preference. 
 
 I owe to his kindness, and to that of my admirable friend, 
 Mr. Kenyon, who accompanied him, the honour and pleasure 
 of a visit from Mr. Webster and his amiable family, in their 
 transit from Oxford to Windsor ; — my local position between 
 these two points of attraction has often procured for me the 
 gratification of seeing my American friends, when making 
 that journey ; — but, during this visit, a little circumstance 
 occurred, so characteristic, so graceful, and so gracious, that I 
 cannot resist the temptation of relating it. 
 
 Walking in my cottage garden, we talked naturally of the 
 roses and pinks that surrounded us, and of the different indi- 
 genous flowers of our island and of the United States. I had 
 myself had the satisfaction of sending to my friend, Mr. Theo- 
 dore Sedgwick, a hamper, containing roots of many English 
 plants famUiar to our poetry— the common ivy (how could 
 they want ivy, who had no time for ruins ?) ; the primrose and 
 the cowslip, immortalized by Shakespeare and by Milton ; 
 and the sweet-scented violets, both white and purple, of our 
 hedgerows and our lanes ; that known as the violet in America 
 
 , (Mr. Bryant somewhere speaks of it as " the yellow violet ") 
 being, I suspect, the Httle wild pansy {viola tricolor) renowned 
 as the love-in-idleness of Shakespeare's famous compliment to 
 Queen Elizabeth. Of these we spoke ; and 1 expressed an 
 interest in two flowers, known to me only by the vivid de- 
 
 . soription of Miss Martineau — the scarlet lily of New York and 
 
 of the Canadian woods, and the fringed gentian of Niagara. 
 
 p2 
 
212 ItECOLLECTIONfi OF 
 
 I observed that our illustrious guest made some remark to 
 one of the ladies of his party ; but I little expected that^ as 
 soon after his return as seeds of those plants could be pro- 
 cured, I should receive a packet of each, signed and directed 
 by his own hand. How much pleasure these little kindnesses 
 give ! And how many such have come to me from over the 
 same wide ocean ! 
 
 I could tell another story also of a great American orator ; 
 a story told to me two or three years before this occurrence 
 by another distinguished American visitor. He told it to nie 
 with the low tone of a deep sympathy one summer evening 
 in my old garden room, the moon rising red and fuH abov* 
 the pyramid of geraniums, and the scent of a thousand 
 flowers floating upon the air. 
 
 I do not know why I tell it here; except that both stories 
 belong in some sort to my garden, and that both relate to men 
 eminent in America as lawyers and as statesmen ; althougl 
 of my friend's hero, for obvious reasons, I do not venture to 
 give the name. Many years have passed since I heard that 
 interesting narrative, and in small circumstances of detail 
 I may mistake ; but the one great fact, the admirable self- 
 denial and self-saorifloe can never be forgotten. It strikes too 
 tleep a root in the heart. 
 
 The story was of a father, — one of those sturdy pioneers ef 
 American civihzation, who hew their way through the Western 
 Forest, — and of his two stalwart boys. They had built a 
 homestead, and cleared many acres around them, when, during 
 a pause in their labours, one of the sons (I think the younger) 
 addressed his father to this effect : " Father ! the house is 
 raised ; the trees are down ; the fields are fenced. You have 
 my brother to help you, and can do without me. Let me go 
 to the town and study. I feel that I was bom to fight my 
 way amongst men, and not to wear out my days in the toils 
 of a husbandman." 
 
 The father must have been worthy of such a son, for he 
 understood him, and felt the full fores of the appeal « Well 
 my boy," said he ; " go where you will, and my blessing shaJll 
 go with you. Take these dollar.s, and make them last as long 
 as you can, for I have no more to give." 
 
 So the bold adventurer sallied forth to the nearest town 
 -where education was to be won. The dollars were but fe-«f ; 
 
A LITERART LIFE, 213: 
 
 and the young pupil, although a Inodel of frugality and appli- 
 cation, found himself penniless long before he had fought his 
 way through the college course. His courage, however, never 
 failed. By that time he had discovered his own strength. 
 He engiged wiih a lawyer to write for him during the evenings 
 and by nighty whilst he pursued his regular studies by day ; 
 thus defraying his own expenses, whether for education or for 
 living; and evincing in his legal avocations such extraordinary 
 ability and aptness, that by the time he had arrived at the 
 head of his class, his friend the lawyer furnished him with 
 a' letter to his own brother, then in high practice in the chief 
 town of the State, assuring him "that the recommendation 
 which that letter contained would secure to him immediate 
 employment, and eventually, with his own powers and perse- 
 verance, all that he required for a high success in life." 
 ■Enchanted with his prospects, our adventurer set forth 
 upon a visit to his forest home, to take leave of his parents 
 befoire the long absence which he anticipated. 
 
 On his arrival at the farm, he found the delight and pride; 
 which such a career could hardly fail to claim ; but he found 
 also that which he had seen no cause to expect — the brother 
 whom he had left behind content with healthful labour sicken- 
 ing and drooping under the same hunger and thirst for mental 
 improvement that he himself had experienced some years 
 before. What was the resolve of that noble heart 1 How did 
 he act under such a trial ? He laid his letter of introduction 
 aside — that letter which was to command fortune ! He took 
 his brother with him to the town which he had quitted as he 
 thought for ever ; placed him in the college where he himself 
 had studied ; returned to his old friend the lawyer ; resumed 
 his labours in the ofBce, and worked calmly on until the 
 brother, whom he wholly supported, aided by his instructions, 
 had overcome all his disadvantages and attained the high 
 place in the classes that he himself had occupied. 
 
 This was my visitor's story. I only wish I could tell it to 
 my readers as he told it to me. But even under all the im- 
 perfections of my poor narrative, and lacking the crowning 
 name that gives to it such a power of contrast, it still seems 
 to me almost unequalled in its simplicity and grandeur of 
 self-sacrifice. When some powerful monarch, like Charles 
 the Fifth, abdicates the thrones of Germany and Spain rud 
 
214 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 the Indies, it sounds much. But then it is a sickly, aged, dis- 
 enchanted man, who knows full well the vanity and nothing- 
 ness of what he resigns ; who has felt for many a year how 
 weary a thing it is to be an Emi)eror. Besides, he is an 
 Emperor still. The eyes of the world are upon him. He has 
 only put on a new form of royalty. Now, here is a young, 
 an ambitious, a self-reliant spirit, who puts aside, not by one 
 grand and solemn abdication, but by the quiet, silent," painful 
 effort of days and months and years, the most precious crown 
 of all the world, the bright crown Hope. 
 
 After some natural exclamations of admii-ation, came the 
 equally natural question, " Did that favoured brother prove 
 himself worthy of such a sacrifice!" 
 
 "Alas!" said my friend, "he lived only long enough to 
 show how worthy he would have proved. He had already 
 taken his place amongst the most eminent lawyers of Massa- 
 chusetts when he was snatched away by death." 
 
 To return to Mr. Webster : I quote (from a fine American 
 edition of his speeches, sent to me by a friend, who gave 
 every promise of following in the same track) part of an 
 " argument on the trial of John F. Knapp, for the murder of 
 Joseph White, Esq., of Salem, in the county of Essex, Massa- 
 chusetts, on the night of the 6th of April, 1830." 
 
 I choose this thrilling story of a great crime, not merely on 
 account of the fine picture which it presents of an old man 
 murdered in his sleep, and the state of mind of the murderer, 
 but because, as a subject of universal interest, the eloquence 
 bestowed on such a theme will be better appreciated in Eng- 
 land than those speeches which, referring to national policy, 
 demand of the reader a certain acquaintance not only with 
 the mternal government, but with the position of conflicting 
 parties in the United. States. I might also have another 
 reason for my selection ; a desire to adduce the authority of 
 so eminent a statesman trained under the freest of all institu- 
 tions and the most sparing of capital punishment, and passing 
 his life in the vindication of individual and national liberty, 
 against the unhealthy and morbid sympathy with crime and 
 criminals which is one of the crying evils of our day. 
 
 Short as my extracts from this magnificent speech must 
 necessarily be, the introductory statement is essential to their 
 comprehension. 
 
A LITERAEY LIFI5. 216. 
 
 "Mr. White, a highly respectable and wealthy citizen of 
 Salem, about eighty years of age, was found on the morning 
 of the 7th of April, 1830, in his bed murdered, under such 
 circumstances as to create a strong sensation in that town 
 and throughout the community. 
 
 " Richard Crowninshield, George Crowninshield, Joseph J-. 
 Knapp, and John F. Knapp were, a few weeks after, arrested 
 on a charge of having perpetrated the murder, and committed 
 for triaL Joseph J. Knapp, soon after, under the promise of 
 favour from Government, made a full confession of the crime 
 and the circumstances attending it. In a few days after this 
 disclosure was made, Eichard Crowninshield, who was supposed 
 to have been the principal assassin, committed suicide. 
 
 " A Special Session of the Supreme Court was ordered by- 
 the Legislature for the trial of the prisoners at Salem, in July. 
 At that time, John F. Knapp was indicted as principal in the 
 murder, and George Crowninshield and Joseph J. Knapp as 
 accessories. 
 
 "On account' of the death of Chief Justice Parker, which 
 occurred on the 26th of July, the court adjourned to T.uesday, 
 the 3rd of August, when it proceeded in the trial of John F. 
 Knapp. Joseph J. Knapp being palled upon, refused to testify, 
 and the pledge of the Government was withdrawii. 
 
 " At the request of the prosecuting officers of the Govern- 
 ment, Mr. Webster appeared as counsel, and assisted at the 
 trial. 
 
 "Mr. Dexter addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner, 
 and was succeeded by Mr. Webster in the following speech :^ 
 
 "I am little accustomed, gentlemen, to the part which 
 I am now attempting to perform. Hardly more than once or 
 twice has it happened to me to be concerned, on the side of 
 the Government, in any criminal prosecution whatever ; and 
 never, imtil the present occasion, in any case affecting life. 
 
 " But I very much regret that it should have been thought 
 necessary to suggest to you that I am Ijrought here to hurry 
 you against the law and beyond the evidence. I hope I have 
 too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own 
 character, to attempt either ; and were I to make such attempt, 
 I am certain that in this court nothing could be carried against 
 the law, and that gentlemen intelligent and just as you are, 
 are not by any power to be hurried beyond the evidence. 
 
216 nECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have 
 not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, 
 when it is supposed that I might be in some degree useful in 
 investigating and discovering the truth, respecting this most 
 extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent 
 on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost 
 to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the 
 prisoner at the bar I cannot have the slightest prejudice. 
 I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do 
 not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punish- 
 ment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, 
 how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel 
 and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in 
 planning, or a hand jn executing this deed of midnight assassi- 
 nation may be broijght to answer for their enormous guilt at 
 the bar of public justice. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordi- 
 nary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent any- 
 where ; certainly none in our New England history. This 
 bloody drama exhibited no suddenly-excited ungovernable 
 rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like 
 temptation, springing upon their virtue and overcoming it,, 
 before resistance could begin. Kor did they do the deed to 
 glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. 
 Hi was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all 
 ' hire and salary, not revenge.' It was the weighing of money 
 against life ; the counting out of so many pieces of silver 
 against so many ounces of blood. 
 
 "An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own 
 houscj and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly 
 murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters 
 and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of 
 murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an 
 example where such example was last to have been looked 
 for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him 
 riot give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by 
 revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the blood-shot 
 eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw ratther a 
 decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon ; a picture in repose 
 rather than in action ; not so much an example of human 
 nature in its depravity and its paroxysms of crime as an in- 
 fernal nature, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development 
 of his character. 
 
A LITERAKr LIFE. 217 
 
 ''The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession 
 and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was 
 planned. The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread 
 out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on tho 
 destined victim and all beneath his roof. A healthful old man 
 to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of tho 
 night held him in their soft though strong embrace. The 
 assassin enters through the window already prepared into an 
 unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he passes the 
 lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent 
 of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this 
 he moves the lock, by soft and continuous pressure, till it 
 turns on its hinges without noise, and he enters and beholds 
 his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to 
 the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper waij 
 turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, 
 resting on the grey locks of the aged temple, showed him 
 where to strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the victim 
 passes without a struggle or a motion from the repose of sleep 
 to the repose of death ! It is the assassin's purpose to make 
 sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious 
 that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. 
 He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim 
 at the heartj and replaces it again over the wounds of the 
 poniard. To. finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the 
 pulse. He feela for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! 
 It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces 
 his steps to the window, passes through it as he came in, and 
 escapes. He has done the murder — no eye has seen him, no 
 ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe. 
 
 " Ah ! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a 
 secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has 
 neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and 
 say that it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances 
 through all disguises and beholds everything as in the 
 splendour of noon. Such secrets of guilt are never safe 
 from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, 
 that 'murder will out.' True it is that Providence hath so 
 ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break 
 the great law of heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom 
 succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially in a case exciting 
 
218 RECOLLECTIONS OF' 
 
 so much attention as this, discovery must come and will 
 come sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to 
 explore every man, every thing, every circumstance con- 
 nected with the time and place.; a thousand ears catch eveiy 
 whisper ; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the 
 scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the 
 slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime 
 the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to 
 itself; or rather it feels an irresistible, impulse of conscience 
 to be true to itself. It labours under its guilty possession, 
 and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was 
 not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds 
 itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge 
 to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no 
 sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The 
 secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess 
 him, and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes 
 him and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating 
 at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. 
 He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his 
 eyes, and almost hears it working in the very silence of his 
 thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discre- 
 tion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. 
 When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and 
 the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret 
 struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must 
 be confessed, it teill be confessed ; there is no refuge from 
 confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. 
 
 " Much has been said on this occasion of the excitement 
 which has existed and still exists, and of the extraordinary 
 measures taken to discover and punish the guilty. No doubt 
 there has been, and is much excitement, and strange indeed 
 were it had it been otherwise. Should not all the peaceable 
 and well-disposed natnrally feel concerned, and naturally exei-t 
 themselves to bring to punishment the authors of this secret 
 assassination ? Did you, gentlemen, sleep quite as quietly in 
 your beds after this murder as before 1 Was it not a case for 
 rewards, for meetings, for committees, for the imited efforts of 
 all the good to find out a band of murderous conspiritors, of 
 midnight ruffians, and to bring them to the bar of justice and 
 law ? If this be excitement, is it. an unnatural or an improper 
 excitement ? 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 219 
 
 " It seems to me, gentlemen, that there are appearances of 
 another feeling, of a very diflFerent nature and character, not 
 very extensive I would hope, but still there is too inuoh 
 evidence of its existence. Such ia human nature, that some 
 persons lose their abhorrence of crime, in their admiration of 
 its magnificent exhibitions. Ordinary vice is reprobated by 
 them, but extraordinary guilt, exquisite -wickedness, the high 
 flights and poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead 
 them to forget the depth of the guilt in admiration of the 
 excellence of the performance, or the unequg,lled atrocity of 
 the purpose. There are those in our day who have made 
 great use of this infirmity of our nature : and by means of it 
 done infinite injury to the cause of good morals. They have 
 affected not only the taste, but, I fear, also the principles of 
 the young, the heedless, and the imaginative, by the exhibition 
 of interesting and beautiful monsters. They render depravity 
 attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and 
 sometimes by its very extravagance ; and study to show off 
 crime under all the advantages of cleverness and dexterity. 
 Gentlemen, this is an extraordinary murder, but it is still a 
 murder. We are not to lose ourselves in wouder at its origin, 
 or in gazing on its cool and skilful execution. We are to 
 detect and punish it ; and, while we proceed with caution 
 against the prisoner, and are to be sure that we do not visit 
 on his head the offences of others, we are yet to consider that 
 we are dealing with a case of most atrocious crime, which ha? 
 not the slightest circumstance about it to soften its enormity. 
 It is murder, deliberate, concerted, malicious murder. 
 # ^ ^ # 
 
 " It is said ' that laws are made, not for the punishment 
 of the guilty, but for the protection of the innocent.' This 
 is not quite accurate perhaps, but, if so, we hope they will be 
 so administered as to give that protection. But who are the 
 innocent whom the law would protect 1 Gentlemen, Joseph 
 White was innocent. They are innocent who, having lived in 
 the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in peace 
 through the night in their own beds. The law is established 
 that those who live quietlymay sleep quietly, that they who 
 do no harm may feel none. The gentleman can think of none 
 that are innocent except the prisoner at the bar — not yet 
 convicted. Is a proved conspirator to murder innocent t 
 
220 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Are the Crowninshields and the Knapps innocent ? What is 
 innocence ? How deep-stained with blood, how reckless in 
 crime, how sunk in depravity may it be, and yet remam 
 innocence ? The law is made, if we would speak with entire 
 accuracy, to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. 
 But there are those innocent out of court as well as in ; 
 innocent citizens never suspected of crime, as well as innocent 
 prisoners at the bar. 
 
 " The criminal law is not founded on a prinwpls of 
 vengeance. It does not punish that it may inflict suffering. 
 The humanity of the law feels and regrets every pain it 
 causes, every hour of restraint it imposes, and more deeply 
 still, every life it forfeits. But it uses evil as the means of 
 preventing greater evil. It seeks to deter from crime by the 
 example of punishment. This is its true, and only true main 
 object. It restrains the liberty of the few offenders, that the 
 many who do not offend may enjoy their own liberty. It 
 forfeits the life of the offender that other murders may not 
 be committed. The law might open the jails and at once set 
 free all prisoners accused of offences ; and it ought to do so if 
 it could be made certain that no other offence would hereafter 
 be committed.. Because it punishes, not to satisfy any desire , 
 to inflict pain, but simply to prevent the repetition of crimes. _ 
 When the guilty, therefore, are not punished, the law has so 
 far failed of its purpose ; the safety of the innocent is so far 
 endangered. Every unpunished murder takes away something., 
 from the security of every man's life. And whenever a jury, 
 through whimsical and ill-founded scruples, suffer the guilty 
 to escape, they make themselves answerable for the augmented 
 danger of the innocent." 
 
 [Then follow nearly forty closely-printed octavo pages of 
 the most minute and ablest dissection of every part of the 
 case, the most crushing answer to the opposite counsel, and 
 the most searching and subtle analysis of the evidence. Every 
 scene of the tragedy, from the first conception of the plot to 
 the awful catastrophe, passes before us as if we had been 
 present bodily. We are eye and ear-witnesses to every in- 
 cident. Mr. Webster winds up his speech with the following 
 impressive peroration.] 
 
 " Gentlemen, I have gone through with the evidence in this 
 case, and have endeavoured to state it plainly and fairly before 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 221 
 
 you. I think there are conelusions to be drawn from it which 
 you cannot doubt. I think you cannot doubt that there was a 
 conspiracy formed for the purpose of committing this murder, 
 and who the conspirators were. 
 
 " That you cannot doubt that the Crowninshields and the 
 Knapps were parties in this conspiracy. 
 
 " That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar knew 
 that the murder was to be done on the 6th of April. 
 
 " That you cannot doubt that the murderers of Captain 
 White were the suspicious persons seen in and about Brown 
 Street on that night. 
 
 " That you cannot doubt that Richard Crowninshields was 
 the perpetrator of that crime. 
 
 " That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar was 
 in Brown Street on that night. 
 
 " If there, then it must be by agreement, to countenance, 
 to aid the perpetrator; and -if so, then he is guilty as a 
 principal. 
 
 " Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your 
 duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You 
 will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, 
 may endanger the prisoner's life ; but then it is to save other 
 lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved 
 beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such 
 reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. 
 You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the 
 pubHc, as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot pre- 
 tend to by wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straight- 
 forward one. Doubtless, we would all judge him in mercy. 
 Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; 
 but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the 
 oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do 
 your duty. 
 
 " With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no 
 consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot 
 either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 " A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omniijresent, like 
 the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, 
 and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty performed, or 
 duty violated, is still with us for our happiness or our misery. 
 
822 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 If WO say, ' The darkness shall cover us,' in the darkness as in 
 -the light our obligations are yet with us. "We cannot escape 
 their power, nor fly from their presence. They are, with us u\ 
 this life, will be with us at its close ; and in that scene of 
 inconceivable solemnity which lies yet further onward, we 
 shall still iind ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of 
 duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console 
 us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it." 
 
 There is no need to enhance the merit of eloquence like 
 this ; but I recollect to have heard that this immense effort 
 was made immediately after a journey of unparalleled rapidity 
 and fatigue, which would have completely exhausted the 
 energy of any man but Mr. Webster. 
 
 XIX. 
 OLD AUTHORS. 
 
 BEN JONSOH. 
 
 " HARE Ben Jonson ! " so said his contemporaries, and 
 those contemporaries the greatest dramatic poets, the greatest 
 poets of any age or clime. " rare Ben Jonson ! " says his 
 tomb in Westminster Abbey ; " rare Ben Jonson ! " echo we. 
 But I doubt much whether our praises be not founded on 
 very different qualities from those which were hailed with 
 such acclaim by the marvellous assembly of wits who congre- 
 gated at the " Mermaid." Hear what Beaumont, in his cele- 
 brated epistle to Jonson, says of that fair company. He 
 writes to him from the country : — 
 
 " Methiuks the little wit I had is lost 
 Since I saw you ; for wit is like a rest 
 Held up at Tennis, which men do the best 
 With the best gamesters. What things have we seen 
 Done at the ' Mermaid ! ' heard words that have beou 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 As if that every one, from whom they came, 
 Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, 
 And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
 Of his dull life ; then, when there hath been shown 
 Wit able enough to justify the town 
 For three days past ; wit that might warrant be 
 For the whole city to talk foolishly 
 
A LITEBAEY LIFE. 223 
 
 Till that were cancelled ; and when that was gone, 
 
 We left an air behind us, which alone 
 
 Was able to make the two next companies 
 
 Right witty; though but downright fools, mere wise." 
 
 These men, admirable judges although they were, seem to 
 have regarded with what we cannot but think an over-admira- 
 tion the art which wanted the crowning triumph of looking 
 like nature, and the learning which, displayed rather than 
 pervading, overlays and encumbers his finely-constructed but 
 heavy and unwieldy plays. We of this age, a little too care- 
 less perhaps of learned labour, would give a whole wilderness 
 of Catalines and Poetasters, and even of Alchemists and Vol- 
 pones, for another score of the exquisite lyrics which are scat- 
 tered carelessly thr^'u^h the plays and masques which — 
 strange contrast witli the rugged verse in which they are 
 embedded — seem to have burst into being at a stroke, just as 
 the evening primrose flings open her fair petals at the close of 
 the day. Lovelier songs were never written than these wild 
 and irregular ditties. Here are some of them : — 
 
 HYMN TO DIANA, IK " CTNTHIA'S UEVELS." 
 
 Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, 
 
 'Sow the sun is laid to sleep. 
 Seated in thy silver car. 
 State in wonted manners keep. 
 Hesperus entreats thy light, 
 Goddess excellently bright ! 
 
 Earth, let not thy envious shade 
 
 Dare itself to interpose ; 
 Cynthia's shining orb was made 
 
 Heaven to clear, when day did close. 
 Bless us theu with wished sight, 
 Goddess excellently bright ' 
 
 Lay thy bow of pearl apart, 
 
 ■ And thy crystal shining quiver ; 
 Give unto the flying hart 
 Space to breathe, how short soever. 
 Thou that mak'st a day of night. 
 Goddess excellently bright ! 
 
 SONO, PROM THE SAME. 
 
 Slow, slow fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears, 
 
 Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs ! 
 List to the heavy part the music bears, 
 
 Woe weeps out her division when she sings. 
 
,224 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Droop herbs and flowers, 
 
 Fall grief in showers, 
 
 Our beauties are not ours. 
 1 could still 
 (Like melting snow upon some craggy hill) 
 
 Drop, drop, drop, drop, 
 Since summer's pride is now a withered daffodil. 
 
 SONG OF NlOar, IN THE MASQUE OF "THE VISION OF DELIGHT." 
 
 Break, Phautasie, from thy cave of cloud,. 
 
 And spread thy purple wings ; 
 Now all thy figures are allowed. 
 And various shapes of things. 
 Create of airy forms a stream, 
 It must have blood, and nought of phlegm ; 
 And though it be a waking dream. 
 Chorus. Yet let it like an odour rise 
 To all the senses here. 
 And fall like sleep upon t^eir eyes. 
 Or music in their ear. 
 
 CHORUS, FKOM THE S4ME. 
 
 In curious knots and mazes so. 
 The spring at first was taught to go ; 
 And Zephyr, when he came to woo 
 His Flora, had their motions too : 
 
 And thus did Venus learn to lead 
 
 The Idalian brawls, and so to tread 
 
 As if the wind, not she, did walk. 
 
 Nor prest a flower, nor bowed a stalk. 
 
 SONG, IN "THE MASQUE OF BEADTr." 
 
 So Beauty on the waters stood 
 When Love had severed Earth from Flood ! 
 So, when he parted Air from Fire, 
 He did with concord all inspire ! 
 And then a motion he them taught 
 That elder than himself was Thought ; 
 Which Thought was yet the child of earth, 
 For Love is elder than his birth. 
 
 SONG, FROM " THE SILENT WOMAN." 
 {A lesson,, dear ladies.) 
 
 Still to be neat, still to be drest 
 
 As you were going to a feast ; 
 
 Still to be powdered, still perfumed : 
 
 Lady, it is to be presumed. 
 
 Though art's hid causes are not found, 
 
 All is not sweet, all is not sound. 
 
A LITEKART LIFE. 225, 
 
 Give me a look, give me a face 
 
 That makes simplicity a grace ; 
 
 Edbes loosely flowing, hair as free : 
 
 Such sweet neglect more taketh me. 
 
 Than all the adulteries of art : 
 
 They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. 
 
 FROM A CELEBRATION OE OHAKIS. 
 
 See the chariot at hand here of Love, 
 
 Wherein my lady rideth ; 
 Each that draws is a swan or a dove, 
 
 And well the car Love guideth. 
 As she goes all hearts do duty 
 
 Unto her beauty, 
 And enamoured do wish that they might 
 
 But enjoy such a sight. 
 That they still were to run by her side 
 Thorough swords, thorough seas wheresoever she would ride. 
 
 Do but look on her eyes, they do light 
 
 All that love's world compriseth ! 
 Do but look on her hair, it is bright 
 
 As love's star, when it riseth ! 
 Do but mark, her forehead's smoother 
 
 Than words that soothe her ! 
 And from her arched brows such a grace 
 
 Sheds itself through the face, 
 As alone there triumphs to the life 
 All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife ! 
 
 Have you seen but a bright lily grow 
 Before rude hands have touched it ? 
 Have you marked but the fall o' the snow 
 
 Before the soU hath smutched it? 
 Ha' you felt the wool of the beaver, 
 
 Or swan's down ever? 
 Or have smelt o the bud o' the briar ? 
 
 Or the nard in the fire ? 
 Or have tasted the bag of the bee ? 
 so white ! so soft ! so sweet is she ! 
 
 Oh ! do not worship with those eyes. 
 
 Lest I be sick with seeing ! 
 Nor cast them down, but let them riae. 
 
 Lest shame destroy their being. 
 Oh ! be not angry with those fires. 
 
 For then their threats will kill me ; 
 Nor look too kind on my desires. 
 
 For then my hopes will spill me. 
 
 Q 
 
226 KECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Oh ! do not Bteep them, in thy tears, 
 For so will sorrow slay me ; 
 
 ITor spread them, as distract with fears, 
 My own enough betray me. 
 
 SONQ TO OELIA. 
 
 I should hardly, perhaps, have thought of inserting a song 
 so familiar to every ear as the following, had I not, in turning 
 over Jonson's huge volume, been reminded of a circumstance 
 connected with it, which greatly startled me at the moment. 
 Milton talks of airs "married to immortal verse;" but it 
 should seem that there is no marriage without an occasional 
 divorce ; for the last time I heard the well-known melody 
 which belongs to this fine Anacreontic, as indissolubly as its 
 own peculiar perfume to a flower, was in an Independent 
 Chapel, where widely different words — the words of a hymn — 
 were adapted to the air. It was John "Wesley, I believe, who 
 said that he saw no reason why Satan should have all the best 
 tunes ; and I should not lightly impugn the wisdom of any 
 axiom of John Wesley, who understood human nature as well 
 as most men. But in this instance, such is the force of asso- 
 ciation, that I can scarcely say how strongly I felt the dis- 
 crepancy — all the more for the impressive plainness and 
 simplicity of the Presbyterian mode of worship, and the 
 earnest eloquence of the white-haired preacher. The sermon 
 was half over before I had recovered the tone of feeling proper 
 to the place and the occasion. 
 
 Drink to me only with thine eyes, 
 
 And I will pledge with mine ; 
 Or leave a kiss but in the cup, 
 
 And I '11 not look for wine. 
 The thirst that froin the soul doth rise 
 
 Must surely bs divine ; 
 But might I of Love's nectar sup 
 
 I would not change for wine. 
 
 I sent thee late a rosy wreath, 
 
 Not so much honouring thee. 
 As giving it a hope, that there 
 
 It could not withered be. 
 But thou thereon didst only breathe 
 
 And sent' St it back to me : 
 Since when it grows and smells, I swear, 
 
 Kot of itself, but thee. 
 
A LITBRAKY LIFE. 227 
 
 FIRST SPEECH IN "THE SAD SHEPHERD." 
 
 Enter CEglamoke. 
 (Egla. Here she was wont to go I and here I and here I 
 Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow : 
 The world may find the spring by following her, 
 For other print her airy steps ne'er left. 
 Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, 
 Or shake the downy blowball from his stalk I 
 But like the soft west wind she shot along, 
 And where she went the flowers took thickest root. 
 As she had sowed them with her odorous foot. 
 
 'lliis delightful pastoral on the story of Robin Hood and 
 Maid Marian is unhappily unfinished. Scarcely half is written, 
 and even that wants the author's last touches. 
 
 SPEECH OP MAIA, IN "THE PENATES." 
 
 H every pleasure were distilled 
 
 Of every flower in every field. 
 
 And all that Hybla's hives do yield, 
 
 "Were into one broad mazer filled ; 
 
 If thereto added all the gums 
 
 And spice that from Panchaia comes, 
 
 The odour that Hydasper lends. 
 
 Or Phcenix, proves before she ends ; 
 
 If all the air my Flora drew. 
 
 Or spirit that Zephyr ever blew, 
 
 "Were put therein ; and all the dew 
 
 That every rosy morning knew ; 
 
 Tet all diffused upon this bower. 
 
 To make one sweet detaining hour, 
 
 "Were much too little for the grace 
 
 And honour you vouchsafe the place. 
 
 But if you please to come again, 
 
 "We vow we will not then with vain 
 And empty pastimes entertain 
 Tour so desired, thoup;h gi'ieved, pain. 
 For we will have the wanton Fauns, 
 That frisking skip about th<^ lawns, 
 The Panisks, and the Sylvans rude, 
 Satyrs, and all that multitude. 
 To dance their wilder rounds about, 
 And cleave the air with many a shout, 
 >j they would hunt poor Echo out 
 Of yonder valley, who doth flout 
 Their rustic noise. To visit whom 
 You shall behold whole bevies come 
 Of gaudy nymphs, whose tender calls 
 "Well timed unto the many falls 
 Of sweet and several sliding rills. 
 That stream from tops of those less hills, 
 q2 
 
228 BEOOLLBCIIONS OF 
 
 Sound like so many silver quills, 
 Wheu Zephyr them with music fills, 
 For them Favoriua here shall blow 
 New flowers, that you shall see to grow, 
 Of which each hand a part shall take, 
 And, for your heads, fresh garlands make 
 Wherewith, whilst they your temples round, 
 An air of several birds shall sound 
 An lo Paean, that shall drown 
 The acclamations at your crown. 
 All this, and more than I have gift of saying. 
 May vows, so you will oft come here a Maying. 
 
 EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 
 
 Underneath this sable hearse 
 Lies the subject of all verse, 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; 
 Death, ere thou hast slain another 
 Learn'd and fair and good as she. 
 Time shall throw a dart at thee. 
 
 After all, we take leave of Mm, transcribing yet another 
 exquisite song, and echoing our first words, " O rare Ben 
 Jonson ! " 
 
 FROM THE MASQUE OF "THE GIPSIES METAMORPHOSED." 
 
 To the old, long life and treasure ; 
 To the young, sil health and pleasure ; 
 
 To the fair, their face 
 
 With eternai grace. 
 And the soul to be loved at leisure. 
 
 To the witty, all clear mirrors ; 
 To the foolish, their dark errors ; 
 
 To the loving sprite 
 
 A secure dehght ; 
 To the jealous his own false terrors. 
 
 XX. 
 
 FASHIONABLE POETS. 
 
 WILLIAM BOBBET SPENOER. 
 A SCHOOL-DAT ANECDOTE. 
 
 Grandson of two dukes, nursed in the very lap of fashion, 
 and coming into life at the time of all others when wit and 
 fancy, and the lighter graces of poetry, were most cordially 
 welcomed by the higher circles, — at a time when the star of 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 229 
 
 Sheridan was still in the ascendant, and that of Moore just 
 appearing on the horizon,— William Spencer may be regarded 
 as much the representative of a class, as John Clare or Eobert 
 Burns. The style of his verse, eminently airy, polished, and 
 graceful, as well as his personal qualities, combined to render 
 him the idol of that society which, by common consent, we 
 are content to call the best. His varied accomplishments 
 enhvened a country-house ; his brilliant wit formed the de- 
 light of a dinner-table ; while his singular charm of manner, 
 and perhaps of character, gave a permanency to his social 
 success, by converting the admirers of an evening into friends 
 for life. With all these genial triumphs, however, we cannot 
 look over the little volume of graceful verse, which is all that 
 now remains of so splendid a reputation, without feeling that 
 the author was born for better, higher, more enduring pur- 
 poses ; that the charming trifler, whose verses, forty years ago, 
 every lady knew by heart, and which are now well-nigh for- 
 gotten, ought not to have wasted his high endowments in 
 wreathing garlands for festivals — ought not, above all, to have 
 gone on, from youth to age, leading the melancholy life which 
 is all holiday. 
 
 Nevertheless, we must accept these verses for such as they 
 are, just as we admire, unquestioning, the wing of a butterfly, 
 or the petal of a flower ; and in their kind they are exquisite. 
 Look at the fancy and finish of these stanzas ! 
 
 TO THE LADY ANNE HAMILTON.* 
 
 Too late I staid, forgive the crime. 
 
 Unheeded flew the hours ; 
 How noiseless falls the foot of Time 
 
 That only treads on flowers ! 
 
 What eye with clear account remarks 
 
 The ebbing of his glass. 
 When all its sands are diamond sparks 
 
 That dazzle as they pass ? 
 
 Ah ! who to sober measurement 
 
 Time's happy swiftness brings, 
 When birds of Paradise have lent 
 
 Their plumage for his wings ? 
 
 * Very sweetly mated with one of the sweetest old Irish airs, 
 " The YeUow Horse." 
 
230 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 In the next extract there is an unexpected touch of senti- 
 ment mixed with its playfulness that is singularly captivating. 
 
 GOOD-BTB AND HOW-D'-YE-DO. 
 
 One day Good-bye met How-d'-ye-do, 
 
 Too cloae to Bhun ealuting, 
 But Boon the rival sisters flew 
 
 From kissing to disputing. 
 
 " Away," says How-d'-ye-do; "your mien 
 
 Appals my cheerful nature, 
 Ko name bo sad as yours is seen 
 
 In sorrow's nomenclature. 
 
 " Where'er I give one sunshine hour. 
 
 Tour eloud comes o'er to shade it ; 
 Where'er I plant one bosom flower. 
 
 Your mildew drops to fade it. 
 " Ere How-d'-ye-do has tuned each tongue 
 
 To Hope's delightful measure, 
 Good-bye in Friendship's ear has rung 
 
 The knell of parting pleasure ! 
 " From sorrows past my chemio skill 
 
 Draws smiles of consolation, 
 Whilst you from present joys distil 
 
 The tears of separation." 
 
 Good-bye replied, " Tour statement's true. 
 And well your cause you 've pleaded ; 
 
 But pray who'd think of How-d'-ye-do, 
 Unless Good-bye preceded ? 
 
 " Without my prior influence. 
 
 Could yours have ever flourish'd ; 
 And can your hand one flower dispense. 
 
 But those my tears have uourish'd ? 
 
 " How oft, if at the court of Love 
 
 Concealment be the fashion. 
 When How-d'-ye-do has fail'd to move, 
 
 Good-bye reveals the passion ! 
 
 " How oft, when Cupid's fires decline. 
 
 As every heart remembers, 
 One sigh of mine, and only mine. 
 
 Revives the dying embers ! 
 
 " Go, bid the timid lover choose. 
 
 And I '11 resign ray charter, 
 If he for ten kind How-d'-ye-does 
 
 One kind Good-bye would barter ! 
 
 " From love and friendship's kindred source 
 
 We both derive existence. 
 And they would both lose half their force, 
 
 Without our joint assistance. 
 
A LITBRART LIFE. 231 
 
 " 'Tis well the world our merit knows. 
 
 Since time, there 's no denying, 
 One half in How-d'-ye-doing goes, 
 
 And t' other in Good-byeing 1 " 
 
 Nobody has told the tragedy of Beth-Qelert so well as 
 Mr. Spencer, in his simple but elegant ballad. I do not know 
 if many persons partake my feeling respecting those stories of 
 which the animal world are the heroes ; but to me they seem 
 more touching than grander histories of men and women. 
 Dumb creatures — to use that phrase of the common people, 
 which makes, in its two homely words, so true an appeal to 
 our protection and our pity — dumb creatures are in their love 
 so faithful, so patient in their sufferings, so submissive under 
 wrong, so powerless for rem.onstrance or for redress, that we 
 take their part against the human brutes, their oppressors, 
 as naturally, and almost as vehemently, as we do that of 
 Philoctetes against Ulysses, or of Lear against Goneril. I am 
 not sure that I do not carry my sympathy still farther. In 
 the famous story of the Falcon, for instance, in Boccaccio, 
 where a lover, ruined by the charges to which he puts himself 
 in courting an ungrateful mistress, and owing his very exist- 
 ence to the game struck down for him by a favourite hawk, 
 kUls the poor bird to furnish forth a dinner for the haughty 
 beauty, when she at last comes to visit him, I never could 
 help thinking that the enamoured cavalier made a very bad 
 exchange, when he lost the falcon and won the lady. His 
 conscience must have pricked him all his life. He had not 
 even, so far as we hear, the consolation, such as it is, of erect- 
 ing a monument to the memory of his murdered favourite, on 
 which, like Llewelyn, to " hang his horn and spear." 
 
 BETH-GELBBT; ok, the GKAVE of the GRETnOUND. 
 
 The spearmen heard the bugle sound, 
 
 And cheerily smiled the morn ; 
 And many a braoh and many a hound 
 
 Obeyed Llewelyn's horn. 
 
 And still he blew a louder blast, 
 
 And gave a lustier cheer : 
 " Come, Gelert, come, wer't never last 
 
 Llewelyn's horn to hear ! 
 
 " Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam, 
 
 The flower of all his race ; 
 So true, so brave, a lamb at home, 
 
 A lion in the chaoe ? " 
 
232 EKCOIiECTIONS OF 
 
 'Twas only at Llewelyn's board 
 
 The faithful Gelert fed ; 
 He watched, he served, he cheered his lord, 
 
 And sentinelled his bed. 
 
 In sooth he was a peerless hound, 
 
 The gift of royal John ; 
 But now no Gelert could be found, 
 
 And all the chace rode on. 
 
 And now, as o'er the rocks and dells. 
 
 The gallant chidings rise, 
 All Snowden's craggy chaos yells 
 
 The many-mingled cries. 
 
 That day Llewelyn little loved 
 
 The chace of hart and hare ; 
 And scant and small the booty proved. 
 
 For Gelert was not there. 
 Unpleased Llewelyn homeward hied ; 
 
 When near the portal seat. 
 His truant Gelert he espied 
 
 Bounding his lord to greet. 
 
 But when he gained the castle door. 
 
 Aghast the chieftain stood ; 
 The hound all o'er was smeared with gore, 
 
 His lips, his fangs, ran blood. 
 
 Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise ; 
 
 Unused such looks to meet, 
 His favourite checked his joyful guise. 
 
 And crouched and licked his feet. 
 
 Onward in haste Llewelyn passed. 
 
 And on went Gelert too ; 
 And still where'er his eyes he cast, 
 
 Fresh blood-gouts shocked his view. 
 
 O'erturned his infant's bed he found. 
 With blood-stained covert rent; 
 
 And all around the walls and ground 
 With recent blood besprent. 
 
 He called his child — no voice replied — 
 He searched with terror wild ; 
 
 Blood, blood he found on every side, 
 But nowhere found his child. 
 
 " Hell-hound 1 my boy's by thee devoured ! " 
 
 The frantic father cried ; 
 And to the hilt his vengeful sword 
 
 He plunged in Gelert's side. 
 
 His suppliant looks as prone he fell 
 
 No pity could impart ; 
 But still his Gelert's dying yell 
 
 Passed heavy o'er his heart. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 233 
 
 Aroused by Gelert's dying yell 
 
 Some slumberer wakened nigh : 
 What words the parent's joy could tell 
 
 To hear his infant's cry 
 
 Concealed beneath a tumbled heap 
 
 His hurried search had missed : 
 All glowing from his rosy sleep 
 
 The cherub boy he kissed. 
 
 Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread ; 
 
 But the same couch beneath 
 Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead, 
 
 Tremendous still in death. 
 
 Ah, what was then Llewelyn's pain I 
 
 For now the truth was clear. 
 His gallant hound the wolf had slain 
 
 To save Llewelyn's heir. 
 
 "Vain, vain was all Llewelyn's woe : 
 " Best of thy kind. Adieu ! 
 ' The frantic blow that laid thee low 
 This heart shall ever rue ! " 
 
 And now a gallant tomb they raise, 
 
 With costly sculptures decked. 
 And marbles storied with his praise 
 
 Poor Gelert's bones protect. 
 
 There never could the spearman pass, 
 
 Or forester, unmoved ; 
 There oft the tear-besprinkled grass, 
 
 Llewelyn's sorrow proved. 
 
 And there he hung his horn and spear. 
 
 And there, as evening fell. 
 In fancy's ear he oft would hear 
 
 Poor Gelert's dying yeD. 
 
 And till great Snowden's rocks grow old. 
 
 And cease the storm to brave. 
 The consecrated spot shall hold 
 
 The name of " Gelert's grave ! " 
 
 "The Emigrant's Grave'' always seemed to me eminently 
 pathetic, and, above all. eminently true. There can hardly be 
 a country neighbourhood in England in which the recollection 
 of some " poor exile of France," equally patient, equally cheer- 
 ful, equally kind, may not still be found, softening national 
 animosity, and, if he were (as often chanced) of the priesthood, 
 effacing the still deeper prejudice that teaches the followers of 
 Luther to dread the members of the Church of Rome. 
 
234 KECOLLECTIOSS OP 
 
 THE EMIGKANT S GRAVE. 
 
 Wty mourn ye ? "Why strew ye tlioae flowerets around 
 On yon new-Bodded grave, as ye slowly advance ? 
 
 In yon new-sodded grave (ever dear be the ground !) 
 Lies the stranger we loved, the poor exile of France ! 
 
 And is the poor exile at rest from his woe, 
 
 No longer the sport of misfortune and chance ? 
 
 Houm on, village mourners, my.tears too shall flow, 
 For the stranger we loved, the poor exile of France ! 
 
 Oh ! kind was his nature, though bitter his fate. 
 And gay was his converse, though broken his heart ; 
 
 No comfort, no hope, his own breast could elate, 
 Though comfort and hope he to all could impart. 
 
 Ever joyless himself, in the joys of the plain. 
 
 The foremost was he mirth and pleasure to raise ; 
 
 How sad was his woe, yet how blithe was his strain. 
 When he sang the glad song of more fortunate days ! 
 
 One pleasure he knew in his straw-cover'd shed 
 
 The way-wearied traveller recruited to see ; 
 One tear of delight he would drop o'er the bread 
 
 Which he shared with the poor,- — the still poorer than he. 
 
 And when round his death-bed profusely we oast 
 Every gift, every solace our hamlet could bring. 
 
 He blest us with sighs which we thought were his last. 
 But he still breathed a prayer for his country and king. 
 
 Poor exile, adieu ! undisturb'd be thy sleep ! 
 
 From the feast, from the wake, from the village-green dance, 
 How oft shall we wander at moon-light to weep 
 
 O'er the stranger we loved, the poor exile of France ! 
 To the church-bidden bride, shall thy memory impart 
 
 One pang as her eyes on thy cold relics glance ; 
 One flower from her garland, one tear from her heart, 
 
 Shall drop on the heart of the exile of France ! 
 
 This is a country picture. In my own childhood, I knew 
 many of the numeroiis colony which took refuge in London 
 from the horrors of the first French Eevolution. The lady at 
 whose school I was educated (and he was so much the more 
 efficient partner, that it was his school rather than hers), had 
 married a Frenchman, who had been secretary to the Comte 
 de Moustiers, one of the last ambassadors, if not the very last, 
 from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James's. Of course he 
 knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and indeed of all 
 ranks ; and being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal 
 hand and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as 
 
A LITERARY LITE. 235 
 
 many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen 
 around . his hospitable supper-table. Something wonderful 
 and admirable it was to see how these Dukes and Duohesseh, 
 Marshals and Marquises, Chevaliers and Bishops, bore up 
 under their unparelleled reverses ! How they laughed, and 
 talked, and squabbled, and flitted, — constant to their high 
 heels, their rouge, and their furbelows, to their old liaisons, 
 their polished sarcasms, their cherished rivalries ! The clung 
 even to their manages de convenance; and the very habits 
 which would most have offended our English notions, if we 
 had seen them in their splendid hotels of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain, won tolerance and pardon when mixed up with such 
 unaffected constancy and such cheerful resignation. 
 
 For the most part, these noble esilcs had a trifling pecuniary 
 dependency ; some had brought with them jewels enough to 
 sustain them in their simple lodgings in Knightsbridge or 
 PentonviUe ; to some a faithful steward contrived to forward 
 the produce of some estate, too small to have been seized by 
 the early plunderers ; to others a rich English friend would 
 claim the privilege of returning the kindness and hospitality 
 of by-gone years. But very many lived literally on the pro- 
 duce of their own industry; the gentlemen teaching languages, 
 music, fencing, dancing ; whilst their wives and daughters 
 went out as teachers or governesses, or supplied the shops 
 with those objects of taste in millinery or artificial flowers 
 for which their country is unrivalled No one was ashamed of 
 these exertions ; no one was proud of them. So perfect and 
 so honest was the simplicity with which they entered upon 
 this new course of life, that they did not even seem conscious 
 of its merit. The hojpe of better days carried them gaily along, 
 and the present evil was lost in the sunshiny future. 
 
 Here and there, however, the distress was too real, too 
 pressing to be forgotten : in such cases, our good schoolmaster 
 used to contrive all possible measures to assist and to reheve. 
 One venerable couple I remember well. They bore one of the 
 highest names of Brittany, and had possessed large estates, 
 had lost their two sons, and were now, in their old age, theii 
 sickness, and their helplessness, almost entirely dependent 
 upon the labour of Mdlle. Rose, their grand-daughter. Eose ! 
 what a name for that pallid drooping creature, whose dark 
 eyes looked too large for her face, whose bones seemed start- 
 
236 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 ing through her skin, and whose black hair contrasted even 
 fearfully with the wan complexion from which every tinge of 
 healthful colour had long flown ! For some time these inte- 
 resting persons regularly attended our worthy governess's 
 supper parties, the objects of universal affection and respect. 
 Each seemed to come for the sake of the other ; Mademoiselle, 
 always bringing with her some ingenious straw-plaiting, to 
 make into the fancy bonnets which were then in vogue, rarely 
 raised her head from her work, or allowed herself time- to 
 make a hasty meal. It was sad to think how ceaseless must 
 be the industry by which that fair and fragile creature could 
 support the helpless couple who were cast upon her duty and 
 her aflfection. At last they ceased to appear at the Wednesday 
 parties ; and very soon after (oh ! it is the poor that help the 
 poor !) we heard that the good Abb6 Calonne (brother to the 
 well-known minister) had undertaken, for a moderate stipend, 
 the charge of the venerable Count and Countess ; while Mdlle. 
 Rose, with her straw-plaiting, took up her abode in our school- 
 room, working as indefatigably through our verbs and over our 
 exercises as she had before done through the rattle of the 
 tric-trac table and the ceaseless clatter of French talk. 
 
 Now, this school of ours was no worse than other schools — 
 indeed, it was reckoned among the best conducted ; but, some 
 way or other, the foul weed called esclusiveness had sprung 
 up amongst the half-dozen great girls who, fifty years ago 
 " gave our little senate laws," to a point that threatened to 
 choke and destroy every plant of a more wholesome influence. 
 Doubtless, long, long ago, the world and the world's trials, 
 — prosperity, with the weariness and bitterness it brings, — 
 adversity, with the joys it takes away, — have tamed those 
 proud hearts ! But, at the time of which I speak, no com- 
 mittee of countesses, deciding upon petitions for vouchers for 
 a subscription ball, — no chapter of noble canonesses, examin- 
 ing into the sixteen quarters required for their candidate. — 
 could by possibility inquire more seriously into the nice 
 questions of station, position, and alliance than the unfledged 
 younglings who constituted our first class. They were merely 
 gentlemen's daughters, and had no earthly right to give them- 
 selves airs ; but I suspect that we may sometimes see in elder 
 gentlewomen the same disproportion, and that those who 
 might from birth, fortune and position, assume such a right, 
 
A LITEBAET LIFE. 237 
 
 will be the very last to exert their privilege. Luckily for me, 
 I was a little girl, protected by my youth and insignificance 
 from the danger of a contagion which it requires a, good deal 
 of moral courage to resist. I remember wondering how Mdlle. 
 Eose, with her incessant industry, her open desire to sell her 
 bonnets, and her shabby cotton gown, would escape from our 
 censors. Happily, she was spared, avowedly because her birth 
 was noble — perhaps because, with all their vulgar denuncia- 
 tions of vulgarity, their fineries, and their vanities, the young 
 girls were better than they knew, and respected in their 
 hearts the very humility which they denounced. 
 
 If, however, there were something about the fair French- 
 woman that held in awe the spirit of girlish impertinence, 
 chance soon bestowed upon them, in the shape of a new pupil, 
 an object which called forth aU their worst qualities, without 
 stint and without impediment. 
 
 The poor child who was destined to become their victim 
 was a short squat figure, somewhere about nine or ten j^ears 
 of age, awkward in her carriage, plain in her features, iU- 
 dressed, and over-dressed. She happened to arrive at the 
 same time with the French dancing-master, a Marquis of the 
 ancien regime, of whom I am sorry to say, that he seemed so 
 at home in his Terpsichorean vocation, that one could hardly 
 fancy him fit for any other. (Were not les Marquis of the old 
 French comedy very much like dancing-masters \ I am sure 
 Moliere thought so.) At the same time with the French 
 dancing-master did our new fellow-pupil arrive, led into the 
 room by her father : he did not stay five minutes ; but that 
 time was long enough to strike Monsieur with a horror, 
 evinced by a series of shrugs, which soon rendered the dislike 
 reciprocal. I never saw such a contrast between two men. 
 The Frenchman was slim, and long, and pale ; and, allowing 
 always for the dancing-master air, which in my secret soul 
 I thought never could be allowed for, he might be called 
 elegant. The Englishman was the beau-ideal of a John Bull — 
 portentous in size broad, and red of visage ; loud of tongue, 
 and heavy in step ; he shook the room as he strode, and made 
 the walls echo when he spoke. I rather liked the man ; there 
 was so much character about him, and, in spite of the coarse- 
 aess, so much that was bold and hearty. Monsieur shrugged, 
 to be sure ; but he seemed likely to run away, especially when 
 
238 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 the stranger's first words conveyed an injunction to the lady 
 of the house, " to take care that no grinning Frenchman had 
 the ordering of his Betsy's feet. If she must learn to dance, 
 let her be taught by an honest Englishman." After which 
 declaration, kissing the Uttle girl very tenderly, the astounding 
 papa took his departure. 
 
 Poor Betsy ! there she sate, the tears trickHng down her 
 cheeks, little comforted by the kind notice of the governess 
 and the English teacher, and apparently insensible to the 
 silent scorn of her new companions. For my own part, I 
 entertained towards her much of that pity which results from 
 recent experience of the same sort of distress, — 
 
 " A fellow-feeling makes ua wondrous kind. 
 
 I was a little girl myself, abundantly shy and awkward, and I 
 had not forgotten the heart-tug of leaving home, and the 
 terrible loneliness of the first day at school. Moreover, I sus- 
 pected that in one respect she was much more an object of 
 compassion than myself ; I believed her to be motherless : so 
 when I thought nobody was looking or listening, I made some 
 girlish advances towards acquaintanceship, which she was still 
 too shy or too miserable to return, so that, easily repelled 
 myself, as a bashful child is, our intercourse came to nothing. 
 With my elders and betters— the cancan, who ruled the school 
 — Betsy stood, if possible, lower than ever. They had had the 
 satisfaction to discover not only that he lived in the Borough, 
 but that her father (horror of horrors !) was an eminent cheese- 
 factor !— a seller of Stilton ! That he was very rich, and had 
 a brother an alderman, rather made matters worse. Poor Betsy 
 only escaped being sent to Coventry by the lucky circumstance 
 of her going that metaphoi'ical journey of her own accord, and 
 never under any temptation speaking to anybody one unne- 
 cessary word. 
 
 As far as her lessons went, she was, from the false indul- 
 gence with which she had been treated, very backward for 
 her age. Our school was, however, really excellent as a place 
 of instruction ; so no studies were forced upon her, and she 
 was left to get acquainted with the house and its ways, and to 
 fall into the ranks as she could. 
 
 For the present she seemed to have attached herself to 
 Mdlle. Rose, attracted probably by the sweetness of her 
 
A IITISEART LIFE. 239 
 
 countenance, her sadness, and her silence. Her speech could 
 not have attracted Betsy, for in common with many of her 
 exiled countryfolk, she had not, in nearly ten years' residence 
 in England, learned to speak five English words. But some- 
 thing had won her affection. She had, on first heing called 
 by the governess, from the dark corner in which she had 
 ensconsed herself, crept to the side of the young French- 
 woman, had watched her as he wove her straw plaits, had 
 attempted the simple art with some discarded straws that lay 
 scattered upon the floor ; and when Mademoiselle so far roused 
 herself as to show her the proper way, and to furnish her 
 with the material, she soon became a most efficient assistant 
 in this branch of industry. 
 
 No intercourse took place between them. Indeed, as I have 
 said, none was possible, since neither knew a word of the 
 other's language. Betsy was Silence personified ; and poor 
 Mdlle. Rose, always pensive and reserved, was now more than 
 ever dejected and oppressed. An opportunity of returning to 
 France had opened to her and was passing away. She herself 
 was too young to be included in the list of emigrants, and 
 interest had been made with the First Consul for the re-ad- 
 mission of her venerable parents, and perhaps for the ultimate 
 recovery of some property still unsold. But her grandfather 
 was so aged, and her grandmother so sickly, that the expenses 
 of a voyage and a journey, then very formidable to the old and 
 the infirm, were beyond her means, beyond even her hopes. 
 So she sighed over her straw-plaiting, and sxibmitted. 
 
 In the meantime the second Saturday arrived, and with it 
 a summons home to Betsy, who, for the first time gathering 
 courage to address our good governess, asked " if she might 
 be trusted with the bonnet Mdlle. Rose had just finished, to 
 show her aunt — she knew she would like to buy that bonnet, 
 because Mademoiselle had been so good as to let her assist in 
 plaiting it." How she came to know that they were for sale 
 nobody could tell ; but our kind governess ordered the bonnet 
 to be put into the carriage, told her the price — (no extrava- 
 gant one) — called her a good child, and took leave of her till 
 Monday. 
 
 Two hours after, Betsy and her father reappeared in the 
 schoolroom. " Ma'amselle," said he, bawling as loud as he 
 could, with the view, as we afterwards conjectured, of making 
 
240 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 her understand him—" Ma'amselle, I have no great love for 
 the French, whom I take to be our natural enemies. But 
 you're a good young woman ; you've been kind to my Betsy, 
 and have taught her how to make your fallals ; and moreover 
 you're a good daughter, and so's my Betsy. She says that 
 she thinks you're fretting because you can't manage to take 
 your grandfather and grandmother back to France again ; so 
 as you let her help you in that other handiwork, why you 
 must let her help you in this." Then throwing a heavy purse 
 into her lap, catching his little daughter up in his arms, and 
 hugging her to the honest breast where she hid her tears and 
 her blushes, he departed, leaving poor MdUe. Eose too much 
 bewildered to speak, or to comprehend the happiness that 
 had fallen upon her, and the whole school the better for the 
 lesson. 
 
 XXI. 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DEAMATIC AUTHORS. 
 
 PASSION POa THE DRAMA. 
 OOLLEY OIBBEE — EIOHAKD GUMEEKLAND. 
 
 Of all literary fascinations there is none like that of the 
 Drama, written or acted. None that begins so early, or that 
 lasts so long. 
 
 With regard to actors, it is a sort of possession by evil spirits. 
 Boys and girls irom the schoolroom, and the counting-house, 
 the shop-board, or the college, rush upon the stage, forsaking 
 home and comfort, and the thousand realities of life, in chase 
 of the phantbm,Fame. And in authorship,the passion, although 
 not perhaps so common, is hardly less engrossing, or less de- 
 structive. The "Honeymoon," one of the most delightful 
 of modern comedies, was the seventh play presented by poor 
 Tobiu to different managers. He died, I believe, the very 
 same night that it was performed with unrivalled success, 
 certainly before the intelligence of its triumph could reach 
 him. Gerald Griffin was even less fortunate. "Gisippus" 
 was rejected on aU hands, and only produced after his death, 
 and after the destruction of his other tragedies, to secure for 
 
A LITERARY L1FB< 241 
 
 its author a posthumous reputation. Many, no doubt, more 
 unfortunate still, have died and left no name ; and many may 
 still exist, dragging after them a weary weight of hope deferred, 
 and genius unrecognised. 
 
 ' I have some right to talk of the love of the drama, the 
 passionate, absorbing, worshipping love, since it took posses^ 
 sion of me at the earliest age, and clung to me long. Nay, I 
 iim not even now absolutely sure, that if the CruveUis and 
 the Viardots would but say instead of sing, — if we might but 
 see in tragedy the dramatic power lavished upon opera, I 
 might not be simple enough to take up once more my old 
 enthusiasm, and haunt the theatres at sixty-five ! Luckily, 
 the age is a musical age, and there is small danger that any 
 Queen of Song should exchange her notes for words — espe- 
 cially- in a country where the notes of a jM-ima donna are 
 synonymous with bank-notes. 
 
 The first play I remember to have seen was in a barn — • 
 
 tragedy, of course — ^the tragedy dear to heroes of the buskin, 
 
 and no less dear to their youthfCJ auditors, " Richard the 
 
 Third." Ah ! I should have asked nothing better than to 
 
 see Richard murdered in that barn every night ! Then 
 
 Came other playgoings more legitimate ; and readings of 
 
 Shakespeare by bits, and here and there, I scarcely know how 
 
 6r when. For it may be reckoned amongst the best and 
 
 dearest of our English privileges, that we are all more or less 
 
 educated in Shakespeare ; that the words and thoughts of 
 
 the greatest of poets are, as it were, engrafted into our minds, 
 
 and must, to a certain extent, enrich and fructify the most 
 
 baiTen stock. Shakespeare came to me I cannot tell how. 
 
 But my first great fit of dramatic reading was, I am ashamed 
 
 to say, of very questionable origin : a stolen pleasure ; and 
 
 therefore — alas ! for our poor sinful human nature ! — therefore 
 
 by very far more dear. 
 
 This is the story. 
 
 My childhood was, as I have elsewhere said, a very happy 
 one ; scarcely less happy in the great London school where 
 I passed the five years between ten yeara old and fifteen, than 
 St home : to tell the truth, I was well nigh as mush spoilt in 
 One place as in the other ; but as I was a quiet and orderly 
 little girl, ahd fell easily into the rules of the house, there was 
 ho great hatiQ done, either to ma or to thS school discipline,,. 
 
 B 
 
242 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 One exception, however, did exist, both to my felicity and 
 to my obedience, and that one might be comprised in the 
 single word — Music. 
 
 How my father, who certainly never knew the tune of 
 "God save the King" from that of the other national air, 
 " Eule, Britannia," came to take into his head so strong a 
 fancy to make me an accomplished musician I oovdd never 
 rightly understand, but that such a fancy did possess him I 
 found to my sorrow ! From the day I was five years old, he 
 stuck me up to the piano, and, although teacher after teacher 
 had discovered that I had neither ear, nor taste, nor applica- 
 tion, he continued fuUy bent upon my learning it. By the 
 time my London education commenced, it had assumed the 
 form of a fixed idea. 
 
 The regular master employed in the school was Mr. Hook 
 (father of Theodore), then a popular composer of Vauxhall, 
 songs, and an instructor of average ability. A large smooth- 
 faced man he was, good-natured and civil spoken ; but failing, 
 as in my case everybody else had failed, to produce the 
 slightest improvement, my father, not much struck by his 
 appearance or manner, decided as usual that the fault lay 
 with the teacher ; and happening one day to fall in with a 
 very clever little German professor, who was giving lessons to 
 two of my schoolfellows, he at once took me from the tuition 
 of Mr. Hook, and placed me under that of Herr Schuberl, 
 who, an impatient, irritable man of genius, very speedily 
 avenged the cause of his rival music-master, by dismissing in 
 her turn the unlucky pupil. 
 
 Things being in this unpromising state, I began to enter- 
 tain some hope that my musical education would be given up 
 altogether. In this expectation I did injustice to my fether's 
 pertinacity. This time he threw the blame upon the instru- 
 ment ; and, because I could make nothing after eight years' 
 thumping upon the pianoforte, resolved that I should' become 
 a great performer upon the harp. 
 
 It so happened, that our school-house (the same, by the 
 way, in which poor Miss Landon passed the greater part of 
 her Ufe), forming one angle of an irregular octagon place, was 
 so built that the principal reception-room was connected 
 with the entrance-hall by a long passage and two double 
 doors. This room,' fitted up with nicely-bound books, con- 
 
A LITEEARY LIFE. 243 
 
 tained, amongst other musical instruments, the harp, upon 
 which I was sent to practise every morning ; sent alone, most 
 comfortably out of sight and hearing of every individual in 
 the house, the only means of approach being through two 
 resounding green baize doors, swinging to with a heavy bang 
 the moment they were let go ; so that the change from piano 
 to harp, and from the impulsive Herr Schuberl to the prim, 
 demure little Miss Essex, my new music-mistress, had by no 
 means worked the miracle of producing in me any love of 
 that detestable art, I very shortly betook myself to the book- 
 shelves, and seeing a row of octavo volumes lettered " Theatre 
 de Toltaire," I selected one of them and had deposited it in 
 front of the music-stand, and perched myself upon the stool 
 to read it in less time than an ordinary pupil would have 
 consumed in getting through the first three bars of " Ar Hyd 
 y Nos." 
 
 The play upon which I opened was " Zaire." " Zaire " is 
 not " Richard the Third," any more than M. de Voltaire is 
 Shakespeare ; nevertheless, the play has its merits. There is 
 a certain romance in the situation ; an interest in the story ; 
 a mixture of Christian piety and Oriental fervour, which 
 strikes the imagination. So I got through " Zaire," and when 
 I had finished "Zaire," I proceeded to other plays — " CEdipe," 
 "Merope," "Alzire," "Mahomet," plays well worth reading, 
 but not so absorbing as to prevent my giving due attention 
 to the warning doors, and putting the book in its place, and 
 striking the chords of " Ar Hyd y Nos," as often as I heard a 
 step approaching ; or gathering up myself and my music, and 
 walking quietly back to the school-room as soon as the hour' 
 for practice had expired. 
 
 But when the dramas of Voltaire were exhausted, and I 
 had recourse to some neighbouring volumes, the state of 
 matters changed at once. The new volumes contained the^ 
 comedies of Moliere, and, once plunged into the gay realities 
 of his delightful world, all the miseries of this globe of ours — 
 harp, music-books, practisings, and lessroiis — were forgotten ; 
 Miss Essex melted into thin air ; " Ar Hyd y Nos " became a 
 nonentity. I never recollected that there was such a thing 
 as time : I never heard the warning doors ; the only tribula- 
 tions that troubled me were the tribulations of " Sganarelle ; " 
 the only lessons I thought about— the lessons of the " Bour-*' 
 
 r2 
 
844 BEOOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 geois Gentilhoitime!." So I was caught ; caught in the very 
 fact of laughing till I cried, over the apostrophies of the angry 
 father to the galley, in which he is told his son has been 
 tiken captive. " Que diable alloit-il faire dans cette galere ! " 
 The apostrophe comes true with regard to somebody in a 
 scrape during every moment of every day, and was never more 
 applicable than to myself at that instant. 
 
 Luckily, however, a person who discovered my delinquency 
 yrsts one of my chief spoilers, the husband of our good school- 
 mistress, himself a Frenchman, an adorer of the great dra- 
 matist of France, and no worshipper of music. He was also 
 a very clever man, with a strong and just conviction that no 
 proficiency in any art could be gained without natural qualifi- 
 cations and sincere good will. Accordingly, when he could 
 speak for laughing, what he did say sounded far more like a 
 compliment upon my relish for the comic drama than a 
 rebuke. I suppose that he spoke to the same effect to my 
 father. At all events, the issue of the affair was the dismissal- 
 of the poor little harp-mistress, and a present of a cheap 
 edition of Moliere for my own reading. I have got the 
 set still — twelve little foreign-looking books, unbound, but 
 covered with a gay-looking pink paper, mottled with red, Kke 
 certain carnations. 
 
 Such was my first regular, or rather irregular, introduction 
 to the delightful world of the written drama. Since then I 
 have read in the originals, or in such translations as I could 
 lay my hands upon, the plays of almost every country, from 
 the grand tragedy of the Greeks (perhaps, next to Shakespeare 
 and Moliere, the finest drama that exists), down to Cwudie, the 
 charming French pastoral, which fell in my way last month. 
 
 Besides the plays themselves, the history of their writers 
 has always had for me a singular attraction, especially when 
 such histories have been written by themselves. 
 
 CoUey Gibber, one of the earliest of these dramatic auto- 
 biographers, is also one of the most am,using. He flourLshed 
 in wig and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the 
 Augustan age of Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat 
 later. A most egregious fop according to aU accounts he 
 was, but a very pleaaant one notwithstanding, as your fop of 
 parts is apt to be. Pope gained but little in the warfare he 
 waged with him, .for this plain reason, that the great poet: 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 245 
 
 accuses his adversary of dulness, whicli was not by any 
 means one of his sins, instead of selecting one of the nume- 
 rous faults, such as pertness, petulance, and presumption, of 
 which he was really guilty. 
 
 His best book, the " Apology for his Life," shows that he 
 was a keen observer and a pleasant describer of his brother 
 actors. My first extract is taken from a higher stage, and is 
 one of the many graphic touches that give us so complete 
 and personal a knowledge of the Merry Monarch, and makes 
 us almost partakers of the kindness which (unjustly, I 
 suppose) was felt towards him by his subjects. 
 
 "In February, 1684^5, died King Charles II., who being 
 the only king I had ever seen, I remember, young as I was, 
 his death made a strong impression upon me, as it drew tears 
 from the eyes of multitudes who looked no farther into him 
 than I did. But what, perhaps, gave King Charles this 
 peculiar possession of so many hearts was his affable and 
 easy manner in conversing, which is a quality that goes 
 farther with the greater part of mankind than many higher 
 virtues which in a prince might more immediately regard 
 the public prosperity. Even his indolent amusement of 
 playing with his dogs, and feeding his ducks in St. James's 
 Park (which I have seen him do), made the common people 
 adore him." 
 
 The allusion in the next passage is probably to Titus 
 Gates : — 
 
 " The inferior actors took occasion, whenever they appeared 
 as bravoes or murderers, to make themselves appear as 
 frightful and inhuman figures as possible. In King Charles's 
 time, this low skill was carried to such an extravagance, that 
 the King himself, who was black-browed and of a swarthy 
 complexion, passed a pleasant remark upon his observing the 
 grim looks of the murderers in 'Macbeth,' when turning to 
 his people in the box about him, ' Pray what is the meaning,' 
 said he, ' that we never see a rogue in a play, but odds fish ! 
 they always clap him on a black periwig, when it is well 
 known one of the greatest rogues in England always wears 
 a fair one ? ' " 
 
 Here are some vivid portraits of actors. 
 
 " This actor (Sandford) in his manner of speaking varied 
 ' very much from those I have already mentioned. . His voice 
 
>246 EECOLLECTIONS OF ' 
 
 'had an acute and piercing tone, which struck every syllable of 
 his words distinctly upon the ear. He had likewise a peculiar 
 skill in his way of marking out to an audience whatever he 
 judged worth their more than ordinary notice. When he 
 delivered a command, he would sometimes give it more force 
 by seeming to shght the ornament of harmony. * * * Had 
 Sandford lived in Shakespeare's time, I am confident his 
 judgment would have chosen him above all other actors 
 to have played his Richard III. I leave his person out 
 of the question, which though naturally made for it, yet 
 that would have b^en th,e least part of his recommenda- 
 tion. Sandford ha.d stronger claiips to it. He had some- 
 times an imcouth stateliness in his motion, a harsh and sullen 
 pride of speech, a meditating brow, a stem aspect, occa- 
 sionally changing into an almost ludicrous triumph over all 
 ^goodness and virtue ; from thence f?.lling into the most per- 
 suasive gentleness and soothing candouv of a designing heart. 
 These, I say, must have preferred him to it." 
 
 * « « * i^ » 
 
 " Nokes was an actor of a quite different genius from any I 
 have ever read, heard of, or seen, since or before his time ; and 
 yet his general excellence may be comprehended in one article, 
 viz., a plain and palpable simplicity of nature, which was so 
 utterly his own, that he was often as unaccountably diverting 
 in his common speech as on the stage. I saw him once giving 
 an account of some table-talk to another actor behind the 
 scenes, which a man of quality accidentally listening to, was 
 so deceived by his manner, that he asked him if that was a 
 new play he was rehearsing. » * * He scarce ever made his 
 first entrance in a play but he was received with an involun- 
 tary applause, not of hands only, but by a general laughter, 
 which the sight of him provoked and nature could not resist ; 
 yet the louder the laugh, the graver was his look upon it ; and 
 even the ridiculous solemnity of his features was enough to 
 have set a whole bench of bishops into a titter, could he have 
 been honoured with such grave and right reverend auditors. 
 In the ludicrous distresses which by the laws of comedy folly 
 is often involved in, he sunk into such a mixture of piteous 
 pusillanimity and a consternation so ruefully ridiculous and 
 Inconsolable, that when he had shook you to a fatigue of 
 lauphter it became a moot point whether you ought not to 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 247 
 
 have pitied him. When he debated any matter by himself, 
 he would shut up his mouth with a dumb, studious pout, and 
 roll his full eye into such a vacant amazement, such a palpable 
 ignorance of what to think of it, that his silent perplexity 
 gave your imagination as full content as the most absurd thing 
 ho could say upon it. * * * His person was of the middle size ; 
 his voice clear and audible ; his natural countenance grave and 
 sober. In some of his low characters that became it he had a 
 shuffling shamble in his gait, with so contented an ignorance 
 in his aspect, and such an awkward absurdity in his gesture, 
 that had you not known him, you could not believe that 
 naturally he had a grain of common sense." 
 
 Nature sometimes reproduces herself. There is much in this 
 description to remind us of the late Mr. Listen. The following 
 observations upon the great tragedian Betterton's personation 
 of Hamlet are in the best style of dramatic criticism : — 
 
 " You may have seen a Hamlet, perhaps, who on the first 
 appearance of his father^s spirit has thrown himself into all 
 the straining vociferation requisite to express rage and fury ; 
 and the house has thundered applause, though the misguided 
 actor was all the while tearing a passion into rags. The late 
 Mr. Addison, whilst I sate by him to see this scene acted, made 
 the same observation, asking me with some surprise if I 
 thought Hamlet should be in so violent a passion with the 
 ghost, which, though it might have astonished, had not pro- 
 voked him. For you may observe that in this beautiful speech 
 the passion never rises beyond an almost breathless astonish- 
 ment, or an impatience limited only by filial reverence to in- 
 quire into the suspected wrongs that may have raised him from 
 his peaceful tomb, and a desire to know what a spirit so seem- 
 ingly distressed might wish or enjoin a sorrowful son to 
 execute towards his future quiet in the grave. This was the 
 light into which Betterton threw this scene, which he opened 
 with a pause of mute amazement ; then rising slowly to a 
 solemn, trembling voice, he made the ghost equally terrible to 
 the spectator as to himself ; and in the descriptive part of the 
 natural emotions which the ghostly vision gave him, the bold- 
 ness of his expostulation was still governed by decency — 
 manly, but not braving — his voice never rising into that 
 seeming outrage or wild defiance of what he naturally re- 
 vered." 
 
a48 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 The book is full of pictures like this : — ■ ' 
 
 " In the solemn formality of Obadiah in ' The Committee^' 
 he (Underhill) seemed the immoveable log he stood for ; a 
 countenance of wood could not be more fixed than his when 
 the blockhead of a character required it. His face was full 
 and long ; from his crown to the end of his nose, was the 
 shorter half it ; so that the disproportion of his lower features, 
 when soberly composed with an unwandering eye hanging over 
 them, threw him into the most lumpish, moping mortal tha,t 
 ever made beholders merry " 
 
 Little bits of truth like this are also plentiful : — ;, 
 
 " From whence I would observe, that the short life of beauty 
 is not long enough to form a complete actress." 
 
 CoUey Gibber survived to his eighty-seventh year, retaining 
 to the last the companionable qualities which had made his 
 society coveted by persons of all ranks, and dying withou,t 
 decay and without pain. 
 
 Richard Cumberland is another vivacious specimen of dra- 
 matic authorship — more vivacious in his "Life" (I mean his 
 printed life) than on the stage. Son of a popular and amiable 
 bishop, grandson of the very learned but unpopular and un- 
 amiable scholar, Dr. Bentley, he competed successfully at 
 Cambridge for the honours of the University, took a high 
 degree, obtained a Fellowship of Trinity, and might, probably, 
 have attained to his grandfather's station as head of that emi- 
 nent College, had he not been tempted by Lord Halifax to 
 accept the post of his private secretary, a career for which the 
 eminently irritable and susceptible temper, which Sheridan 
 has devoted to a cruel immortality in his Sir Fretful Plagiary, 
 rendered him eminently unfit. 
 
 ' It was, however, a very good position for seeing the world, 
 and becoming acquainted with men of high name and various 
 character. 
 
 This is his first impression of Garriok as an actor. The play 
 was " The Fair Penitent." 
 
 " Quin presented himself, upon the rising of the curtain, in 
 a green velvet coat, embroidered down the seams, an enormous 
 full-bottptned periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square- 
 toed shoes ; with very little variation of cadence, and in a deep, 
 full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had 
 more of the senate than the stage in it, he rolled out his 
 
' A LITERARY LIFE. 249 
 
 hetoios with an air of dignified indifference that seetned to 
 disdain the plaudits that were showered upon him — Mrs. 
 Gibber, in a key high pitched, hut sweet withal, sang, or rather 
 reoitatived, Eowe's harmonious strain. But when, after long 
 and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young 
 and light, and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come 
 bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont 
 and the heavy-paced Horatio (Heavens, what a transition'!) it 
 seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the space 
 of ;a single scene ; old things were done away, and a new order 
 at once brought forward bright and luminous, and clearly des- 
 tined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, 
 too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and supersti- 
 tiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation." 
 
 His firgt introduction to official life was little to his taste. 
 
 " The morning after my arrival, I waited on Mr. Pownall at 
 his office in Whitehall, and was received by him with all pos- 
 sible politeness, but in a style of such ceremony and form as 
 I was httle used to, and not much delighted with. How many 
 young men at my time of life would have embraced this situ- 
 ation with rapture. The whole town indeed was before mc, 
 but it had not for me either friend or relation to whom I could 
 resort for comfort or for counsel. W^th a head filled with 
 Greek and Latin, and a heart left behind me in my college, I 
 was completely out of my element. I saw myself unlike the 
 people about me, and was embarrassed in circles, which, 
 according to the manners of those days, were not to be 
 approached without a set of ceremonies and manoeuvres not 
 very pleasant to perform, and when awkwardly performed, not 
 very edifying to behold. In these graces Lord Halifax was a 
 model ; his address was noble and imposing ; he could never 
 be mistaken for less than he was, whilst his official secretary, 
 Pownall, who egregiously overacted his imitations of him, 
 could as little be mistaken for more than he was." 
 
 One of his happiest characters is that of Bubb Dodington. 
 
 " His town house in Pall Mall, his villa at Hammersmith, 
 and his mansion in the country, were such estabhshments as 
 few nobles in the nation were possessed of. In either of these 
 he was not to be approached but through a suite of apart- 
 ments, and rarely seated but under painted ceilings and gilt 
 entablatures. In this villa you were conducted through twp 
 
250 HEOOLLBCTIONS OP 
 
 rows of antique statues, ranged in a gallery floored with tha 
 rarest marbles, and enriched with columns of granite and 
 lapis-lazuli ; his saloon was hung with the finest Gobelin 
 tapestry, and he slept in a bed encanopied with peacocks' 
 feathers, in the style of Mrs. Montagu. When he passed from 
 PaU Mall to La Trappe, it was always in a coach, which I could 
 suspect had been his ambassadorial equipage at Madrid, drawn 
 by six fat, unwieldy black horses, short docked, and of colossal 
 dignity. Neither was he less characteristic in apparel than in 
 equipage. He had a wardrobe loaded with rich and glaring 
 suits, each in itself a load to the wearer : and of these I have 
 no doubt but many were coeval with his embassy above men- 
 tioned, and every birth-day had added to the stock. In doing 
 this he so contrived as never to put his old dresses out of coun- 
 tenance by any variation of the fashion of the new. In the 
 meantime his bulk and corpulence gave fuU display to a vast 
 expanse and profusion of brocade and embroidery ; and this, 
 when set off with an enormous tie periwig and deep-laoed 
 ruffles, gave the picture of an ancient courtier in his gala 
 habit, or Quin in his stage dress. Nevertheless it must be 
 confessed this style, though out of date, was not out of cha- 
 racter, but harmonized so well with the person of the wearer, 
 that I remember, when he made his first speech in the House 
 of Peers as Lord Melcombe, all the flashes of his wit, all 
 the studied phrases and well-timed periods of his rhetoric 
 lost their effects, simply because the orator had laid aside his 
 magisterial tie, and put on a modern bag wig, which was as 
 much out of costume upon the broad expanse of his shoulders 
 as a cue would have been upon the robes of the Lord Chief 
 Justice. 
 
 " Having thus dilated more, perhaps, than I should have 
 done, upon this distinguished person's passion for magni- 
 ficence and display, when I proceed to inquire into those 
 principles of g wd taste which should naturally have been the 
 accompaniments and directors of that magnificence, I fear 
 I must be compelled by truth to admit that in these he was 
 deficient. Of pictures he seemed to take his estimate only by 
 their cost : in fact, he was not possessed of any ; but I recol- 
 lect his saying to me one day in his great saloon at Eastbury, 
 that if he had half a score pictures of a thousand pounds 
 «-piece, he would gladly decorate his walls with them; in 
 
A LITERABT LIFE. 261 
 
 place of which, I am sorry to say, he had stuck up immense 
 patches of gilt leather shaped into bugle-horns, upon hangings 
 of rich crimson velvet ; and round his state bed he displayed 
 a carpeting of gold and silver embroidery, which too glaringly 
 betrayed its derivation from coat, waistcoat, and breeches, by 
 the testimony of pockets, button-holes, and loops, with other 
 equally incontrovertible witnesses subpoenaed from the tailor's 
 shopboard." 
 
 Lord Halifax is sent as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland ; to 
 which we owe the following portrait of a great celebrity of 
 Dublin :— 
 
 " I had more than once the amusement of dining at the 
 house of that most singular being, George Faulkner ; where 
 1 found myself in a company so miscellaneously and whim- 
 sically classed, that it looked more hke a fortuitous concourse 
 of oddities jumbled together from all ranks, orders, and 
 descriptions, than the effect pf invitation and design. De- 
 scription must fall short in the attempt to convey any sketch 
 of that eccentric being to those who have not read him in the 
 pages of Jephson, ox seen hini in the mimicry of Foote, who, 
 in his portraits of ifaulkner, found the only sitter whom his 
 extravagant pencil pould not caricature ; for he had a solemn 
 intrepidity of egotism and a daring contempt of absurdity that 
 fairly outfaced imitation, and like Garrick's ' Ode on Shake- 
 speare,' which Jfoh^son sa^d defied criticism, so did George, in 
 the original spirit of his; own perfect buffonery, defy carica- 
 ture. He never deign^e^ to join in the laugh that he had 
 raised, nor seeniied to have a feeling of the ridicule he had 
 provoked. At the same time that he was pre-eminently and 
 by preference the b,utt and buffoon of the company, he could 
 find openings for h^ts of retaliation, which were such left- 
 handed thrusts as few could parry. Nobody could foresee 
 where they would fall — nobody, of course, was fore-armed ; 
 and as there was in his calculation but one super-eminent 
 character in the kingdom of Ireland, and he the printer of the 
 ' Dublin Journal,' there was no shield against George's arrows, 
 which flew where he listed, and hit or missed as chance 
 directed, he cared not about consequences. 
 
 " He gave good meat and excellent claret in abundance ; 
 I sate at his table once from dinner till two in the morning, 
 while George swallowed immense potations, with one solitary 
 
252 HECOLMICTIONS 01! 
 
 sodden strawberry, in the bottom of the glass, which he said 
 was recommended to him for its cooling properties. He never 
 lost his recollection or equilibrium the whole time, and was 
 in excellent foolery. . It was a singular coincidence, that there 
 Was a person in company who had received his reprieve at the 
 gallows, and the very judge who had passed sentence of death 
 upon him. This did not in the least disturb the harmony of 
 the society, nor embarrass any human creature present. AU 
 Went ofi' perfectly smooth ; and George, adverting to an origipal 
 portrait of Dean Swift, which hung in the room, told us abun- 
 dance of excellent and interesting anecdotes of the Dean and 
 himself, with minute precision and an importance irresistibly 
 ludicrous. There was also a portrait of his late lady, Mrs. 
 Paulknor, which either made the painter or George a liar ; for 
 it was frightfully ugly, whilst he swore she was the most 
 divine object in creation. George prosecuted Foote for lam- 
 pooning him on the stage of Dublin. His counsel, the Prime- 
 Serjeant, compared him to Socrates, and his libeller to Aristo- 
 phanes. This, I believe, was all that George got by his course 
 of law : but he was told he had the best of the bargain in the 
 comparison, and sate contented under the shadow of his 
 laurels." 
 
 The account of Soame Jenyns is no less happy. 
 
 " A disagreement about a name or a date will mar the 
 best story that ever was put together. Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 luckily, could not hear an interrupter of this sort ; Johnson 
 would not hear, or, if he heardj would not heed him. Soame 
 Jenyns heard him, heeded hinoj set him right, and took up his 
 tale where he had left it, without any diminution of its 
 humour, adding only a few more twists to his snuff-box, a few 
 more taps on the lid of it, with a preparatory grunt or two, 
 the invariable forerunner of the, amenity that was at the heels 
 of them. He was the man who bore his part in all societies 
 with the most even temper and undisturbed hilarity of any 
 man I ever knew. He came into your house at the very 
 moment you had put upon your card ; he dressed himself, to 
 do your party honour, in all the colours of. the jay ; his lace, 
 indeed, had long since lost its lustre, but his coat had faith- 
 fully retained its cut since the days when gentlemen wore 
 embroidered figured velvets, with short sleeves, high cuffs, 
 and buckram skii;ta. As Nature had cast him in the exact 
 
A' LITERAKY LIFE. 253 
 
 mould of an ill-made pair of stiff stays, he followed her so 
 close in the fashion of his coat, that it was doubted if he did 
 not wear them ; because he had a protuberant wen just under 
 his poll, he wore a wig that did not cover above half his head. 
 His eyes were protruded like the eyes of the lobster, who 
 wears them at the end of his feelers ; and yet there was room 
 between one of these and his nose for another wen, that added 
 nothing to his beauty. Yet I heard this good man very inno- 
 cently remark, when Gibbon published his history, that, he 
 wondered anybody so ugly could write a. book. 
 
 " Such was the exterior of a man who was the charm of the 
 circle, and gave a zest to every company he came into. His 
 pleasantry was of a sort peculiar to himself ; it harmonized 
 with everything ; it was like the bread to your dinner — you 
 did not, perhaps,' make it the whole or principal part of your 
 meal, but it was an admirable and wholesome auxiliary to 
 your other viands. Soame Jenyns told you no long stories, 
 engrossed not much of your attention, and was not angry with 
 those who did. His thoughts were original, and were apt to 
 have a very whimsical affinity to the paradox in them. There 
 was a terseness in his repartees that had a play of words as 
 well as of thought ; as, when speaking of the difference of 
 laying out money upon land, or purchasing into the funds, he 
 said, ' One was principal without interest, and the other 
 interest without principal.' " 
 
 Although the serious part of " The Wheel of Fortune " — 
 that is to say, the whole character of Peuruddock — is ad- 
 mirably conceived and admirably written (the recollection of 
 John Kemble in that play cau never be erased), Mr; Cumber- 
 land's power seemed to desert him whenever' he atteinpte4 
 tragedy or verse of any sort. His lines on " Affectation,'' which 
 have great merit, form the only exception that I remember to 
 this assertion : certainly his epic of " Calvary " does not ; 
 neither does his share in the " Richard Coeur de Lion" of Sir 
 James Bland Burgess. 
 
 AFFECTATION. 
 
 Why, Afifeotation, why this mock grimace ? 
 Go, silly thing, and hide that simpering face ! 
 Thy lisping prattle, and thy mincing gait, 
 AH thy false mimic fooleries I hate ; 
 For those are Folly's counterfeit, and she 
 Who is right foolish, hath the better plea : 
 
254 HECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Nature's true idiot I prefer to thee. 
 
 Why that soft, languish ? Why that drawling tone ? 
 
 Art sick ? art sleepy ? — Get thee hence : begone ! 
 
 I laugh at all those pretty baby tears, 
 
 Those flutterings, faintings, and unreal fears. 
 
 Can they deceive us ? Can such mummeries move, 
 
 Touch us with pity, or inspire with love ? 
 
 No, Affectation, vain is all thy art, 
 
 Those eyes may wander over every part, 
 
 They '11 never find their passage to the heart. 
 
 A great part of Mr. Oumberland's amusing work is taken up 
 by an account of his disastrous mission in Spain, which, 
 undefined in its object, and unsuccessful in its result, brought 
 nothing but disappointment to the Government or the nego- 
 tiator. After his return from Madrid, he fell back upon 
 literature, and closed a long and varied life, in an advanced 
 age, at Tunbridge Wells. 
 
 XXII. 
 FEMALE POETS. 
 
 MES. CLIVB, MRS. ACTON tlNDAL, MISS DAT, MBS. ROBERT BERING. 
 
 There never was a more remarkable contrast between the 
 temperament of the poetess and the temperament of the 
 woman, than that which exists between the thoughtful gravity, 
 the almost gloomy melancholy that characterise the writings 
 of that celebrated initial letter, the "V." of " Blackwood's 
 Magazine," and the charming, cheerful, light-hearted lady, 
 known as Mrs. Clive. This discrepancy has been acknow- 
 ledged before now to exist between the tastes and the tempers 
 of nations. The French, in their old day, before this last re- 
 volution, perhaps before any of their revolutions, the French 
 of our old traditions and our old travellers, the Sternes and 
 the Goldsmiths, with their Watteau pageantries, their dances 
 in the open air, and their patient love of the deepest wid most 
 unmingled tragedy, afibrded a notable instance of this con- 
 trast. But that which is observable in Mrs. Olive's case is 
 still more striking. I have never known any creature half so 
 cheerful. Happy sister, happy mother, happy wife, she even 
 bears the burden of a large. fortune and a great house without 
 the slightest diminution of the delightful animal sprits, which 
 
A LITERARY LirE. 255 
 
 always seem to me to be of her many gifts the choicest. More- 
 over, enjoyment seems to be her mode of thankfulness ; as, not 
 content with being happy herself, she has a trick of making 
 everybody happy that comes near her. I do not know how 
 she contrives it, but such is the effect. There is no resisting 
 the contagious laughter of those dancing eyes. 
 
 As, however, everybody that thinks deeply, as she does, 
 must have some moments of sadness, she is content to put 
 them into her writings : sometimes in prose, for her " Story 
 of the Great Drought " has an intensity of tragic power, a real- 
 isation of impossible horrors, such as gave their fascination 
 to the best works of Godwin ; sometimes in verse, where the 
 depth of thought and fearless originality of treatment, fre- 
 quently redeem the commonest subject from anything like 
 commonplace. Here is an example : — 
 
 THE QBAVE. 
 
 I stood within the grave's o'ershadowing vault ; 
 
 Gloomy and damp, it stretched its vast domain ; 
 Shades were its bovmdary ; for my straiued eye sought 
 
 For other limits to its width in vain. 
 
 Faint from the entrance came a daylight ray, 
 And distant sound of living men and thiugs ; 
 
 This, in the encountering darkness passed away, 
 That, took the tone in which a mourner sings. 
 
 I lit a torch at a sepulchral lamp. 
 
 Which shot a thread of light amid the gloom ; 
 
 And feebly burning 'gainst the rolling damp, 
 I bore it through the regions of the tomb. 
 
 Around me stretched the slumbers of the dead. 
 Whereof the silence ached upon mine ear ; 
 
 More and more noiseless did I note my tread, 
 And yet its echoes chUled my heart with fear. 
 
 The former men of every age and place. 
 From all their wandenngs, gathered round me lay ; 
 
 The dust of withered empires did I trace, 
 And stood mid generations passed away. 
 
 I saw whole cities, that in flood or fire. 
 
 Or famine, or the plague, gave up their breath ; 
 Whole armies, whom a day beheld expire. 
 
 Swept by ten thousands to the arms of death. 
 I saw the Old World's white and wave-swept bones, 
 
 A giant heap of creatures that had been ; 
 Far and confused the broken skeletons 
 
 Lay strewn beyond mine eyes' remotest keiL 
 
256- KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Death's various shrines — ^the urn, the stone, the lamp — 
 
 Were scattered round confused amid the dead ; 
 Symbols and types were mouldering in the damp. 
 
 Their shapes were wanting and their meaning fled. 
 Unspolcen tongues, perchance in praise or woe. 
 
 Were chronicled on tablets Time had swept ; 
 And deep were half their letters hid below 
 
 The thick, small dust of those they once had wept. 
 
 No hand was here to wipe the dust away.; 
 
 No reader of the writing traced beneath ; 
 No spirit sitting by its form of clay ; 
 
 No sigh nor sound from all the heaps of death. 
 
 One place alone had ceased to hold its prey ; 
 
 A form had pressed it and was there no more ; 
 The garments of the gi'ave beside it lay, 
 
 Where once they wrapped Hm on the rocky floor. 
 
 He only with returning footsteps broke 
 
 The eternal calm with which the tomb was bound ; 
 
 Among the sleeping dead alone He woke 
 
 And blessed with outstretched hands the host arouud. 
 
 Well is it that such blessing hovers here. 
 To soothe each sad survivor of the throng 
 
 Who haunt the portals of the solemn sphere, 
 And pour their woe the loaded air alcjng. 
 
 They to the verge have followed what they love, 
 
 And on the insuperable threshold stand ; 
 With cherished names its speechless calm reprove. 
 
 And stretch in the abyss their ungrasped baud. 
 
 But vainly there they seek their soul's relief. 
 And of the obdurate Grave its prey implore ; 
 
 Till death himself shall medicine their grief, 
 Closing their eyes by those they met before. 
 
 All that have died, the earth's whole race, repose 
 Where Death collects his treasures, heap on heap 
 
 O'er each one's busy day the nightshades close ; 
 Its actors, sufferers, schools, kings, armies — sleep. 
 
 It \v6uld be difficult to frame a better wish for the writer 
 and the woman, than that both may remain unchanged— that 
 the shadow may stiU cast its deep and thoughtful veil over the 
 poetry and the sunshine, and the blessing rest upon the life ! 
 
 The exact reverse of Mrs. CSive may be found in Mrs. Acton 
 Tindal, whose verse, so free, so buoyant, so firm and so grace- 
 ful, derives most of its charms from its resemblance to the 
 sweet and lovely creature by whom it was wi-itten. There 
 is a sparkling vividness in her style which has the life 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 257 
 
 and colour of painting. The very choice of her subjects is 
 picturesque. With an extent and variety of reading, remark- 
 able even now in one of the youngest of our female writers, she 
 instinctively fixes upon some theme of processional grace and 
 beauty, and throws all the truth and tenderness of her senti- 
 ment around figures already interesting by historical asso- 
 ciation. " The Infant Bridal " might be transferred to canvas 
 without altering a word. 
 
 " Richard Duke of Yoi-k, second son of Edward IV., was 
 married to Anne Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk in her own 
 right. The bridegroom was not five years old, and the bride 
 scarcely three. The ceremony was performed in St. Stephen's 
 Chapel, A. D. 1477." 
 
 The sunbeams of the early day 
 
 Streamed through the lattice grim, 
 And up the dark aisle's pillared Wity 
 
 Swelled loud the nuptial hymn ; 
 And passed along a gorgeous band 
 
 Of courtly dames aud fair, 
 Of belted barons of the land 
 
 The braveafc best were there. 
 
 But slowly moved the bright array. 
 
 For gently at its head 
 Two blooming children led the way 
 
 With short and doubtful tread : 
 The fair boy-bridegroom and the bride 
 
 (Like Cupid's train in eld). 
 Meekly and loving, side by side, 
 
 Each other's hands they held. 
 
 Half pleased and half surprised they scemeii, 
 
 For in each kindred eye 
 Love mixed with pity fondly gleamed. 
 
 And mournful gravity. 
 A fear, for them who knew no fear. 
 
 On each heart darkly fell ; 
 They view life's future through a tear 
 
 Who know the past too well. 
 
 The bridegroom bore a royal crown 
 
 Amid the shining hair. 
 That like a golden veil fell down 
 
 In tresses soft and fair. 
 The bearing of the noble child 
 
 His princely lineage told, 
 Beneath that brow so smooth and mild 
 
 The blood of warriors rolled. 
 S 
 
258 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 All coyly went the sweet babe-bride, 
 
 Yet oft with simple grace, 
 She raised, soft-stepping by his side. 
 
 Her dark eyes to his face. 
 And playfellows who loved her well 
 
 Crowns of white roses bore. 
 And lived in after years to tell 
 
 The infant bridal o'er. 
 
 Then words of import strange and deep 
 
 The hoary prelate said, 
 And some had turned away to weep, 
 
 And many bowed the head. 
 Their steady gaze those children meek 
 
 Upon the old man bent, 
 As earnestly they seemed to seek 
 
 The solemn word's intent. 
 
 Calm in the blest simplicity 
 
 That never woke to doubt ; 
 Calm in the holy purity 
 
 Whose presence bars shame out ! 
 Then turned they from each troubled brow, 
 
 'And many a downcast eye, 
 And gazed upon each other now 
 
 In wondering sympathy ; 
 
 And nestled close, with looks of love. 
 
 Upon the altar's stone ; 
 Such ties as Seraphs bind above 
 
 These little ones might own. 
 And sweetly was the babe-bride's cheek 
 
 Against the fair boy pressed. 
 All reverent, yet so fond and meek, 
 
 As kneeling to be blest. 
 
 Then smiled they on their grand array 
 
 And went forth hand in hsnd, 
 ■Well pleased to keep high holiday 
 
 Amid that gorgeous band. 
 Alas ! for those that early wed 
 
 With such prophetic gloom. 
 For sadly fell on each young head 
 
 The shadow of the tomb. 
 
 Scarce had the blossoms died away 
 
 Of the rose-wreaths they wore. 
 When to her niouldering ancestry 
 
 The little bride they bore. 
 Her marriage garlands o'er her bier. 
 
 Bedewed with tears, were cast ; 
 And still she smiled as though no fear 
 
 O'erclouded her at last. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 25!) 
 
 A life 08 short, and darker doom. 
 
 The gentle hoy befel : 
 He slept not in his father's tomb. 
 
 For him was heard no knell ! 
 One stifling pang amid his sleep 
 
 And the dark vale was passed ! 
 He woke with those who've ceased to weep, 
 
 Whose sun is ne'er o'ercast. 
 
 A garland floats around the throne, 
 
 Entwined by angel hands, 
 Of such fair earth-buds, newly blown. 
 
 Culled from a thousand lands, 
 A melody most pure and sweet 
 
 Unceasingly they sing. 
 And blossoms o'er the mercy-seat. 
 
 The loved babe-angels fling ! 
 
 1 have now to introduce another fair artist into the female 
 gallery of which I am so proud ; an artist, whose works seem 
 to me to bear the same relation to sculpture that those of Mrs. 
 Acton Tindal do to painting. The poetry of Miss Day is sta- 
 tuesque in its dignity, in its purity, in its repose. Purity is 
 perhaps the distinguishing quality of this fine writer, per- 
 vading the conception, the thoughts, and the diction. But 
 she must speak for herself. As " The Infant Bridal " might 
 form a sketch for an historical picture, so " Charlotte Corday " 
 is a model, standing ready to be chiselled in Parian stone. 
 
 Stately and beautiful and chaste. 
 
 Forth went the dauntless maid, 
 Her blood to yield, her youth to waste, 
 
 That carnage might be stayed. 
 This solemn purpose filled her soul, 
 
 There was no room for fear, 
 She heard the cry of vengeance roll 
 
 Prophetic on her ear. 
 
 She thought to stem the course of crime 
 
 By one appalling deed. 
 She knew to perish in her prime 
 
 Alone would be her meed. 
 No tremor shook her woman's breast. 
 
 No terror blanched her brow. 
 She spoke, she smiled, she took her rest. 
 
 And hidden held her vow. 
 
 She mused upon her country's wrong, 
 
 Upon the tyrant's guilt. 
 Her settled purpose grew more strong 
 
 As blood was freshly spilt ; 
 S2 
 
260 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 What though the fiiir smooth haud were alight ! 
 
 It grasped the sharpened steel ; 
 A triumph flashed before her sight 
 
 The death that it should deal. 
 
 She sought her victim in his den^ 
 
 The tiger in his lair ; 
 And though she found him feeble then. 
 
 There was no thought to spare. 
 Fast through his dying guilty heart. 
 
 That pity yet withstood, 
 She made her gleamiup; we.ipon dart. 
 
 And stained her soul with blood. 
 
 She bore the buffets and the jeers 
 
 Of an infuriate crowd ; 
 She asked no grace, she showed no fear. 
 
 She owned her act aloud. 
 She only quailed when woman's cries 
 
 Bewailed the monster's fate. 
 Her lips betrayed her soul's surprise 
 
 That fiends gained aught but hate. 
 
 She justified her deed of blood 
 
 In stern, exalted phrase, 
 As in the judgment-hall she stood 
 
 With calm, intrepid gaze. 
 And when she heard her awful doom, 
 
 Before the morn to die. 
 Her cheek assumed a brighter bloom, 
 
 And triumph lit her eye. 
 
 She marked a painter's earnest gaze. 
 
 She raised to him her face. 
 That he for men in other days 
 
 Her raptured mien might trace. 
 Some bold heroic words she penned 
 
 To him her life who gave, 
 And as approached her fearful end, 
 
 Her soul gi-ew yet more bi-avo. 
 
 She wore the bonds, the robe of red, 
 
 As martyrs wear their crown ; 
 She begged no mercy on her head. 
 
 She called no curses down ; 
 It was enough that she fulfilled 
 
 The work that was decreed ; 
 It was enough a voice was stilled 
 
 That doomed the just to bleed. 
 
 So beautiful, so filled with life. 
 
 So doomed, she passed along ; 
 Above the sense, the sound of strife, 
 
 Alone in the vast throng. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 261 
 
 Some with mute reverence lowly bowed. 
 
 As thns tho victim went ; 
 And some outpouring hatred loud, 
 
 The air with curses rent. 
 
 Without one tint of fresh youth paled, 
 
 Without one quivering breath. 
 Without one step that weakly failed, 
 
 That maiden sped to death ; 
 And with her lips yet glowing red, 
 
 And bright her beaming eyes, 
 To the sharp axe she bowed her hear!, 
 
 And closed her sacrifice. 
 
 Yet two more female figures, embodying a stern lesson. 
 
 THE TWO MAUDES. 
 
 Broidered robe, bespangled vest, 
 Raiment for a palace guest, 
 
 Weai'S proud Maude to-night; 
 And her haughty smile is gay, 
 As shines forth that rich array 
 
 In the mirror bright. 
 
 Now, with triumph on her cheek. 
 And with looks that conquest speak, 
 
 See her pass along ; 
 Listen to the murmured praise, 
 Mark the fixed admiring gaze 
 
 Of the courtly throng ! 
 
 Xow she joins the stately dance. 
 And her tutored grace enchants, 
 
 Faultless is her mien ; 
 And of all the lovely crowd 
 She can hear it whispered loud 
 
 She to-night is queen. 
 
 And of all the vestments there 
 Hers is richest and most rare, 
 
 Wondrous is its cost ; 
 With apparel of less pride, 
 Where so many shone beside 
 
 She had triumph lost. 
 
 Therefore 't was she gave command, 
 When the courtly ball was planned, 
 
 That her robe should be, 
 Though the time for toil was brief, 
 M'ith the choicest flower and leaf 
 
 Rich iu broidery. 
 
262 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 If for this be weary sighs. 
 If for this be sleepless eyes, 
 
 She no less will shine ; 
 Unimpaired her bloom shall be, 
 And from care her bosom free, 
 
 In her vesture fine. 
 
 Broidered robe, bespangled rest. 
 Raiment for a palace guest, 
 
 Maude the poor hath wrought ; 
 She who as a May-day queen 
 Danced upon the village-green, 
 
 Of gay Nature taught. 
 
 Then the sunshine, breeze and showei 
 Played with her as with a flower ; 
 
 Ruddy bloom had she ; 
 As a balmy blushing morn, 
 When the rose blows, and the thorn, 
 
 She was sweet to see. 
 
 Now with pallor on her cheek. 
 And with looks that sadness speak, 
 
 See her languid rise ; 
 Listen to the harsh command, 
 See her faint and trembling stand, 
 
 Whilst her task she plies. 
 
 Thronging to her spirit come 
 Memories of village home. 
 
 Bee and flower and bird. 
 Ruddy beam of early day. 
 White-fleeced lambs, in sportive play. 
 
 Low of dappled herd ; 
 
 Breezy breath of heath-crossed hill. 
 Silvery sound of trickling rill. 
 
 Bank where violets grow ; 
 And her heart is throbbing fast, 
 With these pictures of the past, 
 
 But no tears may flow. 
 
 Fevered is her low-bent brow. 
 Wasted are her young limbs now, 
 
 Joy hath lost its home ; 
 Short the respite for relief, 
 Stolen slumbers far too brief 
 
 For soft dreams to come. 
 
 Tainted is the air she breathes, 
 Perfumeless the gaud she wreathes, 
 
 Garland false and cold. 
 And the hearts aiound her seem 
 As its flowers of mimic beam, 
 
 They no balm unfold. 
 
A LITERARY LIFIO. 263 
 
 Kow before her dazzled eyes 
 Lurid phantasms arise, 
 
 Light is wasting fleet, 
 And the labourer more intent, 
 Lest the fitful ray be spent 
 
 Ere her talk's complete. 
 
 But the darkness gathers fast, 
 And she soarcely knows at last 
 
 How her fingers ply ; 
 And she thinks it wondrous soon, 
 Since the hour of glaring noon 
 
 That the night is nigh 
 
 Now her work is done. — Behold, 
 Ye who shine in silk and gold. 
 
 What is its high cost ! 
 She, who strove at your behest, 
 She, whose eyes are robbed of rest, 
 
 Sight through toil hath lost. 
 
 Woe to you, vain child of clay ! 
 Woe to you in robes so gay, 
 
 Queens might envy them ! 
 \ ou with jewels overdone, 
 Her have robbed who had but one 
 
 Uf a priceless gem ! 
 
 No words of mine could add to tlie force and eloquence of 
 this pleading — I had almost said of this fulmination. What, I 
 would add, should go rather in mitigation of the crime im- 
 puted to the courtly beauty. Selfish as vanity is— dangerous 
 as leading to all the sins that follow upon frivolity, I have 
 a true faith in the general kindliness aod the general good- 
 training of our young countrywomen, whether of the village 
 green, or of the palace circle. I do not believe that any 
 Enghsh lady would knowingly purchase a splendid (h'ess at 
 the cost of health to the artificer. Let them once think — let 
 them once be brought to think — whether they can reasonably 
 expect their orders to be executed within a given time, and 
 what may be the amount of suffering caused by such execu- 
 tion, and, my life upon it, our Lady Maudes would give up 
 their furbelows, and their embroideries, and trust to their 
 native charms of grace and modesty to win as much admira- 
 tion as they know what to do with. But then they must be 
 taught to think ; and in matters of humanity, they could 
 hardly find finer precepts than in the poems of Miss Daj'. 
 
2C1 RECOLLECnONS OP 
 
 These lady poets are all my friends; I add yet another, 
 liersoualiy a stranger, but still a friend, to the list— Mrs. 
 Eobert Bering. 
 
 CHUKOH SEKVIOES. 
 
 The chimes from yonder steeple 
 
 Bing merrily and loud, 
 And groups of eager people 
 
 Towards their music crowd. 
 
 Before the altaya railing 
 
 A bride and bridegroom stand, 
 And laoy folds are veiling 
 
 The loveliest in the land. 
 
 And every ear is trying, 
 
 While all beside is still. 
 To hear the bride replying 
 
 Her soft but firm "I will." 
 
 The soft " I will " is spoken, 
 
 A glance as soft exchanged, — 
 That vow shall ne'er be broken 
 
 Nor those fond hearts estranged. 
 
 Another train advances. 
 
 No bridal train is this. 
 Yet there are joyous glances. 
 
 And whispered words of bliss. 
 
 With youthful pride and pleasure 
 
 Approach a happy pair. 
 Their first and darling treasure 
 
 Within the church they bear. 
 
 Their babe is now receiving 
 
 Upon its placid face. 
 The badge of the believing. 
 
 The holy sign of grace. 
 
 Sweet babe ! this world is hollow, 
 
 A world of woe and strife. 
 Take up thy cross and follow 
 
 Where leads the Lord of Life. 
 
 Another train is wending 
 
 Within the church its way. 
 Whilst prayers are still ascending 
 
 For blessings on that day. 
 
 But here no bride is blushing ; 
 
 And here no babe is blest ; 
 But mourners' tears are gushing 
 
 For one laid down to rest 
 
A LITEKARY LIFE. S35 
 
 Bright dawns the bridal moi-ning ; 
 
 The font to us is dear j 
 But come, and bear the warning 
 
 That 's spoken to us here ! 
 
 A blight may soon be falling 
 
 On joys however pure, 
 But let VIS make our calling 
 
 And our election sure. 
 
 And then the day of sorrow 
 
 Which lays us in the earth, 
 Shall have a brighter morrow 
 
 Than that which saw oiir birlh. 
 
 The sweetness and melody of these stanzas, as well as their 
 pervading holiness, render them no unfitting couclusion to 
 this little garland of verses, varying in manner, but of which 
 we may truly say that they are in tone and feeling moat 
 English and most feminine. 
 
 XXIII. 
 CAVALIER POETS. 
 
 VISIT TO EOTHEEPIELD GRAYS. 
 EICHAKD LOVELACE, EOGEK L'ESTBANGE, THE MAEQUIS OF MONTKOSE. 
 
 If there be one thing more than another in the nice 
 balance of tastes and prejudices (for I do not speak here of 
 principles) which inclines us now to the elegance of Charles, 
 now to the strength of Cromwell — which disgusts us alter- 
 nately with the license of the Cavaliers and the fanaticism of 
 the Roundheads ; it would be the melancholy ruins of cast- 
 down castles and plundered shrines, that meet our eyes all 
 over our fair land, and nowhere in greater profusion than in 
 this district, lying as it does in the very midst of some of the 
 most celebrated battles of the Civil Wars. To say nothing 
 of the siege of Reading, which more even than the vandalism 
 of the Reformation completed the destruction of that noble 
 abbey, the third in rank and size in England, with its mag- 
 nificent church, its cloisters, and its halls, covering thirty 
 acres of buildings — and such buildings ! within the outer 
 courts ; — to say nothing of that most reckless barbarity just 
 
266 BECOLLECTIOKS OF 
 
 at our door— we in our little village of Aberleigt lie between 
 Basing-Houae to the south, whose desperately defended walls 
 offer httle more now than a mere site— and Donnington to 
 the west, where the ruined gate-towers upon the hill alone 
 remain of that strong fortress, which overlooked the well- 
 contested field of Newbury— and Chalgrove to the north, 
 where the reaper, as he binds his sheaf, stiU pauses to tell you 
 the very place where Hampden fell. Every spot has its 
 history ! Look at a wooden spii-e, and your companion 
 shakes his head, and says that it has been so ever since the 
 Cavaliers were blown up in the church-tower ! Ask the 
 history of a crumbling wall, and the answer is pretty sure to 
 be, Cromwell ! That his Highness the Lord Protector did 
 leave what an accomplished friend of mine caUs " his peculiar 
 impressions " upon a great many places in our neighbourhood 
 is certain ; on so many, that there is no actual or authentic 
 catalogue of all ; and in some cases there is nothing but 
 general tradition, and the nature of the "impressions" in 
 question, to vouch for the fact of their destruction at that 
 period. 
 
 Amongst these, one of the edifices that must have been 
 best worth preserving, and is even now most interesting 
 to see, is the grand old castellated mansion, which in the 
 reign of Elizabeth belonged to one of her favourite courtiers, 
 and was known as Master Comptroller's House, at Grays. 
 
 The very road to it is singularly interesting. Passing 
 through the town, which increases in growth every day until 
 one wonders when and where it will stop, and looking with 
 ever-fresh admiration at the beautiful lace-work window of 
 the old Friary, which I long to see preserved in the fithest 
 manner, by forming again the chief ornament of a church, 
 and then driving under the arch of the Great "Western 
 Railway, and feeling the strange vibration of some monster 
 train passing over our heads^a proceeding which never fails 
 to make my pony show off his choicest airs and graces, 
 pricking up his pretty ears, tossing his slender head, dancing 
 upon four feet, and sometimes rearing upon two — we arrive 
 at the long, low, picturesque old bridge, the oldest of all the 
 bridges that cross the Thames, so narrow that no two vehicles 
 can pass at once, and that over every pier triangular spaces 
 have been devised for the safety of foot-passengers. On the 
 
A ]JTEHARy LIFE. 267 
 
 centre arch is a fisherman's hut, occupying the place once filled 
 by a friar's cell, and covering a still-existing chapel, dedicated 
 to the Virgin Mary, now put to secular uses —a dairy or a cellar. 
 
 A little way down the river is one of the beautiful islands 
 of the Thames, now a smooth and verdant meadow, edged 
 round with old willow pollards, calmly reflected in the bright, 
 clear waters, but giving back in the twelfth century a far 
 different scene. Here was fought a wager of battle between 
 Eobert de Montford, appellant, and Henry de Essex, here- 
 ditary Standard-bearer of the Kings of England, defendant, 
 by command, and in the presence of Henry the Second. The 
 story is told very minutely and graphically by Stowe. Eobert 
 de Montford at length struck down his adversary, " who fell," 
 says the old historian, " after receiving many wounds ; and 
 the King, at the request of several noblemen, his relations, 
 gave permission to the monks to inter the body, commanding 
 that no further violence should be offered to it. The monks 
 took up the vanquished knight, and carried him into the 
 abbey, where he revived. When he recovered from his 
 wounds, he was received into the community, and assumed 
 the habit of the order, his lands being forfeited to the King." 
 I have always thought that this story would afford excellent 
 scope to some great novelist, who might give a fair and accu- 
 rate picture of monastic life, and, indeed, of the monastic 
 orders, as landlords, neighbours, teachers, priests, without 
 any mixture of controversial theology, or inventing any pre- 
 decessors of Luther or Wicliffe. How we should have liked 
 to have heard all about " The Monastery," about the "Abbot," 
 and Father Eustace, untroubled by Henry Warden or John 
 Knox ! From the moment that they appear, our comfort in 
 the book vanishes, just as completely as that of the good easy 
 Abbot Boniface himself There we are in the middle of 
 vexed questions, with the beautiful pile of Melrose threatening 
 every moment to fall about our ears ! 
 
 Our business now, however, is to get over the bridge, which 
 after the excitement of one dispute with a pugnacious can ier, 
 and another with a saucy groom, whose caracoling horse had 
 wellnigh leaped over the parapets on either side ; after some 
 backing of other carriages, and some danger of being forced to 
 back our own, w^e at last achieve, and enter, unscathed, the 
 pleasant village of Caversham. 
 
268 KECOILECTIONS OF 
 
 To the left, through a highly-ornamented lodge, lies the 
 road to the ancient seat of the Blounts, a house made famous 
 by Pope, where the fair ladies of his love, the sisters Martha 
 and Teresa, lived and died. A fine old place it is ; and a pic- 
 turesque road leads to it, winding through a tract called the 
 Warren, between the high challs; cliffs, clothed with trees of 
 all varieties, that for so many miles fence in the northern side 
 of the Thames, and the lordly river itself, now concealed by 
 tall elms, now open and shining in the full light of the 
 summer sun. There is not such a flower-bank in Oxfordshire 
 ns Caversham Warren. 
 
 Our way, however, leads straight on. A few miles farther, 
 and a turn to the right conducts us to one of the grand old 
 •village churches, which give so much of character to EngUsh 
 landscape. A large and beautiful pile it is. The tower, half 
 clothed with ivy, standing with its charming vicarage and its 
 pretty vioarage-garden on a high eminence, overhanging one 
 of the finest bends of the great river. A woody lane leads 
 from the church to the bottom of the chalk-olitf; one side of 
 which stands out from the road below, like a promontory, 
 surmounted by the laurel hedges and flowery arbours of the 
 vicarage-garden, and crested by a noble cedar of Lebanon. 
 This is Shiplake church, famed far and near for its magnificent 
 oak carving, and the rich painted glass of its windows, col- 
 lected, long before such adornments were fashionable, by the 
 fine taste of the late vicar, and therefore filled with the very 
 choicest specimens of medireval art, chiefly obtained from the 
 remains of the celebrated Abbey of St. Bertin, near St. Omers, 
 sacked during the first French Eevolution. In this church 
 Alfred Tennyson was married. Blessings be upon him ! I 
 never saw the great poet in my life, but thousands who never 
 may have seen him either, but who owe to his poetry the 
 purest and richest intellectual enjoyment, will echo and re- 
 echo the benison. 
 
 A little way farther, and a turn to the left leads to another 
 spot consecrated by genius — Woodcot, where Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton passed the earlier years of his married life, 
 and wrote several of his most powerful novels. I have always 
 thought that the scenery of Paul Clifibrd caught some of its 
 tone from that wild and beautiful country, for wild and 
 beautiful it is. The terrace in the grounds commands a most 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 269 
 
 extensive prospect ; and beneath a clump of trees on the 
 common behind the house, is the only spot where on a clear 
 day Windsor may be seen on one side, and Oxford on the 
 other — looking almost like the domes and towers and pinnaclen 
 that sometimes appear in the clouds — a fairy picture that the 
 next breeze may waft away ! This beautiful residence stands 
 so high, that, one of its former possessors, Admiral Fraser 
 (grandfather to that dear friend of mine who is the present 
 owner), could discover Woodcot Clump from the mast of his 
 own ship at Spithead, a distance of sixty miles. 
 
 "Wyfold's Court, another pretty place a little farther on, 
 which also belonged once to a most dear friend, possesses the 
 finest wych-elms in England. Artists come from far and near 
 to paint these stately trees, whose down-dropping branches 
 and magnificent height are at once so graceful and so rich. 
 They are said always to indicate ecclesiastical possession, but 
 no trace of such dependency is to be found in the title-deed.s, 
 or in the tenure by which in feudal times the lands were held 
 — that of presenting a rose to the King, should he pass by 
 a certain road on a May day. 
 
 And now we approach Eotherfield Grays— its bowery lanes, 
 its wild rugged commons, and its vast beech woods, from the 
 edge of which projects, every here and there, a huge cherry- 
 tree, looking, in the blossoming spring-time, as if carved iii 
 ivory, so exquisite is the whiteness, casting upon the ferny- 
 turf underneath showers of snowy petals that blanch the 
 very ground, and diffusing around an almond-like odour, that 
 mingles with the springing thyme and the flowering gorse, 
 and loads the very air with its balm. 
 
 Exquisite is the pleasantness of these beech woods, where 
 the light is green from the silky verdure of the young leaves, 
 and where the mossy woodpaths are embroidered with thou- 
 sands of flowers, from the earliest violet and primrose, the 
 wood-anemone, the wood-sorrel, the daffodil, and the wild 
 hyacinth of spring, to the wood-vetch, the woodroof, the 
 campanulas, and the orchises of summer ;— for all the Enghsh 
 orchises are here : that which so curiously imitates the dead 
 oak leaf, that again which imitates the human figure ; the 
 commonest but most pretty bee orchis, and the parallel ones 
 which are oailed after the spider, the frog, and the fly. Strange 
 freak of nature, thus, in a lower order of creation, to mimic 
 
270 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 her own handiworks in a higher !— to mimic even our human 
 mimicry!— for that which is called the man orchis is most 
 like the imitation of a human figure that a child might cut 
 from coloured paper. Strange, strange mimicry ! but full of 
 variety, full of beauty, full of odour. Of all the fragrant 
 blossoms that haunt the woods, I know none so exquisite as 
 that night-scented orchis which is called indifferently, the 
 butterfly or the lily of the valley. Another glory of these 
 woods, an autumnal glory, is the whole fungus tribe, various 
 and innumerable as the mosses ; from the sober drab-coloured 
 fungi, spotted with white, which so much resemble a sea-egg, 
 to those whose deep and gorgeous hues would shame the 
 tinting of an Indian shell. Truffles, too, are found beneath 
 the earth ; and above it are deposited huge masses of the 
 strange compound called in modern geological phrase Ag- 
 glomerate. Flint and coral, and gravel, and attrited pebbles 
 enter into the combination of this extraordinary natural con- 
 glomeration, which no steel, however hardened, can separate, 
 and which seems to have been imitated very successfully by 
 the old builders in their cements and the substances used in 
 the filling up of their grandest structures, as may be seen in 
 the layers which unite the enormous slabs of granite in the 
 Roman walls at Silchester, as well as in the works of the old 
 monkish architects at Reading Abbey. Another beauty of 
 this country is to be found in the fields— now of the deep- 
 red clover, with its shining crimson tops, now of the gay and 
 brilliant saintfoin {the holy hay), the bright pink of whose 
 flowery spikes gives to the ground the look of a bed of roses. 
 
 And now we reach the gate that admits us down a steep 
 descent to the Rectory-house, a large substantial mansion, 
 covered with Banksia roses, and finely placed upon a natural 
 terrace— a fertile valley below, and its own woods and orchard- 
 trees above. 
 
 My friend the rector, raciest of men, is an Oxford divine of 
 the old school ; a ripe scholar ; one who has travelled wide 
 and far, and is learned in the tongues, the manners, and the 
 literature of many nations ; but who is himself English to the 
 backbone in person, thought, and feeling.. Orthodox is he, 
 no doubt. Nowhere are church and schools, and parish 
 visitingg, better cared for ; but he has a knack of attending 
 also to the creature comforts of all about him, of calling beef 
 
A LITEKAEY LIFE. 271 
 
 and blankets in aid of his precepts, which have a wonderful 
 efFeot in promoting their efficacy. Mansion and man are 
 large alike, and alike overflowing with hospitality and kindli- 
 ness. His original and poignant conversation is so joyous 
 and good-humoured, the making everybody happy is so evi- 
 dently his predominant taste, that the pungency only adds to 
 the flavour of his talk, and never oasts a moment's shade over 
 its sunny heartiness.* 
 
 Right opposite the Rectory terrace, framed like a picture by 
 the rarest and stateliest trees, stands the objf ct of my pil- 
 grimage, Grays' Court, a comparatively modern house, erected 
 amongst the remains of a vast old castellated mansion, be- 
 longing first to the noble family of Gray, who gave their 
 name, not merely to the manor, but to the district ; then to 
 the house of Knollys ; and latterly to the Stapletons, two 
 venerable ladies of that name being its present possessors. 
 
 All my life I had heard of Grays' Court ; of the rich yet 
 wild country in which it is placed ; of the park so finely un- 
 dulated, and so profusely covered by magnificent timber ; of 
 the huge old towers which seem to guard and sentinel the 
 present house ; of the far-extended walls, whose foundations 
 may yet be traced, in dry seasons, among the turf of the 
 lawn ; of the traditions which as.sign the demolition of those 
 ancient walls to the wars of the Commonwealth ; and of the 
 strange absence of all documentary evidence upon the subject. 
 
 Another cause for my strong desire to see this interesting 
 place is to be found in its association with one of those his- 
 torical personages in whom I have always"taken the warmest 
 interest. Lord Essex (whose mother was the famous Lettice 
 Knollys, who had had for her second husband another of Queen 
 Elizabeth's favourites, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), when 
 confined in London, a prey to the tyranny of Elizabeth, peti- 
 tioned, in one of those eloquent letters to the Virgin Queen 
 which will always remain amongst the earliest and finest spe- 
 cimens of English prose, to be allowed to repair, for the benefit 
 of his health, " to Master Comptroller's house at Grays." Ah ! 
 we can fancy, when looking over this lovely valley, with its 
 woods, its verdure, its sweep of hills, its feeling of the near 
 river, we can well fancy how the poet-heart of the great Earl 
 
 * Since this passage was written my kind and valued friend is no 
 more. 
 
272 KECOLLECTIOXS OP 
 
 must have longed to leave the trial, the turmoil, the jangling, 
 the treachery, the weary fears, the bitter humiliations of his 
 London captivity, and to taste once more the sweet air, the 
 pleasant sights, the calmness and the quiet of the country. 
 Hope and comfort must have come with the thought. One 
 of the prettiest pictures that I know is an extract from a con- 
 temporary letter, in the first volume of Mr. Craik's most in- 
 teresting book, " The Romance of the Peerage," telling of the 
 Earl and Countess, during one of the daily visits that she was 
 at one time permitted to pay him when he was a prisoner in 
 Essex House, walking together in the garden, " now he, now 
 she, reading ohe to the other." The whole taste and feeling 
 of the man, the daily habit of his life, is shown in this little 
 circumstance. And this is the brave soldier who, when ex- 
 amined before the Privy Council, a council composed of open 
 enemies and treacherous frieuds, had been kept nearly all day 
 kneeling at the bottom of the table. Tyranny drove him into 
 madness, and then exacted the full penalty of the wild acts 
 which that madness prompted. But Essex was a man in ad- 
 vance of his age ; the companion as well as the patron of 
 poets ; the protector of Papist and Puritan ; the fearless as- 
 serter of liberty of conscience ! He deserved a truer friend 
 than Bacon, a more merciful judge than Elizabeth. 
 
 To the house of Knollys belongs another interesting asso- 
 ciation, that strangest of genealogical romances, the great case 
 of the Banbury peerage. The cause was decided (if decided it 
 can be called even now) by evidence found in the parish re- 
 gister of Eotherfield Grays. 
 
 The place has yet another attraction in its difficulty of 
 access ; the excellent ladies of the Court admitting few be- 
 yond their own immediate connections and nearest frieuds. 
 One class, to be sure, finds its way there as if by instinct — 
 the poor, who, as the birds of the air detect the grain under 
 the surface in the newly-sown ground, are sure to find out the 
 soil where charity lies germinating. Few excepting these 
 constant visitors are admitted. But, besideis the powerful 
 introduction of our mutual friend the rectoi-, a nephew of 
 theirs, and his most sweet and interesting wife, had for some 
 time inhabited the house which had been the home of my own 
 youth, so that my name was not strange to them ; and they 
 had the kindness to allow me to walk over their beautiful 
 
A LITERAEY IIWE. 273 
 
 grounds and gardens, to see their charming Swiss dairy, with 
 its marbles and its china, and, above all, to satisfy my cu- 
 riosity by looking over the towers which still remain of the 
 old castle — piles whose prodigious thickness of wall and dis- 
 tance from each other give token of the immense extent anJ 
 importance of the place. It is said to have been built round 
 two courts. Alnwick and Windsor rose to my thoughts as I 
 contemplated these gigantic remains, and calculated the space 
 that the original edifice must have covered. One of the old 
 buildings is still occupied by the well of the castle, n well 
 three hundred feet deep, which supplies the family with water. 
 It will give some idea of the scale of the great mansion to say 
 that the wheel by which the water is raised is twenty-five feet 
 in diameter. Two donkeys are employed in the operation. 
 One donkey suffices for the parallel but much smaller well at 
 Carisbrook, where the animal is so accustomed to be put in 
 for the mere purpose of exhibiting the way in which the water 
 is raised to the visitors who go to look at the poor king's last 
 prison, that he just makes the one turn necessary to show the 
 working of the machine, and then stops of his own accord. 
 The donkeys at Grays, kept for the use and not for show, 
 have not had a similar opportunity of displaying their sa- 
 gacity. 
 
 One cannot look at the place without a feeling of adapted- 
 ness. It is the very spot for a stronghold of the cavaliers ; a 
 spot where Lovelace and Montrose might each have fought 
 and each have sung, defending it to the last loaf of bread and 
 the last charge of powder, and yielding only to the irresistible 
 force of Cromwell's cannonade. 
 
 Much interest is imparted to the lays of these cavalier 
 poets, when we consider the circumstances under which they 
 were written. They were no carpet knights, pouring forth 
 effusions of chivalrous loyalty in the security of a Court, or to 
 amuse the leisure of a mild and temporary captivity ; but, for 
 that very loyalty which they boasted so loudly, Montrose lay 
 under sentence of death, and Richard Lovelace was pining in 
 the crowded and loathsome prison called the Gatehouse, at 
 Westminster. Perhaps the fate of the great Marquis was the 
 happier of the two. He fell with the fame and consolations 
 of a martyr, as his master had fallen before him ; whilst his 
 brother poet was indeed released by the ascendant party 
 
274 BECOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 after the death of the King, when the royalists were so scat- 
 tered and broken as to be no longer formidable ; but, when at 
 last set free, he was penniless ; the lady of his love (Lucy 
 Saoheverel), hearing that he had died of his wounds at Dun- 
 kirk, was married to another person; and, oppressed with 
 want and misery, he fell into a consumption. Wood relates 
 that " he became very poor in body and purse, was the object 
 of charity, went in ragged clothes, and mostly lodged in ob- 
 scure and dirty places " — in one of which, situated in some 
 alley near Shoe Lane, he died in 1658. What a reverse for one 
 whose gallant bearing and splendid person seem to have cor- 
 responded so entirely with the noble and chivalrous spirit of 
 his poetry ! Faults and virtues, Richard Lovelace, as a man 
 and as a writer, may be taken as an impersonation of the 
 cavalier of the civil wars, with much to charm the reader, aiid 
 still more to captivate the fair. 
 
 10 ALTHEA, PROM PBISON. 
 
 When love, with nnconfin^d wings. 
 
 Hovers within my gates. 
 And my divine Althea brings 
 
 To whisper at my grates ; 
 When I lie tangled in her hair, 
 
 And fetter'd with her eye, 
 The birds, that wanton in the air. 
 
 Know no such liberty. 
 
 When flowing cups run swiftly round. 
 
 With no allaying Thames, 
 Our careless heads with roses crown'd 
 
 Our hearts with loyal flames ; 
 When thirsty grief in wine we steep. 
 
 When healths and draughts go free. 
 Fishes that tif»ple in the deep. 
 
 Know no such Uberty. 
 
 When linnet-Uke confinfed, I 
 
 With shriUer note shall sing 
 The mercy, sweetness, majesty, 
 
 And glories of my King ; 
 When I shall voice aloud how good 
 
 He is, how great should be. 
 The enlarged winds that curl the flood 
 
 Know no such liberty. 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 
 That for an hermitage ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 275 
 
 If I have freedom in my love, 
 
 And in my soul am free, 
 Angels alone that soar above 
 
 Enjoy such liberty. 
 
 TO LUOASTA, ON GOING TO THE WABS. 
 
 Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind. 
 
 That from the nunnery 
 Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, 
 
 To war and arms I fly. 
 
 True, a new mistress now I choose. 
 
 The first foe in the field ; 
 And with a stronger faith embrace 
 
 A sword, a horse, a shield. 
 
 Yet this inconstancy is such 
 
 As you, too, shall adore : 
 I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 
 Loved I not honour more. 
 
 ON LBLT'S PORTKAIT OF OHABLES THE FIRST. 
 
 See what an humble bravery doth shine. 
 
 And grief triumphant breaking through each line, 
 
 How it commands the face ! So sweet a scorn 
 
 Never did happy misery adorn ! 
 
 So sacred a contempt that others show 
 
 To this (o' the height of all the wheel) below ; 
 
 That mightiest mouaruha by this shaded book 
 
 May copy out their proudest, richest look. 
 
 An elegant and accurate critic, Sir Egerton Brydgea, has 
 pointed out a singular coincidence between an illustration 
 employed by Lovelace and a line for which Lord Byron has 
 been, as it seems to me, unjustly censured in the " Bride of 
 Abydos." The noble poet says of bis heroine — 
 
 " The mind, the music breathing from her face ;" 
 
 and he vindicated the expression on the obvious ground of its 
 clearness and truth. Lovelace, in a Song of Orpheus, lament- 
 ing the death of his wife, uses the same words in nearly the 
 same sense. Lord Byron had probably never seen the poem, 
 or, if he had, the illustration had perhaps remained in his 
 mind, to be unconsciously reproduced by that strange process 
 of amalgamation which so often combines memory with 
 invention. These are the lines sung by Orpheus, who works 
 out the idea too far : — 
 
 T 2 
 
276 BECOLLECIIONS OP 
 
 Oh, could you view the melody, 
 
 Of every grace. 
 
 And music of her face, 
 You 'd drop a tear, 
 Seeing more harmony 
 In her bright eye 
 
 Thau now you hear. 
 
 The poem of " Loyalty Confined " is supposed to have been 
 written by Sir Roger L'Estrange, while imprisoned on account 
 of his adherence to Charles the First. On a first reading, 
 these terse and vigorous stanzas seem too much like a para- 
 phrase of Lovelace's fine address " To Althea, from Prison ;" 
 but there is so much that is original, both in thought and 
 expression, that we cannot but admit that the apparent imita- 
 tion is the result of similarity of sentiment in a similar situa- 
 tion. These imprisoned cavaliers think and feel alike, and 
 must needs speak the same language : — 
 
 Beat on, proud billows. Boreas, blow ; 
 
 Swell-curlfed waves, high as Jove's roof; 
 Your incivility doth show 
 
 That innocence is tempest-proof; 
 Though truly heroes frown, my thoughts are calm ; 
 Then strike affiotiou, for my wounds are balm. 
 
 That which the world miscalls a jail, 
 
 A private closet is to me ; 
 Whilst a good conscience is my bail, 
 
 And innocence my liberty ; 
 Locks, bars, and solitude together met 
 Make me no prisoner, but an anchoret. 
 
 I, whilst I wish'd to be retir'd, 
 
 Into this private room was turn'd. 
 As if their wisdoms had conspired 
 
 The Salamander should be bum'd ; 
 Or like those sophists, that would drown a fish, 
 Even constraiu'd to suffer what I wish. 
 
 The oynio loves his poverty. 
 
 The pelican her Wilderness, 
 And 'tis the In($an's pride to be 
 
 Naked on frozen Caucasus : 
 Contentment cannot smart. Stoics we see 
 Make torments easy to their apathy. 
 
 These manacles upon my arm 
 
 I, as my mistress' favours, wear ; 
 And for to keep my ankles warm 
 
 I have some iron shackles there ; 
 These walls are but my garrison ; this cell, 
 Which men call jaU, doth prove my citadeL 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 277 
 
 I 'm in the cabinet look'd up 
 
 Like some high-pricSd marguerite ; 
 Or, like the Great Mogul or Pope, 
 
 Am cloister'd up from pablio sight. 
 Retiredness is a piece of majesty, 
 And thus, proud Sultan, I 'm as great as thee. 
 
 Here sin, for want of food, must starve 
 
 Where tempting objects are not seen ; 
 And these strong walls do only serve 
 
 To keep vice out, and keep me in ; 
 Malice of late's grown charitable, sure ; 
 I 'm not committed, but am kept secure. 
 
 So he that struck at Jason's life, 
 
 Thinking to have made his purpose sure. 
 By a malicious friendly knife 
 
 Did only wound him to a cure. 
 Malice, I see, wants wit ; for what is meant 
 Mischief, ofttimes proves favour by the event. 
 
 When once my Prince affliction hath, 
 
 Prosperity doth treason seem : 
 And to make smooth so rough a path, 
 
 Sweet patience I can learn from him. 
 Now not to suffer shows no loyal heart; 
 When kings want ease, subjects must bear a part 
 
 What though I cannot see my King, 
 
 Neither in person nor in coin. 
 Yet contemplation is a thing 
 
 That renders what I have not mine. 
 My King from me what adamant can part, 
 Whom I do wear engraven on my heart ? 
 
 Have you not seen the nightingale 
 
 A prisoner-like coop'd in a cage ; 
 How she doth chaunt her morbid tale 
 
 In that her narrow hermitage ? 
 Even then her charming melody doth prove 
 That all her bars are trees, her cage a grove, 
 
 I am that bird whom they contrive 
 
 Thus to deprive of liberty ; 
 But though they do my corpse confine. 
 
 Yet, maugre hate, my soul is free. 
 And though immured, yet can I chirp and sing, 
 Disgrace to rebels, glory to my King ! 
 
 My soul is free as ambient air. 
 
 Although my baser part's immew'd ; 
 Whilst loyal thoughts do still repair 
 
 To accompany my solitude. 
 Although rebellion do my body bind. 
 My King alone can captivate my mind. 
 
278 BECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 The following lines were written by the Marquis of Mon- 
 trose, upon the execution of Charles the First. He shut him- 
 self up for three days ; and when Dr. Wishart, his chaplain, 
 and the elegant historian of his wars, was admitted to him, 
 he found these verses, which probably were intended as a 
 sort of vow, on his table. We all know how that vow was 
 redeemed. 
 
 Great, good, and juat ! could I but rate 
 
 My grief to thy too rigid fate, 
 
 I 'd weep the world to such a strain 
 
 Aa it should deluge once again ; 
 
 But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies 
 
 More from Briareus' hajids than Argus' eyes, 
 
 I '11 sing thy obsequies with trumpet sounds, 
 
 And write thy epitaph with blood and wounds. 
 
 LOTE VERSES, BY THE UABQUIS OV MONTBOSE. 
 
 Sometimes the jargon of the different governments of the 
 day, and sometimes the technical phrases of warfare, are 
 made strange use of in these verses ; yet some of the lines are 
 so noble, and many so original, that we forgive this soldierly 
 mode of wooing in favour of its frankness. It is to be pre- 
 sumed the lady did the same. 
 
 My dear and only love, I pray 
 
 This noble world of thee. 
 Be governed by no other sway 
 
 Than purest monarchy. 
 For if confusion have a part. 
 
 Which virtuous souls abhor, 
 And hold a synod in thy heart, 
 
 I '11 never love thee more. 
 
 Like Alexander I will reign. 
 
 And I will reign alone ; 
 My thoughts shaJl evermore disdain 
 
 A rival on my throne. 
 He either fears his fate too much. 
 
 Or hia desert's too small. 
 That puts it not unto the touch 
 
 To win or lose it all. 
 
 But I must rule and govern still. 
 
 And always give the law. 
 And have each subject at my will. 
 
 And all to stand in awe. 
 But 'gainst my battery, if I find 
 
 Thou shun'st the prize to bore. 
 Or that thou sett'st me up a blind, 
 
 I 'II never love thee more. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 279 
 
 Or in the empire of thy heart, 
 
 Where I would solely be, 
 Another do pretend a part, 
 
 And dares to vie with me ; 
 Or if committees thou erect. 
 
 And goest on such a score, 
 I'll sing and laugh at thy neglect. 
 
 And never love thee more. 
 
 But if thou wilt be constant then. 
 
 And faithful of thy word, 
 I '11 make thee glorious by my pen. 
 
 And famous by my sword. 
 I '11 serve thee in such noble ways 
 
 Was never heard before, 
 I '11 crown and deck thee all with bays. 
 
 And love thee evei-more. 
 
 Could it be in woman to resist such promises from such 
 a man! 
 
 PABI SECOND. 
 
 My dear and only love, take heed 
 
 Lest thou thyself expose, 
 And let all longing lovers feed 
 
 Upon such looks as those ; 
 A marble wall, then, build alaout, 
 
 Beset, without a door. 
 But, if thou let thy heart fly out, 
 
 I '11 never love thee more. 
 
 Let not their oaths, like volleys shot. 
 
 Make any breach at aU, 
 Nor smoothness of their language plot 
 
 Which way to scale the wall ; 
 Nor balls of wildfire love consume 
 
 The shrine which I adore. 
 For if such smoke about thee fume, 
 
 I '11 never love thee more. 
 
 I think thy virtues be too strong 
 
 To suffer by surprise, 
 Which victuail'd by my love so long, 
 
 The siege at length must rise, 
 And leave thee ruled in that health 
 
 And state thou wast before ; 
 But if thou turn a Commonwealth, 
 
 I '11 never love thee more. 
 
 But if by fraud or by consent 
 
 Thy heart to ruin come, 
 I '11 sound no trumpet as I wont, 
 
 Nor march by beat of dium ; 
 
280 BECOLLBCnONS OF 
 
 But hold my arms like ensigns up, 
 Thy falsehood to deplore, 
 
 And bitterly will sigh and weep, 
 And never love thee more. 
 
 I '11 do with thee as Nero did 
 . When Rome was set on fire. 
 Not only all relief forbid, 
 
 But to a hill retire ; 
 And 3Com to shed a tear to see 
 
 Thy spirit grown so poor, 
 And smUing sing, until I die,— 
 
 I '11 never love thee more. 
 
 Yet for the love I bare thee once. 
 
 Lest that thy name should die, 
 A monument of marble stone 
 
 The truth shall testify. 
 That every pilgrim passing by 
 
 May pity and deplore 
 My case, and read the reason why 
 
 I can love thee no more. 
 
 The golden laws of love shall be 
 
 Upon this pillar hung, 
 A simple heart, a single eye, 
 
 A true and constant tongue. 
 Let no man for more love pretend 
 
 Than he has hearts in store ; 
 True love begun shall never end. 
 
 Love one, and love no more. 
 
 My heart shall with the sun be fix'd 
 
 In constancy most strange ; 
 And thine shall with the moon be mix'd. 
 
 Delighting still in change. 
 Thy beauty shined at first most bright. 
 
 And woe is me therefore ! 
 That ever I found thy love so light, 
 
 I could love thee no more. 
 
 Verses written by the Marquis of Montrose with the point 
 of a diamond upon the glass window of his prison, after 
 receiving his sentence : — 
 
 Let them bestow on every airth a limb ; 
 
 Then open all my veins, that I may swim 
 
 To Thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake ; 
 
 Then place my parboil'd head upon a stake ; 
 
 Scatter my ashes ; strew them in the air : — 
 
 Lord ! since Thou kuow'st where all those atoms are, 
 
 I 'm hopeful Thou'lt recover once my dust, 
 
 And confident Thou 'It raise me with the Just. 
 
A LITEHAEY LITE. 281 
 
 They who would follow the great Marquis to the last should 
 read the fine ballad called " The Execution of Montrose," in 
 Professor Aytoun's charming volume, " The Lays of the Scot- 
 tish Cavaliers." 
 
 XXIV. 
 POETRY THAT POETS LOVE. 
 
 WALTER SAVAGE LANDOE — LEIGH HUNT^PERCT BTS3BS SHELLET— 
 JOHN KEATS. 
 
 To no one can the words that I have placed at the head of 
 this paper apply more perfectly than to Mr. Landor. No 
 jjoetry was ever dearer to poets than his. Nearly fifty years 
 ago, we find Southey writing of and to the author of " Gebir," 
 with a respectful admiration seldom felt by one young man 
 for another ; and, from that hour to the present, all whom he 
 would himself most wish to please have showered upon him 
 praises that cannot die. The difliculty in selecting from his 
 works is the abundance ; but I prefer the Hellenics, that 
 charming volume, because few, very few, have given such 
 present life to classical subjects. I begin with the Preface, so 
 full of grace and modesty. 
 
 " It is hardly to be expected that ladies and gentlemen will 
 leave, on a sudden, their daily promenade, skirted by Turks, 
 and shepherds, and knights, and plumes, and palfreys, of the 
 finest Tunbridge manufacture, to look at these rude frescoes, 
 delineated on an old wall, high up, and sadly weak in colouring. 
 As in duty bound, we can wait. The reader (if there should 
 be one) will remember that Sculpture and Painting have 
 never ceased to be occupied with the scenes and figures which 
 we venture once more to iiitroduce in poetry ; it being our 
 belief that what is becoming in two of the fine arts, is not 
 quite unbecoming in a third, the one which, indeed, gave birth 
 to them." 
 
 And now comes the very first story ; with its conclusion 
 that goes straight to the heart. 
 
 THRASTMBDES AND EUNOE. 
 
 Who will away to Athens with me ? Who 
 
 Loves choral songs and maidens crowned with flowers 
 
 Uaenvious ? Mount the pinnace ; hoiat the sail. 
 
282 KECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 I promise ye, as many as are here, 
 Ye shall not, while ye tarry with me, taste 
 From unrineed barrel the diluted wine 
 Of a low vineyard, or a plant ill-pruned. 
 But such as anciently the .^gean isles 
 Poured in libation at their solenm feasts ; 
 And the same goblets shall ye grasp, embost 
 With no vile figures of loose languid boors. 
 But such as gods have lived with and have led. 
 
 The sea smiles bright before us. What white sail 
 Plays yonder ? What pursues it ? Like two hawks 
 Away they fly. Let us away in time 
 To overtake them. Are they menaces 
 We hear ? And shall the strong repulse the weak, 
 Enraged at her defender ? Hippias I 
 Art thou the man ? 'T was Hippias. He had found 
 His sister borne from the Cecropion port 
 By Thrasymedes. And reluctantly ? 
 Ask, ask the maiden ; I have no reply. 
 " Brother I brother Hippias ! Oh, if love. 
 If pity ever touched thy breast, forbear ! 
 Strike not the brave, the gentle, the beloved. 
 My Thrasymedes, with his cloak alone 
 Protecting his own head and mine from harm." 
 " Didst thou not once before," cried Hippias, 
 Begardless of his sister, hoarse vrith wrath 
 At Thrasymedes, " didst thou not, dog-eyed. 
 Dare, as she walked up to the Parthenon 
 On the most holy of all holy days. 
 In sight of all the city, dare to kiss 
 Her maiden cheek ? " 
 
 " Ay, before all the gods. 
 Ay, before Pallas, before Artemis, 
 Ay, before Aphrodite, before Herfe, 
 I dared ; and dare again. Arise, my spouse ! 
 Arise ! and let my lips quaff purity 
 From thy fair open brow." 
 
 The sword was up, 
 And yet he kissed her twice. Some god withheld 
 The arm of Hippias ; his proud blood seethed slower 
 And smote his breast less angrily; he laid 
 His hand on the white shoulder and spoke thus : 
 " Ye must return with me. A second time 
 OfTended, will our sire Peisistratos 
 Pardon the affront ? Thou shouldst have asked thyself 
 That question ere the sail first flapt the mast." 
 " Already thou hast taken life from me ; 
 Put up thy sword," said the sad youth, his eyes 
 Sparkling ; but whether love or rage or grief . 
 They sparkled with, the gods alone could see. 
 Peiroaeus they re-entered, and their ship 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 283 
 
 Drove up the little waves against the quay, 
 Whence was thrown out a rope from one above, 
 And Hippias caught it. From the virgin's waist 
 Her lover dropped his arm, and blushed to think 
 He had retained it there, in sight of rude 
 Irreverent men ; he led her forth nor spake. 
 Hippias walked silent too, until they reached 
 The mansion of Peiaistratos, her sire. 
 Serenely in his sternness did the prince 
 Look on them both awhile : they saw not him. 
 For both had cast their eyes upon the ground. 
 "Are these the pirates thou hast taken, son ? " 
 Said he. " Worse, father ! worse than pirates they 
 Who thus abuse thy patience, thus abuse 
 Thy pardon, thus abuse the holy rites 
 Twice over." 
 
 " Well hast thou performed thy duty," 
 Firmly and gravely said Peisistratos. 
 " Nothing, then, rash young man 1 could turn thy heart 
 From Eunoe my daughter ? " 
 
 ^' Nothing, Sir, 
 Shall ever turn it. I can die but once 
 And love but once. Eunoe ! farewell ;" 
 " Nay, she shall see what thou canst bear for her.'' 
 " father ! Shut me in my chamber, shut me 
 In my poor mother's tomb, dead er alive. 
 But never let me see what he can bear ; 
 I know how much that is when borne for me." 
 " Not yet : come on. And lag not thou behind. 
 Pirate of virgin and of pi-incely hearts ! 
 Before the people, and before the goddess. 
 Thou hadst evinced the madness of thy passion. 
 And now wouldst bear from home and plenteousness 
 To poverty and exile, this my child." 
 Then shuddered Thrasymedes, and exclaimed, 
 " I see my crime ; I saw it not before. 
 The daughter of Peisistratos was bom 
 Neither for exile nor for poverty, 
 AhJ nor for me ! " He would have wept, but one 
 Might see him, and weep worse. The prince unmoved 
 Strode on, and said, " To-morrow shall the people. 
 All who beheld thy trespasses, behold 
 The justice of Peisistratos, the love 
 He be^rs his daughter, and the reverence 
 In which he holds the highest law of God." 
 He spake ; and on the morrow they were one. 
 
 Did not Mr. Landor write this scene of Orestes, one fine 
 June morning, seated on a garden-roller in the court before 
 Mr. Kenyon's house in London? — ^fitting home for such an 
 inspiration ! And is not that the way that such scenes are 
 
284 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 written 1 — ^not sitting down with malice prepense to compose 
 poetry, but letting it come when it will and how it will, and 
 striking it off at a heat. 
 
 THE DEATH OF CLTTEMNESTRA. 
 OKESTES AND ELEOIRA. 
 
 Eleotra. Pass on, my brother ! she awaits the wretch, 
 Dishonourer, despoiler, murderer — 
 None other name shall name him — she awaits 
 As would a lover — 
 
 Heavenly gods ! what poison 
 O'erflows my lips ! 
 
 Adultress ! husband-slayer ! 
 Strike her, the tigress ! 
 
 Think upon our father — 
 Give the sword scope — think what a man was he, 
 How fond of her I how kind to all about. 
 That he might gladden and teach us — ^how proud 
 Of thee, Orestes I tossing thee above 
 His joyous head, and calling thee his crown. 
 Ah ! boys remember not what melts our hearts 
 And marks them evermore I 
 
 Bite not thy lip, 
 Nor tramp as an unsteady colt the ground, 
 Nor stare against the wail, but think again 
 How better than all fathers was our father. 
 Go. 
 
 Orestes. Loose me, then I for this white hand, Eleotra, 
 Hath fastened upon mine with fiercer grasp 
 Than I can grasp the sword. 
 
 Elecira. Go, sweet Orestes, 
 
 I knew not I was holding thee — ^Avenge him ! 
 (Alone.) How he sprang from me I 
 
 Sure he now hath reached 
 The room before the bath ! 
 
 The bath-door creaks 1 
 It hath creaked thus since he — since thou, father ! 
 Ever since thou didst loosen its strong valves. 
 Hither with all thy dying weight, or strength 
 Agonized with her stabs — 
 
 What plunge was that ? 
 Ah ! me ! 
 
 What groans are those ? 
 Orestes {retmming). They sound through hell, 
 
 Eejoicing the Eumenides. 
 
 She slew 
 Our father : she made thee the scorn of slaves ; 
 He (son of him who ruled this land and more) 
 She made an outcast — 
 
 Would I had been so 
 Forever! ere such vengeance — 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 286 
 
 Electra. Oh that Zeus 
 
 Had let thy arm fall sooner at thy side 
 Without those drops I list ! they are audible — 
 For they are many — from the sword's point falling 
 And down from the mid blade ! 
 
 Too rash Orestes ! 
 Couldst thou not then have spared our wretched mother ! 
 
 Orestes. The gods could not. 
 
 Electra. She was not theirs, Orestes ! 
 
 Orestes. And didst not thou, — 
 
 Eleclra. 'T was I ! 'twas I who did it ! 
 
 Of our unhappy house the most unhappy ! 
 Under this roof, by every god accurst. 
 There is no grief, there is no guilt, but mine. 
 
 Orestes. Electra I no ! 
 
 'Tis now my time to suffer — 
 Mine be, with all its pangs, the righteous deed ! 
 
 What a picture is that of Agamemnon and his boy — 
 
 " Tossing thee above 
 His joyous head, and calling thee his crown I " 
 
 Long may Mr. Landor conceive such pictures, and write 
 such scenes ! 
 
 The days are happily past when the paltry epithet of 
 " Cockney Poets " could be bestowed upon Keats and Leigh 
 Hunt : the world has outlived them. People would as soon 
 think of applying such a word to Dr. Johnson. Happily, too, 
 one of the delightful writers who were the objects of these 
 unworthy attacks has outlived them also — has lived to attain 
 a popularity of the most genial kind, and to diffuse, through a 
 thousand pleasant channels, many of the finest parts of our 
 finest writers. He has done good service to literature in 
 another way, by enriching our language with some of the very 
 best translations since Cowley. Who ever thought to see 
 Tasso's famous passage in the " Amyntas " so rendered ? 
 
 ODE' TO THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 lovely age of gold ! 
 
 Not that the rivers rolled 
 
 With milk, or that the woods wept honey-dew ; 
 
 Not that the reedy ground 
 
 Produced without a wound. 
 
 Or the mild serpent had no tooth that slew ; 
 
 Not that a cloudless blue 
 
 For ever was in sight ; 
 
 Or that the heaven which bums, 
 
286 EEOOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 And now ia cold by turns, 
 
 Looked out in glad and everlasting light ; 
 
 No, nor that even the insolent ships from far 
 
 Brought war to no new lands, nor riches worse than war. 
 
 "Who, again, ever hoped to see such an English version of 
 one of Petrarch's most characteristic poems, conceits and all ? 
 
 petbaboh's oontemplations of death in tee bowee op lauba. 
 
 Olear, fresh, and dulcet streams, 
 
 Which the fair shape who seems 
 
 To me sole woman, haunted at noontide ; 
 
 Fair bough, so gently lit, 
 
 (I sigh to think of it) 
 
 Which lent a piUar to her lovely side ; 
 
 And turf and flowers bright-eyed, 
 
 O'er which her folded gown 
 
 Plowed like an angel's down ; 
 
 And you, holy air and hushed, 
 
 Where first my heart at her sweet glances gushed. 
 
 Give ear, give ear, with one consenting, 
 
 To my last words, my last, and my lamenting. 
 
 If 't is my fate below. 
 
 And heaven will have it so. 
 
 That love must close these dying eyes in tears, 
 
 May my poor dust be laid 
 
 In middle of your shade, 
 
 WTiile my soul, naked, mounts to its own spheres. 
 
 The thought would calm my fears 
 
 When taking, out of breath, 
 
 The doubtful step of death ; 
 
 For never could my spirit find 
 
 A stiller port after the stormy wind ; 
 
 TSoT in more calm abstracted bourne 
 
 Slip from my travelled flesh, and from my bones outworn. 
 
 Perhaps, some future hour. 
 
 To her accustomed bower 
 
 Might come the untamed, and yet gentle she ; 
 
 And where she saw me flrst, 
 
 Might turn with eyes athirst 
 
 And kinder joy to look again for me ; 
 
 Then, oh the charity I 
 
 Seeing amidst the stones 
 
 The earth that held my bones, 
 
 A sigh for very love at last 
 
 Might ask of heaven to pardon me the past ; 
 
 And heaven itself could not say nay, 
 
 As with her gentle veil she wiped the tears away. 
 
 How well I call to mind, 
 
 When from those boughs the wind 
 
A LITEEART LIFE. 287 
 
 Shook down upon her bosom flower on flower ; 
 
 And there she sat meek-eyed, 
 
 In midst of all that pride. 
 
 Sprinkled and blushing through an amorous shower. 
 
 Some to her hair paid dower, 
 
 And seemed to dress the curls 
 
 Queenlike with gold and pearls ; 
 
 Some snowing on her drapery stopped. 
 
 Some on the earth, some on the water dropped ; 
 
 While others, fluttering from above, 
 
 Seemed wheeling round in pomp and saying, " Here reigns love." 
 
 How often then I said, 
 
 Inward, and filled with dread, 
 
 " Doubtless this creature came from paradise ! " 
 
 For at her look the while, 
 
 Her voice, and her sweet smile 
 
 And heavenly air, truth parted from mine eyes ; 
 
 So that, with long-drawn sighs, 
 
 I said, as far from men, 
 
 " How came I here, and when ? " 
 
 I had forgotten ; and, alas I 
 
 Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was ; 
 
 And from that time tUl this, I bear 
 
 Such love for the green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere. 
 
 In justice to Mr. Leigh. Hunt, I add to these fine transla- 
 tions, of which every lover of Italian literature will perceive 
 the merit, some extracts from his original poems. Except 
 Chaucer himself, no painter of processions has excelled the 
 entrance of Paulo to Eavenna, in the story of Rimini. 
 
 'T is mom, and never did a lovelier day 
 Salute Ravenna from its leafy bay ; 
 For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night, 
 Have left a sparkling welcome for the light ; 
 And April, with fcia white hands wet with flowers. 
 Dazzles the bridemaids looking from the towers : 
 Green vineyards and fair orchards, far and near. 
 Glitter with drops ; and heaven is sapphire clear, 
 And the lark rings it, and the pine-trees glow. 
 And odours from the citrons come and go ; 
 And all the landscape — earth and sky and sea- 
 Breathes like a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly. 
 
 'T is nature, full of spirits, waked and loved. 
 E'en sloth to-day goes quick and unreproved ; 
 For where 's the living soul, priest, minstrel, clown, 
 Merchant or lord, that speeds not to the town ? 
 Hence happy faces, striking through the green 
 Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen; 
 
288 EECOIiLECTIONS 01' 
 
 Aiid the far ships, lifting their sails of white 
 Like joyful hands, come up with scattered light 
 Come gleaming up — ^true to the wished-for day — 
 And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay. 
 
 And well may all the world come crowding there, 
 If peace returning and processions rare, 
 And to crown all, a marriage in the spring. 
 Can set man's heart and fancies on the wing : 
 For on this beauteous day Ravenna's pride. 
 The daughter of their prince, becomes a bride ; 
 A bride to ransom an exhausted land ; 
 And he whose victories have obtained her hand 
 Has taken with the dawn, so flies report, 
 His promised journey to the expecting court. 
 With knightly pomp, and squires of high degree 
 The bold Giovanni, Lord of Bimini. 
 
 The road that way is lined with anxious eyes. 
 And false announcements and fresh laughters rise ; 
 The horseman hastens through the jeering crowd. 
 And finds no horse within the gates allowed : 
 And who shall tell the drive there and the din ? 
 The bells, the drums, the crowds yet squeezing in, 
 The shouts from mere exuberance of delight, 
 And mothers with their babes in sore afinght, 
 And armed bands making imnortant way, 
 Gallant and grave, the lords of holiday ; 
 Minstrels and friars and beggars many a one 
 That pray and roll their blind eyes in the sun. 
 And all the buzziiig throngs that hang like bees 
 On roofs and walls and tops of garden trees ? 
 
 "With tapestries bright the windows overflow 
 
 By lovely faces brought that come and go, 
 
 Till by their work the charmers take their seats. 
 
 Themselves the sweetest pictures in the streets, 
 
 In colours by light awnings beautified ; 
 
 Some re-adjusting tresses newly tied, 
 
 Some turning a trim waist, or o'er the flow 
 
 Of crimson cloths hanging a hand of snow: 
 
 Smiling and talking some, and some serene, 
 
 But all with flowers, and all with garlands green, 
 
 And most in fluttering talk impatient for the scene. 
 
 At length the approaching trumpets, with a start 
 On the smooth wind come dancing to the heart. 
 The crowd are mute ; and from the southern wall 
 A lordly blast gives answer to the call. 
 Then comes the crush ; and all who best can strive 
 In shuffling struggle toward the palace drive, 
 AVTiere balustered and broad, of marble fair, 
 Its portico commands the public square : 
 ■For there Count Guido is to hold his state 
 With his fair daughter, seated o'er the gate. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 289 
 
 But far too well the square has been supplied : 
 And, after a rude heave from side to side, 
 With angry faces turned and nothing gained. 
 The order first found easiest is maintained 
 Leaving the pathways only for the crowd, 
 The space within for the procession proud. 
 For in this manner is the square set out : — 
 The sides half-deep are crowded round about 
 And faced with guards who keep the horseway clear , 
 And round a fountain in the midst appear — 
 Seated with knights and ladies in discourse — 
 Bare Tuscan wits and warbling troubadours. 
 Whom Guido, for he loved the Muse's race, 
 Has sat .there to adorn his public place. 
 The seats with boughs are shaded from above 
 Of bays and roses —trees of wit and love. 
 And in the midst fresh whistling through the scene 
 The lightsome fountain starts from out the green 
 Clear and compact ; till at its height o'erruu 
 It shakes its loosening silver in the sun. 
 » * * * 
 
 Another start of trumpets with reply ; 
 And o'er the gate a crimson canopy 
 Opens to right and left its flowing shade. 
 Aid Guido issues with the princely maid 
 And sits. The courtiers fall on either side 
 But every look is fixed upon the bride, 
 Who seems aU thought at first, and hardly hears 
 The enormous shout that springs as she appears ; 
 Till, as she views the countless gaze below, 
 And faces that with grateful homage glow 
 A home to leave and husband yet to see 
 Are mixed with thoughts of lofty charity : 
 And hard it is she thinks to have no will ; 
 But not to bless these thousands harder still. 
 With that a keen and quivering sense of tears 
 Scarce moves her sweet proud lip and disappears ; 
 A smile is underneath and breaks away 
 And round she looks and breathes as best befits the day. 
 What need I tell of cheeks and lips and eyes 
 The locks that fall, and bosom's balmy rise 1 
 Beauty's whole soul is here, though shadowed still 
 With anxious thought and doubtful maiden will ; 
 A lip for endless love should all prove just ; 
 An eye that can withdraw into as deep distrust. 
 
 While thus with earnest looks the people gaze, 
 Another shout the neighbouring quarters raise ; 
 The train are in the town, and. gathering near 
 With noise of cavalry and trumpets clear, 
 A princely music, unbedimmed with drums. 
 The mighty brass seems opening as it comes, 
 u 
 
200 EECOLLECTIONS 01' 
 
 And now it fills and now it shakes the air, 
 
 And now it bursts into the sounding square, 
 
 At which the crowd with such a shout rejoice. 
 
 Each think he's deafened with his neighbour's voice. 
 
 Then with a long-drawn breath the clangours die, 
 
 The palace trumpets give a last reply ; 
 
 And clustering hoofs succeed with stately stir 
 
 Of snortings proud and clinking furniture ; — 
 
 The most majestic sound of human will : 
 
 Nought else is heard some time, the people are so still. 
 
 I would fain go on with tliis procession, which the art of 
 the poet continues to make us see and hear, and almost feel, 
 so vividly does he describe the pageantry, the noise, and the 
 jostUng. But it fills the whole canto, and there is yet another 
 poem for which I must make room. Every mother knows 
 these pathetic stanzas. I shall never forget attempting to 
 read them to my faithful maid, the hemmer of flounces, whose 
 fair-haired Saxon boy, her pet and mine, was then fast re- 
 covering from a dangerous illness. I attempted to read these 
 verses, and did read as many as I could for the rising in the 
 throat, — ^the hysterica passio of poor Lear, — and as many as my 
 auditor could hear for her own sobs. No doubt they have 
 often extorted such praises — ^the truest and the most precious 
 that can be given. 
 
 TO T. L. H., SIX TEARS OLD, DURING A SICKNESS. 
 
 Sleep breathes at last from out thee, 
 
 My little patient boy ; 
 And balmy rest about thee — 
 
 Smooths off the day's annoy. 
 I sit me down and think 
 
 Of all thy winning ways ; 
 Yet almost wish with sudden shrink 
 
 That I had less to praise. 
 
 Thy sidelong pillowed meekness, 
 
 Thy thanks to all that aid, 
 Thy heart in pain and weakness 
 
 Of fancied faults afraid ; 
 The Uttle trembling hand 
 
 That wipes thy quiet tears. 
 These, these are things that may demand 
 
 Dread memories for years. 
 
 Sorrows I've had, severe ones, 
 
 I win not think of now ; 
 And calmly midst my dear ones 
 
 Have wasted with dry brow ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 291 
 
 But when thy fingers press 
 And pat my stooping head, 
 I cannot bear the gentleness, — 
 The tears are in their bed. 
 
 Ah, first-born of thy mother 
 
 When life and hope were new, 
 Kind playmate of thy brother. 
 
 Thy sister, father, too ; 
 My light where'er I go, 
 
 My bird when prison-bound, 
 My hand-in-hand companion, — no, 
 
 My prayers shall hold thee round. 
 
 To say He has departed. 
 
 His voice, his face is gone ! 
 To feel impatient-hearted 
 
 "Yet feel we must bear on ! 
 Ah, I could not endure 
 
 To whisper of such woe. 
 Unless I felt this sleep ensure 
 
 That it will not be so. 
 
 Yes ! still he's fixed and sleeping ! 
 
 This silence, too, the while — 
 Its very hush and creeping 
 
 Seem whispering us a smile. 
 Something divine and dim 
 
 Seems going by mine ear 
 Like parting wings of Seraphim 
 
 Who say, " We've finished here,'' 
 
 The name of Percy Bysshe Shelley is united to that of 
 Leigh. Plunt by many associations. They were in Italy to- 
 gether ; they were friends, and the survivor has never ceased 
 to bewail the untimely catastrophe of that great poet. In 
 how many senses does that early and sudden death appear 
 untimely to our dim eyes ! Doubtless, all was wise, all just, 
 all merciful ; yet to our finite perceptions he seemed snatched 
 away, just as his spirit was preparing to receive the truths to 
 vrhioh it had before been blinded. However, this rests with 
 an All-wise and an All-merciful Judge, and is far beyond our 
 imperfect speculations. 
 
 In a literary point of view, there is no doubt but every suc- 
 ceeding poem showed the gradual clearing away of the mists 
 and vapours with which, in spite of his exquisite rhythm, and 
 a thousand beauties of detail, his fine genius was originally 
 clouded. 
 
 The first time I ever met with any of bis works, this vague- 
 n2 
 
292 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 ness brought me into a ludicrous dilemma. It was in the 
 great hbrary of Tavistock House, that Mr. Perry one morning 
 put into my hand a splendidly printed and splendidly bound 
 volume (" Alastor," I think), and desired me to read it, and 
 give him my opinion. " You will at least know," said he, 
 " whether it be worth anybody else's reading." 
 
 Accordingly, I took up the magnificent presentation copy, 
 and read conscientiously until visitors came in. I had no 
 marker, and the richly-bound volume closed as if instinctively; 
 so that when I resumed my task, on the departure of the 
 company, not being able to find my place, I was obliged to 
 begin the book at the first line. More visitors came, and 
 went, and still the same calamity befell me ; again, and again, 
 and again, I had to search in vain amongst a succession of 
 melodious lines, as like each other as the waves of the sea, for 
 buoy or landmark, and had always to put back to shore, and 
 begin my voyage anew. I do not remember having been ever 
 in my life more ashamed of my own stupidity than when 
 obliged to say to Mr. Perry, in answer to his questions as to 
 the result of my morning's studies, that, doubtless, it was a 
 very fine poem — only that I, never could tell, when I took up 
 the book, where I had left off half an hour before — an unin- 
 tended criticism, which, as characteristic both of author and 
 reader, very much amused my kind and clever host. 
 
 Now, could such a calamity befall even the stupidist of 
 young girls, in reading that perfection of clearness and dra- 
 matic construction, " The Oenci ? " Ah ! what a tragic poet 
 ^vas lost in that boat-wreck ? Could it have happened with 
 the " Ode to the Skylark," an ode as melodious, as various, 
 and as brilliant as the song of the bird it celebrates. Both 
 seem soaring upward to Heaven, and pouring forth an uncon- 
 scious hymn of praise and thanksgiving. 
 
 TO THE SKYLAEK. 
 
 Hail to thee, blythe spirit ! 
 
 Bird thou never wert, 
 That from heaven, or near it, 
 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 293 
 
 Higher still and higher, 
 
 From the earth thou springest ; 
 
 Like a cloud of fire, 
 
 The blue deep thou wiugest, 
 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever sicgest. 
 
 In the golden lightning 
 
 Of the sunken sun, 
 O'er which clouds are brightening, 
 
 Thou dost float and run. 
 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 
 
 The pale purple even 
 
 Melts around thy flight ; 
 Like a star of heaven. 
 
 In the broad daylight 
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 
 
 Keen as are the arrows 
 
 Of that silver sphere. 
 Whose intense lamp narrows 
 
 In the white dawn clear. 
 Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 
 
 All the earth and air 
 
 With thy voice is loud, 
 As, when night is bare, 
 
 Prom one lonely cloud 
 The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 
 
 What thou art we know not ; 
 
 What is most like thee ? 
 From rainbow clouds there flow not 
 
 Drops so bright to see, 
 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 
 
 Like a poet hidden 
 
 In the light of thought, 
 Singing hymns unbidden 
 
 Till the world is wrought 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 
 
 Like a high-bom maiden 
 
 In a palace tower. 
 Soothing her love-laden 
 Soul in secret hour 
 With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 
 
 Like a glow-worm golden 
 
 In a dell of dew, 
 Scattering uubeholden 
 Its aerial hue 
 Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view ; 
 
294 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Like a rose embowered 
 
 In ita own green leaves, 
 By warm winds deflowered, 
 
 Till the scent it gives 
 Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. 
 
 Sound of vernal showers 
 
 On the twinkling grass, 
 Bain-awakened flowers. 
 
 All that ever was 
 Joyous, and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 
 
 Teach us, sprite or bird, 
 
 What sweet thoughts are thine : 
 
 I have never heard 
 Praise of love or wine 
 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 
 
 Chorus hymeneal, 
 
 Or triumphal chaunt, 
 Matched with thine would be' all 
 ' But an empty vaunt — 
 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
 
 What objects are the fountains 
 
 Of thy happy strain ? 
 What fields or waves or mountains ? 
 
 What shapes of sky or plain ? 
 What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 
 
 With thy clear keen joyance 
 
 Languor cannot be : 
 Shadow of annoyance 
 Never come near thee : 
 Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 Waking or asleep 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 Than we mortals dream. 
 Or how oould thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 
 
 We look before and after. 
 
 And pine for what is not ; 
 Our sinoerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 
 
 Yet if we could scorn 
 
 Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
 If we were things bom 
 
 Not to shed a tear, 
 I know not how thy joy we ever should oome near. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 295 
 
 Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the grouaij 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know, 
 Such harmonious madness 
 
 From my lips would flow, 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 
 
 If there be anywhere a companion poem to this, it is John 
 Keats's " Ode to the Nightingale." Poor John Keats ! he too 
 was called in scorn a " Cockney Poet ;" he too was a friend of 
 Leigh Hunt's ; he too died far from his native country, not 
 indeed like Shelley, by sad mischance, off the coast of Italy, 
 but by slow disease in the very heart of the Eternal City ; — 
 died after having done enough to show the world all that it 
 lost in him. No one since Spenser has possessed a more 
 graphic pen. His processions not only live, they move. 
 
 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. 
 
 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
 
 My sense, as though of hemlock 1 had drunk. 
 Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
 
 One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk ; 
 'Tis 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. 
 
 Oh for a draught of vintage, that hath been 
 
 Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
 Tasting of Flora and the country green. 
 
 Dance and Provenjal song, and sunburnt mirth ! 
 Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, 
 Full of the true, the blushful Hippoorene, 
 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 ; 
 
296 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 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 fuU 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 train perplexes and retards : 
 Already with thee ! tender is the night. 
 
 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne. 
 Clustered 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. 
 
 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 
 
 Not what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. 
 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 covered up in leaves ; 
 And mid-May's eldest child 
 The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 
 
 The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves. 
 
 Darkling I listen ; and for many a time 
 
 I have been half in love with easeful Death, 
 Called 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, 
 WhUe thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
 In such an ecstasy ! 
 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain, — 
 To thy high requiem become a sod. 
 
 Thou wast not bom for death, immortal Bird ! 
 
 No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
 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 teai's amid the alien corn ; 
 The same that oft-times hath 
 Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 
 Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn. 
 Forlorn I 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 famed to do, deceiving elf. 
 
A LITEEAET LIFE.' 297 
 
 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 ? 
 
 A most interesting Life of Keates, by Mr. Monckton Milnea, 
 has been recently published. Pew works are better worth 
 reading, not only for the sake of the young poet, but for that 
 of his generous benefactors, Sir James Clarke and Mr. Severn. 
 It is well in an age, called perhaps more selfish than it de- 
 serves to be, to fall back upon such instances of patient and 
 unostentatious kindness. 
 
 XXV. 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO BATH. 
 CHKISTOPHER ANSTET. 
 
 Bath is a very elegant and classical looking city. Standing 
 upon a steep hill-side, its regular white buildings rising terrace 
 above terrace, crescent above crescent, glittering in the sun, 
 and charmingly varied by the green trees of its park and 
 gardens ; its pretty suburban villas mingling with the beautiful 
 villages that surround it on every side ; nothing can exceed 
 the grace and amenity of the picture. Even the railway con- 
 tributes, by a rare exception, to the effect of the landscape. 
 Very pleasant is Bath to look at. But when contrasted with 
 its old reputation as the favourite resort of the noble and the 
 fair, the Baden-Baden of its day, to which the well came for 
 amusement, and the sick as much for cheerfulness as for cure, 
 it is impossible not to feel that the spirit has departed ; that 
 it is a city of memories — the very Pompeii of watering-plaoes. 
 
 It was a far smaller town in that joyous time, and perhaps the 
 stately streets that rise from the old springs in every direction 
 may have made it too spacious and too commodious ; for 
 Fashion is a capricious deity, who loves of all things to be 
 crowded, provided the crowd be fashionable, and does not dis- 
 like so much gentle inconvenience as may serve to enhance 
 the comfort and magnificence of her real home. 
 
298 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Whatever be the cause, Bath, like the ItaKan cities, which 
 it is often said to resemble, is picturesque, silent, and empty. 
 Lodging in Milsom Street, the main artery of the town, where 
 the best shops are congregated, and at an excellent library, 
 always the most frequented among shops, my little maid, 
 a shrewd observer of such matters, declared she knew every 
 carriage that passed, and could- count them on her fingers ; 
 and I myself, less keen sighted, did not care to ask her whether 
 she meant the fingers on one hand or on two. 
 
 I speak this out of pure regard to truth, since, for my own 
 jjart, I owe Bath all gratitude. Going thither with health and 
 spirits so shattered by a long illness ^nd great sorrow, that I 
 could not muster courage to encounter the imaginary dangers 
 of the Box Tunnel, I returned, in the course of a few weeks, 
 so completely restored in mind and body, that when in the 
 very midst of that same tunnel, the ghost of my departed fear 
 met me in the shape of a story (a story with variations) of the 
 foolish lady who had been so exquisitely siUy as to hire a fly 
 to escape from the peril, my feUow-traveUers really refused to 
 beheve that the person who laughed so heartily at her past 
 foUy could possibly have been the real heroine of the legend. 
 So that I suspect I left two traditions behind me in the Box 
 Tunnel — first as a simpleton, then as an impostor. 
 
 A place of interesting associations is Bath. The dear friend 
 whom I principally went to see — one of a privileged few, who 
 carry the hvely spirit, the ready indulgence, the quick intelli- 
 gence of youth, into wise and honoured age — might herself 
 almost pass for one of its recollections. She took me to see 
 the house where, fifty years before, Madame de Genlis had lived, 
 when sent to England, at the very beginning of the Eevolution, 
 with Mademoiselle d'Orleans ; and described the looks and 
 manners of the quiet, steady pupil, and the flighty governess, 
 as if it had been yesterday. She walked with me through 
 the street where Mrs. Thrale had shone forth in both her 
 phases — the hostess and friend of Dr. Johnson, and Piozzi's 
 slandered, defiant, but not unhappy wife. Miss Burney never 
 depicted her better. And Miss Burney herself she showed 
 forth nearly as well as that clever, conceited, prim, afiected, 
 die-away little authoress, who never for one moment (unlucky 
 body !) could forget that she was an authoress— ay, and the 
 authoress of " Cecilia " too has shown herself to all posterity 
 
A liteeAbt life. 299 
 
 in that looking-glass, her " Diary." Then she went through 
 all the past dynasties of the drama — Kembles, Linleys, Ellis- 
 tons ; and last of all she took me to Bathford, to gaze upon 
 Gainsborough's admirable portrait of Quin, which looks just 
 as if he was preparing to sit down to a John Dory. 
 
 A place full of associations is Bath. When we had fairly 
 done with the real people, there were great fictions to fall 
 back upon ; and I am not sure, true and living human beings 
 as Horace Walpole and Madame d'Arblay have shown them- 
 selves in their letters and journals — full of that great charac- 
 teristic of our human nature, inconsistency, of strength and 
 weakness, of wisdom and folly, of virtues and faults ; I am 
 not sure, eminently human as these worthies shine forth in 
 their writings, that those who never lived except in the 
 writings of other people — the heroes and heroines of Miss 
 Austen, for example — are not the more real of the two. Her 
 exquisite story of " Persuasion " absolutely haunted me. 
 Whenever it rained (and it did rain every day that I staid at 
 Bath, except one), I thought of Anne Elliot meeting Captain 
 Wentwo^th, when driven by a shower to take refuge in a 
 shoe-shop. Whenever I got out of breath in climbing up-hill, 
 (which, considering that one dear friend lived in Lansdown 
 Crescent, and another on Beechen Cliff, happened also pretty 
 often), I thought of that same charming Anne Elliot, and of 
 that ascent from the lower town to the upper, during which 
 all her tribulations ceased. And when at last, by dint of 
 trotting up one street and down another, I incurred the unro- 
 mantio calamity of a blister on the heel, even that grievance 
 became classical by the recollection of the similar catastrophe, 
 which, in consequence of her peregrinations with the Admiral, 
 had befallen dear Mrs. Croft. I doubt if any one, even Scott 
 himself, have left such perfect impressions of character and 
 place as Jane Austen. 
 
 Besides those pleasures of memory, Bath, eight years ago, 
 was not wanting in Hving illustrations. Poor Miss Pickering, 
 so fertile as a novelist, so excellent as a woman ; my friend, 
 Miss Waddington, an elegant authoress, who charmed the 
 languors of illness by the creations of fancy ; Mr. Eeade, 
 also my friend, whose poem of " Italy " is so full of classical 
 grace ; Mr. Beckford, original in every act and word, whose 
 •' Vathek" was as strange a work as his Tower on. Lansdown, 
 
300 RBCOLLBOIIONS OF 
 
 and whose fine place at Fonthill should never have been built 
 or never have been destroyed ; last and best, Mr. Landor, of 
 whom, with his vivacity, his vigour, and fertihty of thought, it 
 was difficult to believe that his first work was pubhshed in 
 the last century, and who had gathered together, in a narrow 
 room, specimens of art — "little bits," as he called them, which 
 might put to shame far larger collections. It was impossible 
 not to admire ; but it was dangerous to praise in that room ; 
 for the proprietor had a trick of bestowing, which caught one 
 so unawares, that one could hardly express the gratitude for 
 the surprise : it was felt though, however ill-spoken. He gave 
 me a small picture, by Wright, of Derby, — a night view of 
 Vesuvius, in which the two lights, the moon and the volcano, 
 are shining down upon the sea as brightly and as distinctly as 
 they could have done in his own verse. These were the lite- 
 rary names of Bath ; and there was a Uving artist too Mr. 
 
 Barker — an interesting old man, who had, with an artist's im- 
 providence, devoted years of labour to a fine, but immovable 
 fresco — the taking of a Greek island by the Turks — ^painted 
 on the walls of his own house. The talent has proved here- 
 ditary. I saw there a sketch by his son, of the death of the 
 Duke of Orleans ; a mere sketch, but one in which the home- 
 liness and evident truth of the accessories added much to 
 the pathos of the scene. I do not remember in art a more 
 touching rendering of family grief ; it struck the heart hke 
 a cry. 
 
 The neighbourhood of Bath is stiU more beautiful than the 
 city. Even the suburbs, where tree and garden, hill and valley, 
 railway and river, mingle so picturesquely with the rich tint 
 of the stone of which the houses are built, and the striking 
 architectural forms ; and where pretty old churches and 
 churchyards, rich in yew and hme, seem to unite town and 
 country. Of the surrounding villages, Batheaston waa memo- 
 rable for the blue-stocking vagaries of a certain Lady MiUer, a 
 Somersetshire Olemence Isaure, who some seventy years ago 
 offered prizes for the best verses thrown into an antique vase ; 
 the prize consisting, not of a golden violet, but of a wreath 
 of laurel ; and the whole affair producing, as was to be ex- 
 pected, a great deal more ridicule than poetry. Claverton 
 another pretty village, was celebrated for a travestie of a dif- 
 ferent order— the curious book called "The Spiritual Quixote," 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 301 
 
 written by Mr. Graves ; and Weston, prettiest of all, is the 
 delight and resort of poets, if not their residence. 
 
 But by far the most interesting spot in the neighbourhood 
 of Bath is Prior Park, built by Allen the bookseller, the friend 
 of Pope and the original of Fielding's Allworthy, afterwards 
 the property and residence of Warburton, and now the site of 
 a Eoman Catholic college. 
 
 I shall never forget my first visit to this most beautiful 
 place, on a sunny, dewy day, between May and April, the first 
 of one month or the last of the other, the very fairest moment 
 of the year, all nature smiling around me, and every pleasure 
 enhanced by the delightful manners of Dr. Baines, the then 
 principal of the establishment. 
 
 The house is an elegant and stately erection, separated by 
 long corridors from two wings almost equal to itself in size 
 and extent. The portico is of the noblest architecture, and 
 double flights of steps, flight after flight, exquisite in design 
 and proportion, stretch down from the magnificent colonnade 
 to the sloping lawn. Standing under the lofty pillars, leaning 
 over the marble balustrade, with a splendid peacock close 
 beside me expanding his gorgeous plumage to the sun, I 
 thought I had never beheld a scene that formed so perfect a 
 picture to the eye and to the mind. 
 
 In the foreground the turfy lawn, dotted here and there 
 with graceful shrubs, descended to a sweep of calm, bright 
 waters as clear as crystal, giving back the fleecy clouds and 
 the deep-blue sky, and fringed in on either side by down- 
 dropping elms, columnar poplars, and majestic cedars. Across 
 the lake the city presented itself in its most picturesque point 
 of view : the old buttressed abbey, church towers and spires, 
 streets, squares, and crescents, rising each over each, mixed 
 with park and gardens, and crowned by the high hills of Lans- 
 down and Mr. Beckford's tower. All was gay and glittering in 
 the tender verdure of spring, leaves just bursting, or just 
 burst, a sweet balminess in the air, and the odour of woods 
 and flowers floating around us, with the song of birds and the 
 thousand sounds of new-born insects. It was an hour never 
 to be forgotten! 
 
 He whose intellect and kindliness lent attraction even to 
 that loveliest scenery died soon after. The charm of Dr. 
 Baines' conversation is difficult to describe. He was the son 
 
302 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 of a Yorkshire farmer, and had risen to the rank of Vicar 
 Apostolic, titular Bishop of some Eastern see, and to the 
 highest influence among his English co-rehgionists hy the 
 imited power of talent and of character. The little tinct of 
 simplicity -whioh he retained from his rustic origin went weU 
 with his courtly bearing. That small touch of provincial 
 naivete gave to his high-bred polish the finishing grace of truth. 
 It was charming to see him surrounded by the boys of one 
 wing, Howards, Talbots, Eitzgeralds, O'Connells— for O'Connell 
 was then " a name to conjure withal "—and the elder students 
 of the other building, young men in college cap and gown. It 
 was a double establishment, one a school for the purpose of 
 secular education, the other a seminary for the priesthood; 
 but all the inhabitants, elder or younger, without any distinc- 
 tion, seemed to claim Dr. Baines as the general father. He 
 reigned in the hearts of all. 
 
 Full of taste and information, he avoided everything that 
 approached to controversy, and addressed himself to the topics 
 moat likely to interest his hearers, as if they had been precisely 
 those most interesting to himself. He showed me Miss AgneVa 
 outline engravings, speaking of her " Geraldine " (then recently 
 published) with high but discriminating praise, and regretting 
 her retirement to a convent, a thing he rarely saw cause to 
 recommend. He showed me a little volume of Latin hymns, 
 the hymns Sir Walter Scott liked so weU, and told me that 
 Mr. Moore, on his last visit to Prior Park, had at his request 
 taken away a copy. " I hope," said he, " that that great artist 
 in words may give us an English version of some of the few 
 poems, professedly religious, which have always had attractions 
 for poets. It would be a happy close of a literary life, the 
 prayer before going to rest." 
 
 He gave a most amusing account of Cardinal irfezzofante — 
 a man in all but his marvellous gift of tongues as simple as an 
 infant. " The last time I was in Rome," said he, " we went 
 together to the Propaganda, and heard speeches delivered in 
 thirty-five or thirty-six languages by converts of various 
 nations. Amongst them were natives of no less than three 
 tribes of Tartars, each talking his own dialect. They did not 
 understand each other, but the Cardinal understood them all, 
 and could tell with critical nicety the pointsin which one 
 jargon differed from the others. We dined together ; and I 
 
A LITEKAEY LIFE. 303 
 
 entreated him, having been in the Tower of Babel all the 
 morning, to let us stick to English for the rest of the day. 
 Accordingly he did stick to English, which he spoke as fluently 
 as we do, and with the same accuracy not only of grammar 
 but of idiom. His only trip was in saying, ' that was before 
 the time when I remember,' instead of 'before my time.' 
 Once, too, I thought him mistaken in the pronunciation of 
 a word. But when I returned to England," continued Dr. 
 Baines, "I found that my way was either provincial or old- 
 fashioned, and, that I was wrong and he was right. In the 
 course of the evening his servant brought a Welsh Bible 
 which had been left for him. 'Ah,' said he, 'this is the 
 very thing ! I wanted to learn Welsh ! ' Then he remem- 
 bered that it was in all probability not the authorised ver- 
 sion. 'Never mind,' he said, 'I don't think it will do me 
 any harm.' Six weeks after, I met the Cardinal, and asked 
 him how he got on with his Welsh. 'Oh !' replied he, 'I 
 know it now. I have done with it.' " * 
 
 I do believe that had Dr. Baines been spared, his wisdom, 
 his spirit of conciliation, and his thorovigh knowledge of the 
 temper of England, would have prevented the disastrous feud 
 ■which must grieve all who hold the great Christian tenets of 
 charity and love. 
 
 Traces of the manner in which people lived at Bath, whilst 
 it was a small inconvenient town much resorted to by the sick 
 and the idle, may be found scattered up and down a great 
 variety of books. The list that crowds upon me would fill 
 many pages. Letter-writers, dramatists, poets, biographers alL 
 first or last, betake themselves or their heroes to " the Bath.' 
 Sheridan has made it the scene, not of his most famous, but 
 of his most charming play ; and Bob Acres with his courage 
 oozing out of his fingers' ends, and the comfortable suggestion 
 that " there is snug lying in the abbey," wiU last as long as 
 comedy exists. 
 
 Perhaps the best description of Bath in its heyday of fashion 
 and popularity a century ago, is to be found in the verse of 
 Anstey, burlesque although it be. 
 
 * M. Kossuth, who, though no Mezzofante, either in simplicity 
 or the gift of tongues, has a command over onr language very rare 
 in a foreigner, says that he learnt English in a Turkish prison from 
 three books, Shakespeare, the Bible, and an Hungarian dictionary. 
 
304 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 "The New Bath Guide," written in a light and tripping 
 manner, well adapted to the subject and little previously- 
 known, had an immense vogue in its day ; a vogue all the 
 greater that some of the characters were supposed to be real, 
 and the poignancy of personal satire was added to general 
 pleasantry. It is so far forgotten by the general reader, that 
 the extracts upon which I may venture will probably be as 
 good as new. I do not apologize for a few omissions rendered 
 necessary by the better manners of our times. 
 
 The plan of the work is very simple : Mr. Simkin Blun- 
 derhead, the good-humoured, gullible, but not siUy heir of a 
 north country knight, is sent with his sister Prudence, his 
 cousin Jenny, and their waiting-maid, to drink the waters 
 and look at the world. The story is told in letters from 
 Simkin to his mother, and from Miss Jenny to a female 
 friend : — 
 
 We are all at a wonderful distance from home. 
 
 Two hundred and sixty long miles are we come ! 
 
 And now you'll rejoice, ray dear mother, to hear 
 
 We are safely arrived at the sign of " The Bear." 
 
 As we all came for health, as a body may say, 
 
 I sent for a doctor the very next day ; 
 
 And the doctor was pleased, though so short was the warning. 
 
 To come to our lodgings the very next morning. 
 
 He looked very thoughtful and grave to be sure ; 
 
 And I said to myself — There's no hopes of a cure ! 
 
 But I thought I should faint when I saw him, dear mother. 
 
 Feel my pulse with one hand, with a watch in the other ; 
 
 No token of death that is heard in the night 
 
 Could ever have put me so much in a fright ; 
 
 Thinks I — 'tis all over — my sentence is past, 
 
 And now he is counting how long I shall last. 
 
 Then follows a good deal of medical detail and of doctor's 
 Latin very comically dragged into the verse. In a subsequent 
 letter, Mr. Anstey, who seems to have had as great a horror of 
 the faculty as Molifere himself, gives a report of a consultation 
 and its consequences : — 
 
 If ever I ate a good supper at night, 
 
 I dreamt of the devil and waked in a fright ; 
 
 And so as I grew every day worse and worse, 
 
 The doctor advised me to send for a nurse. 
 
 And the nurse was so willing my health to restore, 
 
 She advised me to send for a few doctors more ; 
 
 For when any difficult work's to be done, 
 
 Many heads can dispatch it much better than one ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 305 
 
 And I find there are doctors enough in this place 
 
 If you want to consult in a dangerous case. 
 
 So they aU met together, and thus began talking : 
 
 " Good doctor, I'm yours — 'tis a fine day for walking ; 
 
 Sad news in the papers — heaven knows who's to blame I 
 
 The Colonies seem to be all in a flame — 
 
 This Stamp Aotj no doubt, might be good for the crown, 
 
 But I fear 'tis a pill that will never go down. — 
 
 What can Portugal mean ?— Is she going to stir up 
 
 Convulsions and heats in the bowels of Europe ! 
 
 'Twill be fatal if England relapses again 
 
 From the ill-blood and humours of Bourbon and Spain." 
 
 Says I : " My good doctors, I can't understand 
 
 Why the deuce you take so many patients in hand ; 
 
 No doubt ye are all of ye great politicians, 
 
 But at present my bowels have need of physicians, 
 
 Consider my case in the light it deserves. 
 
 And pity the state of my stomach and nerves." 
 
 But a tight little doctor began a dispute 
 
 About administration, Newcastle and Bute, 
 
 Talked much of economy — 
 
 « « « « * 
 
 " Come, let's be gone. 
 
 We've another bad case to consider at one." 
 
 So thus they brashed off, each his cane at his nose. 
 When Jenny came in who had heard all their prose : 
 " I'll teach them," says she, " at their next consultation 
 To come and take fees for the good of the nation." 
 I could not conceive what the deuce 'twas she meant. 
 But she seized aU the stuff that the doctors had sent. 
 And out of the window she flung it down souse, 
 As the first politician went out of the house. 
 Decoctions and syrups around him all flew. 
 Pills, boluses, jalep, and apozem too ; 
 His wig had the luck an emulsion to meet. 
 And squash went a gallipot under his feet. 
 
 Having turned out the doctors, the whole party improve 
 both in health and spirits ; Miss Jenny picks up a military 
 lover, under whose auspices Simkin turns beau : — 
 
 No city, dear mother, this city excels 
 In charming sweet sounds both of fiddles and bells, 
 I' thought, like a fool, that they only would ring 
 For a wedding, or judge, or the birth of a king ; 
 But I found 'twas for me that the good-natured people r 
 
 Bang so hard, that I thought they would puU down the steeple ; 
 So I took out my purse, as I hate to be shabby. 
 And paid all the men when they came from the abbey. 
 Yet some think it strange they should make such a riot 
 In a place where sick folk would be glad to be quiet. 
 X 
 
306 BECOLLBCTIOSS OP 
 
 Tabitha Bust, the waiting-maid, takes a bath : — 
 
 'Twas a glorious sight to behold the fair sex 
 All wading with gentlemen up to their necas ; 
 And to-day many persons of rank and condition 
 Were boiled by command of an able physician. _ 
 Dean Spavin, Dean Mangy, and Doctor De Squirt, 
 Were all sent from Cambridge to rub off their dirt ; 
 Judge Bore, and the worthy old Counsellor Pest, 
 Joined issue at once, and went in with the rest; 
 Old Baron Vanteaser, a man of great wealth, 
 Brought his lady the Baroness here for her health ; 
 Miss Scratchit went in, and the Countess of Scales, 
 Both ladies of very great fashion in Wales ; 
 Then all on a sudden two persons of worth, 
 My Lady Pandora Macsoui-vy, came forth, 
 With General Sulphur, arrived from the North. 
 So Tabby you see had the honour of washing 
 With folks of condition and very high fashion ; 
 But in spite of good company, poor little soul. 
 She shook both her ears like a mouse in a bowl. 
 
 This description of the two sexes bathing in common in the 
 chief water-drinking place of England so recently as during 
 the American war, would seem incredible if it were not con- 
 firmed by an almost contemporary writer, Smollett, in his 
 last, and incomparably his best novel, " The Expedition of 
 Humphrey Clinker." 
 
 Our friend Simkin prepares for a ball : — 
 
 Thank heaven, of late, my dear mother, my face is 
 
 Not a little regarded at all public places : 
 
 For I ride in a chair with my hands in a muff, 
 
 And have bought a silk coat, and embroidered the cuff; 
 
 But the weather was cold, and the coat it was thin, 
 
 So the tailor advised me to line it with skin. 
 
 But what with my Nivernois hat can compare. 
 
 Bag-wig and laced ruffles and black solitaire ? 
 
 And what can & man of true fashion denote 
 
 Like a yard of good ribbon tied under his throat ? 
 
 My buckles and box are in exquisite taste ; 
 
 The one is of paper, the other of paste ; 
 
 And my stockings of silk are just come from the hosier, 
 
 For to-night I'm to dance with the charming Miss Toser. 
 
 He goes to the ball. After two or three pages of rhap- 
 sodies : — 
 
 But hark ! now they strike the melodious string, 
 The vaulted roof echoes, the mansions all ring ; 
 At the sound of the hautboy, the bass and the fiddle. 
 Sir Boreas Blubber steps forth in the middle, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 307 
 
 Like a hollyhook, noble, majestic, and tall. 
 
 Sir Boreas Blubber first opens the ball. 
 
 Sir Boreas, great in the minuet known. 
 
 Since the day that for dancing his talents were shown, 
 
 Where the science is practised by gentlemen grown. 
 
 How he puts on his hat with a smile on his face, 
 
 And deliTere his hand with an exquisite grace I 
 
 How gently he offers Miss Carrot before us. 
 
 Miss Carrot Fitz-oozer a niece of Lord Porus I 
 
 How nimbly he paces, how active and light ! 
 
 One never can judge of a man at first sight ; 
 
 But as near as I guess from the size of his calf 
 
 He may weigh about twenty-three stone and a half. 
 
 Now why should I mention a hundred or more 
 
 Who went the same circle as others before 
 
 To a tune that they played us a hundred times o'er ? 
 
 I must find room for some scraps of a public breakfast. 
 Simkin invokes the desire of popularity : — 
 
 'T was you made my Lord Ragamuffin come here, 
 Who they say has been lately created a peer, 
 And to-day with extreme complaisance and respect asked 
 All the people at Bath to a general breakfast. 
 
 You 've heard of my Lady Bunbutter, no doubt. 
 
 How she loves an assembly fandango or rout ; 
 
 "No lady in London is half so expert 
 
 At a snug private party her friends to divert ; 
 
 But they say that of late she's grown sick of the town. 
 
 And often to Bath condescends to come down : 
 
 Her ladyship's favourite house is " The Bear," 
 
 Her chariot and servants and horses are there. 
 
 Now my lord tad the honour of coming down post 
 To pay his respects to so famous a toast ; 
 In hopes he her ladyship's favour might win. 
 By playing the part of a host at an inn. 
 He said it would greatly our pleasure promote 
 If we all for Spring Gardens set out in a boat ; 
 Though I never as yet could his reason explain 
 Why we all sallied forth in the wind and the rain. 
 For sure such confusion was never yet known, 
 Here a cap and a hat, there a cardinal blown : 
 WhUe his lordship embroidered and powdered all o'er 
 Was bowing and handing the ladles ashore. 
 How the misses did huddle and scuddle and run. 
 One would think to be wet must be very good fun ; 
 For by waggling their gown-tails they seemed to take pains 
 To moisten their pinions like ducks when it rains ; 
 And 't was pretty to see, how like birds of a feather 
 The people of quality all fiocked together ; 
 All pressing, addressing, caressing, and fond. 
 Just as so many ganders and geese in a pond. 
 X2 
 
308 EBCOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 You Ve read all their names in the news I suppose, 
 But for fear you have not, take the list as it goes : 
 
 There was Lady Greasewrister, 
 
 And Madam Van Twister, 
 
 Her Ladyship's sister ; 
 
 Lord Cram and Lord Vulter, 
 
 Sir Brandish O'Culter, 
 
 With Marshal Carouser, 
 
 And old Lady Drouser, 
 And the great Hanoverian Baron PanamouBer, 
 Besides many others who all in the rain went 
 On purpose to honour this grand entertainment. 
 The company made a most biiUiant appearance, 
 And ate bread and butter with great perseverance ; 
 All the chocolate, too, that my lord set before 'em 
 The ladies despatched with the utmost decorum ; 
 And had I a voice that was stronger than steel. 
 With twice fifty tongues to express what I feel, 
 And as many good mouths, yet I never could utter 
 AU the speeches my lord made to Lady Bunbutter 1 
 
 Now why should the Muse, my dear mother, relate 
 The misfortunes that fall to the lot of the great ? 
 As homeward we came — 'tis with sorrow you'll hear 
 What a dreadful disaster attended the peer : 
 In landing old Lady Bumfidget and daughter 
 This obsequious lord tumbled into the water ; 
 But a nymph of the flood brought him safe to the boat. 
 And I left all the ladies a cleaning his coat. 
 
 A worst disaster than that which befel Lord Eagamuffin is 
 in store for our good-humoured letter-writer. His friend, 
 Captain Cormorant, who by the way turns out to be no cap- 
 tain at all, and who had undertaken, amongst other fashion- 
 able accomplishments, to initiate him in the mysteries of 
 lansquenet, cheats him out of seven hundred pounds ; so that 
 Miss Jenny loses her lover and her cousin his money at one 
 stroke. Prudence and Tabitha also come in for their share of 
 misadventures ; and the whole party return, crestfallen and 
 discomfited, to the good old Lady Blunderhead and liheir York- 
 shire Manor House, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE, X9 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 JOHK QBEENLEAF WHITTIEE — FITZ-OKEBNE HALLEOK. 
 
 I DID a great injustice the other day when I said that the 
 Americans had at last a great poet. 1 should have remem- 
 bered that poets, like sorrows, 
 
 " Come not single spies 
 But in battalions." 
 
 There is commonly a flight of those singing-birds, as we had 
 ourselves at the beginning of the present century ; and be- 
 sides Professor Longfellow, Bryant, "Willis, Lowell, and Poe do 
 the highest honour to America. 
 
 The person, however, whom I should have most injured 
 myself in forgetting, for my injustice could not damage a re- 
 putation such as his, was John G. Whittier, the most intensely 
 national of American bards. 
 
 Himself a member of the Society of Friends, the two most 
 remarkable of his productions are on subjects in which that 
 active although peaceful sect take a lively interest : the anti- 
 slavery cause, in the present day ; and the persecution of the 
 Quakers, which casts such deep disgrace on the memory of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers and their immediate successors in the early 
 history of New England. 
 
 Strange it seems to us in this milder age, that these men, 
 themselves flying from the intolerance of the Old Country, 
 should, the moment they attained to anything like power, nay 
 even whilst disputing with the native Indians, not the pos- 
 session of the soil, but the mere privilege of dwelling peace- 
 ably therein, at once stiffened themselves into a bigotry and a 
 persecution not excelled by the horrors of the Star Chamber I 
 should, as soon as they attained the requisite physical force, 
 chase and scourge, and burn and sell their fellow-creatures 
 into slavery, for that very exercise of private judgment on 
 religious subjects, that very determination to interpret freely 
 the Book of Life, which had driven themselves into exile ! 
 Oh ! many are the causes of thankfulness which we owe to the 
 
310 BECOLLECriONS OF 
 
 Providence that cast us upon a more enlightened age ; but for 
 nothiug ought we more devoutly to render thanks to God than 
 that in our days the deeds recited in Mr. Whittier's splendid 
 ballad of " Cassandra Soufchcote" would be impossible. 
 
 His poem itself can scarcely be overrated. The march of 
 the verse has something that reminds us of the rhythm of 
 Mr. Maoaulay's fine classical ballads, something which is re- 
 semblance, not imitation ; whilst in -the tone of mind of the 
 author, his earnestness, his eloquence, his pathos, there is 
 much that resembles the constant force and occasional beauty 
 of Ebenezer Elliot. Whilst equally earnest, however, and 
 equally eloquent, there is in Mr. Whittier, not only a more 
 sustained, but a higher tone than that of the Corn-law 
 Ehymer. It would indeed be difficult to tell the story of a 
 terrible oppression and a merciful deUverance, a dehverance 
 springing from the justice, the sympathy, the piety of our 
 countrymen, the EngUsh captains, with more striking effect. 
 I transcribe the prose introduction, which is really necessary 
 to render such an outrage credible, although one feels in- 
 tuitively that the story must have been true, precisely because 
 it was too strangely wicked for fiction. 
 
 " This ballad has its foundation upon a somewhat remark- 
 able event in the history of Puritan intolerance. Two young 
 persons, son and daughter of Lawrence Southwick, of Salem, 
 who had himself been imprisoned and deprived of all his pro- 
 perty for having entertained two Quakers at his house, were 
 fined ten pounds each for non-attendance at church, which 
 they were unable to pay. The case being represented to the 
 General Court at Boston, that body issued an order wluch 
 may still be seen on the court records, bearing the signature 
 of Edward Rawson, Secretary, by which the Treasurer of the 
 County was ' fully empowered to sell the said persons to any 
 of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes to answer said 
 fines.' An attempt was made to carry this barbarous order 
 into execution, but no shipmaster was found wilhng to convey 
 them to the West Indies. Vide Sewall's History, pp. 225-6, 
 G. Bishop." 
 
 To the God of all true mercies let my blessing rise to-day, 
 From the scoffer and the cruel He hath plucked the spoil away, — 
 Tea, He, who cooled the furnace around the faithful three. 
 And tamed the Chaldean liona, hath set His handmaid free ! 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 311 
 
 Last night I saw the suuaet melt through my prison bars, 
 Last night across my damp earth-floor fell the pale gleam of stars, 
 In the coldness and the darkness all through the long night time, 
 My grated window whitened with autumn's early rime. 
 
 Alone in that dark sorrow, hour after hour crept by ; 
 Star after star looked palely iu, and sank adown the sky ; 
 Ko sound amid night's stillness, save that which seemed to be 
 The dull and heavy beating of the pulses of the sea. 
 
 All night I sate unsleeping, for I knew that on the morrow 
 The ruler and the cruel priest would mock me in my sorrow. 
 Dragged to their place of market, and bargained for and sold 
 Like a lamb before the shambles, like a heifer from the fold ! 
 
 Oh the weakness of the flesh was there, the shrinking and the shame ; 
 And the low voice of the Tempter like whispers to me came : 
 "Why sittst thou thus forlornly?" the wicked murmur said, 
 " Damp walls thy bower of beauty, cold earth thy maiden bed ? 
 
 " Where be the smiling faces and voices soft and sweet 
 Seen in thy father's dwelling, heard in the pleasant street? 
 Where be the youths, whose glances the summer Sabbath through 
 Turned tenderly and timidly unto thy father's pew ? 
 
 " Why sittst thou here, Cassaudra ? Bethink thee with what mirth 
 Thy happy schoolmates gather around the warm bright hearth ; 
 How the crimson shadows tremble, on foreheads white and fair, 
 On eyes of merry girlhood half hid iu golden hair. 
 
 " Not for thee the hearth-fire brightens, not for thee kind words are 
 
 spoken ; 
 Not for thee the nuts of Wenham Woods by laughing boys are broken ; 
 No first-fruits of the orchard within thy lap are laid. 
 For thee no flowers of autumn the youthful rustics braid. 
 
 " weak deluded maiden ! by crazy fancies led, 
 
 With wild and raving railers an evil path to tread ; 
 
 To leave a wholesome worship and teaching pure and sound. 
 
 And mate with maniac women, loose-haired and sackcloth bound. 
 
 " Mad Bcoflfers of the priesthood, who mock at things divine. 
 Who rail against the pulpit and holy bread and wiue, 
 Sore from their cart-tail soourgings and from the pillory lame, 
 Kejoicing in their wretchedness and glorying in their shame. 
 
 " And what a fate awaits thee ? a sadly toiling slave. 
 Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave ! 
 Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thraU, 
 The easy prey of any, the scoff and scom of all ! " 
 
 Oh ! — ever as the Tempter spoke, and feeble nature's fears 
 Wrung drop by drop the scalding flow of unavailing tears, 
 I wrestled down the evil thoughts, and strove in silent prayer, 
 To feel— oh Helper of the we& ! that Thou indeed wert there ! 
 
312 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 I thought b( Paul and Silas, within Philippi's cell, 
 And how from Peter's sleeping limbs the prison shackles fell. 
 Till I seemed to hear the trailing of an angel's robe of white, 
 And to feel a blessed presence invisible to sight. 
 
 ^ 5p tjtf V 
 
 Slow broke the grey cold morning, again the sunshine fell 
 Flecked with the shade of bar and grate within my lonely cell ; 
 The hoar-frost matted on the wall, and upward from the street 
 Came careless laugh and idl^ word and tread of passing feet. 
 
 At length the heavy bolts fell back, my door was open cast. 
 And slowly at the sheriff's side up the long street I passed ; 
 I heard the murmur round me, and felt, but dared not see, 
 How from every door and window the people gazed on me. 
 
 * » » * 
 
 We paused at length where at my feet the sunlit waters broke 
 On glaring reach of shining beach, and shingly wall of rock ; 
 The merchants' ships lay idly there in hard clear lines on high 
 Tracing with rope and slender spar their network on the sky. 
 
 And there were ancient citizens, cloak -wrapped and grave and cold, 
 And grim and stout sea-captains, with faces bronzed and old, 
 And on his horse with Eawson, his cruel clerk at hand, 
 Sate dark and haughty Endicott, the ruler of the land. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 But grey heads shook, and young brows knit, the while the sheriff 
 That law the wicked rulers against the poor have made. [read 
 
 Who to their house of Rimmon and idol priesthood bring 
 No bended knee of worship, nor gainful offering. 
 
 Then to the stout sea-captains the sheriff turning said : 
 
 " Which of ye worthy seamen wUl take this Quaker maid ? 
 
 In the Isle of fair Barbadoes, or on Virginia's shore, 
 
 You may hold her at a higher price than Indian girl or Moor." 
 
 Grim and silent stood the captains ; and when again he cried, 
 " Speak out, my worthy seamen 1 " no voice or sign replied ; 
 But I felt a hard hand press my own, and kind words met my ear ;— 
 "God bless thee, and preserve thee, my gentle girl and dear 1' 
 
 A weight seemed lifted off my heart— a pitying friend was nigh, 
 I felt it in his hard rough hand, I saw it m his eye ; 
 And when again the sheriff spake, that voice so kind to me 
 Growled back its stormy answer like the roaring of the sea. 
 
 " Pile my ship with bars of silver— pack with coins of Spanish gold 
 irom keelpiece up to deck-plank, the roomage of her hold 
 By the living God who made me ! I would sooner in yon bay 
 Sink ship and crew and<!argo than bear this child awav !'" 
 
 " Well answered, worthy captain ; shame on their cruel laws I" 
 Ban through the crowd in murmurs loud the people's just applause 
 "Like the herdsman of Tekoa in Israel of old 
 Shall we see the poor and righteous again for silver sold ? " 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 313 
 
 I looked on haughty Endioott ; with weapon half-way drawn, 
 Swept round the throng his lion glare of bitter hate and acorn ; 
 Fiercely he drew his bridle-rein, and turned in silence back, 
 And sneering priest and baffled clerk rode murmuring in his track. 
 
 Hard after them the sheriff looked in bitterness of soul, [roll ; 
 
 Thrice smote his staff upon the ground, and crushed his parchment 
 " Good friends," he said, "since both have fled, the ruler and the 
 Judge ye if from their further work I be not well released." [priest, 
 
 Loud was the cheer, which, full and clear, swept round the silent bay, 
 As with kind words and kinder looks he bade me go my way ; 
 For He who turns the courses of the streamlet of the glen 
 And the river of great waters, had turned the hearts of men. 
 
 Oh, at that hour the very earth seemed changed beneath my eye, 
 A holier wonder round me rose, the blue walls of the sky, 
 A lovelier light on rock and hill and stream aad woodland lay, 
 And softer lapsed on sunnier sands the waters of the bay. 
 
 Thanksgiving to the Lord of life ! to Him all praises be, 
 Who from the hands of evil men hath set his handmaid free! 
 All praise to Him before whose power the mighty are afraid. 
 Who takes the crafty in the maze which for the poor is laid 1 
 
 m * * * 
 
 I add the opening stanzas of an equally powerful and elo- 
 quent poem, with the few lines of explanation prefixed by the 
 author. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS TO VIKOINIA. 
 
 Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the 
 citizens of iJorfolk (Virginia) in reference to George Latimer, 
 the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massa- 
 chusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro, 
 Somerset, in England, in 1772. 
 
 The blast from Freedom's northern hills upon its southern way 
 
 Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay : — 
 
 No word of haughty challenging, nor battle-bugle's peal, 
 
 Kor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horseman's steel. 
 
 No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go — 
 
 Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow ; 
 
 And to the land-breeze of our ports upon their errands far, 
 
 A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war. 
 
 We hear thy threats, Virginia ! thy stormy words and high, 
 Swell harshly on the southern winds which melt along our sky ; 
 Yet noli one brown hard hand foregoes its honest labour here ; 
 No hewer of our mountain oak suspends his axe in fear. 
 
314 HECOLLBOTIONS OF 
 
 Wild are the waves that lash the reefs along St. George's bank, 
 Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank ; [man 
 Through storm and wave and blinding mist stout are the hearts which 
 The fishing-smaoks of Marble Head, the sea-boats of Cape Ann. 
 
 The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms 
 Bent grimly o'er their straining-lines, or wrestling with the storms ; 
 Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam. 
 They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rooky home. 
 
 What means the Old Dominion ? Hath she forgot the day 
 When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array ? 
 How, side by side with sons of her's, the Massachusetts men 
 Encountered Tarletou's charge of fire, and stout Comwallis then? 
 
 Forgets she how the Bay States, in answer to the call 
 Of her old House of Burgesses spoke out from Fanueil Hall f 
 When echoing back her Henry's cry, came pealing on each breath 
 Of northern winds the thrilling sounds of " Liberty or Death ! " 
 
 What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved 
 False to their father's memory, false to the faith they loved ; 
 If she can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn, 
 Must we of Massachusetts from Truth and Duty turn ? 
 
 We hunt your bondmen flying from slavery's hateful hell — 
 Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell — 
 We gather at your summons above our father's graves. 
 From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched sla,ves ! 
 
 Thank God ! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow. 
 
 The spirit of her early time is with her even now ; 
 
 Dream not because her pilgiim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool. 
 
 She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool I 
 
 All that a Sister State should be, all that a free State may, , 
 Heart, hand and purse we proffer, as in our early day ; 
 But that one dark loathsome burden, ye must stagger with alone. 
 And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown ! 
 
 If slavery be a reproaoli, and too just a reproach it is to the 
 Southern States, surely the citizens of New England may 
 justly pride themselves upon the poetry which has arisen out 
 of the sin and shame of their brethren. Time will inevitably 
 chase away the crime, for national crimes are in their very 
 nature transient, whilst the noble effusions that sprang from 
 that foul source, whether in the verse of the poet, or the 
 speeches of the orator, are imperishable. 
 
 Another of my sins of omission is Mr. HaUeck, a poet of a 
 different stamp, with less of earnestness and fire, but more of 
 grace and melody. How musical are these stanzas on the 
 Music of Natui'e ! 
 
A LITBEART LIFE. 315 
 
 Foung thoughts have musio in them, love 
 
 And happiness their theme ; 
 And music wanders in the wind 
 
 That lulls a morning dream. 
 And there are angel voices heard 
 
 In childhood's frolic hours, 
 When life is but an April day 
 
 Of sunshine and of flowers. 
 
 There 's musio in the forest leaves 
 
 When summer winds are there, 
 And in the laugh of forest girls 
 
 That braid their sunny hair. 
 The first wild bird, that drinks the dew, 
 
 From violets of the spring. 
 Has music in his voice, and in 
 
 The fluttering of his wing. 
 
 There 's musio in the dash of waves 
 When the swift bark cleaves the foam ; 
 
 There 's music heard upon her deck 
 The mariner's song of home. 
 
 When moon and starbeams smiling meet 
 At midnight on the sea — 
 
 ■* * * * 
 
 To day-the forest leaves are green, 
 
 They '11 wither on the morrow ; 
 And the maiden's laugh be changed ere long 
 
 To the widow's wail of sorrow ; 
 Come with the winter snows and ask 
 
 Where are the forest birds ? 
 The answer is a silent one 
 
 More eloquent than words. 
 
 The moonlight musio of the waves 
 
 In storms is heard no more. 
 When the living lightning mocks the wreck 
 
 At midnight on the shore. 
 
 Still better than these verses arts the stanzas on the death 
 of his brother poet Drake : — 
 
 Green be the turf above thee. 
 
 Friend of my better days ; 
 None knew thee but to love thee. 
 
 None named thee but to praise. 
 
 Tears fell, when thou wert dying. 
 
 From eyes unused to weep ; 
 And long where thou art lying 
 
 Will tears the cold turf steep. 
 
3 If) RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 When hearts whose truth was proven 
 
 Like thine are laid in earth, 
 There should a wreath he woven 
 
 To tell the world their worth ; 
 
 And I, who woke each morrow 
 
 To clasp thy hand in mine, 
 Who shared thy joy and sorrow. 
 
 Whose weal and woe were thine, — 
 
 It should be mine to braid it 
 
 Around thy faded brow ; 
 But I 'to in vain essayed it. 
 
 And feel I cannot now. 
 
 While memory bids me weep thee 
 
 Nor thoughts nor words are free, 
 The grief is fixed too deeply 
 
 That mourns a man like thee. 
 
 This is a true and manly record of a true and manly Mend- 
 ship. There is no doubting the sorrow, honourable alike to 
 the Departed and the Survivor. May he be so loved and so 
 mourned ! 
 
 SXVII. 
 
 VOLUMINOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 love of long books. 
 
 harqkavjS's state trials. 
 
 Att, my life long I have delighted in voluminous worts ; in 
 other words, I have delighted in that sort of detail which per- 
 mits so intimate a familiarity with the subjects of which it 
 treats. This fancy of mine seems most opposed to the spirit 
 of an age fertile in abridgments and selections. And yet my 
 taste is hardly, perhaps, so singular as it seems : witness the 
 six-volume biographies of Scott and Southey, which every- 
 body wishes as long again as they are ; witness the voluminous 
 histories of single events — ^the Conquest of Peru and of Mexico 
 by Mr. Prescott, the French Eevolution of M. Thiers, the Gi- 
 rondins of M. de Lamartine. Even the most successful writers 
 of modern fiction have found the magical effects of bringing 
 the public into intimacy with their heroes. Hence Mr. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 317 
 
 Cooper (dead I regret to say, but yet imperishably alive in 
 his graphic novels) extended to fifteen volumes the adventures 
 of Leather-Stocking, until every reader offered his hand to 
 greet the honest backwoodsman as if he had been a daily 
 visitor; and Balzac, a still greater artist, brought the same 
 dramatis personm, the same set of walking ladies and gentlemen, 
 to fill up the background of his scenes of the " Life of Paris 
 and of Uie Provinces," with an illusion so perfect and so 
 masterly, that I myself, who ought to have some acquaintance 
 with the artifices of story-telling, was so completely deceived 
 as to inquire by letter of the friend who had introduced me 
 to those remarkable books, whether the Horace Bianchon, 
 whom I had just found consulted for the twentieth time in 
 some grave malady, were a make-believe physician, or a real 
 living man. To which my friend, herself no novice in this 
 sort of deception, replied that he was certainly a fictitious 
 personage, for that she had written two years ago to Paristo 
 ask the same question. 
 
 Even in this world of Beauties, and of Extracts, I do not 
 believe myself quite alone in my love of the elaborate and the 
 minute ; and yet I doubt if many people contemplate very 
 long very big books with the sense of coming enjoyment 
 which such a prospect gives me ; and few shrink, as I do, 
 with aversion and horror from that invention of the enemy — 
 an Abridgment. I never shall forget the shook I experienced 
 in seeing Bruce, that opprobrium of an unbelieving age, that 
 great and graphic traveller, whose eight or nine goodly 
 volumes took such possession of me, that I named a whole 
 colony of Bantams after his Abyssinian princes and princesses, 
 calling a little golden strutter of a cock after that arch-tyrant 
 the Has Michael ; and a speckled hen, the beauty of the 
 poultry-yard, Ozoro Ester, in honour of the Eas's favourite 
 wife — I never felt greater disgust than at seeing this magni- 
 ficent work cut down to a thick, dumpy volume, seven inches 
 by five ; except, perhaps, when I happened to light upon 
 another pet bobk — Drinkwater's " Siege of Gibraltar," where 
 I had first learned to tremble at the grim realities of war, 
 had watched day by day the firing of the red-hot balls, had 
 groped my way through the galleries, and taken refuge in the 
 casemates, degraded from the fair proportions of a goodly 
 quarto into the thin and meagre pamphlet of a lending 
 
318 KECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 library, losing a portion of its life-like truth with every page 
 that was cut away. 
 
 Besides books long in themselves, I love large collections of 
 works of the same class. Shakespeare I had always known, 
 of course. But what joy it was to wander at will through the 
 vellum-bound folio of Beaumont and Fletcher, and then to 
 diverge to Ben Jonson, to Massinger, to Ford, to "Webster, to 
 the countless riches of Dodsley's Old Plays ! How pleasant to 
 get together books united only by a common subject, collec- 
 tions of English ballads, Percy, "Weber, Heber, Eitson, Scott, 
 the Chronicles of Proissart and de Joinville, of Holinshed 
 and of Hall, the endless memoirs of Louis the Fourteenth's 
 day, or the still more endless Journals and Diaries, whether 
 by prince or valet, whether false or true, that show us vividly 
 as in life him whom Beranger has called " the great poet of 
 modern times," the marvellous Napoleon ! 
 
 Or again, books by the same author : the novels of Richard- 
 son ; the letters of "Walpole — wiU they ever come to an end ! 
 I hope not. The majestic verse and graceful prose of Dryden, 
 whose prefaces contain some of our earliest criticism and 
 some of our best ; the wisdom of Bacon ; the wit of Swift ; 
 the easy truth of Jane Austen ; the matchless charm of Scott. 
 I have read of Pi-ynne and Defoe more than would break 
 down a writing-table, and about the French Revolution as 
 much as would fill a room. 
 
 Nor do I perceive much change in this devouring passion. 
 Nearly forty years ago I had occasion to acquire as much 
 knowledge as I could on tbe subject of the Commonwealth, 
 and it was a laboxir of love. From the lives of Hutchinson 
 and Fairfax, so charmingly told by their loving wives, and 
 the exciting histories of Burnet and Clarendon to the dullest 
 State Papers of the Record Office, my ravenous appetite " had 
 stomach for them alL" Four winters since I was reading for 
 my own pleasure Lucas Monsigny's " Life of Mirabeau." It 
 was a hired book, a Brussels edition, in ten volumes, from 
 Mr. Rolandi's excellent Foreign Library in Berners Street, and 
 I had only the first four. Full of Mirabeau, of that strange 
 creature his father, and that little less remarkable personage 
 the BaiUi, his uncle, worse than the vain, tyrannical father in 
 my mind, because he had a perception of the stupendous 
 intellect and noble nature with which they were dealing, and 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 319 
 
 yet submitted in all things to that heartless coxcomb, the 
 Marquis ; full of these people, I could not think of waiting 
 until I had written to London, I should never have closed my 
 eyes ; so I ran off to a most kind neighbour, whose rich 
 library and constant indulgence afforded me some chance of 
 supplying this pressing want. " Vie de Mirabeau, par son fils 
 adoptif 1 " said the fair daughter, whom I encountered in the 
 park. "Yes," answered I, with a thousand thanks: "that 
 life of Mirabeau, if Sir Henry happen to have it. If not, any 
 life, any book, by or about him, to serve until I can get the 
 true thing ! " And so I went my way ! In a few hours a 
 horse and cart arrived at my door, containing a great trunk, 
 and a note with a key enclosed. And this precious trunk 
 was full of Mirabeau : orations, letters, lives — all of his own 
 writing, that a woman might fitly read, and almost all that 
 had been written about him, from Dumont's cold unworthy 
 book to the fine etwde of Victor Hugo. I do not think I even 
 opened a newspaper until I had gone through the whole 
 collection. 
 
 One winter I revelled in all the lore I could procure regard- 
 ing beasts, and birds, and insects, and reptiles ; another I 
 solaced myself by a course of topography, ponderous county 
 histories which are called so dull and are often so amusing, 
 full of odd bits of legend and story and traits of manners that 
 one finds nowhere else ; and once I beguiled the long Christmas 
 evenings by looking through the whole series of the "Monthly 
 Review," reading the contemporary judgments on Hume and 
 Bobertson, on Gibbon and Johnson, on Fielding and Smollett, 
 on Gray and Mason, on Goldsmith and Sterne, and comparing 
 the criticism of the day with the abiding verdict of posterity. 
 Anybody not willing to encounter the trouble of turning over 
 above a hundred heavy volumes may procure for himself a 
 recreation nearly analogous by reading the correspondence 
 which Mr. Mitford has just so ably edited between the 
 before-mentioned Horace Walpole and Mason ; and yet that 
 is hardly a fair example. -Prince of letter-writers as Walpole 
 was, created as it seems for nothing else but to chronicle 
 with the adroitest of touches the gossip of the day, it is 
 something wonderful how seldom even by accident he shows 
 the slightest perception of the high, the good, or the true. 
 There is hardly a great name of his own time at which he 
 
320 RECOLLECTIOKS OF 
 
 does not sneer. In one passage he ignores them in a body, 
 and says, " Dr. Johnson and the crew whose names I forget," 
 or words to that effect. He classes Garth as a poet with 
 Milton : chooses Goldsmith as the object of his supreme 
 contempt, and even amongst his own correspondents he had 
 quarrelled with Gray, and was about to quarrel with Mason. 
 He can hardly be said to reflect contemporary opinion. 
 Perhaps we of the last generation have seen something 
 more nearly approaching it in the jugdment of the "Quar- 
 terly" upon Keats, and of the "Edinburgh Keview" upon 
 Wordsworth. Time is the one great critic. 
 
 Of all collected works, those that I liked best, better than 
 the poets from Chaucer to Tennyson, better than the dra- 
 matists from Shakespeare to Talfourd, were those most real and 
 most exciting of all dramas called trials. I began with the 
 Prench collections, collections consisting of very many small 
 volumes, Lilliputian duodecimos, some of which are so in- 
 finitely cm-ious ; and having fairly exhausted them, I betook 
 myself to the Brobdignagian folios of "Hargrave's State 
 Trials." What between the size of the books and my own 
 short-sightedness, I well remember that I was compelled to 
 move the reading-desk twice in the course of every double- 
 columned page. Little did I care for that, enchanted as I 
 was by the development, now of story, now of character, now 
 of eloquence, and always of form — ^the question and answer so 
 well calculated to convey narrative and to elicit truth. 
 
 With two or three obvious exceptions, I went through the 
 whole coUeotion, most interested perhaps by those contained 
 in the long reign of Charles II., a time when the prisons, the 
 courts of justice, and the scaffolds were hardly ever free from 
 illustrious victims, martyrs to liberty as in the case of the 
 regicides and of BusseU and his companions, or for their 
 ancient faith as in the equally iniquitous condemnations of 
 the so-called Popish Plot. 
 
 Amongst these trials of the days of Charles II., two have 
 always seemed to me the perfection of judicial comedy and 
 tragedy. 
 
 The former relates to a man about whom much has been 
 written lately ; and who certainly, although no doubt he had 
 faults in plenty, was puffed up with vanity as your professors 
 of humanity seldom fail to be, and took no small delight in 
 
A LITERARY LTFE. 321 
 
 courts and princes, as was to be expected from the leader of a 
 sect whose chief tenet was an ostentatious renunciation of the 
 pomps and vanities of the world - must be admitted to have 
 had his merits also — amongst which I shall always include 
 the manner in which he turned the Mayor and Mr. Eecorder 
 round his fingers. I am talking of William Penn, and the 
 process in question is the trial of William Penn and William 
 Mead for a tumultuous assembly, 22nd Charles 11.(1670), before 
 the Mayor, Recorder, and divers Aldermen, at the Old Bailey. 
 
 I do not know any cause pleasanter to read than this, 
 because from first to last the parties with whom our sympa/- 
 thies go have the best not ouly of the reasoning but of the 
 result ; such arrant blunderers were the whole of the court. 
 To begin at the beginning : — 
 
 " Clerk. — Bring William Penn and William Mead to the bar. 
 
 " Mayor. — Sirrah ! Who bid you put off their hats ? Put 
 on their hats again. 
 
 "Whereupon one of the officers, putting the prisoners' 
 hats upon their heads, pursuant to the orders of the Court, 
 brought them to the bar. 
 
 " Recorder. — Do you know where you are ? 
 
 " Penn. — Yes. 
 
 "Recorder. — Do you not know it is the King's Court ? 
 
 " Penn. — I know it to be a Court, and I suppose it to be the 
 King's Court. 
 
 " Recorder. — Do you not know there is a respect due to the 
 Court 1 
 
 " Penn. — Yes. 
 
 '^Recorder. — Why do you not pay it then ? 
 
 " Penn. — I do so. 
 
 " Recorder. — Why do you not puU off your hat then \ 
 
 " Penn. — Because I do not believe that to be any respect. 
 
 " Recorder. — ^Well, the Court sets forty marks apiece upon 
 your heads, as a fine for your contempt of Court. 
 
 " Penn. — I desire it might be observed, that we came into 
 the Court with our hats off (that is, taken off), and if they 
 have been put on since, it was by order from the bench, and 
 therefore not we but the bench should be fined." 
 
 Then Penn, finding the advantage he had got, began to ask 
 questions of the Eecorder, much to the discomposure of that 
 learned official. Here is a sample : — 
 
 T 
 
322 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 "Recorder. — Sir, you are a troublesome fellow, and it is not 
 for the honour of the Court to suffer you to go on. 
 
 "Penn. — I have asked but one question, and you have not 
 answered me, though the right and privileges of every EngUsh- 
 mau be concerned in it. 
 
 " Recorder. — If I should suffer you to ask questions till to^ 
 morrow morning, you would be never the wiser. 
 
 " Penn. — That is according as the answers be." 
 
 Finally, although the real offence (that of preaching in 
 Graoeohurch Street) was, I suppose, pretty clearly estabhshad,. 
 it was found absolutely impossible to get the jury to convict. 
 They brought in a temporising and modified verdict, which 
 deprived the Court of the few wits with which they seem to 
 have been originally gifted. The Mayor scolded, the Eecorder 
 stormed. The jury were locked up, sent back ; sent back 
 again, locked up again for- something like two days : and must 
 have been made of very stubborn stuff to have resisted the 
 starvation. They did resist, however. The more they were 
 pressed, the more favourable the verdict became, and the 
 bench were at last compelled to accept a complete and 
 triumphant acquittal. 
 
 The tragedy relates to a far greater man, to that great 
 patriot) Algernon Sydney, who, in declining years, of feeble 
 health, and never, as he himself asserted, having been present 
 at a trial or read a law-book in his hfe, yet fought this losing 
 battle so bravely, so manfully, with so much presence of 
 mind, learning, and eloquence, that the pain of reading of 
 such wrongs is almost lost in admiration of the sufferer, and 
 in envy of such a death. 
 
 Everybody knows the story of this frightful injustice : that 
 he was convicted upon the hearsay evidence of the infamous 
 Lord Howard and the no less infamous West, contradicted as 
 that evidence was out of their own mouths by a host of 
 honourable witnesses, and only bolstered up by a manuscript 
 book written twenty years before, and left openly upon his 
 writing-table. 
 
 Everybody knows, too, his famous answer to Jeffreys at the 
 conclusion of his trial : — 
 
 "Lord Chief Justice. — I pray God work in you a temper fit to 
 go into the other world, for I see you are unfit for this. 
 
 ^.— My Lord, feel my pulse (holding out his hand), 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 323 
 
 and see if I am disordered. I bless God I never was in better 
 temper tban I am now." 
 
 Then the Lieutenant of the Tower carried bact his prisoner. 
 
 This last act of his life is worthy of an anecdote related by 
 Mr. Brand HoUis of his earlier days : — 
 
 "Mr. Sydney, during his stay in Prance, being one day 
 hunting with the French King, and mounted on a fine English 
 horse, the form and spirit of which caught the King's eye, 
 received a message that he would be pleased to oblige the 
 King with his horse at his own price. He answered that he 
 did not choose to part with him. The King determined to 
 have no denial, and gave orders to tender him money or to 
 seize the horse ; which being made known to Mr. Sydney, he 
 instantly took a pistol and shot him, saying : ' That his horse 
 was born a fi'ee creature, had served a free man, and should 
 not be mastered by a King of slaves.' " * 
 
 Besides the cases of high treason, of conspiracy, and of mis- 
 demeanor, public crimes, which may be understood as state 
 trials in the strictest sense of the word, and which have all 
 more or less of historical interest, this collection includes a 
 vast variety of remarkable causes — robbery, forgery, murder, 
 offences, against individuals, which have frequently, the more 
 perhaps because they are confined within the limits of private 
 life, the sort of dramatic eiFect, of incident, and of situation, 
 which belong properly to romance. 
 
 Amongst these, I know none more striking, from the near 
 connexion of the principal actors, the strangeness of the scene, 
 the boldness of the crime, and its most providential discovery, 
 than the trial (in 1741) of Samuel Goodere, Captain of H.M.S. 
 Ruby, for the murder of his brother. Sir John Dinely Goodere, 
 on board his own man-of-war, brought to light by the cooper's 
 wife, who happened accidently to be sleeping on board, and 
 by her husband, who had the moral courage to apprehend the 
 assassin in his very cabin. 
 
 The fulness and minuteness of the evidence, the gradations 
 by which every thought and plan of the fratricide are laid 
 bare by the different witnesses, the reiteration by which one 
 detail is linked to another, from the first attempt to effect a 
 pretended reconciliation with the destined victim, the hurry- 
 
 * 4to Edition (1772) of Algernon Sydney's Works. 
 y2 
 
324 KKCOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 ing Mm from the shore to the boat, the forcing him from the 
 boat to the vessel, and the barring him in the purser's cabin, 
 .to the midnight strangulation, produce an impression of truth 
 and reality almost equal to that of having been personally- 
 present at the horrid catastrophe. 
 
 ■ The very minuteness and repetition, which make so great 
 a part of the charm, forbid any attempt to transcribe the evi- 
 dence ; but an extract from the opening speech of the counsel 
 wUl convey better than any words of mine can do the story of 
 this domestic tragedy. One of the subordinate assassins was 
 tried with Captain Goodere, and another afterwards ; and it 
 is singular that the first pair of culprits both laboured under 
 the infirmity of deafness. 
 
 " Gentlemen, as I am instructed, there had been a long and 
 very unhappy difference between the deceased Sir John and 
 his brother, the prisoner, owing to various occasions, and, 
 amongst others, to Sir John's having cut off the entail of 
 a large estate in Worcestershire, to which Mr. Goodere, as the 
 next remainder man, would have otherwise stood entitled, in 
 default of issue of Sir John. Gentlemen, this misunderstand- 
 ing by degrees grew to an inveterate grudge and hatred on 
 the part of Mr. Goodere ; which was so rooted in his heart, 
 that it at length worked him into a formed design of destroy- 
 ing his brother, and making away with him at ah. hazards and 
 events. The great difficulty was how to get Sir John into his 
 power, for he generally travelled armed ; nor was it easy to 
 get together a set of fellows so base and desperate as to join 
 with him in the carrying off his brother. But, unfortunately 
 for the deceased, Mr. Goodere, having been recently honoured 
 by His Majesty with the command of the Ruby man-of-war, 
 happened, in January last, to be stationed in King's Road— as 
 much within the county of Bristol as this town-haU, where we 
 are sitting. Sir John, who was advanced in years, and very 
 aOing, had, it seems, been advised to come to Bath, for the 
 recovery of his health ; and having occasion to transact affairs 
 of consequence at Bristol with Mr. Josiah Smith, Mr. Goodere 
 book this opportunity of laying a snare for his brother's life, 
 as you will find by the event. He applies to Mr. Smith, and, 
 taking notice to him of the misunderstanding between himself 
 and his brother, pretends a, sincere desire of reconciliation, 
 and desires Mr. Smith, if possible, to make up the breach 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 326 
 
 between them ; and Mr. Smith promised to do his utmost 
 towards effecting a reconciliation, and was as good as his 
 word ; for, by his interest and persuasions, he at length pre- 
 vailed upon Sir John to see and be reconciled to his brother ; 
 and Sir John having appointed Tuesday, the 13th of January 
 last, in the morning, for calling on Mr. Smith, at his house in 
 College Green, Mr. Smith soon made his brother, Mr. Goodere, 
 acquainted therewith ; and no sooner was he informed of it 
 but he began to take his measures for the executing his 
 wicked schemes against his brother's life : for on Monday (the 
 day before Sir John was to be at Mr. Smith's), Mr. Goodere,' 
 with the other prisoner, Mahony (his inseparable agent and 
 companion in every stage of this fatal business), went together 
 to the ' White Hart,' an alehouse, near the foot of the College 
 Green, in view of and almost opposite to Mr. Smith's, in order 
 to see if it was a fit place for their desperate purpose ; and 
 finding it to be so, Mr. Goodere commended the pleasantness 
 of the closet over the porch, and said he would come and 
 breakfast there the next day. And accordingly, the next 
 morning (which was Tuesday, the 13th), Mr. Goodere, with 
 his friend Mahony, and a gang of fellows belonging to the 
 privateer called the Vernon, whom they had hired to assist 
 them in the waylaying and seizing of Sir John, came to the 
 ' White Hart ;' when, having ordered they should have what 
 they would call for, he went himself to breakfast in the closet 
 over the porch, from whence he had a full view of Mr. Smith's 
 house ; whilst the others posted themselves below, on the 
 look-out for Sir John : and it was not long before he came, on 
 horseback, to Mr. Smith's ; but his stay was very short, being 
 obliged to go to Bath : however, he promised Mr. Smith to be 
 in Bristol again by the Saturday following. He was seen from 
 the ' White Hart ' by Mr. Goodere and his spies upon the 
 watch ; but having a servant, and riding with pistols, they 
 did not think proper to attempt the seizing of him then ; but 
 as he rode down the hill, by St. Augustine's Back, Mr. Goodere 
 called out to Mahony, in these words : ' Look to him well, 
 Mahony, and watch him ; but don't touch him now.' And, in 
 fact, gentlemen, the prisoners and their companions followed 
 and watched Sir John a considerable way. Afterwards, Mr. 
 Smith acquainted the prisoner Goodere, that his brother was 
 to be with him on the Sunday following; and, httle thinking 
 
326 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 that an interview betwixt brothers could be of fatal tendency, 
 advised him to be in the way, that he might bring them 
 together : which advice the prisoner observed with but too 
 great punctuality ; taking care, in the interim, to lay such 
 a train, that It should be hardly possible for his brother to 
 escape falling into his hands. He ordered the man-of-war's 
 barge to be sent up for him on the Sunday : accordingly, it 
 came up between two and three that afternoon ; of which 
 Mr. Goodere being informed by one Williams, a midshipman, 
 whom he had ordered up in it, he inquired of Williams if he 
 knew the river, and the brick-kilns going down it ? And 
 Williams telling him he did, Mr. Goodere ordered him to get 
 all the boat's crew together, and be .sure to place the barge at 
 the brick-kilns, and leave but two or three hands to look after 
 the barge, and bring all the rest of the men to the ' White 
 Hart' alehouse, and wait for him there. Accordingly, gen- 
 tlemen, Williams and most of the bargemen came to the place 
 of rendezvous at the ' White Hart ;' where Mahony, with 
 several of the privateer's men (I believe all or part of the 
 same gang that had been there on the watch the Tuesday 
 before), were also met, by Mr. Goodere's orders, to waylay and 
 seize Sir John ; and stood at the window, on the look-out, in 
 order to watch his coming out of Mr. Smith's. Thus the 
 ambuscade being laid, the prisoner, Mr. Goodere, goes to Mr. 
 Smith's, about three in the afternoon, the hour at which Sir 
 John had appointed to be there. He went directly towards 
 his brother, Sir John, and kissed him (what kind of kiss it 
 was, will best appear in the sequel), and observed to him, with 
 an outward show of satisfaction, that he looked in better 
 health than he had formerly done. Mr. Smith was so good as 
 to drink friendship and reconcihation between the two bro- 
 thers. Mr. Goodere pledged it in a glass of wine, which he 
 drank to his brother, Sir John ; who, being under a regimen, 
 offered to pledge him in water, little thinking his brother 
 designed to end their differences by putting an end to his life. 
 But that, gentlemen, you'll soon see, was the sole end he had 
 in view ; for Sir John, in about half an hour, taking his leave, 
 Mr. Goodere was following him. Mr. Smith stopped Mr. 
 Goodere, saying, ' I think I have done great things for you.* 
 Says Mr. Goodere, 'By heaven ! this won't do ;' and imme- 
 diately followed his brother : and meeting some of the sailors 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 327 
 
 he had posted at the ' White Hart,' sayn to them, ' Is he 
 ready 1 ' and heing answered ' Yes,' he bade them make haste. 
 Mahony and the other fellows, who were on the look-out at 
 the ' White Hart,' seeing Sir John go down St. Augustine's 
 Back, immediately rushed out, and (as they had been ordered 
 by Mr. Goodere) seized Sir John as their prisoner. Just then, 
 Mr. Goodere himself was come up, and had joined his com- 
 panions, and showed himself their ringleader ; for, according 
 to my instructions, he gave them positive orders to carry Sir 
 John on board the barge ; and they but too exactly obeyed 
 the word of command. They hurried on Sir John with the 
 utmost violence and precipitation, forcing him along, and 
 even striking him in the presence of his brother ; and, as the 
 Romans used to do their malefactors, dragged him through 
 the public way. The poor unfortunate creature made repeated 
 outcries of ' Murder ! ' — that he was ruined and undone ; for 
 his brother was going to take away his life. He made what 
 resistance he could — called aloud for help ; but all was 'to no 
 purpose. Several persons, indeed, followed them, and asked 
 what was the matter 1 But they were answered by Mr. Goodere 
 and his associates, that the person they were hauling along 
 was a murderer — had killed a man, and was going to be tried 
 for his life. The most of this ruffianly crew being armed with 
 bludgeons and truncheons, obliged the people who came about 
 to keep off, holding up their sticks at them, and threatening 
 to knock them down. Gentlemen, when they had thus forced 
 Sir John towards the end of the rope-walk, Mr. Goodere (who 
 all along, bore them company, and animated them as they 
 passed along) bade them make more dispatch, and mend their 
 pace. Accordingly, they took up Sir John, and carried him by 
 main force a considerable way ; then let him down again, and 
 pushed and hauled him along, until they had got near to the 
 shp opposite the ' King's Head.' Sir John cried out, ' Save 
 me ! save me ! for they are going to murder me ! ' There the 
 barge came up ; and the prisoner, Mr. Goodere, had his brother 
 forced into the barge, and, with Mahony and the rest, went 
 also into the barge. Sir John then called out, ' For God's 
 sake, run to Mr. Smith, and tell him I am about to be mur- 
 dered, or I am an undone man ! ' And crying out that his 
 name was Dinely, Mr. Goodere stopped his mouth with his 
 hand, to prevent his telling his other name. And though Sir 
 
328 
 
 EBCOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 John was in an ill state of health, yet his hard-hearted brother 
 forcibly took his cloak from oflf his back, and put it on himself. 
 A.nd having thus got him into his power, he ordered the men 
 to row off ; telling his brother, that now he had got him into 
 his custody, he would take care of him, and prevent his. 
 making away with his estate. But, gentlemen, in fact, so 
 Uttle did he think himself concerned with what Sir John did 
 with the estate, that he was of opinion no act of Sir John's 
 could affect it longer than his own life, and that it must 
 necessarily devolve to him, as the next in remainder, on his 
 brother's dying without issue. And this, gentlemen, he de- 
 clared to Mr. Smith but a few days before ; and, indeed, his 
 brother at once saw what kind of prevention it was he meant, 
 ' I know,' says he to Mr. Goodere, soon after his being forced 
 into the barge, ' you intend to murder me this night ; and 
 therefore you may as well do it now as cany me down.' 
 Poor gentleman ! his heart misgave him, that the design of 
 this base and daring outrage was to make the ship his prison, 
 one of the cabins his slaughter-house, and the sea his grave ; 
 and therefore he made it his choice to be thrown overboard 
 in the river (where his body might be found), rather than 
 buried in the ocean. The prisoner Goodere denied, indeed, he 
 had any such design, but yet could not refrain from the usual 
 exhortation to dying persons, that he would have him make 
 his peace with God. At the Eedchff, the privateer's men 
 were set on shore ; and, I think, about seven in the evening, 
 the barge reached the Ruby man-of-war, then in the King's 
 Road. Mr. Goodere had in their passage talked of bleeding 
 and purging his brother, to bring him to his senses, pretend- 
 ing he was a madman ; for he knew very well that very few of 
 his own men would have assisted him in such an enterprise, 
 had they not been under a belief that his brother was really 
 mad. And to keep up such a notion, as soon as he had got 
 him on board the Bmhy, he hurried him down what I think 
 they call the gangway, into the purser's cabin; making an 
 apology that he had brought in a mad fellow there ; then 
 ordered two bolts to be clapped on the cabin-door, for the 
 making his prison more secure, which was accordingly done. 
 And now, having made his brother a prisoner, his next step 
 was to destroy him. He took Mahony with him into his own 
 cabin, and there the cruel means of murdering his brother 
 
A LITERARY LIFB. 329 
 
 was concerted between them. They agreed to strangle him, 
 and engaged one White (who is hereafter to stand to the 
 justice of his country) to assist them in the butchery. I 
 should have told you, gentlemen, that it is usual in ships of 
 war to place a sentinel over persons under arrest ; and accord- 
 ingly oue was placed by Mr. Qoodere's orders, with a drawn 
 cutlass in his hand, at the door of the cabin where Sir John 
 was confined. This sentinel, about twelve at night, was re- 
 lieved by one Buchanan. It was impossible for the prisoners 
 to put their wicked design in execution while this Buchanan 
 remained at the cabin-door ; so, to remove that obstacle, i!*Ir. 
 Goodere (after having been in close conference with Mahony 
 and White) comes down to the purser's cabin, takes the cutlass 
 from Buchanan, and orders him on deck, posting himself at 
 the door of the purser's cabin, with the drawn cutlass in his 
 hand. I shall open none of the circumstances disclosed by 
 Mahony in his confession, as being no evidence against Mr. 
 Goodere : but it will be made appear to you, in proof that 
 Mahony and White came to the purser's cabin while Mr. 
 Goodere stood posted at the door of it, that they were let into 
 the purser's cabin by Mr. Goodere himself. Mahony, in par- 
 ticular, was seen by one Macguiness (who kept watch in the 
 gun-room) to go into the purser's cabin, Mr. Goodere at the 
 same time standing sentinel at the door of it, and waving his 
 cutlass at Macguiness, to make him go back. He did so ; but 
 Mr. Goodere waved his cutlass to him a second time, and bade 
 him keep back. Then, gentlemen, it was that Mr. Goodere 
 and his two accompHces effected the cruel murder of his 
 unfortunate brother. Mahony was heard to bid him not stir 
 for his life ; and then, in conjunction with White, whilst Mr. 
 Goodere stood watch for them at the cabin-door (which Mr. 
 Recorder will teU you was the same as being within it), foil 
 on this unhappy gentleman, as he lay in the cabin ; and one 
 of them having half throttled him with his hands, they put 
 a rope about his neck, and at length strangled him. Great 
 were his agonies, and long and painful the conflict between 
 life and death. He struggled violently, and kicked against the 
 cabin, crying out several times very loud, ' Murder ! Must I 
 die ? Help, for God's sake ; save my life ! Here are twenty 
 guineas — take them.' For he well knew they were strangling 
 him by his brother's orders, and therefore offered them a bribe 
 
330 .BBCOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 to spare liia life. The ship's cooper (one Jones) and his wife, 
 lying in the adjoining cabin, heard his dying outcries, and the 
 noise occasioned by his kicking : his cries, too, were heard by 
 others far beyond the cabin-door. Nature at length gave way, 
 and he expired under these cruelties. Then Mahony called 
 for a light, that they might have all the evidence of their eye- 
 sight that Sir John was actually dead ; and (which is a shock- 
 ing circumstance in the case) Mr. Goodere himself handed 
 them in the candle upon that occasion. Buchanan, perceiving 
 the light disappear, was coming to him with another ; but 
 Mr. Goodere waved the cutlass at him to stand off. Such, 
 gentlemen, was the fatal conclusion of this tragical business. 
 What was seen by the cooper and his wife, after the candle 
 was handed in, with regard to rifling the deceased, shall come 
 from their own mouths. The murder being thus effected, 
 Mr. Goodere locked the door, and withdrew to his own cabin. 
 Mahony and White were, by his order, put aboard the yawl, 
 and sent to Bristol. They did not fly the city, gentlemen, 
 depending that their fellow-murderer would some way or 
 other smother this deed of darkness, and take care of their 
 security for the sake of his own. But Divine Providence 
 ordered otherwise. The honest cooper, though he durst not 
 give the alarm whilst the murder was committing, for fear of 
 sharing the same fate with Sir John, yet, as soon as he could 
 with safety, made a discovery of the whole that he had heard 
 and seen. It was concluded that Mr. Goodere had made away 
 with his brother ; which too evidently appeared, on the 
 cooper's forcing open the purser's cabin-door, where Sir John 
 lay murdered ; and thereupon the cooper had the resolution to 
 seize the murderer (who remained on board), though his 
 Captain. He pretended innocence ; and when brought by 
 warrant before Mr. Mayor, and other of the city magistrates, 
 publicly declared that he did not then know that his brother 
 was murdered ; and wont so far as to deny his having had any 
 hand in either the seizing, detaining, or murdering him. But, 
 gentlemen, if my instructions don't mislead me, we shall fix 
 the thing at least as strongly upon Mr. Goodere as Mahony, and 
 more strongly upon them both than I am willing to open it." 
 
 Then came a cloud of witnesses ; Mr. Smith, the landlord of 
 the « White Hart ; " a variety of bystanders ; the men of the 
 barge, one of whom, the Midshipman Williams, deposes to the 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 331 
 
 exhortation given by Captain Goodere to his brother, to make 
 his peace with God : — 
 
 " Williams. — And the Captain being aa near to Sir John a» 
 I am to your Lordship, Sir John asked the Captain what he 
 was going to do with him ? Says the Captain : ' I am going 
 to carry you on board, to save you from ruin, and from lying 
 rotting in a gaol.' 
 
 "Mr. Vernon {counsel for the prosecution). — And what reply 
 did Sir John make to that ? 
 
 " IFilliams. — He said : ' I know better things. I believe you 
 are going to murder me. You might as well throw me over- 
 board, and murder me here right, as carry me on board ship 
 and murder me.' ' No,' says the Captain, ' I am not going to 
 do any such thing ; but I would have you make your peace 
 with God.' As I steered the boat I heard all that passed." 
 
 Then came witnesses to the bringing on board and into the 
 purser's cabin, and the fastening on the bolts, and the placing 
 a sentinel at the door, aud the replacing that sentinel by Captain 
 Goodere himself; and then comes the chief witness of all, the 
 " honest cooper." 
 
 Edward Jones sworn : 
 
 "Mr. Vernon. — Mr. Jones, I think you are the cooper of the 
 ship 'Euby?' 
 
 " Jones. — Yes, Sir. 
 
 "Mr. Vernon^ — Wore you on board on Sunday, the 18th of 
 January last ? 
 
 " Jones. — Yes, Sir ; I was. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — In what cabin did you lie that night ? 
 
 " Jones. — I had no cabin ; but I made bold to lie in the 
 slop-room that night, having my wife on board. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — Pray what is that you call the slop-room. 
 
 " Jones — It is like a cabin. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — How near is the slop-room to the purser's 
 cabin ? 
 
 " Jon£s. — Nothing but a thin deal partition parts it from the 
 purser's cabin. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — Will you relate to Mr. Eecorder and the jury 
 what you know about the murder of Mr. Goodere's brother. 
 Tell the whole you know concerning it. 
 
 " /o«e,!.— About Wednesday or Thursday before this hap- 
 pened, the Captain said to me, ' Cooper, get this purser's cabin 
 
332 RECOLLICTIONS OP 
 
 cleared out ; ' for he said he expected a gentleman shortly to 
 come on board. I cleared it out, and on Sunday evening the 
 gentleman came on board. When the people on deck cried, 
 ' Cooper, show a light,' I brought a light, and saw the -Captain 
 goiijg down the cock-pit ladder. The gentleman was hauled 
 down ; he complained of a pain in his thigh from their hauling 
 him on board. The Captain asked him if he would have a 
 dram. He said No, for he had drunk nothing but water for 
 two years. The Captain ordered Mahony a dram. He drank 
 it. He also ordered one Jack Lee to put two bolts on the 
 purser's cabin-door. The gentleman walked to and fro the 
 purser's cabin, whilst they were nailing the bolts on. He 
 wanted to speak with one of the officers. The carpenter told 
 him he was the carpenter. Says the gentleman : ' Do you 
 understand what my brother Sam is going to do with me ? ' 
 And said his brother had brought him on board to murder 
 him that night. The carpenter said he hoped not, but what 
 was done was for his good. The Captain said, they must not 
 mind what his brother said, for he had been mad for a twelve- 
 month past ; then the Captain went up again, and went into 
 the doctor's room. I went to bed about eight o'clock. Some 
 time about eleven o'clock at night, I heard the gentleman knock. 
 Mahony went into him. Mahony sat down in the cabin, and he 
 and the gentleman had a great deal of discourse together : the 
 gentleman said he had been at the East Indies, and told what 
 he had got by his merit, and Mahony said some by good 
 friends. I heard the gentleman, after Mahony had gone, pray 
 to God to be his comforter under his afflictions : he said to 
 himself that he knew he was going to be murdered, and prayed 
 that it might come to light by one means or another. I took 
 no notice of it, because I thought him a crazy man. I slept 
 a little, and about two or three o'clock, my wife waked me. 
 She said : 'Don't you hear the noise that is made by the gen- 
 tleman ; I believe they are killing him.' I then heard him 
 kick, and cry out, ' Here are twenty guineas ! Take them ! 
 Don't murder me ! Must I die ! Must I die ! O my life ! ' 
 and gave several keeks with his throat, and then he was still. 
 I got up in my bed upon my knees ; I saw a light glimmering 
 in at the crack, and saw that same man Mahony with a candle 
 in his hand. The gentleman was lying on one side. Charles 
 White was there, and he put out his hand to get the gentle- 
 
A LITBRARy LIFE. 333 
 
 man upright. I heard Mahony cry out, and swear, ' Let us 
 take his watch ! ' But White said he could not get at it. I 
 could not see his pockets. White laid hold of him, and went 
 to tumbling him up to get out his money and watch. I saw 
 him lay hold of the chain. White gave Mahony the watch, 
 who put it in his pocket, and White put his hand into one of 
 the gentleman's pockets, and cursed that there was nothing 
 but silver, but he put his hand into the other pocket, and 
 there he found gold. 
 
 " Mr. Recorder. — In what posture did Sir John lie at that 
 time ? 
 
 " Jones. — He lay in a very uneasy manner, with one leg up, 
 and when they moved him, he remained so ; which gave me 
 a suspicion that he was dead. I saw a person's hand on the 
 throat of this gentleman, and heard the person say, ' 'Tis done, and 
 well done' 
 
 " Mr. Recorder. — Was that a third person's hand, or the 
 hand of Mahony or White 1 
 
 " Jones. — I cannot say whether it was a third person's hand 
 or not. I saw but two persons in the cabin. I did not see 
 the person, for it was done in a moment. I can't swear I saw 
 more than two persons in the cabin. 
 
 " Mr. Recorder. — Did you take notice of the hand that was 
 laid on Sir John's throat % 
 
 " Jones. — I did. 
 
 " Mr. Recorder. — Did it appear to you like the hand of a 
 common sailor 1 
 
 " Jones. — No ; it seemed white. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — ^You have seen two hands held up at the bar 
 to-day. I would ask you to which of them it was most like 
 in colour 1 
 
 ^^ Jones. — I have often seen Mahony's and White's hands, 
 and I thought the hand was whiter than either of theirs ; and 
 I think it was neither of their hands by the colour of it. 
 
 " Mr. Recorder. — Was Sir John on the floor, or on the bed 1 
 
 " Jones. — On the bed ; but there was no sheets. It was a 
 flock bed, and nobody had lain there for a great while. 
 
 " Mr. Vernon. — How long did the cries and noise that you 
 heard continue ?■ 
 
 " Jones.— ISot a great while. He cried like a person going 
 out of the world, very low. At my hearing it, I would have 
 
334 BECOLLECTIONS OW 
 
 got out in the meantime, but my wife desired me not to go, 
 for she was afraid there was somebody at the door would 
 have killed me. 
 
 " Mr. Fermn.— What more do you know of this matter ? or 
 of Mahony and White being afterwards put on shore 1 
 
 " Jones.—! heard some talking that the yawl was to go to 
 the shore about four of the clock in the morning, and some 
 of us were called up, and I importuned my wife to let me 
 go out. I called and asked, 'Who is sentinel?' Duncan 
 Buchanan answered and said, ' It is I.' ' Oh ! ' says I, ' is it 
 you ? ' I then thought myself safe. I jumped out in my 
 shirt, went to him i says I, ' There have been a devilish noise 
 in the cabin, Duncan ; do you know anything of the matter ? 
 They have certainly killed the gentleman. What shall us do ? ' 
 I went to the cabin-door, where the doctor's mate lodged, 
 asked him if he ' had heard anything to-night V 'I heard a 
 great noise,' said he. ' I believe,' said I, ' they have killed that 
 gentleman.' He said he 'believed so, too.' I drawed aside 
 the scuttle that looked into the purser's cabin from the 
 steward's room, and cried, ' Sir, if you are alive, speak.' He 
 did not speak. I took a long stick, and endeavoured to move 
 him, but found he was dead. I told the doctor's mate that 
 I thought he was the proper person to relate the matter to 
 the officer, but he did not care to do it then. ' If you will not, 
 I will,' said I. I went up to the Lieutenant, and desired him 
 to come out of his cabin to me. ' What is the matter 1 ' said 
 he. I told him, ' I believed there had been murder committed 
 in the cockpit, upon the gentleman who was brought on board 
 last night.' ' Oh ! don't say so,' said the Lieutenant. In that 
 interim, whilst we were talking about it, Mr. Marsh, the 
 midshipman, came and said that there was an order to carry 
 White and Mahony on shore. I then swore they should 
 not go on shore, for there was murder committed. The Lieu- 
 tenant said, ' Pray, be easy ; it can't be so. I don't believe 
 the Captain would do any such thing.' That gentleman there, 
 Mr. Marsh, went to ask the Captain if Mahony and White 
 must be put on shore 1 And Mr. Marsh returned again, and 
 said the Captain said they should. I then said, ' It is certainly 
 true that the gentleman ia murdered between them,' I did 
 not see Mahony and White that morning, because they were 
 put on shore. I told the Lieutenant, that if he would not take 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 335 
 
 care of the matter, I would write up to the Admiralty, and 
 to the Mayor of Bristol. The Lieutenant asked the Captain to 
 drink a glass of wine. The Captain would not come out of 
 his cabin. Then the Lieutenant went ia first. I followed him. 
 Then I seized him, and several others came to my assistance." 
 
 The cooper's good wife, Margaret Jones, corroborated her 
 husband's evidence ia every point with equal clearness and 
 directness. Witness after witness followed with terrible repe- 
 tition, and a distinctness, a power of simple, honest truth, 
 that nothing could shake. The very watch and money for 
 which they had wrangled over the dead body were brought 
 home to the subordinate ruffians, and the whole three were 
 found guilty, condemned, and executed as near as possible to 
 the scene of the crime. 
 
 This remarkable murder took place rather more than a 
 hundred years ago. The two brothers were uncles of Samuel 
 Footo, the celebrated mimic and comedian, and admirable 
 farce writer, whose baptismal name was probably derived 
 from that disgrace to the British Navy, Captain Samuel 
 Goodero. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 FISHING SONGS. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 
 MR. DOUBLEDAT — MISS CORBETT. 
 
 All the world, that is to say, the reading world, whether 
 male or female, has yielded to the magic of one Fisherman's 
 book — " The English Angler," of Isaac Walton ; and such is 
 the charm of the subject, that the modern works which, so 
 far as the science of angling is concerned, may be said to have 
 superseded the instructions of the old master, the works of 
 Sir Humphry Davy, of Mr. Hofland, of Mr. Henry PhiUips all 
 men eminent for other triumphs than those of the fishing- /od, 
 have, in their several ways, inherited much of the fascination 
 that belongs to the venerable father of the piscatory art. 
 
 Even the dissertations on salmon-fishing, as practised in the 
 wilder parts of Ireland and in Norway, which when measured 
 with the humble sport of angUng for trout in a southern 
 
336 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 stream, may be likened to the difference between a grand lion 
 hunt in Africa and the simple pheasant shooting of a Norfolk 
 squire — even the history of landing a salmon partakes of the 
 Waltonian charm. "We take up the book, and we forget to lay 
 it down again ; the greatest compliment that reader can pay 
 to author. 
 
 The poetical brothers of the angle, however — I mean such 
 as have actually written in verse — are not only fewer in num- 
 ber, but have generally belonged to the northern portion of our 
 island. I am not sure that the pleasure with which I read 
 " The Fisher's Welcome," may not partly be referred to that 
 cause. At least, I do not like Mr. Doubleday's genial song the 
 less for the reminiscences of canny Northumberland with 
 which every stanza teems. 
 
 Years, many and changeful, have gone by since I trod those 
 northern braes ; they at whose side I stood, lie under the green 
 sod ; yet still, as I read of the Tyne or of the Wansbeok, the 
 bright rivers sparkle before me, as if I had walked beside them 
 but yesterday. I still seem to stand with my dear father 
 under the grey walls of that grand old abbey church at Hex- 
 ham, gazing upon the broad river as it sweeps in a majestic 
 semicircle before us, amid, perhaps, the very fairest scenery of 
 that fair valley of the Tyne, so renowned for varied beauty, 
 whilst he points to the haunts of his boyhood, especially the 
 distant woods of Dilstoue Hall, the forfeited estate of Lord 
 Derwentwater. I still seem to listen, as he tells how, in the 
 desolate orchard, he had often gathered fruit almost returned 
 to the wildness of the forest ; and how, among the simple 
 peasantry, the recollection of the unhappy Earl, so beloved 
 and so lamented, had lingered for half a century ; and tales 
 were yet told how, after his execution, his mangled remains 
 were brought secretly by night to be interred in the vault of 
 his ancestors, halting mysteriously in private houses by day, 
 and resuming their melancholy journey during the dark hours ; 
 the secret known to so many, and yet kept so faithfully and 
 so loyally, handed down from father to son, and spoken in low- 
 whispered words as a solemn confidence to be religiously 
 held sacred ! a duty to the ruined and the dead ! Thirty or 
 forty years more had passed, yet I myself heard the country 
 people speak with tender pity of that cherished lord. 
 
 Or the Wansbeck, more familiar still ! How plainly do I 
 
A luerart life. 337 
 
 see that wild, daring stream !— now almost girdling, sis a moat 
 the massive ruins of Mitford Castle,* — in the time of the 
 Conqueror, it is to be presumed, the common ancestral home 
 of our race and name, so widely scattered since ;- — now brawl- 
 ing through the deep glen behind the old tower of Little- 
 Harle ; — now almost invisible, creeping under the ai ngle arch 
 that spans the richly-fringed burn by the pretty rectory of 
 Hartburn ;-^now reflecting the autumn woods of Bjthal aiid 
 the grey walls of the Lady's Chapel ! 
 
 Proteus of streams ! Here a foaming torrent between rocks 
 no wider than a deer may leap at a bound ! — there a spreading 
 lakelet, too shallow for a bridge, crossed by huge stepping- 
 stones, on which my southern feet tottered and stumbled, and 
 aU but fell ! 
 
 How well I remember my girlish terror when called upon to 
 pass from one stepping-stone to another, and the girlish bra- 
 vado with which, wanting courage to turn back, and laughing, 
 half to cover my trepidation, and half from genuine fright, I 
 confronted the danger and performed the exploit ! Ah ! I am 
 riot the first who has done a bold thing in fear and trembling, 
 as (if such truths were ever told) many a soldier on his first 
 field could bear witness. ' At last, encouraged by the applause 
 of friends and relatives, I even came to like the stepping-stones, 
 the excitement, and the praise : just as, cheered by similar 
 bribery, the soldier learns to love a great battle-day. 
 
 Those stepping-stones at Mitford ! I can see them now. I 
 had heard of thein before I saw them, and of their perils. A 
 ladys-maid of my acquaintance, London-born and London- 
 bred — one of those dainty waiting gentlewomen for whose 
 behoof Congreve, in the most graceful as well as the wittiest 
 of his comedies, invented the name of Mrs. Mincing — had 
 been seduced into venturing across them, handed and sup- 
 ported by a French valet. She had fallen, of course, and bad 
 dragged her unlucky escort after her ; and her description of 
 her previous alarm, the agonies she underwent before her dip, 
 
 * An old kinaman, my father's uncle, who lived almost within 
 sight of the Castle Mound, used to derive the namo Jlid-ford, from 
 the situation of the keep between two fords of the Wansbeck. So 
 convinced was he of the truth of his theory, that, contrary to the 
 practice of all the rest of the family, he pertinaciously adopted that 
 mode of orthography in writing his patronymic. 
 
 Z 
 
338 RBCOLLECIIONS OF 
 
 and the terrors of tlie catastrophe ; how she lost a kid slipper 
 and spoilt a silk skirt, and was laughed at by the north-country 
 savages into the bargain ; was enough to frighten all the silk 
 skirts and kid slippers within fifty miles, to say nothing of the 
 Mrs. Minoings, or of me. 
 
 Bright river Wansbeok ! How many pleasant memories I 
 owe to thy mere name ! It were but common courtesy to wish 
 a brimming basket and a smiling welcome home to the kindly 
 songster who casts his line across thy waters. 
 
 THE FISHEH's welcome. 
 
 We twa ha' fished the Kale sae clear, 
 
 And streams o' mossy Reed ; 
 We've tried the Wansbeok and the Wear, 
 
 The Teviot and the Tweed ; 
 An' we will tiy them ance again, 
 
 When summer suns are fine ; 
 An' we '11 throw the flies thegither yet. 
 
 For the days o' lang syne. 
 
 'T is mony years sin' first we sat 
 
 On Coquet's bonny braes, 
 An' mony a brither fisher's gaue. 
 
 An' clad in his last claiths ; 
 An' we maun follow wi' the laTe, 
 
 Grim Death he heucks us a' ; 
 But we'll hae auither fishing bout 
 
 Afore we're ta'en awa'. 
 
 For we are hale and hearty baith, 
 
 Tho' frosty are our pows, 
 We still can guide our fishing graith, 
 
 And climb the dykes and knowes ; 
 We '11 mount our creels and grip our gads. 
 
 An' throw a sweeping line. 
 An' we '11 hae a splash amang the lads. 
 
 For the days o' lang syne. 
 Tho' Cheviot's top be frosty still. 
 
 He's green below the knee, 
 Sae don your plaid, and tak your gad. 
 
 An' gae awa' wi' me. 
 Come, busk your flies, my old compeer. 
 
 We're fidgen a' fu' fain. 
 We've fished the Coquet mony a year. 
 
 An" we'll fish her ance again. 
 
 An' hameward when we toddle back, 
 
 An' nicht begins to fa', 
 An' ilka chiel maun hae his crack 
 
 We '11 crack aboon them a'. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 839 
 
 When jugs are toomed and coggens wet, 
 
 I '11 lay my loof in thine ; 
 We 've shown we 're gude at water yet. 
 
 An' we 're little warse at wine. 
 
 We '11 crack how mony a creel we 've filled. 
 
 How mony a line we 've flung, 
 How mony a ged and eaumon killed, 
 
 In days when we were young. 
 We '11 gar the eallants a' look blue. 
 
 An' sing anither tune ; 
 They 're bleezing aye o' what they '11 do. 
 
 We '11 tell them what we 've dune. 
 
 The next song is of the sea : — 
 
 Weel may the boatie row, 
 
 An' better may she speed ; 
 An' weel may the boatie row, 
 
 That wins the bairnie's bread I 
 The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
 
 The boatie rows indeed ; 
 An' happy be the lot of a' 
 
 That wishes her to speed ! 
 
 I cuist my line in Largo Bay, 
 
 An' fishes I caught nine ; 
 There 's three to boil, and three to fry, 
 
 An' three to bait the line. 
 The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
 
 The boatie rows indeed ; 
 An' happy be the lot of a' 
 
 That wishes her to speed ! 
 
 weel may the boatie row 
 That fills a heavy creel, 
 
 An* cleads us a' frae head to feet. 
 
 An' buys our parritoh meal. 
 The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
 
 The boatie rows indeed ; 
 An' happy be the lot of a' 
 
 That wishes her to speed ! 
 
 When Jamie vowed he wad be mine 
 
 An' won frae me my heart. 
 Oh muokle lighter grew my creel. 
 
 He swore we'd never part. 
 The boatie rows, the boatie rows. 
 
 The boatie rows fu' weel ; 
 An' muckle lighter is the lade, 
 
 When luve bears up the creel. 
 
 My curch I pit upon my heid. 
 And dressed mysel fu' braw ; 
 
 1 trow my heart was dowf an' wae 
 
 When Jamie gaed awa'. 
 Z2 
 
340' KEOOIIEOTIONS OF 
 
 But weel may the boatie row, 
 
 An' lucky be her part, 
 An' lightsome be the lassie's care 
 
 That yields an honest heart. 
 
 When Sawney, Joet, and Jeanetie 
 
 A,re up and gotten lear, 
 They'll help to gar the boatie row, 
 
 An'lighten a' our care. 
 The boatie rows, the boatie rows, 
 
 The boatie rows fu' weel ! 
 An' lightsome be her heart that bears 
 
 The murlain and the creel. 
 
 Au' when wi' age we are worn down. 
 
 An' hirpling round the door, 
 They *11 row to keep us hale and warm, 
 
 As we did them before, 
 Then weel may the boatie row 
 
 That wins the baimie's bread ; 
 An' happy be the lot of a' 
 
 That wish the boat to speed ! 
 
 Again a song of the net and of the fishing-boat, and surely 
 one of no ordinary merit. Miss Corbett is the authoress. We 
 may well be proud of a poetess whose song is as bold and free 
 as the breeze of which she sings : — 
 
 WB LL GO TO SEA NO MOKE. 
 
 Oh ! blythely shines the bonnie sun 
 
 Upon the Isle of May, 
 And blythely comes the morning tide 
 
 Into St. Audrew's Bay, 
 Then up, gudemau, the breeze is fair ; 
 
 And up my bra' bairns three. 
 There 's goud in yonder bonuie boat 
 That sails sae weel the sea ! 
 
 When haddocks leave the Frith o' Forth, 
 
 An' mussels leave the shore. 
 When oysters climb up Berwick Law, 
 We '11 go to sea no more, 
 
 No more. 
 We 'U go to sea no more. 
 
 I 've seen the waves as blue as air, 
 
 I 've seen them green as grass ; 
 But I never feared their heaving yet 
 
 Prom Grangemouth to the Bass. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 341 
 
 I 've Been the sea as black as pitch, 
 
 I 've seen it white as snow ; 
 But I never feared its fSaming yet, 
 Though the winds blew high or low. 
 When squalls capsize our wooden walls, 
 
 When the French ride at the Nore, 
 When Leith meets Aberdour half way, 
 We '11 go to sea no more, 
 
 No more, 
 We '11 go to sea no more. 
 
 I never liked the landsman's life, 
 
 The earth is aye the same ; 
 Gi'e me the ocean for my dower. 
 
 My vessel for my hame. 
 Gi'e me fields that no man ploughs, 
 
 The farm that pays no fee ; 
 Gi'e me the bonny fish, that glance 
 So gladly through the sea. 
 
 When sails hang flapping on the masts, 
 While through the wave we snore ; 
 When in a calm we 're tBmpest-tost, 
 We '11 go to sea no morej 
 
 No more, 
 We '11 go to sea no more. 
 
 The sun is up, and round Inchkeith 
 
 The breezes softly blaw ; 
 The gudeman has the lines oil board ; — 
 
 Awa', my baii'ns, awa'. 
 An' ye he back by gloamin' grey. 
 
 An' bright the fire will low, 
 An' in your tales and sangs we '11 tSll 
 How weel the boat ye row. 
 When life's last sun gaes feebly down. 
 
 An' Death comes to our door. 
 When a' the world 's a dream to us. 
 We'll go to sea no more. 
 
 No more, 
 We '11 go to sea no more. 
 
 Gi'e me the fields that no man ploughs. 
 The farm that pays no fee. 
 
 What two lines are these ! The whole song seems set to 
 the music of the winds and waves, so free and unshackled is 
 the rhythm, and so hearty and seaman-like the sentiment. To 
 speak all praise in one word, it might have been written by 
 Joanna Baillie. 
 
 Although not strictly a Fishing Song, yet as one purporting 
 to be sung by a mariner's wife, I cannot resist the temptation 
 
342 KECOLLECTIOKS OP 
 
 of adding the charming ballad that concludes this paper. Mr. 
 Eobert Chambers attributes the authorship to WiUiam Julius 
 Mickle, the translator of the "Lusiad," and the writer of 
 "Cumnor HaU," to which, and the impression made upon Sir 
 Walter Scott, in early life, by the first stanza,* the world is 
 probably indebted for Kenilworth. Mr. Chambers says that 
 of this ballad, an imperfect, altered, and corrected copy was 
 found among his manuscripts after his death ; and his widow, 
 being applied to, confirmed the external evidence in his favour, 
 by an express declaration tha,t h,ei; husband had said the song 
 was his own, and that he. had explained, to her the Scottish 
 words. 
 
 Ap4 are ye sure the news ie trup.?- 
 
 And are ye sure he 'a weel ? 
 Is this a time to think o' wark ? 
 Te jades, fling by yaur whe^l. 
 Is this a time ta think o' wark, 
 
 When Colin's a,\ the door ? 
 Gie' me my cloak, — I '11 to the i^uay, 
 And see him come ashore. 
 
 For there 's nae luck about the hou^e, 
 
 There's nae luck aya'; 
 There 's little pleasure in the hous.e. 
 When our gudeman 's awa\ 
 
 And gie me down my biggonet, 
 
 My bishop-satin gown. 
 And rin and tell the bailie's wife 
 
 That Colin 's come to town. 
 My Sunday shoon they maun gae on, 
 
 My hose o' pearlin blue ; 
 It 's a' to please my ain gudeman, 
 For he 's baith leal and true. 
 For there 's nae luck about the liouso. 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There 'a little pleasure in the house. 
 When our gudeman 's awa'. 
 
 Rise up and mak' a clean fireside. 
 
 Put on the muokle pot ; 
 Gi'e little Kate her cotton gown. 
 
 And Jock his Sunday coat. 
 
 * " The dews of summer night did fall, 
 The moon, aweet regent of the sky, 
 Silvered the walla of Cumnor Hall, 
 And many an oak that grew theruby. 
 
A LITEKART LIFE. 313 
 
 And mak' their shoon as black aa slaes. 
 
 Their hose as white as snaw ; 
 It's a' to please my ain gudeman — 
 He likes to see them braw. 
 
 For there 'a nae luck about the house, 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There 's little pleasure in the house, 
 When our gudeman 's awa'. 
 
 There 's twa fat hens upon the bouk 
 They've fed this month and mair ; 
 Msk' haste and thraw their necks about 
 
 That Colin weel may fare. 
 And spread the table neat and clean. 
 
 Gar ilka thing look braw ; — ■ 
 For wha, can tell how Colin fared 
 When he was far awa' I 
 
 For there 's nae luck about the house. 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There 's little pleasure in the house, 
 When our gudeman 's awa', 
 
 Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech, 
 
 His breath's like caller air ; 
 His very foot has music in 't. 
 
 As he comes up the stair. 
 And will I see his face again ? 
 And will I hear him speak ? 
 I 'm downright dizzy wi' the thought, — 
 In troth I 'm like to greet. 
 
 For there 's nae luck about the house. 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There 's little pleasure in the house. 
 When our gudeman 's awa '. 
 
 The cauld blasts o' the winter's wind, 
 
 That thirled through my heart, 
 They 're a' blawn by, I hae him safe. 
 
 Till death we '11 never part. 
 But what puts parting i' my heid ? 
 
 It may be far awa' ; 
 The present moment is our own, 
 The neist we never saw. 
 
 For there 'a nae luck about the house. 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There 's little pleasure in the house. 
 When our gudeman 's awa . 
 
 Since Colin 'a weel, I 'm weel content, 
 
 I hae nae mair to crave ; 
 Could 1 but live to mak' him blest, 
 
 I 'm blest aboon the lave : 
 
344 BECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 And will I see his face again ? 
 And will I hear him speak ? 
 I 'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,—^ 
 In troth I 'm like to greet. 
 For there 'a nae luck about the house. 
 
 There 's nae luck ava' ; 
 There's little pleasure in thei house. 
 When our gudeman 's awa.' 
 
 Mr. Chambers may well call this song "the fairest flower in 
 Mickle's poetical chaplet." Many a laureled bard might have 
 proudly owned such a ballad. 
 
 P.S. I was reading this song to a friend, as well as a tongue 
 not Scottish would let me, while an intelligent young person, 
 below the rank that is called a lady, sate at work in the 
 room. She smiled as I concluded, and said, half to herself, 
 " Singing that song got my sister a husband ! " 
 
 f Is she so fine a singer ? " inquired my friend. 
 
 " No, Ma'am, not a fine singer at aU ; only somehow every- 
 body likes t(} hear her, because she seems to feel the words 
 she sings, and so makes other people feel them. But it was 
 her choosing that song that won William's love. He said that a 
 woman who put so mvich heart into the description of a wife's 
 joy at getting her husband home again, would be sure to make 
 a good wife herself. And so she does. There never was a 
 happier couple. It has been a lucky song for them, I am 
 sure." 
 
 Now it seems to me that this true stoi^ is worth all the 
 criticisms in the world, both on this particular ballad, and on 
 the manner of singing ballads in general. Let the poet and 
 his songstress only put heart into them, and the lady, at least, 
 sees her reward. 
 
 XSIX. 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 RESIDENCE AT LYME — STORY OF A LOTTERY-TICKET. 
 JOHN KENTON. 
 
 In one of Mr. Kenyon's charming volumes, there is a slight 
 and graceful poem, addressed to Mary Anning, of Lyme Regis, 
 the first discoverer of the Saurian remains for which that 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 343 
 
 picturesque coast is now so famous, ■which has for me an inte- 
 rest quite distinct from literature or geology. In that old his- 
 torical town, so deeply interwoven with the tragedy of 
 Monmouth and the triumph of William III., that old town so 
 finely placed on the very line where Dorsetshire and Devon- 
 shire meet, I spent the eventful year when the careless happi- 
 ness of childhood vanished, and the troubles of the world 
 first dimly dawned upon my heart-^felt in its eflfects rather 
 than known — felt in its chilHng gloom, as we feel the shadow 
 of a cloud that passes dver the sun on an April day. 
 
 My dear mother, the only surviving child of a richly bene- 
 ficed clergyman, had been for her station and for those times 
 what might be called an heiress, and when she married my 
 father, brought him, besides certain property in house and 
 land, a portion in money of eight-and-twenty thousand pounds. 
 He himself, the younger son of an old family, with a medical 
 education as good as the world could afibrd, a graduate of 
 Edinburgh, a house pupil of John Hunter, and personally all 
 that attracts the sex — clever, handsome, young and gay, had 
 won her heart almost without design when he came to settle 
 to his profession iil the little Hampshire town where after the 
 death of both parents she had taken up her abode, and was 
 easily persuaded by friends more wordly wise than he to 
 ^address himself to a lady who, although ten years his senior, 
 had every recommendation that heart could desire — except 
 leauty. So they married. She, full of confiding love, refused 
 erery settlement beyond two hundred a-year pin-money, out 
 oi his own property, on which he insisted ; and he justified 
 hA choice by invariable kindness and afiection, an affection 
 tha knew no intermission from her wedding-day to the day 
 of fer death, and by every manly and generous quality except- 
 ing hat which is so necessary to stability and comfort in this 
 worta-day world — the homely quality called prudence. Inde- 
 pendVit to a fault, frank in speech and rash in act, a zealous 
 and Ucompromising Whig, in those days when Whiggery was 
 sometVjes called sedition and sometimes treason, he first 
 ruinedWs fair professional prospects in a place where he was 
 known Vid loved, by plunging into the fervent hatreds of a 
 hotly chtested county election ; and then, when he had 
 removednto Berkshire, contrived by some similar outbreak 
 to atfroniand alienate a rich cousin, of whom my mother was 
 
346 .EEOOLLECTIOXS OF 
 
 the declared heir, and who, after being violently angry with 
 her for marrying, and with me for being a girl, had been pro- 
 pitiated by my bearing the magic name of RusseE ; and might 
 perhaps have again relented had he not died within a few 
 months, just after leaving his money to a child whom he had 
 never seen, who had not even the baptismal Russell to recom- 
 mend him. Then in his new residence he got into some feud 
 with that influential body the corporation : and whether impa- 
 tient of professional restraints, o;- of the slow progress of a 
 physician's fortunes, he attempted to increase his own re- 
 sources by the aid of cards (he ^as unluckily one of the finest 
 ■whist-players in England), or by that other terrible gambling, 
 which assumes so many forms, and bears so many names, but 
 which even when called by its milder terra of speculation, is 
 that terriljie thing gambling stiU; whatever might be the 
 manner of the logs— or whether, %s afterwards happened, his 
 own large-hparted hospitality an4 too-confiding temper were 
 alp.ne to blame — fqr the detail was never known to me, nor do 
 I ^hink it was knoij^n to my mother ; he did not tell, and we 
 could not ask — wljatever the actual cause, it seems to me 
 certain that aboi^t th^s time nearly all of his own paternal 
 property, ej^cept tl^e resprved pin-money, and much of my 
 mother's fortune, was in some way sunk. 
 
 Under these circumstances, just as a remarkable cure wa) 
 beginning to, mal^e his meidical talent advantageously knowi, 
 he resolved to remove to Lyme, feeling with charaeterisSo 
 sanguineness that \n a fresh place success would be certiin. 
 How often, in after-life, has that sanguiije spirit, which cling 
 to him to his last IjQur, mac(e me trernble and shiver. Ihad 
 seen him so of^en disappointed, that it seemed to me that 
 what he expected could neyer come to pass ; and, sish, I 
 think, is the natural effect produced on all around by ar over- 
 sanguine spirit. Even Hope has never been so truly harao- 
 terized as fcy the great poet in his fine personification. " Fear 
 and trembling Hope;" and I saw the other day a bautiful 
 copy of the celebrated picture known as Guide's lope, in 
 which the expression is that of intense melanchqj^. That 
 lovely face looked as if listening to prognostics thatwere not 
 to be fulfilled. 
 
 Well, we removed to Lyme Regis. The housemy father 
 took there was, as commonly happens to people whse fortunes 
 
A LITEEAHT LIFE. 347 
 
 are declining, far more splendid than any we had ever inha- 
 bited, indeed the very best in the town. It was situated about 
 the middle of the principal street, and had been during two 
 or three seasons, some twenty years before, rented by the 
 great Lord Chatham, for the use of his two sons, the second 
 Earl afid William Pitt, at the time that we occupied it. Prime 
 Minister of England. Hayley, in his Autobiography, mentions 
 having seen the youths there. The house, built of the beau- 
 
 , tiful grey stone of the Isle of Portland, had a great extent of 
 frontage, terminating by large gates surmounted by spread 
 eagles, probably the crest of some former proprietor. An old 
 stone porch, with benches on either side, projected from the 
 centre, covered as was the whole front of the house, with tall, 
 spreading, wide-leafed myrtle, abounding in blossom, with 
 
 , moss-roses, jessamine, and passion-flowers. Behind the build- 
 ings, extended round a paved quadrangle, was the drawing- 
 
 , room, a splendid apartment, of which the chimney-piece was 
 surmounted by a copy in marble of Shakespeare's tomb in 
 Westminster Abbey, looking uppp a little lawn surrounded by 
 
 , choice ever-greens, particularly the bay, the cedar, and the 
 arbutus, and terminated by an old-fashioned greenhouse and a 
 filbert-tree walk, from which again three detached gardens 
 
 . sloped abruptly down to one of the clear dancing rivulets of 
 that western country, reflecting in its small broken stream a 
 
 i low hedge of myrtle aqd roses. In the steep declivity of the 
 
 , central garden was a grotto, over-arching a cool, sparkling 
 spring, whilst the slopes on either side were carpeted with 
 strawbeiTies and dotted Vth fruit-trees. One drooping medlar, 
 beneath whose pendant hrai^ohes I have often hidden, I 
 remember well. 
 
 Dearly as 1 have loved my two later homes, I have never 
 seen anything like that garden. It did not seem a place to be 
 
 . sad in ; neither did the house, with its large, lofty rooms, its 
 
 .. noble oaken staircases, its marble hall, and the long galleries 
 and corridors, echoing from morning to night with gay visitors, 
 
 . cousins from the North, friends from Hampshire and Berkshire, 
 and the ever shifting company of the old watering-place. One 
 
 ; incident that occurred there — a frightful danger — a provi- 
 dential escape — I shall never forget. 
 
 There was to be a ball at, the Eoojns, and a party of sixteen 
 or eighteen persons dressed for the assembly were sitting ia 
 
348 .RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 the dining-room at dessert. The ceiling was ornamented with 
 a rich running pattern of flowers in high relief, the shape of 
 the wreath corresponding pretty exactly with the company 
 arranged round the oval table. Suddenly— whether from the 
 action of the steam of the dinner upon the plaister, or from 
 the movement of the servants in the room, or from some one 
 passing quickly overhead, was never discovered — ^but in one 
 instant, without the slightest warning, all that part of the 
 ceiling which covered the assembled company became detached, 
 and fell down in large masses upon the table and the floor. It 
 seems even now all but miraculous how such a catastrophe 
 could occur without injury to life or limb — for the portions of 
 moulded stucco, although much broken in their descent, were 
 thick and heavy, and the height of the apartment very consi- 
 derable; but except the bald head of one venerable clergyman, 
 which was a little scratched, the only things damaged were the 
 flowers and feathers of the ladies, and the crystal and china, 
 the fruits and wines of the dessert. I myself, caught instantly 
 in my father's arms, by whose side I was standing, had scarcely 
 even time to be frightened, although after the danger was over, 
 our fair visitors of course began to scream. 
 
 My own nurseries Were spacious and airy. But next to the 
 magnificent room in which my grandfather's fine hbrary was 
 arranged, and which, save a very few favourite volumes, re- 
 mained there, to be dispersed in the chances of an auction, next 
 to the bookroom, always my favourite haunt in every house, 
 the place which I most affected was a dark pannelled chamber on 
 the first floor, to which I descended through a private door by 
 half a dozen stairs, so steep that, still a very small and puny qjiild 
 between eight and a half to nine and a half, and unable to rim 
 down them in the common way 1 used to jump from one step 
 to the other. This chamber was filled with such fossils as 
 were then known, for the great landslip at Charmouth had not 
 then laid bare the geological treasures of the place. Still it 
 was rich in specimens of petrifactions of various kinds, in 
 glittering spars, in precious-looking ores, in curious shells and 
 gigantic sea-weeds ; some the cherished products of my own 
 discoveries, and some broken for me by my father's little 
 hammer from portions of rock that lay beneath the cliffs, 
 under which almost every fine day we used to ramble hand in 
 hand. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 6i9 
 
 Sometimes we would go towards Charmouth, with, its 
 eiweeping bay passing under the church and churchyard 
 perched so high above us, and already undermined by the 
 tide ; at another, we bent our steps to the Pinny cliffs on the 
 other side of the harbour, those dark beetling cliffs from 
 whose lofty tops little streams of fresh water fell in slender 
 cascades, finding their narrow way across the sands to the sea ; 
 the beautiful Pinny cliffs, where, about a mile and a half from 
 the town, an old landslip had deposited a farm-house, with its 
 out-buildings, its garden, and its orchard, tossed half way 
 down amongst the rocks, contrasting so strangely its rich and 
 blossoming vegetation, its look of home and of comfort, with 
 the dark rugged masses above, below, and around. Sometimes, 
 at high water, we paced the old pier called the Cob, to which 
 Miss Austen has since given such an interest. And sometimes 
 we turned inland, and ascended the hill to Up-Lyme, with its 
 tufted orchards and its pretty streamlets. I used to disdain 
 those streamlets in those days with such scorn as a small 
 damsel fresh from the Thames and the Kennett thinks herself 
 privileged to display. " They call that a river here, papa ! 
 Can't you jump me over it ? " quoth I, in my sauciness. 
 About a month ago, I heard a young lady from New York 
 talking in some such strain of Father Thames. "It's a pretty 
 little stream," said she, "but to call it a river ! " and I half 
 expected to hear a complete reproduction of my own imperti- 
 nence, and a request to be jumped fi-om one end to the other 
 of Caversham bridge. 
 
 Once, too, from the highest story of our own house, I saw 
 that fine and awful spectacle, a great storm. My father took 
 me from my bed at midnight that I might see the grandeur 
 and the glory of the tempest, the spray rising to the very 
 tops of the cliffs, pale and ghastly in the lightning, and hear 
 the roar of the sea, the moaning of the wind, the roll of the 
 thunder, and, amongst them all, the fearful sound of the 
 minute guns, telling of death and danger on that iron-bound 
 coast. 
 
 This was the one exception to the general brightness of 
 that lovely bay, and it passed by me like a dream. For the 
 most part, all was beauty on every side ; the sunshine seemed 
 reflected from the rich valleys and the glorious sea ; and 
 the people of the little port, the thriving peasantry, and 
 
850 RECOLUECTIONS OF 
 
 the bustling seamen, had a peculiar air of cheerfulness and 
 comfort. It was a strange place to be sad in. 
 
 And yet sad I was. Nobody told me, but I felt, I knew, 
 I had an interior conviction, for which I could not have 
 accounted, that, in the midst of aU this natural beauty and 
 apparent happiness, in spite of the company, in spite of th^ 
 gaiety, something was wrong. It was such a foreshowing a^ 
 makes the quicksilver in the barometer sink whilst the 
 weather is still bright and clear. 
 
 And at last the change came. My father went again to 
 London ; and lost — I think, I have always thought so — more 
 money : all, perhaps, except that positively settled upon my 
 mother, and a legacy of rather smaller amount left to me by 
 the maiden sister of the angry cousin. Then, one by one, our 
 visitors departed ; and my father, who had returned in haste 
 again, in equal haste left home, after short interviews with 
 landlords, and lawyers, and auctioneers ; and I knew — I can't 
 tell how, but I did know — that everything was to be parted 
 with, and everybody paid. 
 
 That same night two or three large chests were carried 
 away through the garden by George and another old servant, 
 and a day or two after my mother and myself, with Mrs. 
 Mosse, the good housekeeper, who lived with my grandfather 
 before his marriage, and one other maid-servant, left Lyme in 
 a hack chaise. We were to travel post. But in the general 
 trouble nobody had remembered that some camp was breaking 
 up between Bridport and Dorchester, so that when we reached 
 the latter town we found to our consternation that there was 
 neither room for us in any inn, nor chaise, nor horses to 
 pursue our journey. All that could be done for us, after 
 seai'ching through the place, was a conveyance in a vehicle 
 which was going seven or eight miles our way, and from 
 whence there was a prospect of our getting on in the morning. 
 This machine turned out to be a sort of tilted cart without 
 springs, and the jolting upon the Dorsetshire roads fifty-five 
 years ago was doubtless something sufficiently uncomfortable. 
 The discipline of travel teaches people to think little of tem- 
 porary inconveniences now-a-days, and doubtless many a fine 
 lady would laugh at such a shift. But it was not as a tem- 
 porary discomfort that it came upon my poor mother. It 
 was her first touch of poverty. It seemed like a final parting 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 351 
 
 from all the elegances and all the accommodations to which 
 she had been used. I never shall forget her heart-broken 
 look when she took her little girl upon her lap in that jolting 
 caravan (so for the more grace they called the vehicle), 
 nor how the tears stood in her eyes when we were turned 
 altogether into our miserable bed-room when we reached the 
 road-side alehouse where we were to pass the night, and' 
 found ourselves, instead of the tea we so much needed, con- 
 demned to sup on stale bread and dirty cheese, as people who 
 arrive in tilted carts have been and wiU be to the end of the 
 world. 
 
 The next day we resumed our journey, and reached a dingy 
 comfortless lodging in one of the suburbs beyond Westminster 
 Bridge. What my father's plans were I do not exactly know ; 
 probably to gather together what disposable money still 
 remained after paying all debts from the sale of books, plate, 
 and furniture at Lyme, and thence to proceed (backed up by 
 his greatly lessened income) to practise in some distant town. 
 At all events London was the best starting place, and he 
 could consult his old fellow-pupil and Ufe-long friend, Dr. 
 Babington, then one of the physicians to Guy's Hospital, and 
 refresh his medical studies with experiments and lectures, 
 whilst determining in what place to bestow himself. 
 
 In the meanwhile his spirits returned as buoyant as ever, 
 and so, now that fear had changed into certainty, did mine. 
 In the intervals of his professional pursuits he walked about 
 London with his Httle girl in his hand ; and one day (it was 
 my birth-day, and I was ten years old) he took me into a not 
 very tempting-looking place, which was, as I speedily found, 
 a lottery office. An Irish lottery was upon the point of being 
 drawn, and he desired me to choose one out of several bits of 
 printed paper (I did not then know their significance) that 
 lay upon the counter : 
 
 " Choose which number you like best," said the dear papa, 
 " and that shall be your birth-day present." 
 
 I immediately selected one, and put it into his hand : 
 No. 2,224. 
 
 "Ah," said my father, examining it, "you must choose 
 again. I want to buy a whole ticket ; and this is only a 
 quarter. Choose again, my pet." 
 
 " No, dear papa, I like this one best." 
 
352 EECOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 "Here is the next number," interposed the lottery oflBce 
 keeper, " No. 2,223." 
 
 « Ay," said my father, " that will do just as well Will it 
 not, Mary 1 We'll take that." 
 
 " No ! " returned I, obstinately ; " that won't do. This is 
 my birth-day, you know, papa, and I am ten years old. Cast 
 up my. number, and you'll find that makes ten. The other is; 
 only nine." ■ ■ 
 
 My father, superstitious like all speculators, struck with 
 my pertinacity, and with the reason I gave, which he liked 
 none the less because the ground of preference was tolerably, 
 unreasonable, resisted the attempt of the office keeper to 
 tempt me by different tickets, and \<re had nearly left the shop 
 without a purchase, when the clerk, who had been examining 
 different desks and drawers, said to his principal : — 
 , " I think. Sir, the matter may be managed if the gentleman 
 does not mind paying a few shillings more. That ticket, 
 2,224, only came yesterday, and we have still all the shares ; 
 one half, one quarter, one eighth, two sixteenths. It will be 
 just the same if the young lady is set upon it." 
 
 The young lady was set upon it, and the shares were 
 purchased. 
 
 The whole affair was a secret between us, and my father, 
 whenever he got me to himself, talked over our future twenty 
 thousand pounds — just like Alnaschar over his basket of eggs. 
 
 Meanwhile, time passed on, and one Sunday morning we 
 were all preparing to go to church, when a face that I had 
 forgotten, but my lather had not, made its appearance. It 
 was the clerk of the lottery office. An express had just 
 arrived from Dublin, announcing that No. 2,224 had been 
 drawn a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and he had hastened 
 to communicate the good news. 
 
 Ah, me ! In less than twenty years what was left of the 
 produce of the ticket so strangely chosen ? What 1 except a 
 Wedgwood dinner-service that my father had had made to 
 commemorate the event, with the Irish harp within the 
 border on one side, and his family crest on the other! That 
 fragile and perishable ware long outlasted the more perishable 
 money ! 
 
 And then came long years of toil, and struggle, and anxiety, 
 and jolting over the rough ways of the world, of which the 
 
A LITEHAJIT LIFE. 353 
 
 tilted cart of Dorchester offers a feeble type. But it is a 
 subject of intense thankfulness that, although during those 
 long years want often came very close to our door, it never 
 actually entered; and that those far dearer and far bett-er 
 worth than I, were, more than once, saved from its clutches 
 when it seemed nearest by something even more fragile and 
 less durable than Mr. "Wedgwood's china or the Irish lottery 
 ticket. 
 
 Amongst the consolations and encouragements of those 
 years, I may reckon the partial kindness of the late excellent 
 Mrs. Kenyon, for it is to her fancy for my poor writings that 
 I owe not only her own highly-prized friendship, but the 
 thousand good offices of her accomplished husband. 
 
 His poems, full as they are of the largest and most liberal 
 views, of refined taste, and of harmonious versification, make 
 but a small part of his reputation. 1 think he generally 
 intends to publish them, but he does actually disperse them 
 amongst his friends before the public has time to find them 
 out, so that they have the grace, freshness, and rarity of 
 gift-books : and his hospitality, his benevolence, and his con- 
 versational power are far better known than his verse. 
 
 Now this verse has to me a singular charm, particularly 
 "The Rhymed Plea for Tolerance," which is so clear, so 
 scholarly, and so fuU of strong, manly sense. Only see in 
 how short a space he gives a history of English morals, or 
 perhaps, to speak more accurately, of the morals of English 
 literature, from the Commonwealth to the first French Eevo- 
 lution. 
 
 "When lofty Charles and ancient Privilege 
 Of new-mailed liberty first felt the siege. 
 Then first Old England rather groaned than rang 
 With godly hymns and Barebones' nasal twang. 
 But then not less the godless cavalier 
 Flung his loose ballad on the oSended ear ; 
 And stiU, for so extremes extremes provoke, 
 Mocked the prim preachment with the ribald joke. 
 
 A following century struck a wiser mean ; 
 The mass was then more cheerful, but more clean. 
 Yet then unprudish Addison could win, 
 Then Pope deemed raillery unstarched no sin ; 
 Then scornful Swift could frolic with free touch, 
 And Peachum pleased a race that robbed not much. 
 Some even have played with Congreve's comic lyre, 
 Nor felt the tinder temperament take fire. 
 
354 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 War with pretence satiric Fielding waged, 
 Yet thousands read of Blifil unenraged ; 
 (For least who feign are least by banter crost, 
 'T is doubtful titles stir the passions most ;) 
 And follies forth, and forth e'en vices streamed. 
 Yet man meanwhile was better than he seemed. 
 
 Then too our Second George, not overstaid, 
 Would lead his court to merry masquerade, 
 And if the mask chanoe-fices covered there, 
 'T was not, as 'neath the Third, life's daily weai-. 
 
 And Puritans extinct had ceased to rage 
 And rex with holy war the graceful stage ; 
 And then if Constance, or discrowned Lear, 
 Had routed some loftier throb or deeper tear ; 
 Or sweet Miranda's purest womanhood 
 Touched the fine sense of Beautiful and Good ; 
 Or glorious Falstaff, raciest son of earth. 
 Shook from his sides immeasurable mirth ; 
 Or free Autolycus, as nature free. 
 Had won to bear his rogueries for his glee ; 
 Even then — no follower of play-scourging Prynne 
 Denounced, as now, the sympathy for sin. 
 
 And then — though Wesley, strong in fervent youth. 
 Strong in man's weakness, strong in his own truth, 
 Followers ere long drew round him, Hope and Fear, 
 Rueful Pretence and Penitence sincere ; 
 Votaries the most with little to resign, 
 Rude audience from the workshop or the mine ; 
 And though erewhile at Pride's or Faith's command. 
 Some titled Dowager would head the band ; 
 (For stimulants still charm fair devotee. 
 Chapel for church, for writ extempore ;) 
 And though a court more decent than before, 
 With cowl and hood coui-t-vices covered o'er. 
 And cast from Windsor's towers a monkish gloom ; 
 Yet Frankness still had genial air and room. 
 Free in the main to pray, or sport at will, — 
 And our dear land was " merry England " still. 
 
 But when, as chanced, from limbs and wearied veins, 
 France, slavery stung, burst body-bands and chains ; 
 Some were rejoiced ; some doubted ; some were sad ; 
 But all at length allowed her Freedom mad ; 
 Most for our own proclaimed a muzzle right. 
 Some would have slain, so much they feared the bite. 
 The danger, seen through mist, loomed large and near, 
 And Reason, Principles, were lost in Fear. 
 
 Then ancient statesmen took their daily range 
 
 Round one small spot, and shuddering talked of change ; 
 
A LITEEART LIFE. 335 
 
 • 
 
 Or mche4, discreet, behind Prescription's shield, 
 In his o-*n wrong urged Valour to the field. 
 Wealth, mid his coffers, feared the approaching war. 
 And ribboned Title trembled for his star ; 
 Vague unused terrors crept upon the brave. 
 And scarce the scornful Bar its scorn could save. 
 The ready Pulpit joined the Statesman's game. 
 And Freedom walked our British soil in shame. 
 
 Then follows a magnificent character of Burke, proving how 
 just Mr. Kenyon can be to real greatness, in every shade of 
 opinion. The following stanza, from a beautiful poem called 
 " Upper Austria," has the same rare merit of fairness and 
 candour : — 
 
 Liberty 1 thou sacred name 
 
 Whate'er reproach may thee befall. 
 
 From judgment just or spiteful blame, 
 
 : To thee I cling, on thee I call. 
 And yet thou art not all in all ; 
 
 And e'en where thou art worshipped less, 
 In spite of check, in spite of thrall. 
 
 Content may spring and happiness. 
 
 The spirited and original anacreontic, entitled " Champagne 
 Rose" was composed under very peculiar circumstances. 
 Having improvised, while looking at the bubbles upon a glass 
 of pink champagne, the exceeding happy line that begins the 
 song, Mr. Kenyon was challenged to complete it on the spot. 
 He undertook to do so within twenty minutes, and accom- 
 plished nis task, as very few besides himself could have done. 
 
 Lily on liquid roses floating — 
 So float yon foam o'er pink Champagne — 
 
 Fain would I join such pleasant boating, 
 And prove that ruby main, 
 Floating away on wine ! 
 
 Those seas are dangerous, greybeards swear, 
 Whose sea-beadh is the goblet's brim ; 
 
 And true it is they drown old Care, 
 But what care we for him. 
 So we but float on wine ! 
 
 And true it is they cross in pain 
 
 Who sober cross the Stygian Ferry ; 
 But only make our Styx Champagne, 
 And we shall cross right merry, 
 Floating away on wine ! 
 A a2 
 
356 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Old Charon's self shall make him mellow. 
 Then gaily row his boat from shore ; 
 
 While we and every jovial fellow 
 Hear, unconcerned, the oar 
 That dips itself in wine ! 
 
 The charming stanzas with which I conclude my extracts 
 form part of a poem written to illustrate an engraving in 
 Finden's Tableaux ; one of the many kindnesses which I owe 
 to Mr. Kenyon. It would be difficult to find verse more 
 melodious, or more pure. 
 
 THE SHEINE OF THE VIRGIN. 
 
 Who knows not, fair Sicilian land ! 
 How proudly thou wert famed of yore 
 When all the Muses hymned thy strand. 
 And pleased to tread so sweet a shore. 
 Bacchus and Ceres, hand in hand. 
 To thee their choicest treasures bore, 
 And saw upreared their graceful shrines, 
 Mid waving com and curling vines. 
 
 Yes ! land thou wert of fruits and flowers. 
 The favoured land of Deity ; 
 By Jove made glad with suns and showers. 
 By Neptune cheered with brightest sea ; 
 E'en Dis, beneath his gloomy bowers, 
 Had heard and loved to dream of thee, 
 And, when he willed'to take a bride, 
 Snatched her from Enna's sloping side. 
 
 Those hollow creeds have passed away, 
 
 Those false, if graceful, shrines are gone ; 
 
 A purer faith, of stricter sway. 
 
 For our behoof their place hath won ; 
 
 And Christian altars overlay 
 
 Yon temple's old foundation stone ; 
 
 And in Minerva's * vacant cell 
 
 Sublimest wisdom deigns to dwell. 
 
 And where, within some deep shy wood, 
 
 And seen but half through curving bough, 
 
 In silent marble Dian stood. 
 
 Behold ! a holier Virgin now 
 
 Hath sanctified the solitude ; 
 
 And thou, meek Mary-Mother ! thou 
 
 Dost hallow each old Pagan spot, 
 
 Or storied stream, or fabled grot ! 
 
 " The present cathedral of Syracuse was formerly a temple of 
 Minerva. 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 357 
 
 The devious pilgrim, far beguiled, 
 How gladly doth he turn to greet 
 Thy long-sought image, mid the wild, 
 A calming thought, a vision sweet. 
 If grief be his then. Lady mild I 
 Thy gentle aid he will entreat, 
 And bowed in heart, not less than deed, 
 Findeth a prayer to fit the need. 
 
 There, while his secret soul he bares. 
 That lonely altar bending by, 
 The traveller passing unawares, 
 Shall stay his step, but not too nigh. 
 And hearkening to those unforced prayers. 
 Albeit the creed he may deny. 
 Shall own his reason less averse, 
 And spirit surely not the worse. 
 
 Thy shrines are lovely, wheresoe'er, 
 And yet, if it were mine to choose 
 One, loveliest, where fretted care 
 Might come to rest, or thought to muse, 
 'T would be that one, so soft and fair 
 That standeth by old Syracuse : 
 Just where those salt-sea waters take 
 The likeness of an inland lake. 
 
 Green tendrilled plants, in many a ring 
 Creep round the grey stone tenderly, 
 As though in very love to cling 
 And clasp it ; while the reverent sea 
 A fond up-looking wave doth bring 
 To break anon submissively ; 
 As if it came that brow to greet. 
 Then whisper praise beneath thy feet. 
 
 * * » * 
 
 I love the ever-open door 
 That welcomes to the house of God ! 
 riove the wide-spread marble floor. 
 By every foot in freedom trod ! 
 Free altars let me bow before. 
 Free as the pathway or the sod. 
 Whence journeying pilgrim, mid broad air, 
 Wafts unpremeditated prayer. 
 
 I wish, more people would write such lucid and melodious 
 verse ; but I have a suspicion that amongst the many who 
 call themselves poets, there are very few indeed who can. 
 
3fiS SECOLMCTIONS OF 
 
 XXX. 
 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO BRISTOL AND CLIFTON. 
 
 THOMAS CHATTERTON — BOBEET SOUTHET — SAMUEL TAYLOR 
 OOLEBIDSE — WILLIAM WOEDSWOETH. 
 
 From Bath we proceeded to Bristol, or rather to Clifton, tra- 
 versing the tunnels this time with as gay a confidence as 
 I should do now. Of Bath, its buildings, and its scenery, I 
 had heard much good ; of Bristol, its dirt, its dinginess, and 
 its ugliness, much evil. Shall I confess — dare I confess — that 
 I was charmed with the old city? The tall, narrow, pic- 
 turesque dwellings, with their quaint gables ; the wooden 
 houses in Wine Street, one of which was brought from Hol- 
 land bodily, that is to say, in ready-made bits, wanting only 
 to be put together ; the courts and lanes, climbing like lad- 
 ders up the steep acclivities ; the hanging-gardens, said to 
 have been given by Queen Elizabeth to the washerwomen 
 (everything has a tradition in Bristol) ; the bustling quays ; 
 the crowded docks ; the calm, silent Dowry Parade (I hava 
 my own reasons for loving Dowry Parade), with its trees 
 growing up between the pavement, like the close of a cathe- 
 dral ; the Avon flowing between those two exquisite boun- 
 daries, the richly-tufted Leigh "Woods clothing the steep hill- 
 side, and the grand and lofty St. Vincent's Rooks, with houses 
 perched upon the summits, that looked ready to fall upon our 
 heads ; the airy line of the chain that swung from tower to 
 tower of the intended suspension-bridge, with its basket 
 hanging in mid-air Hke the car of a balloon, making one dizzy 
 to look at it ; formed an enchanting picture. I know nothing 
 in English landscape so lovely or so striking as that bit of the 
 Avon beyond the Hot Wells, especially when the tide is in, 
 the ferry-boat crossing, and some fine American ship steam- 
 ing up the river. 
 
 As to Clifton, I suspect that my opinions were a httle 
 heretical in that quarter also ; for I could not help wishing 
 the houses away (not the inhabitants — that would have been 
 too ungrateful), and the wide open downs restored to their 
 
A LIXEBAET LIFE. 359 
 
 primsaval space and airiness. How delightful must the Hot 
 Wells have been then ! and how much greater the chance of 
 recovery for invalids, who could add the temptation of such a 
 spot for rides and drives to the salubrity of the waters ! 
 
 I had an hereditary interest in the Hot Wells ; my own 
 mother having accompanied her only brother thither to die. 
 It was one of the brief romances which, under different forms, 
 most families probably could tell : A young man of the highest 
 promise, a Pellow of Oriel, as his father had been before him, 
 and just entered of Lincoln's Inn, who galloped to Reading, 
 after dark, to dance with a county beauty, and returned the 
 same way the moment the ball was ended. He had offered 
 his hand, for more than the evening, to the lady of his love, 
 and had been accepted. But the chill of a snowy winter night, 
 after such exercise and such excitement, struck to his chest ; 
 rapid consumption ensued, and the afBanced lovers never met 
 again. It is often the best and the fairest who die such 
 deaths. Every one knows Mason's fine epitaph on his young 
 wife, in this very cathedral : — 
 
 Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear, 
 Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave ! 
 
 To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care 
 Her faded form : she bowed to taste the wave. 
 
 And died. 
 
 The first place that I visited was connected with a far 
 deeper tragedy, the beautiful church of St. Mary Redcliffe, 
 I climbed up to the muniment room over the porch, now and 
 for ever famous ; and, sitting down on the stone chest, then 
 empty, where poor Chatterton pretended to have found the 
 various writings he attributed to Rowley, and from whence he 
 probably did obtain most of the ancient parchment that 
 served as his material, I could understand the effect that the 
 mere habit of haunting such a chamber might produce upon a 
 sensitive and imaginative boy. Even in that rude and naked, 
 room, the majesty and grandeur of the magnificent church 
 make themselves strongly felt. The dim light, the massive 
 walls, the echoing pavement under foot, the vaulted roof over 
 head, all tend to produce the solemn feeling peculiar to a 
 great ecclesiastical edifice. Even the two monuments of 
 Cannynge, down below, one in the secular, the other in the 
 priestly habit, impress upon the mind the image of the muni- 
 
360 EECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 fioent patron to whom St. Mary Redoliffe owes its sublimity 
 and beauty. The forgeries of Chatterton will always remain 
 amongst the wonders of genius ; but they become less incre- 
 dible after having breathed the atmosphere of that muniment 
 chamber. 
 The humbler buildings connected with 
 
 " The marvellous boy 
 Who perished in his pride," 
 
 have been nearly all swept away by the barbarous hand of 
 Improvement ; but every one whom I met showed me some 
 site, or told me some tradition, bearing on his lamentable 
 story. There his father taught a little school ; there he was 
 born ; there his widowed mother dwelt : one person show.«i 
 you the dress of the charity boys on whose foundation he was 
 placed ; another recites to you the verses (quite as remarkable 
 as the juvenile poems of Pope or Cowley) which he wrote at 
 eleven years of age ; a third relates anecdotes of the attorney 
 to whom he was articled ; while a fourth produces a copy of 
 the newspaper which contained his first successful attempt at 
 deception' — the description of the ceremonies which attended 
 the first passing of the old bridge by the Priars, which he sent 
 to a Bristol journal, upon the opening of the new. After this 
 the number of the forgeries, antiquarian, heraldic, and poeti- 
 cal, was astonishing. Local interest was engaged and personal 
 vanity. The beauty of the poems was acknowledged on all 
 hands, and had, perhaps, no small share in the general cre- 
 dulity; for it seemed easier to believe in the alleged Rowley, 
 than to assign their authorship to the real Chatterton. Nay, 
 even to this hour, one of the most accomplished men whom 
 I have ever known (to be sure, he has no objection to a 
 paradox) professes, chiefly on this ground, his entire faith in 
 the genuineness of the manuscripts. 
 
 Confident in his ^ wn powers, and full of proud anticipation, 
 the luckless boy set forth for London : seized on every word 
 of praise as an earnest of fortune ; sent nearly all his poor 
 earnings to his mother and sister, accompanied by letters full 
 of the brightest hope ; and at last, disenohantecT, maddened, 
 starved, took poison, and was interred in a shell in the buiy- 
 ing-ground belonging to Shoe Lane workhouse. He had not 
 completed his eighteenth year. There is a story told that, a 
 
A LITEBAET LIFE. 361 
 
 little before his death, wandering in St. Pancras churchyard, 
 he fell into an open grave, and seemed to seize upon it as an 
 omen. A most painful irreligious paper, called his will, written, 
 let us hope, under the influence of the same frenzy that 
 prompted his suicide, is shown in a glass-case in the museum 
 at Bristol ; and I saw at Mr. Cottle's two very interesting 
 reliques of the unhappy writer — the Berghem (or, as he called 
 it, de Berghem) pedigree, one of his earliest forgeries, curiously 
 and skilfully emblazoned ; and a tattered pocket-book, in which 
 the poor boy had set down, with careful exactness, the miser- 
 able pittance he had gained by writing for magazines and 
 newspapers while in London — a pittance so wretched, as to 
 render it certain that utter destitution, utter starvation (al- 
 though, with characteristic pride, he had refused a dinner 
 from his landlady the day before) was the immediate cause of 
 the catastrophe. 
 
 lu spite of the old spelling, the fine personification of 
 Freedom, in the chorus of "Goddwyn"' makes its way to 
 the mind : — 
 
 Whan Freedom dreate yn blodde-stayned vesto 
 
 To everie knyghte her warre-songe sunge, 
 TJponne her hedde wylde wedes were spredde 
 A gorie aulace bye her honge. 
 
 She dannced onne the heathe ; 
 She hearde the voice of dethe ; 
 Pale eyned Affryghte hie harte of sylver hue 
 
 In vayne assayled her bosome to aeale 
 She hearde onflemed the shriekynge voice of Woe, 
 And sadnesse ynne the owlette shake the dale. 
 She shooke the burled speere, 
 On high she jeste her sheelde, 
 Her foemen all appere, 
 And flizze alonge the feelde. 
 
 Modern spelling, and a very little transposition, would 
 make a charming pastoral of the minstrel's song in (Ella : — 
 
 riKST MINSTEEL. 
 
 The budding flowret blushes at the light ; 
 
 The meads are sprinkled with their yellowest hue ; 
 
 In daisied mantle is the mountain dight ; 
 
 The tender cowslip bendeth with the dew. 
 
 The evening comes and brings that dew along ; 
 
 The ruddy welkin shineth to the eyue ; 
 
 Around the ale-stake minstrels sing the song. 
 
 Young ivy round the door-post to entwine 
 
 I lay me on the grass. Yet to my will, 
 
 Albeit all ia fair, there lacketh something still. 
 
362 EBCOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 SECOND MINSTREL. 
 When Autumn bleak and sunburnt doth appear 
 With golden hand gilding the falling leaf, 
 Bringing up Winter to fulfil the year, 
 Bearing upon his back the ripened sheaf; 
 When the fair apple, red as evening sky. 
 Doth bend the tree unto the fruitful ground ; 
 When juicy pear and berry of black dye 
 Do dance in air and tempt the taste around ; 
 Then be the evening foul or evening fair, 
 Methinks that my heart's joy is shadowed with some care. 
 
 THIBD MINSTKEL. 
 
 So Adam thought when first in Paradise 
 
 All heaven and earth did homage at his feet ; 
 
 In gentle woman all man's pleasure lies 
 
 'Midst Autumn's beating storms or summer's heat : 
 
 Go take a wife unto thy heart and see 
 
 Winter and the brown hills will have a charm for thee. 
 
 Eemains of the society that rendered Oliffcon iUustrious fifty 
 years ago still lingered there : accomplished relatives of the 
 Edgeworths, the Beddoes's, and the Porters. The Sketcher of 
 Blackwood, eminent as artist (amateur artist) and writer, 
 scholar and wit, adorned the society. There too was his one 
 picture, worth many a grand collection — a picture which, 
 when once seen, can never be forgotten — the St. Catherine of 
 Domenichino, from which Sir Joshua borrowed the attitude of 
 his Tragic Muse. The more the light was reduced, the more 
 that figure started from the canvas. Two remarkable women' 
 also were inhere : Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, authoress of " A 
 Tour to Alet ; " a charming, venerable lady, with her Mora- 
 vian dress and language, and her habit of feeding and com- 
 forting everything she came near ; she would walk out alone, 
 and return with a train of dogs and children, expecting and 
 receiving doles of cake and gingerbread from her inexhaustible 
 pockets ; and Mrs. Harriet Lee, who was unfortunately absent 
 during my visit. I am not much addicted to lion-hunting, 
 but it was a real loss not to see the authoress of " Kruitzner," 
 one of the very few original stories which our predecessors 
 have not stolen from us. 
 
 The most interesting resident of the neighbourhood I did, 
 however, see. My kind friend, the Sketcher, drove me, by 
 invitation, to drink tea at Firfleld, a house vised during the 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 363 
 
 war as a French prison, and then inhabited by Mr. Cottle and 
 his sister. 
 
 Mr. Cottle had been during seven years a bookseller at 
 Bristol, and had during that time had the singular fortune, let 
 me add'the liberality and good taste, to publish the first works 
 of Southey, of Coleridge, and of Wordsworth. Himself the 
 author of many works of excellent feeling and tendency, and 
 of one ("The Recollections of Coleridge") of the very 
 highest merit. I found him as I had expected, a mild and 
 venerable man, distinguished for courtesy and intelligence 
 He received us in a room stored with boolcs and piled with 
 portfolios, into each of which he had most carefully inserted 
 the letters of such correspondents as few persons could boast. 
 Letters of Sir Humphry Davy, of Robert Hall, of John 
 Foster, of Hannah More, of Charles Lloyd, of Charles Lamb, 
 of Mr. Landor, of Coleridge, of Southey, of Wordsworth, and 
 of a certain John Henderson, who might, Mr. Cottle said, have 
 excelled them all, but who died at nine-and-twenty, and left 
 nothing behind him except an immense reputation for general 
 power, and especially for the power of conversation. " He 
 evaporated in talk." His father had been a neighbouring 
 schoolmaster, and had retained his gifted son as his assistant, 
 until driven by general remonstrance into sending him to 
 Oxford. When he arrived there, the astonishment that such 
 a scholar should come to be taught seems to have been uni- 
 versal. He staid on, however, and in the course of a few 
 years died. I remember to have heard the same account of 
 him from my good old friend. Dr. Valpy, whom he occasionally 
 visited at Reading, and who spoke of him as a very disturbing 
 visitor to a man of regular habits. He would sit smoking and 
 talking till three or four o'clock in the morning, neither of 
 them remembering the hour, John Henderson carrying the 
 good doctor away by the flow of his eloquence. It may be 
 doubted whether, if he had lived, he would have left anything 
 behind him except a great recollection. 
 
 Besides these portfolios (many of them very bulky, and some 
 from men whose names have probably escaped me), the walla 
 were hung with portraits of these £lustriou3 friends, some 
 engravings, some drawings, some oil-paintings, and many of 
 them repeated two or three different times, at different ages. 
 Mr. Cottle was engaged in transcribing Southey's letters, for a 
 
361 RECOLLECTIONS OV 
 
 life even then projected, and since executed by his son. He 
 said, that of his various epistolary collections he thought 
 Southe/s the most amusing, preferring them even to those he 
 had received from Charles Lamb. Very few of these letters 
 are inserted in Mr. Cuthbert Southey's work (doubtless he 
 was embarrassed by his over-riches); but I cannot help 
 thinking that a selection of familiar epistles from all the port- 
 folios would be a very welcome gift to the literary world. 
 People can hardly know too much of these great poets, and 
 of such prose writers as Charles Lamb, John Foster, and 
 Robert Hall. 
 
 Both Coleridge and Southey were married at Bristol ; Cole- 
 ridge certainly, and Southey, I think, at the beautiful church 
 of St. Mary Redcliffe. Upon my mentioningthis to the parish 
 clerk, very learned upon the subject of Chatterton, he was 
 surprised into confessing his ignorance of the fact, and got as 
 near as a parish clerk ever does to an admission that he had 
 never heard the first of those illustrious names. So strange a 
 thing is local reputation. 
 
 Plenty of people, however, were eager to show me the 
 localities rendered famous by Southey, and I looked with 
 delight on his father's house, his early home. How great and 
 how good a man he was ! how fine a specimen of the gene- 
 rosity of labour ! Giving so largely, so liberally, so unosten- 
 tatiously, not from the superfluities of an abundant fortune, 
 but from the hard-won earnings of his indefatigable toil! 
 Some people complain of his change of politics ; and I, for 
 my own particular part, wish very heartily that he had been 
 content with a very moderate modification of opinion. But 
 does not the violent republicanism of youth often end in the 
 violent torylsm of age 1 Does not the pendulum, very forcibly 
 set in motion, swing as for one way as it has swung the other ? 
 Does not the sun rise in the east and set in the west t 
 
 As to his poetry, I suspect people of hking it better than 
 they say. He was not Milton or Shakespeare, to be sure ; but 
 are we to read nobody but Shakespeare or Milton ? I will 
 venture to add the "Lines on a Holly-tree : '" 
 
 reader ! hast thou ever stood to see 
 
 The holly-tree ? 
 The eye that ooutemplatea it well, perceives 
 
 Its glossy leaves 
 
A LITEBART LIFE. 365 
 
 Ordered by an intelligence so wise 
 
 As might confound the atheist's sophistries. 
 
 Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen 
 
 Wrinkled and keen ; 
 No grazing cattle through their prickly round 
 
 Can reach to wound ; 
 But as they grow where nothing is to fear, 
 Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. 
 
 I love to view these things with anxious eyes 
 
 And moralise : 
 And in this wisdom of the holly-tree 
 
 Can emblems see 
 Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme 
 One that will profit in the after time. 
 
 Thus though abroad perchance I might appear 
 
 Harsh and austere. 
 To those who on my leisure would intrude 
 
 Reserved and rude, 
 Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be, 
 Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. 
 
 And should my youth, as youth is apt I know. 
 
 Some harshness show. 
 All vain asperities I day by day 
 
 Would wear away, 
 Till the smooth temper of my age should be. 
 Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. 
 
 And as, when all the summer trees are seen 
 
 So bright and green ; 
 The hoUy leaves their fadeless hue display 
 
 Less bright than they. 
 But when the bare and wintry woods we see, 
 What then so cheeful aa the holly-tree ? 
 
 So serious should my youth appear among 
 
 The thoughtless throng. 
 So would I seem among the young and gay 
 
 More grave than they, 
 That in my age as cheerful I might be 
 As the green winter of the holly-tree. 
 
 But he has not done himself justice in this comparison. 
 Never was man more beloved by all who approached him. 
 Even his peculiarities, if he had any, were genial and pleasant. 
 One anecdote I happen to know personally. He was invited 
 to a large evening party, at Tavistock House, the residence of 
 Mr. Perry, proprietor of the " Morning Chronicle," a delightful 
 person, where men of all parties met, forgetting their political 
 differences in social pleasure. The guest was so punctual, 
 
366 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 that only two young inmates were in the room to receive 
 him. 
 
 " What are we to have to-night ? " inquired he of Miss Lunan, 
 Mr. Perry's niece, and Professor Person's step-daughter. 
 
 "Music, I suppose," was the reply ; "at least I know that 
 Catalani is coming ! " 
 
 " Ah !" rejoined the poet, "then I shall come another time. 
 You will not miss me. Make my excuses ! " and off he ran, 
 laughing at his own dislike to opera singers and bravura 
 songs. 
 
 Everybody has heard the often-told story of Coleridge's 
 enlisting in a cavalry regiment under a feigned name, and 
 being detected as a Cambridge scholar in consequence of his 
 writing some Greek lines, or rather, I believe, some Greek 
 words, over the bed of a sick comrade, whom, not knowing 
 how else to dispose of him, he had been appointed to nurse. 
 It has not been stated that the arrangement for his discharge 
 took place at my father's house at Reading. Such, however, 
 was the case. The story was this. Dr. Ogle, Dean of Win- 
 chester, was related to the Mitfords, as relationships go in 
 Northumberland, and having been an intimate friend of my 
 maternal grandfather, had no small share in bringing about 
 the marriage between his young cousin and the orphan heiress. 
 He continued to take an affectionate interest in the couple he 
 had brought together, and the 15th Light Dragoons, in which 
 his eldest son had a troop, being quartered in Reading, he came 
 to spend some days at their house. Of coui-se Captain Ogle, 
 between whom and my father the closest friendship subsisted, 
 was invited to meet the Dean, and in the course of the dinner 
 told the story of the learned recruit. It was at the beginning 
 of the great war with France ; men were procured with diffi- 
 culty, and if one of the servants waiting at table had not been 
 induced to enlist in his place, there might have been some 
 hesitation in procuring a discharge. Mr. Coleridge never forgot 
 my father's zeal in the cause, for kind and clever as he wasj 
 Captain Ogle was so indolent a man, that without a flapper, 
 the matter might have slept in his hands till the Greek kalends. 
 Such was Mr. Coleridge's kind recognition of my father's exer- 
 tions, that he had the infinite goodness and condescension to 
 look over the proof sheets of two girlish efforts, " Christina " 
 and " Blanch," and to encourage the young writer by gentle 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 367 
 
 strictures and stimulating praise. Ah ! I wish she had better 
 deserved this honouring notice ! 
 I add one of his sublimest poems. 
 
 HYMN BBFOEE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF OHAMOUKI. 
 
 Hast thou a charm to stay the Morning Star 
 
 In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause 
 
 On thy bald awful head, sovran Blanc ! 
 
 The Arve and Arveiron at thy base 
 
 Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form ! 
 
 Eisest from forth thy silent sea of pines 
 
 How silently I Around thee and above 
 
 Deep is tlie air and dark, substantial, black, , ' 
 
 An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it 
 
 As with a wedge ! But when I look again 
 
 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine. 
 
 Thy habitation from eternity ! 
 
 dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon theo 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 
 
 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. 
 
 Yet like some sweet beguiling melody, 
 
 So sweet we know not we are listening to it, 
 
 Thou the meanwhile wast blending with my thought. 
 
 Yea with my life, and life's own secret jOy; 
 
 TUl the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused. 
 
 Into the mighty vision passing — there 
 
 As in her natural form swelled vast to Heaven ! 
 
 Awake my soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owest 1 not alone these swelling tears, 
 Mute thanks and secret ecstasy. Awake ! 
 Voice of sweet song ! Awake my heart, awake ! 
 Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. 
 
 Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale ! 
 Or 'struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars. 
 Or when they climb the sky or when they sink 
 Companion of the Morning Star at dawn. 
 Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Co-herald 1 wake, wake, and utter praise ! 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 
 
 And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad ! 
 
 Who called you forth from night and utter death. 
 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 
 Down those precipitous, black, jugged rocks. 
 
 For ever shattered and the same for ever ? 
 
 Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy. 
 
368 EECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
 
 And who oommauded (and the silence came). 
 
 Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? 
 
 Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain — 
 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice 
 
 And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
 
 Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! 
 
 Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven 
 
 Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
 
 Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers 
 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? — 
 
 God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 
 
 Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo God ! 
 
 God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice I 
 
 Ye pine-groyes with your soft and soul-like sounds ! 
 
 And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow. 
 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder God ! 
 
 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! 
 Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 
 Ye eagles, playmates of the moimtain-storm ! 
 Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
 Ye signs and wonders of the element ! 
 Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! 
 
 Thou too, hoar Mount 1 with thy sky-pointing peaks, 
 
 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard. 
 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
 
 Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast^ 
 
 Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! thou. 
 
 That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
 
 In adoration, upward from thy base 
 
 Slow travelling with dim eyes, suffused with tears, 
 
 Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud 
 
 To raise before nae— Rise, ever rise ; 
 
 Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth ! 
 
 Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills. 
 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
 
 Great hieraroh ! tell thou the silent sky, 
 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. 
 
 One cannot look too often upon Mr.Wordsworth.'s charming 
 female portrait : — 
 
 She was a phantom of delight 
 
 When first she gleamed upon my sight : 
 
 A lovely apparition sent 
 
 To be a moment's ornament ; 
 
 Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ; 
 
 Like twilight too her dusky hair ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 369 
 
 But all things else about her drawn 
 From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 
 A dancing shape, an image gay, 
 To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 
 
 I saw her upon nearer view 
 
 A spirit, yet a woman too ! 
 
 Her household motions light and free 
 
 And steps of virgin liberty ; 
 
 A countenance in which did meet 
 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 
 
 A creature not too bright and good 
 
 For human natvire's daily food ; 
 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smile?. 
 
 And now I see with eyes serene 
 The very pulse of the machine ; 
 A being breathing thoughtful breath ; 
 A traveller betwixt life and death ; 
 The reason firm, the temperate will. 
 Endurance, foresight, strength and skill, 
 A perfect woman nobly planned. 
 To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
 And yet a spirit still and bright. 
 With something of an angel light. 
 
 I would add " Laodamia," if it were not too long, and tlie 
 "Yew-trees," if I had not a misgiving that I have somewhere 
 planted those deathless trunks before. In how many ways is 
 a great poet glorious ! I met with a few lines taken from that 
 noble poem the other day in the " Modern Painters," cited for 
 the landscape : — 
 
 " Huge trunks, and each particular trunk a growth- 
 Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, 
 UpcoiHng and inveterately convolved ! 
 
 Beneath whose shade 
 With sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged 
 Perennially — " 
 
 and so forth. Mr. Ruskin cited this fine passage for the picture, 
 
 I for the personifications : — 
 
 " Ghostly shapes 
 May meet at noontide. Fear and trembling Hope, 
 Silence and Foresight, Death the skeleton. 
 And Time the shadow ! " 
 
 Both quoted the lines for different excellences, and both 
 were right. 
 
 B B 
 
370 KBCOtLEOTIONS OF 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 Amongst the strange events of these strange days of 
 ours, when revolutions and counter-revolutions, constitutions 
 changed one week and reohanged the next, seem to crowd into 
 a fortnight the work of a century, annihilating time, just as 
 railways and electric telegraphs annihilate space — in these 
 days of curious novelty, nothing has taken me more pleasantly 
 by surprise than the school of true and original poetry that 
 has sprung up among our blood relations (I had well nigh 
 called them our fellow-countrymen) across the Atlantic ; they 
 who speak the same tongue and inherit the same literature. 
 And of aU this flight of genuine poets, I hardly know any one 
 so original as Dr. Holmes. For him we can find no living pro- 
 tdtype ; to track his footsteps, we must travel back as far as 
 i'upe or Dryden ; and to my mind it would be well if some of 
 our own' bards would take the same journey — provided always 
 it produced the same result. Lofty, poignant, graceful, grand, 
 high of thought, and clear of word, we could fancy ourselves 
 reading some pungent page of " Absalom and Achitophel," or 
 of the " Moral Epistles," if it. were not for the pervading 
 nationality, which, excepting Whittier, American poets have 
 generally wanted, and for that true reflection of the manners 
 and the follies of the age, without which satire would fail 
 aUke of its purpose and its name. 
 
 The work of which I am about to ofier a sample, all too 
 brief, is a little book much too brief itself ; a little book of 
 less than forty pages, described in the title-page as "Astraea 
 — a Poem, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of 
 Yale College, August 1850, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and 
 printed at the request of the Society." 
 
 The introduction tells most gracefully in verse that rather, 
 perhaps, implies than relates, the cause of the authoi's visit 
 to the college, dear to him as the place of his father's 
 education : — 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 371 
 
 What secret charm long whispering in mine ear, 
 Allures, attracts, compels, and chains me here. 
 Where murmuring echoes call me to resign 
 Their sacred haunts to sweeter lips than mine ; 
 Where silent pathways pierce the solemn shade, 
 In whose still depths my feet have never strayed ; 
 Here, in the home where grateful children meet, 
 And I, half alien, take the stranfrer's seat, 
 Douhting, yet hoping that the gift I bear 
 May keep its bloom in this unwonted air ? 
 Hush, idle fancy, with thy needlesss art, 
 Speajj from thy fountains, my throbbing heart ! 
 Say shall I trust these trembling lips to tell 
 The fireside tale that memory knows so well ? 
 How in the days of Freedom's dread campaign, 
 A home-bred schoolboy left his village plain, 
 Slow faring southward, till his wearied feet 
 Pressed the worn threshold of this fair I'ctreat ; 
 How with his comely face and gracious mien. 
 He joined the concourse of the classic green, 
 Nameless, unfriended, yet by Nature blest 
 With the rich tokens that she loves the best ; 
 The flowing locks, his youth's redundant crown. 
 Smoothed o*er a brow unfurrowed by a frown : 
 The untaught smile, that speaks so parsing plain, 
 A world all hope, a past without a stain ; 
 The clear hued cheek, whose burning curi'ent glows 
 Crimson in action, carmine in repose ; 
 Gifts such as purchase, with unminted gold. 
 Smiles from the young and blessings from the old. 
 
 Is not the portrait of the boy beautiful ? The poem goes 
 
 11 : — 
 
 Say shall my hand with pious love restore 
 The faint far pictures time beholds no more ? 
 How the gi-ave senior, he whose later fame 
 Stamps on our laws his own undying name. 
 Saw from on high with half -paternal joy 
 Some spark of promise in the studious boy, 
 A ud bade him enter, with paternal tone. 
 The stately precincts which he called his own. 
 iS * * * » 
 
 riow kindness ripened, till the youth might dare. 
 Take the low seat beside his sacred chair. 
 While the gray scholar bending o'er the young. 
 Spelled the square types of Abraham's ancient tongue, 
 Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o'er 
 His small coarse leaf alive with curious lore ; 
 Tales of grim j udges, at whose awful heck, 
 Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck ; 
 Or learned dreams of Israel's long-lost child, 
 Found in the wanderer of the western wild. 
 BB 2 
 
372 RECOLLECTIONS OT 
 
 Dear to his age were memories such as these, 
 
 Leaves of his June in life's autumnal breeze ; 
 
 Such were the tales that won my boyish ear. 
 
 Told in low tones that evening loves to hear. 
 
 Thus in the scene I pass so lightly o'er, 
 
 Trod for a moment, then beheld no more. 
 
 Strange shapes and dim, unseen by other eyes. 
 
 Through the dark portals of the past arise ; 
 
 I see no more the fair embracing thi'ong, 
 
 I hear no echo to my saddened song, 
 
 No more I heed the kind or enviovis gaze, 
 
 The voice of blame, the rustling thrill of praise : 
 
 Alone, alone, the awful past I tread. 
 
 White with the marbles of the slumbering dead ; 
 
 One shadowy form my dreaming eyes behold. 
 
 That leads my footsteps as it led of old, 
 
 One floating voice, amid the silence heard, 
 
 Breathes in my ear love's long unspoken word ; — 
 
 These are the scenes thy youthful eyes have known. 
 
 My heart's warm pulses claim them as its own ; 
 
 The sapling compassed in thy fingers' clasp, 
 
 My arms scarce circle in their twice-told grasp. 
 
 Yet in each leaf of yon o'ershadowing tree, 
 
 I read a legend that was traced by thee. 
 
 Year after year the living wave has beat 
 
 These smooth-worn channels with its trampling feet, 
 
 Yet in each line that scores the grassy sod, 
 
 I see the pathway where thy feet have trod ; 
 
 Though from the scene that hears my faltering lay, 
 
 The few that loved thee long have passed away, 
 
 Thy sacred presence all the landscape fills. 
 
 Its groves, and plains, and adamantine hills ! 
 
 Ye who have known the sudden tears that flow, 
 
 Sad tears, yet sweet, the dews of twilight woe, — 
 
 When led by chance, your wandering eye has crossed 
 
 Some poor memorial of the loved and lost. 
 
 Bear with my weakness as I look around 
 
 On tlie dear relies of this holy ground, 
 
 These bowery cloisters, shadowed and serene, 
 
 My dreams have pictured ere mine eyes have seen. 
 
 And, oh, forgive me, if the flower I brought. 
 
 Droops in my hand beside this burning thought ; 
 
 The hopes and fears that marked this destined horn-. 
 
 The chill of doubt, the startled throb of power. 
 
 The flush of pride, the trembling glow of shame. 
 
 All fade away, and leave my Father's name ! 
 
 The grace and pathos of this introduction must be felt by 
 every one. It has all the sweetness of Goldsmith, with more 
 force and less obviousness of thought. 
 
 The poem opens with a description of an American spring, 
 
A LITEEART LIFE. 378 
 
 equally true to general nature and to the locality where it is 
 ■written. The truth is so evident in the one case, that we take 
 it for granted in the other. The couplet on the crocus, for 
 instance, — a couplet so far as I know unmatched in flower- 
 painting, — gives us most exquisitely expressed, an image that 
 meets our eye every March. The " shy turtles ranging their 
 platoons," we never have seen, and probably never shall see, 
 and yet the accuracy of the picture is as clear to us as that of 
 the most familiar flower of our border. 
 
 Winter is past ; the heart of Nature warms 
 Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms ; 
 Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen, 
 The Southern Slopes are fringed with tender green ; 
 On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves. 
 Spring's earKest nurslings spread their glowing leaves, 
 Bright with the hues from wider pictures won. 
 White, azure, golden,— drift, or sky, or sun : 
 The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast 
 The frozen trophy torn from winter's crest ; 
 The violet, gazing on the arch of blue 
 Till her own iris wears its deepened hue ; 
 The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould 
 Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold. 
 Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high 
 Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky ; 
 On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves 
 The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves ; 
 The housefly, stealing from his narrow grave. 
 Drugged with the opiate that November gave. 
 Beats with faint wing against the snowy pane 
 Or crawls tenacious o'er its lucid plain ; 
 From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls 
 In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls ; 
 The bog's green harper, thawing fi'om his sleep 
 Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap ; 
 On floating rails that face the softening noons 
 The still shy turtles range their dark platoons, 
 Or toiling, aimless, o'er the mellowing fields. 
 Trail through the grass their tesselated shields. 
 
 At last young April, ever frail and fair. 
 
 Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair. 
 
 Chased to the margin of receding floods. 
 
 O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds 
 
 In tears and blushes sighs herself away 
 
 And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. 
 
 Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze. 
 Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays, 
 O'er her tall blades the crested fieur-de-lis 
 
374 . BECOLliBCTIONS OF 
 
 Like blue-eyed Pallas towers erect and free. 
 
 With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows, 
 
 And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose; 
 
 Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge 
 
 The rival lily hnstens to emerge. 
 
 Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, 
 
 Till morn is sultan of her parted lips. 
 
 Then bursts the song from every leafy glade 
 
 The yielding season's bridal serenade ; 
 
 Then flash the wings returning summer calls 
 
 Through the deep arches of her forest halls ; 
 
 The blue-bird breathing from his azure plumes, 
 
 The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms ; 
 
 The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down. 
 
 Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown ; 
 
 The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire, 
 
 Kent by the whirlwind from a blazing spire. 
 
 The robin jerking his spasmodic throat 
 
 Repeats, staccato, his peremptory note ; 
 
 The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate 
 
 Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight. 
 
 Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings, 
 
 Feels the soft air and spreads his idle wings : — 
 
 W)iy dream I here within these caging walls, 
 
 Deaf to her voice while blooming Nature calls, 
 
 While from Heaven's face the long-drawn shadows roll, 
 
 And all its sunshine floods my opening soul ! 
 
 After this we are introduced to a winter room, delineated 
 with equal taste and fidelity ; —the very home of lettered 
 comfort : — 
 
 Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late, 
 Whose only altar is its rusted grate, 
 Sepulchral, ray less, joyless as it seems, 
 Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams, 
 Whde the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train 
 Its paler splendours were not quite in vain, 
 From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow 
 Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow ; 
 Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will 
 On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, 
 llent the cracked topsail from its shivering yard, 
 And lived the oak a thousand storms had scarred. 
 Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone. 
 Nor felt a breath to swerve its ti-embling cona. 
 
 Nor all unblest the mild interior scene 
 
 When the red curtain spreads its folded screen ; 
 
 O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, 
 
 And the long evening only flew too fast ; 
 
 Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend 
 
 In genial welcome to some easy friend 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 375 
 
 Stretched on its bosom "with relaxing nerves, 
 
 Slow moulding, plastic to its hollow curves ; 
 
 Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, 
 
 In brave Sir "Walter's dream-compelling weed. 
 
 Or, happier still, the evening hour would bring 
 
 To the round table its expected ring, 
 
 And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred, 
 
 Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard. 
 
 O'er caution's head the blinding hood was flung, 
 
 And friendship loosed the jesses of the tongue. 
 
 Then follows an enumeration not merely of books but of 
 printers, which, I confess, took me a little by surprise. I knew 
 that wide readers were widely spread in the United States ; 
 and that there was no lack either of ripe scholars or of exten- 
 sive libraries. I should have fully expected to find such a 
 man as Dr. Holmes amongst the buyers of the best works, 
 ancient and modern, but hardly amongst the collectors of 
 choice editions. That, I confess, did give me a very pleaaaut 
 astonishment. Woman although I be, I have lived enough 
 with such people to hold them in no small reverence. Aye, 
 and I know the Baskerville Virgil well enough by sight to 
 recoguise the wonderful accuracy of the portrait. Is there 
 anything under the sun that Dr. Holmes cannot paint ! 
 
 Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, 
 Not quite deserted when its guests were flown ; 
 Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, 
 Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, 
 Ready to answer, never known to ask. 
 Claiming no service, prompt for every task. 
 
 On those dark shelves no housewife care profanes. 
 
 O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns, 
 
 A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, 
 
 That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime ; 
 
 Each knows his place, and each may claim his part 
 
 In some quaint coi-ner of his master's heart. 
 
 This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards. 
 
 Thick-leafed, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards. 
 
 Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, 
 
 Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close ; 
 
 Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, 
 
 With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. 
 
 There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, 
 
 The Aldine anchor on his opening page ; 
 
 There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind 
 
 In you dark tome by jealous clasps confined, 
 
 "Olim 6 libris" — (dare I call it mine) 
 
 Of Yale's great Head and Killingworth's divine 1 
 
376 EECOLLBCTIONS OP 
 
 In those square sheets the songs of Mavo fill 
 
 The silvery types of smooth-leafed Baskei-ville ; 
 
 High over all, in close compact array, 
 
 Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display. 
 
 In lower regions of the sacred space 
 
 Range the dense volumes of a humbler race ; 
 
 There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach 
 
 In spectral pictures or in crabbed speech ; 
 
 Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, 
 
 Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, 
 
 Lully and Geber and the learned crew 
 
 That loved to talk of all they could not do. 
 
 Why count the rest, whose names of later days 
 
 That many love and all agree to praise ? 
 
 Or point the titles where a glance may read 
 
 The dangerous lines of party or of creed ! 
 
 Too well perchance the chosen list would show 
 
 What few may care and none can claim to know. 
 
 Kach has his features, whose exterior seal 
 
 A brush may copy or a sunbeam steal ; 
 
 Go to his study — on the nearest shelf 
 
 Stands the mosaic portrait of himself. 
 
 What though for months the tranquil dust descends. 
 
 Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends. 
 
 While the damp offspring of the modem press 
 
 Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress; 
 
 Not less I love each dull familiar face, 
 
 Nor less should miss it from the appointed place. 
 
 I snatch the book along whose burning leaves 
 
 His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves. 
 
 Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share. 
 
 My old Magnalia must be standing there." 
 
 Such is the opening of the "Astrsea." It speaks much for 
 the man whose affluence of intellect could afford such an out- 
 pouring for a single occasion, the recitation of one solitary 
 evening ; and hardly less for the audience that prompted and 
 welcomed such an effort. 
 
 The little book was sent to me among many others by a 
 most kind and talented young friend, to whose unfaiUng atten- 
 tion I owe pleasure upon pleasure of this high nature. In 
 my answer I expressed the admiration which I so truly felt, 
 and the next packet brought a fresh claim upon my gratitude ; 
 a volume of "Dr. Holmes's Collected Poems," of I know not 
 what edition ; for as man and as author he commands an im- 
 mense popularity in Boston, the capital of literature in North 
 America. This volume is enriched with an autograph and 
 a portrait, both eminently characteristic— the hand-writing 
 
A LITERARY LIFE, 377 
 
 being clear, free, vigorous, delicate, such a hand as could be 
 written by none but an accomplished gentleman ; and the en- 
 graving just hke the picture which I had painted of him in my 
 own mind. There is a print of Hogarth's, " The Election Ball," 
 full of people with their hats flung into a corner ; and it is 
 said of that print that every hat could be adjusted to the 
 figure to which it belonged. Now I feel quite certain that if 
 there were a collection of living authors of all countries, Dr. 
 Holmes's head would be assigned to its right owner ; the 
 features and expression, not according to this system or that, 
 but according to that stamp of character and intellect which 
 we all tacitly recognise, belong so entirely to him individually 
 as we see him in his works. 
 
 Besides this engraving, the volume contains, together with 
 a good deal of very pleasant occasional poetry, much truth 
 and much beauty. I transcribe some passages full of charity, 
 — a quality which, especially in a religious sense, is perhaps 
 rarer than either. The power will speak for itself : — 
 
 " What is thy creed ? " a hundred lips inquire ; 
 " Thou seetest God beneath what Christian spire ? " 
 Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies 
 . Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice ; 
 
 When man's first incense rose above the plain, 
 Of earth's two altars, one was built by Cain ! 
 
 Uncursed by doubt our earliest creed we take ; 
 We love the precepts for the teacher's sake ; 
 The simple lessons which the nursery taught 
 Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, 
 And the full blossom owes its fairest hue 
 To those sweet tear-drops of afiection's due. 
 
 Too oft the light that led our earlier hours 
 Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers ; 
 The clear cold question chills to frozen doubt. 
 Tired of beliefs we dread to live without. 
 Oh ! then if Reason waver at thy side. 
 Let humbler memory be thy gentle guide ; 
 Go to thy birthplace, and if faith was there, 
 Eepeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer. 
 
 Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm. 
 And age, like distance, lends a double charm. 
 In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom. 
 What holy awe invests the saintly tomb ! 
 There Pride will bow, and anxious Care expand. 
 And creeping Avarice come with open hand ; 
 
378 BECOLLECTIOXS OP 
 
 The gay can weep, the impious can adore 
 From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor 
 Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains 
 Through the faint hales of the irised panes. 
 Yet there are graves whose rudely-shapen sod 
 Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod ; 
 Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, 
 Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, 
 Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name. 
 The eternal record shall at length proclaim 
 Pure as the holiest in the long array 
 Of hooded, mitred or tiaraed clay ! 
 
 * * * « 
 
 Deal meetly, gently with the hopes that guide 
 The lowliest brother straying from thy side ; 
 If right they bid thee tremble for thine own. 
 If wrong, the verdict is for God alone. 
 What though the champions of thy faith esteem 
 The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; 
 Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife 
 Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life ? 
 
 Let my free soul expanding as it can 
 Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan ; 
 But Calvin's dogma shall my lips decide ? 
 In that stern faith my angel Mary died. 
 Or ask if Mercy's milder creed can save. 
 Sweet sister risen from thy new-made grave ? 
 
 True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled 
 That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child ; — 
 Must thou be raking in the unimbled past 
 For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast ? 
 Bee from the ashes of Helvetia's pile 
 The whitened skull of old Servetus smile ! 
 
 « » » * 
 
 Grieve as thou must o'er History's reeking page ; 
 Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age ; 
 Strive with the wanderer from the better path. 
 Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath ; 
 Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall. 
 Have thine own faith, — but hope and pray for all. 
 
 I conclude with the following genial stanzas, worth all the 
 temperance songs in the world, as inculcating temperance. 
 They really form a compendium of the history of New- 
 England : — ■ 
 
 ON LENDINQ A PnNCH-BOWL. 
 
 This ancient Silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times. 
 Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes ; 
 They wei-'e a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, 
 That dipped their ladle in the punch, when this old bowl was new. 
 
A LMBRART LIFK. 379 
 
 A Spanish galleon brought the bar, — ao runa the ancient tale, — 
 'Twas hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail ; 
 And now and then between the strokes, for fear hia strength should 
 He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale [fail, 
 
 'Twas purchased by an English squire, to please his loving dame. 
 Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; 
 And oft, as on the ancient stock, another twig was found, 
 'Twas filled with caudle, spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. 
 
 But changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine. 
 
 Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine. 
 
 But hated punch and prelacy ; and so it was, perhaps. 
 
 He went to Leyden where he found conventicles and schnaps. 
 
 And then, of course you know what's next, — it left the Dutchman's 
 
 shore. 
 With those that in the May-flower came, — a hundred souls and 
 Along with all the furniture to fill their new abodes, — [more, — 
 To judge by what is still on hand, — at least a hundred loads. 
 
 'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing dim. 
 When old Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim ; 
 The little captain stood and stirred the posset with hia sword. 
 And all his aturdy men-at-arma were ranged about the board. 
 
 He poured the fiery Hollands in,' — the man that never feared — 
 He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard. 
 And one by one the musketeers — the men that fought and prayed — 
 All drank as 'twere their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. 
 
 That night, aSi-ighted from his ne.st, the screaming eagle flew. 
 He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo ; 
 And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and km, 
 " Euu from the white man when you find he smells of Hollands gin." 
 
 A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, 
 A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose. 
 When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy, 
 'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. 
 
 "Drink, John," she said, "'twill do you good — poor child, you'll 
 
 never bear 
 This working in the dismal trench out in the midnight air ; 
 And if — God bless me ! — you were hurt, 'twould keep away the chill." 
 So John did diink— and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill ! 
 
 I tell you there was generous warmth in good old English cheer ; 
 I tell you 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here, 
 'T is but the fool that loves excess. Hast thou a drunken soul ? 
 The bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl I 
 
 I love the memory of the past— its pressed yet fragrant flowers — 
 The moss that clothes its broken- walla — the ivy on its towers — 
 Nay this poor bauble it bequeathed — my eyea grow moist and dim 
 To think of all the vanished joys that danced ai'ound its brim. 
 
380 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me ; 
 The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be ; 
 And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin 
 That dooms one to those dreadful words—" My dear, where han 
 you been ?" 
 
 Dr. Holmes is still a young man, and one of tlie most 
 eminent physicians in Boston. He excels in singing his own 
 charming songs, and speaks as well as he writes ; and, after 
 reading even the small specimens of his poetry that my 
 space has enabled me to give, my fair readers will not wonder 
 to hear that he is one of the most popular persons in his 
 native city. 
 
 He ia a small compact little man (says our mutual friend), 
 the delight and ornament of every society that he enters, 
 buzzing about like a bee, or fluttering like a humming-bird, 
 exceedingly difficult to catch unless he be really wanted for 
 some kind act, and then you are sure of him. 
 
 XXXII. 
 LETTERS OF AUTHORS. 
 
 SAMUEL EICHABDSON. 
 
 Besides the rich collections of State Papers and Historical 
 Despatches which have been discovered in the different pubhc 
 offices, and the still more curious bundles of family epistles 
 (such as the Paxton correspondence), which are every now 
 and then disinterred from the forgotten repositories of old 
 mansions, there ia no branch of literature in which England 
 is more eminent than the letters of celebrated men. 
 
 From the moment in which Mason by a happy inspiration 
 made Gray tell his own story, and by dint of his charming 
 letters contrived to produce from the uneventful life of a retired 
 scholar one of the most attractive books ever printed, almost 
 every biographer of note has followed his example. The lives 
 of Cowper, of Byron, of Scott, of Southey, of Charles Lamb, 
 of Dr. Arnold, works full of interest and vitality, owe their 
 principal charm vo this source. Nay, such is the reality and 
 identity belonging to letters written at the moment and 
 intended only for the eye of a favourite friend, that it is 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 381 
 
 probable that any genuine series of epistles, were the writer 
 ever so little distinguished, would, provided they wore truth- 
 ful and spontaneous, possess the invaluable quality of indivi- 
 duality which so often causes us to linger before an old 
 portrait of which we know no more than that it is a Burgo- 
 master by Rembrandt, or a Venetian Senator by Titian. The 
 least skilful pen, when flowing from the fulness of the heart, 
 and untroubled by any misgivings of after publication, shall 
 often paint with as faithful and life-like a touch as either of 
 those great masters. 
 
 Of letter- writers by profession we have indeed few, although 
 Horace Walpole, bright, fresh, quaint, and glittering as one of 
 his own most precious figures of Dresden china, is a host in 
 himself. But every here and there, scattered in various and 
 unlikely volumes, we meet with detached letters of eminent 
 persons which lead us to wish for more. I remember two or 
 three of David Hume's which form a case in point : one to 
 Adam Smith, who had asked of him the success of his 
 " Theory of Moral Sentiments," in which he dallies with a 
 charming playfulness with an author's anxiety, withholding, 
 delaying, interrupting himself twenty times, and at last pour- 
 ing out without stint or measure the favourable reception of 
 the work ; another, to Dr. Robertson, who appears to have 
 requeued his opinion of his style, bantering him on certain 
 Scottish provincialisms and small pedantries — "a historian, 
 indeed ! Have you a% ear ? " — mixed with praise so graceful 
 and kindness so genuine, that the most susceptible of vanities 
 could not have taken offence. 
 
 Every now and then, too, we fall upon a long correspondence 
 which the writer's name has caused to be pubUshed, but 
 which, from a thousand causes, is certain to fall into obHvion, 
 although containing much that is curious. Such is " The Life 
 and Letters of Samuel Richardson." 
 
 I suspect that the works' from whence that great name is 
 dei'ived are in this generation little more than a, tradition ; 
 and that the " Clarissa " and the " Sir Charles Grandison," 
 which, together with the " Spectators," formed the staple of 
 our great grandmothers' libraries, find almost as few readers 
 amongst their descendants as the " Grand Cyrus," or " The 
 Princess of Cleves." 
 As far as "Clarissa" is concerned, great tragedy as the 
 
382 RECOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 book unquestionably is, I do not wonder at this. Considering 
 the story and plan of the work, the marvel is rather that 
 mothers should have placed it in their daughters' hands as 
 a sort of manual of virtue, and that at Eanelagh, ladies of the 
 highest character should have held up the new volumes as 
 they came out, to show to their friends that they possessed 
 the book of which all the world were talking, than that it 
 should now be banished from the boudoir and the drawing- 
 room. But as my friend. Sir Charles Grandison, has no other 
 sin to answer for than that of being very long, very tedious, 
 very old-fashioned, and a prig, I cannot help confessing that, 
 in spite of these faults, and perhaps because of them, I think 
 there are worse books printed now-a-days, and hailed with 
 delight amongst critics feminine than the seven volumes that 
 gave such infinite delight to the Beauties of the Court of 
 George the Second. 
 
 As pictures of manners I suspect them to be worthless. 
 Richardson was a citizen in an age in which the distinctions 
 of caste were far more strictly observed than now-a-days ; and 
 the printer of Salisbury Court, even when retired to his villa 
 at North End, had seen but little of the brilliant circles which 
 he attempted to describe, and was altogether deficient in the 
 airy grace and bright and glowing fancy which might have 
 supplied the place of experience. Compai-ed with the comic 
 dramatists, Congreve and Farquhar, who have left us such 
 vivid pictures of the Mirabels and Millamants, the Archers, 
 and Mrs. SuUens of that day, Richardson's portraits are, hke 
 himself, stiff, prim, hard, ungainly, awkward. In manners, he 
 utterly fails ; but in character, in sentiment, and above all, in 
 the power of bringing his personages into actual every-day 
 life, he leaves every writer of his time far behind him. Some- 
 body has said of him very happily — so happily that I suppose 
 it must have been Hazlitt, — " that the effect of reading his 
 books is to acquire a vast aocesion of near relations." And it 
 is true. Grandmothers and grandfathers, uncles, aunts, and 
 cousins multiply upon us; we not only become acquainted 
 with the people, but with their habitations ; Selby House and 
 Shirley Manor are as familiar to us as our own dwelling ; and 
 we could find our way to the cedar-parlour blindfolded. 
 
 It was a cause or a consequence of Richardson's popularity 
 that he lived amongst a perfect flower-garden of young ladies, 
 
A LITERAET LIFE. 383 
 
 feeding upon their praises — always a dangerous diet for authors 
 ' — and talking and writing of little else than his different worlis. 
 His own family consisted of three daughters, of whom (although 
 his domestic character stands very high) we hear little, whilst 
 of Miss Highmore, Miss Mulso, Miss Westcomb, the Miss 
 Fieldings, and the Miss Colliers, and their several lovers, we 
 hear a great deal. There is even a coloured engraving, curiously 
 inartistic, representing Richardson a smug and comely httle 
 old man sitting in the summer-house which he called his 
 grotto, reading his manuscript to a party of three fair damsels 
 and their future husbands. 
 
 The lady who seems to have interested him most— whose 
 letters, with his rejoinders, do actually fill a volume and a half 
 of the six of which the collection consists, and might easily, 
 the editor says, have been extended to six more— is a certain 
 Lady Bradshaigh, the wife of Sir Roger Bradshaigh, of the 
 Haigh, Lancashire, who wrote to him first under the feigned 
 name of Balfour, and continued to address him under that 
 appellation for a considerable time. 
 
 The occasion of her first letter was the suspense in which 
 the admirers of " Clarissa " were left as to her fate, by the 
 publication of the work in sei)arate portions and at lengthened 
 intervals. The story of the book may be told in very few 
 words. It consists of the betrayal of the heroine by her 
 lover, a libertine, drawn with admirable spirit and skill, and 
 endowed with so many fine qualities of person and intellect, 
 that many of the author's friends implored, as if they had 
 been real persons, for the reformation of Lovelace, and the 
 happiness of his fair mistress. 
 
 Upon this hint spoke Lady Bradshaigh ; and her earnest- 
 ness and pertinacity is really a thing to wonder at. She sank 
 upon her knees, she begged, she reasoned, she threatened, 
 she stormed. There was not a weapon in the female armoury 
 that she did not force into her service ; and her ardour and 
 fervency give so much eloquence to her pleadings, that she 
 has considerably the best of the dispute ; chiefly because 
 Richardson had not honesty enough to tell her the real cause 
 of his resolution to bring the story to a tragic end, which was 
 of course its artistic effect, but entrenched himself in all sorts 
 of pitiful evasions and false moralities, instead of saying 
 frankly that a happy conclusion would have spoilt the book. 
 
384 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 The author waff obdurate, and the lady disappointed ; never- 
 theless the correspondence continued, and one of the most 
 amusing and characteristic episodes in these six volumes is 
 the story of a journey which Lady Bradshaigh took to London, 
 and of her introduction to her unknown correspondent. 
 
 The great novelist was at this time in his sixtieth year, and 
 the fair lady, a buxom country dame, might be some ten or 
 fifteen years his junior (N.B. I have remarked it as a singular 
 circumstance, that we never can ascertain a lady's age, even 
 if, as in this case, she have been dead these hundred years, 
 with the same absolute accuracy with which we can verify a 
 gentleman's baptismal registry) ; and, whether from shyness 
 or from pure coquetry, she (still as Mrs. Balfour) makes an 
 appointment to meet him in the Park, requesting from him a 
 description by which he may be recognised. He sends her 
 the following : — 
 
 " Short, rather plump, about five feet five inches, fair wig ; 
 one hand generally in his bosom, the other a cane in it, which 
 he leans upon under the skirts of his coat, that it may imper- 
 ceptibly serve him as a support, when attacked by sudden 
 tremors or dizziness ; of a light brown complexion, teeth not 
 yet failing him." 
 
 What follows is very characteristic : — 
 
 " Looking directly foreright, as passengers would imagine, 
 but observing all that stirs on either hand of him, without 
 moving his short neck ; a regular even pace, stealing away 
 ground rather than seeming to rid it ; a grey eye, too often 
 overclouded by mistiness from the head ; by chance hvely, 
 very lively if he sees any he loves ; if he approaches a lady, 
 his eye is never fixed first on her face, but on her feet, and rears 
 it up by degrees, seeming to set her down as so-and-so." 
 
 She actually did know him by this portrait, but had the 
 cruelty to keep him parading up and down while she surveyed 
 him at her leisure, and went away without declaring herself. 
 This is her own account of the matter : — 
 
 " Well, Sir, my curiosity is satisfied as to the distant view. 
 I passed you four times last Saturday in the Park ; knew you 
 by your own description, at least three hundred yards off, 
 walking between the trees and the Mall ; and had an oppor- 
 timity of surveying you unobserved, your eyes being engaged 
 among the multitude, looking, as I knew, for a certain will-o'- 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 385 
 
 the-wisp, who, I have a notion, escaped being known to you, 
 though not your notice, for you looked at me every tims 
 I passed ! but I put on so unconcerned a countenance, that I 
 am almost sure I deceived you. * * » o that this first 
 meeting was over ! 
 
 " Shall I tell you, Sir, what it puts me in mind of 1 When 
 I was very young, I had a mind to bathe in a cold bath. 
 When I came to the edge, I tried it first with one hand, then 
 with the other. In the same manner, my feet ; drew them 
 back again ; ventured to my ankles, then drew back. But, 
 having a strong inclination to go farther (being very sure 
 I should like it, were the first shock over), I at last took a 
 resolution, and plunged at once over head and ears, and, as 
 I imagined, was dehghted ; so that I only repented I had not 
 before found courage to execute what gave me so much 
 pleasure." 
 
 Still, however, the lady coquets, and the gentleman becomes 
 a Uttle angry ; after some repetition of his grievances, he 
 continues : — 
 
 " Yet I resolved to try my fortune on Saturday in the Park, 
 in my way to North End. The day, indeed, thought I, is not 
 promising ; but where so great an earnestness is professted, 
 and the lady, possibly, by this time made acquainted with the 
 disappointment she has given me, who knows but she will be 
 carried in a chair to the Park, to make me amends, and there 
 reveal herself. Three different chairs at different times saw I. 
 My hope, therefore, not so very much out of the way ; but 
 in none of them the lady I wished to see. Up the Mali walked 
 I ; down the Mall, and up again, in my way to North End. 
 Oh, this dear will-o'-the-wisp, thought I ! When nearest, 
 farthest off ! Why should I at this time of life ! And all the 
 spiteful things I could think of I muttered to myself. And 
 how, Madam, am I to banish them from my memory, when I 
 see you so very careful to conceal yourself ; when I see you so 
 very apprehensive of my curiosity, and so little confiding in 
 my generosity 1 Oh, Madam ! you know me not ! You will 
 not know me ! " 
 
 And so they go on, the gentleman remonstrating, the lady 
 holding back, through fifty pages of letter-press— more or 
 less ; and when their cross-purposes would have ended there 
 ia no divining, had not Lady Bradshaigh gone to Mr. High- 
 
 co 
 
386 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 more's, to -view a portrait of her unknown friend, -where 
 enough transpired to suggest to the painter, who knew of the 
 correspondence, that he was talking to the person who had so 
 mystified the unlucky author. He discovered that the gen- 
 tleman who escorted her was of Lancashire, and called Sir 
 Roger: his servant heard the' surname from the coachman, 
 and was positive that it began with a B ; and after so much 
 had been done in the way of detection, the fair delinquent 
 avowed herself, and the game of hide and seek was fairly over. 
 Jjet it be added, that, in spite of all this nonsense, Lady Brads- 
 haigh was a warm-hearted and well-conducted woman, and 
 that her devotion to the writer of her idolatry ended only 
 with his life. 
 
 I have said that Richardson's correspondents were almost 
 exclusively feminine, although there are a few letters from 
 Dr. Young, CoUey Gibber, Aaron Hill, and others of that class, 
 and one note from Dr. Johnson, whom our printer, famihar 
 with kind and generous actions, had had the honour to bail. 
 These female correspondents all, with one exception, bear out 
 an opinion which I have long ventured to • entertain of "the 
 general inferiority of women's letters. For the truth of which 
 I would only appeal to the collections of such as are most 
 celebrated in that line, from the over-rated Lady Mary Wort- 
 ley Montagu down to Anna Seward. Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. 
 Delany, Mrs. Vesey, Miss Talbot, Miss Bowdler, Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Carter, Mrs. Hannah More — what are they ? There is, to be 
 sure, one great exception in general literature— for Madame 
 de Sevigne is, perhaps, the most delightful letter-writer who 
 ever put pen to paper. And there is another exception, also 
 a foreigner, in this collection — an exception all the more 
 charming because foreign, for the German idiom undoubtedly 
 adds grace and freshness to the sweet simplicity of Mrs. Klop- 
 stock's communications. I need not apologise for transcribing 
 them all. Would that she had been spared to write more ! 
 
 " Hamburg, November 29th, 1750. 
 " Honoured Sir, 
 
 " Will you permit me to take this opportunity, in sending 
 a letter to Dr. Toung, to address myself to you ? It is very 
 long ago that I wished to do it. Having finished your ' Cla- 
 rissa,' (oh, the heavenly book !) I could have prayed you to 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 387 
 
 write the history of a manly Clarissa, but I had not courage 
 enough at that time. I should have it no more to-day, as this 
 is only my first English letter — but I have it ! It may be 
 because I am now Klopstock's wife (I believe you know my 
 husband by Mr. Hohorst), and then I was only the single 
 young girl. You have sjnoe written the manly Clarissa, with- 
 out my prayer. Oh, you have done it, to the great joy and 
 thanks of all your happy readers ! Now you can write no 
 more, you must write the history of an angel. 
 
 " Poor Hohorst ! he is gone. Not killed in the battle (he 
 was present at two), but by the fever. The Hungarian hussars 
 have taken your works, with our letters, and all what he was 
 worth, a little time before hia death. But the King of Prussia 
 recompensed him with a company of cavalry. Poor friend ! 
 he did not long enjoy it. 
 
 " He has made me acquainted with all your lovely daugh- 
 ters. I kiss them all with my best sisterly kiss, but especially 
 Mrs. Martha, of whom he says that she writes as her father. 
 Tell her in my name, dear Sir, if this be true, that it is an 
 affair of conscience not to let print her writings. Though I 
 am otherwise of that sentiment, that a woman who writes not 
 thus, or as Mrs. Eowe, should never let print her works. 
 
 '' Will you pardon me this first long letter, Sir ? Will you 
 tell me if I shall write a second ? I am, honoured Sir, your 
 most humble servant, « -^ Klopstock." 
 
 " Hamburg, March 14th, 1758. 
 
 " You are very kind. Sir, to wish to know everything of 
 your Hamburg kindred. Then I will obey, and speak of 
 nothing but myself in this letter. 
 
 " You will know all what concerns me. Love, dear Sir, is 
 all what me concerns. And love shall be all what I will tell 
 you in this letter. 
 
 " In one happy night I read my husband's poem, ' The 
 Messiah.' I was extremely touched with it. The next day, I 
 asked one of his friends who was the author of this poem ! 
 and this was the first time I heard Klopstock's name. I 
 believe I fell immediately in love with him. At the least, my 
 thoughts were ever with him filled, especially because his 
 friend told me very much of his character. But I had no 
 hopes ever to see him, when quite unexpectedly I heard that 
 cc2 
 
388 BECOIiECBCIONS OF 
 
 he should pass through Hamburg. I wrote immediately to 
 the same friend, for procuring by his means that I might see 
 the author of ' The Messiah,' when in Hamburg. He told him 
 that a certain girl at Hamburg wished to see him, and, for all 
 recommendation, showed him some letters in which I made 
 bold to criticise Klopstookl verses. Klopstook came, and 
 came to me. I must confess that, though greatly prepossessed 
 of his qualities, I never thought him the amiable youth whom 
 I found him. This made its effect. After having seen him 
 two hours, I was obliged to pass the evening in a company 
 which never had been so wearisome to me. I could not 
 speak ; I could not play ; I thought I saw nothing but Klop- 
 stook. I saw him the next day and the following, and we 
 were very seriously friends. But the fourth day he departed. 
 It was a strong hour, the hour of his departure. He wrote 
 soon after ; and from that time our correspondence began to 
 be a very diligent one. I sincerely believed my love to be 
 friendship. I spoke with my friends of nothing but Klop- 
 stook, and showed his letters. They rallied at me, and said 
 I was in love. I rallied them again, and said that they must 
 have a very friendshipless heart, if they had no idea of friend-, 
 ship to a man as well as to a woman. Thus it continued for 
 eight months, in which time my friends found as much love 
 in Klopstock's letters as in me. I perceived it likewise, but I 
 would not believe it. At the last, Klopstook said plainly that 
 he loved ; and I startled as for a wrong thing. I answered 
 that it was no love, but friendship as it was what I felt for 
 him ; we had not seen one another enough to love (as if love 
 must have more time than friendship !) This was sincerely 
 my meaning, and I had this meaning tiU Hopstock cama 
 again to Hamburg. This he did a year after we had seen one 
 another the first time. We saw we were friends ; we loved, 
 and we believed that we loved ; and a short time afber I could 
 even tell Klopstook that I loved. But we were obliged to 
 part again, and wait two years for our wedding. My mother 
 would not let me marry a stranger. I could marry then with- 
 out her eonsentment, as, by the death of my father, my fortime 
 depended not on her. But this was a horrible idea for me, 
 and thank Heaven that I have prevailed by prayers ! At this 
 time, knowing Klopstook, she loves him as her lifely son, and 
 thanks God that she has not persisted. We married, and 
 
A IiITERABT UTB. 389 
 
 I am the happiest wife in the world. In some few months it 
 will be four years that I am so happy, and still I dote upon 
 Klopstook as if he was my bridegroom. 
 
 " If you knew my husband you would not wonder. If you 
 knew his poem I could describe him very briefly, by saying he 
 is in all respects what he is as a poet. This I can say with all 
 wifely modesty. But I dare not to speak of my husband ; I 
 am all raptures when I do it. And as happy as I am in love, 
 so happy am I in friendship in my mother, two elder sisters, 
 and five other women. How rich I am ! 
 
 " Sir, you have willed that I should speak of myself, but I 
 fear I have done it too much. Yet you see how it interests 
 me. " I am, Sir, &o. &o. &c." 
 
 "Hamburg, May 6th, 1758. 
 
 " It is not possible. Sir, to tell you what a joy your letters 
 give me. My heart is very able to esteem theJavour that you 
 in your venerable age are so condescending good to answer so 
 soon the letters of an imknown young woman, who has no 
 other merit than a heart full of friendship, though at so many 
 miles of distance. 
 
 " It will be a delightful occupation for me, my dear Mr. 
 Richardson, to make you more acquainted with my husband's 
 poem. Nobody can do it better than I, being the person who 
 knows the most of that which is not yet published ; being 
 always present at the birth of the young verses, which begin 
 always by fragments here and there of a subject of which his 
 soul is just then filled. He has many great fragments of the 
 whole work ready. You may think that two people, who love 
 as we do, have no need of two chambers. We are always in 
 the same. I, with my little work, still, still, only regarding 
 my husband's sweet face, which is so venerable at that time ! 
 with tears of devotion and all the sublimity of the subject. 
 My husband reading me his young verses and suffering my 
 criticisms. Ten books are published, which I think probably 
 the middle of the whole. I will, as soon as I can, translate 
 you the arguments of these ten books, and what besides I 
 think of them. The verses of the poem are without rhymes, 
 and are hexameters, which sort of verses my husband has 
 been the first to introduce in our language, we being still 
 closely attached to the rhymes and iambics. 
 
390 BECOLLECIIOIfS Off 
 
 " And our dear Dr. Young has been so ill 1 But he is better, 
 I thank God along with you. And you, my dear, dear friend, 
 have not hope of cure of a severe nervous malady ? How 1 
 trembled as I read it ! I pray God to give to you at the least 
 patience and alleviation. Though I can read very well your 
 hand-writing, you shall write no more if it is incommodious 
 to you. Be so good to dictate only to Mrs. Patty ; it will be 
 very agreeable to me to have so amiable a correspondent. And 
 then I wiU still more than now preserve the two of your own 
 handwriting as treasures. 
 
 " I am very glad, Sir, that you will take my English as it is. 
 I knew very well that it may not always be English, but I 
 thought for you it was intelligible. My hiisband asked me, as 
 I was wi-iting my first letter, if I would not write in French ? 
 ' No,' said I, ' I will not write in this pretty but fade language 
 to Mr. Eichardson' (though so polite, so cultivated, and' no 
 longer fade in the mouth of a Bossuet). As far as I know, 
 neither we, nor you, nor the Italians have the word fade. How 
 have the French found this characteristic word for their 
 nation ? Our German tongue, which only begins to be culti- 
 vated, has much more conformity with the Euglish than the 
 French. 
 
 " I wish, Sir, I could fulfil your request of bringing you 
 acquainted with so many good people as you think of. Though 
 I love my friends dearly, and though they are good, I have 
 however much to pardon, except in the single Klopstook 
 alone. He is good, really good, good at the bottom — in all the 
 foldings of his heart. I know him ; and sometimes I think if 
 we knew others in the same manner, the better we should find 
 them. For it may be that an action displeases us which would 
 please us, if we knew its true aim and whole extent. No one 
 of my friends is so happy as I am ; but no one has had courage 
 to marry as I did. They have married as people marry ; and 
 they are happy as people are happy. Only one, as I may say my 
 dearest friend, is unhappy, though she had as good a purpose 
 as I myself. She has married in my absence ; but had I been 
 pi'esent, I might, it may be, have been mistaken in her hus- 
 band as well as she. 
 
 "How long a letter is this again ! But I ciin write no short 
 ones to you. Compliments fi'om my husband, &c &c." 
 
A LITBKAET LIFE. 3D1 
 
 " Hamburg, August 2Tth, 1758. 
 
 " Why think you, dear Sir, that I answer so late 1 I -will 
 toll you my reasons. But before all, how does Miss Patty, and 
 how do yourself? Have not you guessed that I, summing 
 up all my happinesses, and not speaking of children, had none ? 
 Yes, Sir, this has been my only wish ungratified for these four 
 years. I have been more than once unhappy with disappoint- 
 ments : but yet, thanks, thanks to God, I am in full hope to 
 be mother in the month of November. The little preparations 
 for my child and child-bed (and they are so dear to me) have 
 taken so much time that I could not answer your letter, nor 
 give the promised scenes of ' The Messiah.' This is likewise 
 the reason why I am still here, for properly we dwell in Copen- 
 hagen. Our staying here is only a visit (but a loijg one) which 
 we pay my family. I not being able to travel yet, my hus- 
 band has been obliged to make a little voyage alone to Copen- 
 hagen ! He is absent — a cloud over my happiness ! He wiU 
 soon return. — But what does that help ? He is yet equally 
 absent ! — We write to each other every post — ^but what are 
 letters to presence 1 — But I will speak no more of this little 
 cloud ; I will only tell my happiness ! But I cannot tell how 
 I rejoice ! A son of my dear Klopstook! Oh, when shall I 
 have him ? It is long since I have made the remark, that 
 geniuses do not engender geniuses. No children at all, bad 
 sons, or at the most lovely daughters like you and Milton. 
 But a daughter or a son only, with a good heart, without 
 genius, I will nevertheless love dearly. 
 
 " I think that about this time a nephew of mine will wait 
 on you. His name is Winlhem, a young rich merchant, who 
 has no bad qualities, and several good, which he has still to 
 cultivate. His mother was, I think, twenty years older than 
 I, but we other children loved her dearly like a mother. She 
 had an excellent character, but is long since dead. 
 
 " This is no letter but only a newspaper of your Hamburg 
 daughter. When I have my husband and my child I will 
 write you more (if God gives me health and life). You will 
 think that I. shall not be a mother only but a nurse also ; 
 though the latter (thank God that the former is not so too) 
 is quite against fashion and' good breeding, and though nobody 
 can think it possible to be always with the child at home. 
 
 "M. Klopstook." 
 
892 KBCOLIiBCTIONS OF 
 
 This was the last letter from this sweet creature. The 
 next in the series is from a diflferent hand. 
 
 "Hanover, December 21 st, 1758. 
 " Honoured Sir, 
 " As perhaps you do not know that one of your fair corres- 
 pondents, Mrs. Klopstock, died in a very dreadful manner, in 
 child-bed, I think myself obliged to acquaint you with this 
 most melancholy accident. 
 
 " Mr. Klopstock, in the first motion of his affliction, com- 
 posed an ode to God Almighty, which I have not yet seen, but 
 I hope to get by and by. 
 
 " I shall esteem myself highly favoured by a line or two 
 from any of your family, for I presume you sometimes kindly 
 remember 
 
 " Your most humble servant, 
 
 " And great admirer, 
 
 "L.L.G. Major." 
 
 A subsequent letter contradicts the fact of the ode's being 
 composed at this time. But a comparison of the dates of Mr. 
 Major's communication and of Mrs. Klopstock's last inte- 
 resting letter, still brings this poetising a great calamity far 
 too near the time of its occurrence, to be satisfactory to those 
 who have read and sympathised with the quick feelings of the 
 devoted wife. It is pleasanter to remember that Klopstock 
 never married again, till, in his old age, a few years before his 
 death, he had the ceremony performed between himself and 
 a kinswoman, who lived with him, in order to entitle her, 
 as his widow, to the pensions he enjoyed from different 
 Courts. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 FINE SINGLE POEMS. 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, ETC. 
 
 Nothing seems stranger amidst the strange fluctuations of 
 popularity, than the way in which the songs and shorter 
 poems of the most eminent writers occasionally pass from the 
 
A tlTEEART LIFE. 393 
 
 highest vogue into the most complete oblivion, and are at once 
 forgotten, aa if they had never been. Scott's spirited ballad, 
 "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee," is a case in point. Several 
 persons (amongst the rest Mrs. Hughes, the valued friend of 
 the author) have complained to me, not only that it is not 
 included among Sir Walter's ballads, but that they were unable 
 to discover it elsewhere. Upon mentioning this to another 
 dear friend of mine, the man who, of all whom I have known, 
 has the keenest scent for literary game, and is the most cer- 
 tain to discover a lost poem, he threw himself upon the track, 
 and failing to obtain a printed copy, succeeded in procuring 
 one in manuscript, taken down from the lips of a veteran 
 vocalist ; not, as I should judge, from his recitation, but from 
 his singing, for it is no uncommon thing with singers to be 
 unable to divorce the sense from the sound, so that you 
 must have the musip with the words, or go without them 
 altogether. 
 
 At all events this transcript is a curiosity. The whole 
 ballad is written e^s if it \^e^'e prose : no capital at the begin- 
 ning of the lines ; no brefjk, as indicated by the rhyme, at the 
 conclusion ; no division bet'v^een the stanzas. All these cere- 
 monies are cast aside lyith a bflld contempt for vulgar usages, 
 and the entire song thrown ;nto one long paragraph. I think 
 it is Cowper who wrote a rhytning letter upon the same prin- 
 ciple ; but the jingle being. rf(qre obtrusive, and the chorus a 
 wanting, the effect of the ;ptentional pleasantry is far less 
 ludicrous than that produced by this unconscious and graver 
 error. 
 
 I endeavoured to restore tl^e natural divisions of the verse ; 
 and having since discovered a printed copy, buried in the 
 Doom of Devorgoil, where of course nobody looked for it, I 
 am delighted to transfer to my pages one of the most spirited 
 and characteristic ballads ever written. 
 
 To the Lords of Convention 't was Claverhouse who spoke, 
 Ere the king's crown shall fall there are crowns to bo broke ; 
 So let each cavalier who loves honour and me, 
 Come follow the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. 
 
 Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can ; 
 
 Come saddle your horses, and call up your men ; 
 
 Come open the Westport and let us gang free, 
 
 And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee ! 
 
B94 EECOILECTIONS OP 
 
 Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street, 
 The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat ; 
 But the Provost, douce man, said, " Just e'en let him be. 
 The Gude Town is weel quit of that Deil of Dundee ! " 
 Come fill np my cup, &c. 
 
 As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow 
 Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow ; 
 But the young plants of grace they looked cowthie and slee, 
 Thinking luck to thy bonnet, thou Bonny Dundee 1 
 Come fill up my cup, kc. 
 
 With Bour-featured Whigs the Grass-market was thranged 
 As if half the West had set tiyst to be hanged j 
 There w^s spite in each look, there was fear in each e'e 
 As they watched for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. 
 Come fill up my cup, &c. 
 
 These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, 
 And lang-hafted gullies to kill cavaliers ; 
 But they shrunk to close-hearls, aud the causeway was free 
 At the toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
 Come fill up my cupt &c. 
 
 He spurred to the foot of the proud castle rock. 
 And with the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke ; 
 "Let Mons Meg and her marrows speak twa words or three 
 For the love of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee." 
 Coine fill lip my cUp, &c. 
 
 The Gordon demands of him which way he goes — 
 " Where'er shall direct me the shade of Montrose ! 
 Tour Grace in short space shall hear tidings of Die 
 Or that low lies the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
 Come fill up my cup, &;c. 
 
 " There are hills beyond Pentland, and lands beyond Forth ; 
 If there's lords in the Lowlands, thei-e 's' chiefs in the North ; 
 There are wild Duniewassals three thousand times three 
 Will cry ' Hoigh i' for the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
 Come fill up ihy cup, &c. 
 
 " There 's brass on the target of barkened bull-hide. 
 There 's steel in the scabbard that dangles beside ; 
 The brass shall be burnished, the steel shall flash free 
 At a toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
 Come fill up my cup, &c. 
 
 " Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks, 
 
 Ere I own an usurper I'll crouch with the fox ; 
 And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee. 
 You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me." 
 Come fill up my cup, &o. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 39S 
 
 He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were Mown, 
 The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on. 
 Till on Eavelston's clififs and on Clermistou's lea 
 Died away the wild war-notes of Bonny Dundee. 
 
 Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can ; 
 
 Come saddle the horses, and call up the men ; 
 
 Come open your gates, and let me gae free. 
 
 For it's up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee I 
 
 There are abundant indications that the "Bonnets of Bonny 
 Dundee " was a favourite with its illustrious writer. The 
 following song, from " The Pirate," is interesting, not merely 
 from its own merit, but from an anecdote related by Mr. Lock- 
 hart. When on a tour in the North of England, it was sung 
 to Sir Walter as set by Mrs. Robert Arkwright. " Beautiful 
 words," observed he ; " Byrdn'S of course." He was much 
 shocked when undeceived. 
 
 The stanzas themselves are deeply touching. They form 
 part of a serenade, sung by Cleveland under Minna's window 
 when compelled to return to his ship. 
 
 Farewell ! farewell ! the voice you hear 
 Has left its last soft tone with you ; 
 
 It's next must join the seaward cheer. 
 And shout among the shouting crew. 
 
 The accents which I scarce could form, 
 Beneath your frown's controlling check. 
 
 Must give the word above the storm 
 To cut the mast and clear the wreck. 
 
 The timid eye I dared not raise. 
 
 The hand that shook when pressed to thiue, 
 
 Must point the guns upon the chase, 
 Must bid the deadly cutlass shine. 
 
 To all I love or hope or fear, 
 
 Honour or own, a long adieu ! 
 To all that life has soft and dear. 
 
 Farewell ! save memory of you I 
 
 The lines have much of the flow peculiar to Lord Byron, 
 and were therefore perhaps selected as adapted to her purpose 
 by their musical composer. In general, musical people say that 
 Sir Walter Scott's songs are ill suited to music, difficult to set, 
 difficult to sing. One cannot help suspecting that the fault 
 rests with the music, that cannot blend itself with such poetry. 
 Whera in our language shall we find more delicious melody 
 
396 KECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 than in " County Guy 1 " The rhythm of the verse rivals the 
 fancy of the imagery and the tenderness of the thought. 
 
 Ah I County Guy, the hoar is nigh. 
 
 The sun has left the lea ; 
 The orange flower perfumes the bower, 
 
 The breeze is on the sea. 
 The lark his lay who trilled all day. 
 
 Sits hushed his partner nigh ; 
 Bee, bird, and bower confess the hour .* — 
 
 But where is County Guy ? 
 
 The -village maid steals through the shade 
 
 Her shepherd's suit to hear ; 
 To beauty shy by lattice high, 
 
 Sings high-born cavalier. 
 The star of love, all stars above. 
 
 Now reigns o'er earth and sky ; 
 Aud high and low the influence know : — 
 
 But where is County Guy ? 
 
 This little poem can hardly be surpassed ; but here are two 
 others, one by the late, and one by the present Laureate, 
 worthy to be printed on the same page. 
 
 She dwelt among the untrodden ways, 
 
 Beside the springs of Dove, 
 A maid whom there were none to praise. 
 
 And very few to love. 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden ftom the eye ; 
 Fau" as a star when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 She lived unknown, and few could know 
 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave, and oh, 
 
 The difference to me ! 
 
 Mr. Tennyson's delicious song, published only in the later 
 editions of " The Princess," is less generally known. 
 
 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. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 397 
 
 Oh, hark I oh, hear ! how thin and clear 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
 Oh I sweet and far, from cliff and scar 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing. 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 love, they die on yon rich sky, 
 They faint on hUl, on field, on river ; 
 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul 
 And grow for ever and for ever. 
 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ; 
 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 It is like a descent from Fairyland to the wild stormy ocean, 
 to turn from the dying falls of Mr. Tennyson's stanzas to the 
 homely sea-song of Allan Cunningham. And yet that sea- 
 song has high merit ; it resembles the bold stalwart form, the 
 free and generous spirit of the author, one of the noblest 
 specimens of the Scottish peasant, elevated into a superior 
 rank, as much by conduct and character, as by talent and 
 
 industry. 
 
 A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 
 
 A wind that follows fast. 
 And fills the white and swelling sail. 
 
 And bends the gallant mast ; 
 And bends the gallant mast, my boys. 
 
 While like the eagle free, 
 Away the good ship flies, and leaves 
 
 Old England on the lea. 
 
 " Oh, for a soft and gentle wind ! " 
 
 I heard a fair one cry ; 
 But give to me the snoring breeze 
 
 And white waves heaving high ! 
 And white waves heavinp: high, my boys, 
 
 The good ship light and free ; 
 The world of waters is our home, 
 
 And merry men are we. 
 
 There 's tempest in yon hoi-ned moon. 
 
 And lightning in you cloud ; 
 And hark ! the music, mariners. 
 
 The wind is piping loud ! 
 The wind is piping loud, my boys. 
 
 The lightning flashing free ; 
 "Whilst the hollow oak our palace is. 
 
 Our heritage the sea ! 
 
 One of the most charming of English song-writers, happily 
 still spared to us, is he who, under the name of Barry Corn- 
 
398 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 ■wall, has given so many fine lyrics to our language. What can 
 be more spiritedthan this Bacchanalian song ? 
 
 Sing !— who sings 
 
 To her who weareth a hundred rings ? 
 Ah, who is this lady fine ? 
 The Vine, boys, the Vine I 
 The mother of mighty wine. 
 A roamer is she 
 O'er wall and tree, 
 And sometimes very good company. 
 
 Drink !— who drinks 
 To her wlio bUiaheth and never thinks ? 
 Ah, who is this maid of mine ? 
 The Grape, boys, the Grape ! 
 Oh never let her escape 
 Until she be turned to wine. 
 For better is .she 
 Than vine can be, 
 And very, very good company. 
 
 Dream ! — who dreams 
 
 Of the God that governs a thousand streams ? 
 Ah, who is this spirit fine ? 
 'Tis Wine, boys, 'tis Wine ! 
 God Bacchus, a friend of mine. 
 Oh better is he 
 Than grape or tree, 
 And the best of all good company. 
 
 I cannot resist the temptation of adding to the stanzas of 
 the living poet one from him that can never die. 
 
 SONO. — FROM "ANTONY AND OLEOPATBA." 
 
 Come, thou monarch of the vine, 
 Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne, 
 In thy vats our cares be drowned ; 
 "With thy grapes our hah's be crowned ; 
 Cup us till the world go round ; 
 Cup us till the world go I'ound. 
 
 Of Thomas Hood's four great lyrical poema, the greatest is 
 " The Bridge of Sighs ; " it is one gush of tenderness and 
 charity. 
 
 One more unfortunate 
 
 Weary of breath, 
 
 Eashly importunate 
 
 Gone to her death ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly. 
 
 Lift her with care ; 
 
 Fashioneci so slenderly, 
 
 Young and so fair ! 
 
A LITEKAEY IIPB. 399 
 
 Look at her garmeuta, 
 Clinging like cerements ; 
 While the wave constantly 
 Drips from her clothing ; 
 Take her up instantly, 
 . Loving not loathing. 
 
 Touch her not scornfully ; 
 Think of her mournfully ; 
 Gently and humanly ; 
 Not of the stains of her : 
 All that remains of her 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny, 
 Rash and undutiful ; 
 Past all dishonour. 
 Death has left on her 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 Still for all slips of hers 
 One of Eve's family ; 
 Wipe those poor lips of hers, 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 Loop up her tresses. 
 Escaped from the comb ; 
 Her fair auburn tresses : 
 While wonderment guesses 
 Where was her home. 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 Who was her mother ? 
 Had she a sister ? 
 Had she a brother ? 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 ,Yet, than all other ? 
 
 Alas for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 Under the sun ! 
 Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city full. 
 Home she had none. 
 
 Sisterly, brotherly. 
 Fatherly, motherly 
 Feelings had changed. 
 Love, by harsh evidence. 
 Thrown from its eminence ; 
 Even God's providence 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
400 EECOLLECTIONS OJ' 
 
 Where the lamps (juiver, 
 So far in the river, 
 With a many a light ■ 
 From window and casement. 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood with amazement. 
 Houseless by night. 
 
 The bleak wind of March 
 Made her tremble and shiver, 
 But not the dark arch. 
 Or the black flowing river : 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery 
 Swift to be hurled ; 
 Anywhere, anywhere 
 Out of the world. 
 
 In she plunged boldly, 
 No matter how coldly 
 The rough river ran ; 
 Over the brink qf it 
 Picture it, think of it. 
 Dissolute man I 
 Lave in it, drink of it. 
 Then, if you can ! 
 
 Take her up tenderly. 
 Lift her with care ; 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 Young and so fair ! 
 Ere her limbs frigidly 
 Stiffen so rigidly 
 Decently, kindly. 
 Smooth and compose them ; 
 And her eyes close them. 
 Staring so blindly I 
 Dreadfully staring 
 Through muddy impurity, 
 As when the daring 
 Last look of despairing 
 1' ixed on futurity. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurned by contumely. 
 Cold inhumanity. 
 Burning insanity. 
 Into her rest ; 
 Cross her hands humbly. 
 As if praying dumbly, 
 Over her breast ! 
 
 Owning her weakness. 
 Her evil behaviour. 
 And leaving with meekness 
 Her sins to her Saviour 1 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 401 
 
 Perhaps the best companion — companion in contrast — to 
 " The Bridge of Sighs," is Coleridge's " Genevieve ! " 
 
 All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame. 
 
 Oft in my waking dreams do I 
 Live o'er again that happy hour, 
 When midway on the mount I lay 
 Beside the ruined tower. 
 
 The moonshine stealing o'er the scene 
 Had blended with the lights of eve, 
 And she was there my hope, my joy, 
 My own dear Genevieve. 
 
 She leant against the arm^d man, 
 The statue of the arm^d knight. 
 She stood and listened to my lay 
 Amid the lingering light. 
 
 Few soiTows hath she of her own, 
 My hope ! my joy I my Genevieve ! 
 She loves me best whene'er 1 sing 
 The songs that make her grieve. 
 
 I played a soft and doleful air 
 I sang an old and moving story — 
 An old rude song, that suited weU 
 That ruin wild and hoary. 
 
 She listened vrith a flitting blush. 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
 For well she knew I could not choose 
 But gaze upon her face. 
 
 I told her of the knight that wore 
 Upon his shield a burning brand, 
 And that for ten long yeai'S he wooed 
 The Lady of the Land : 
 
 I told her how he pined^and oh ! 
 The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
 With which I told another's love. 
 Interpreted my own I 
 
 She hstened with a flitting blush, 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
 And she forgave me, that I gazed 
 Too fondly on her face. 
 
 But when I told the cruel scorn 
 That crazed that bold and lonely knight. 
 And how he crossed the mountain wood 
 Nor rested day or nigUt ; 
 D D 
 
402 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 That sometimes from the savage den, 
 
 And sometimes from the darlssome shade. 
 
 And sometimes starting up at once 
 
 In green and sunny glade, 
 
 There came and looked him in the face 
 
 An angel beautiful and bright, 
 
 And that he knew it was a fiend, 
 
 This miserable knight; 
 
 And that, unknowing what he did. 
 He leapt among a murderous band. 
 And saved from outrage worse than death 
 The Lady of the Land ; 
 
 And how she wept, and clasped his knees. 
 And how she tended him in vain. 
 And ever strove to expiate 
 The scorn that crazed his brain ; 
 
 And how she nursed him in a cave, 
 And how his madness went away 
 When on the yellow forest leaves 
 A dying man he lay ; 
 
 His dying words^But when I reached 
 That tenderest strain of all the ditty. 
 My faltering voice and pausing harp 
 Disturbed her soul with pity. 
 
 AU impulses of soul and sense 
 Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve, 
 The music, and the dolefal tale. 
 The rich and balmy eve ; 
 
 And hopes and fears that kindle hope. 
 An undistinguishable throng, 
 And gentle wishes long subdued. 
 Subdued and cherished long ! 
 
 She wept with pity and delight. 
 
 She blushed with love and virgin shame, 
 
 And like the murmiu* of a dream 
 
 I heard her breathe my name. 
 
 Her bosom heaved, she stept aside, 
 As conscious of my look she stept. 
 Then suddenly with timorous eye 
 She fled to me and wept. 
 
 She half enclosed me with her arms. 
 She pressed me in a meek embrace ; 
 And bending back her head, looked up 
 And gazed upon my face. 
 
 *Twas partly love, and partly fear, 
 And partly 't was a bashful art. 
 That I rnight rather feel than see 
 The swelling of her heart. 
 
A IITBEABT LIFE. 403 
 
 I calmed her fears and she was calm, 
 And told her love with virs^u pride ; 
 And so I won my Genevieve, 
 My bright and beauteous bride. 
 
 How charmingly Milton has fitted his verse to his subject 
 in the " Song on May Morning." 
 
 Now the bright Morning Star, day's harbinger, 
 Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her 
 The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 
 Hail, bounteous May ! that dost inspire 
 Mirth and youth and warm desire ; 
 Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
 Hill and dale can boast thy blessing. 
 Thus we salute thee with our early song, 
 And welcome thee and wish thee long. 
 
 The wild and desolate stanzas, supposed to be suggested by 
 an equally wild and desolate landscape in Alton Locke, are 
 very touching. I am a neighbour of Mr. Kingsley's now ; if I 
 live to write another book I hope to be privileged to call 
 myself his friend. 
 
 " Mary, go and call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 Across the sa^ds o' Dee ;" 
 The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, 
 
 And all alone went she. i 
 
 The creeping tide came up along the sand, 
 And o'er and o'er the sand. 
 And round and round the sand. 
 As far as eye could see ; 
 The blinding mist came down and hid the land — 
 And never home came she. 
 
 " Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair, — 
 
 A tress o' golden hair, 
 
 0' drowned maiden's iair, 
 Above the nets at sea ? 
 Was never salmon yet that shone so fair. 
 
 Among the stakes o' Dee." 
 
 They rowed her in across the rolling foam. 
 The cruel crawling foam, 
 The cruel hungry foam. 
 To her grave beside the sea ; 
 But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home 
 Across the sands o' Dee. 
 DD2 
 
404 EECOLLKOTIONS OF 
 
 Another poem, quite as desolate and far more painful, 
 inasmucli as the tale of suffering is reflected back upon the 
 author, is " The Castaway," the last verses that poor Cowper 
 ever wrote. Every one knows that the terrible gloom which 
 overshadowed that fine mind arose from insanity ; and I 
 know a story of madness amongst his near friends, and 
 I believe also his blood relations, almost as affecting. 
 
 In early youth I was well acquainted with two old ladies, 
 Mrs. Theodosia and Frances HiU, sisters to the "Joe Hill," 
 the favourite and constant friend, who figures so frequently 
 in Cowper's correspondence. These excellent persons lived 
 at Beading, and were conspicuous through the town for their 
 peculiarities of dress and appearance. Shortest and smallest 
 of women, they adhered to the costume of fifty years before, 
 and were never seen without their high lappeted caps, the 
 enormous hoops, brocaded gowns, ruffles, aprons, and fur- 
 belows of our grandmothers. They tottered along upon 
 high-heeled shoes, and flirted fans emblazoned with the 
 history of Pamela. Nevertheless, such was the respect com- 
 manded by their thorough gentility, their benevolence and 
 their courtesy, that the very boys in the streets forgot to 
 laugh at women so blameless and so kind. An old house- 
 keeper, who had been their waiting-maid for half a lifetime, 
 partook of their popularity. Their brother and his wife in- 
 habited a beautiful place in the neighbourhood (afterwards 
 bequeathed to the celebrated Whiggish wit, Joseph Jekyl), 
 and until the sisters approached the age of eighty, nothing 
 could be smoother than the current of their calm and virtuous 
 life. At that period Mrs. Theodosia, the elder, sank into 
 imbecility, and Mrs. Frances, a woman of considerable abiUty 
 and feehng, broke all at once into incurable madness. Both 
 were pronounced to be harmless, and were left in their own 
 house, with two or three female servants, under the care of 
 the favourite attendant who had hved with them so long. 
 For a considerable time no change took place ; but one cold 
 winter day, their faithful nurse left her younger charge 
 sitting quietly by the parlour fire, and had not been gone 
 many minutes before she was recalled by sudden screams, 
 and found the poor maniac enveloped in flames. It was sup- 
 posed that she had held her cambric handkerchief to air 
 within the fireguard, and had thus ignited her apron and 
 
V LMEEART LIFE. 405 
 
 other parts of her dress. The old servant, with a true 
 woman's courage, caught her in her arms, and was so fearfully 
 burnt in the vain endeavour to extinguish the flames, that 
 she expired even before her mistress, who lingered many 
 days in dreadful agony, but without any return of recollection. 
 The surviving sister, happily unconscious of the catastrophe, 
 died at last of mere old age. This tragedy occurred not many 
 years after the death of Cowper. 
 
 THE CASTAWAY. 
 
 Obscureat night involved the sky ; 
 
 The Atlantic billowa roared, 
 When such a destined wretch as I 
 
 Washed headlong from on board, 
 Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, 
 His floating home for ever left. 
 
 Ko braver chief could Albion boast 
 
 Than he with whom he went, 
 Nor ever ship left Albion's coast 
 
 With warmer wishes sent. 
 He loved them both, but both in vain. 
 Nor him beheld nor her again. 
 
 Not long beneath the whelming brine 
 
 Expert to swim he lay; 
 Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 
 
 Ot courage die away ; 
 He waged with death a lasting strife, 
 Supported by despair of life. 
 
 He shouted : nor his friends had failed 
 
 To check the vessel's course, 
 But so the furious blast prevailed 
 
 That pitiless perforce, 
 They left their outcast mate behind. 
 And scudded still before the wind. 
 
 Some succour yet they could afford. 
 
 And such as storms allow. 
 The cask, the coop, the floated cord. 
 
 Delayed not to bestow. 
 But he, they knew, nor ship nor shore 
 Whate'er they gave should visit more. 
 
 Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he 
 
 Their haste himself condemn, 
 Aware that flight in such a sea 
 
 Alone could rescue them ; 
 Yet bitter felt it still to die 
 Deserted and his friends so nigh. 
 
406 EEOOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 He' long Burvivea "who lives an liour 
 
 In ocean self-upheld : 
 And so long he with unspent power 
 
 His destiny repelled ; 
 And ever as the minutes flew 
 Entreated help, or cried Adieu ! 
 
 At length his transient respite past 
 
 His comrades, who before 
 Had heard hia voice in every blast, 
 
 Could catch the sound no more. 
 For then, by toU subdued, he drank 
 The stifling wave, and then he sank. 
 
 No poet wept him ; but the page 
 
 Of narrative sincere 
 That tells hia name, his worth, his age. 
 
 Is wet with Anson's tear ; 
 And tears by bards or heroes shed 
 Alike immortalize the dead. 
 
 I therefore purpose not to dream. 
 
 Descanting on his fate, 
 To give the melancholy theme 
 
 A more enduring date. 
 But misery still delights to trace 
 Its semblance in another 's case. 
 
 No voice divine the storm allayed, 
 
 No light propitious shone ; 
 When snatched from all effectual aid 
 
 We perished each alone ; 
 But I beneath a rougher sea 
 And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he. 
 
 Very different, yet scarcely less melanclioly, was the destiny 
 of the writer of the following sonnet, called by Coleridge the 
 finest in our language. Most remarkable it undoubtedly is, 
 not merely for the grandeur of the thought, but for the 
 beauty of the execution. In reading these lines, it is difficult 
 to beUeve that the author (Blanco White) was not only born 
 and educated in Spain, but wrote English very imperfectly 
 until he was turned of thirty. 
 
 Mysterious Night I when our first parent knew 
 Thee from report divine and heard thy name. 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame. 
 
 This glorious canopy of hght and blue ? 
 
 Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame 
 Hesperus with the host of Heaven came. 
 
 And, lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 
A LITERARY Lll^K 407 
 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 Within thy beams, Sun I or who could find 
 
 Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed 
 That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! 
 
 Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? 
 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 
 
 Most different again is the following quaint sonnet, taken 
 from a series of sixty-three, all addressed to his mistress, and 
 called by Drayton "Ideas." The turn of the language is 
 exceedingly dramatic. 
 
 Since there's no help, come let us kiss and pai-t ! 
 
 Nay, I have done ; you get no more of me ; 
 
 And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart. 
 
 That thus so clearly I myself can free. 
 
 Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
 
 And when we meet at any time again 
 
 Be it not seen on either of our brows 
 
 That we one jot of former love retain. 
 
 Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, 
 
 When his pulse faihng Pdssion speechless lies, 
 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, 
 
 And InnoQence is closing up his eyes; • 
 
 Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, 
 
 From death to life thou might'st him yet recover. 
 
 The concluding poem of this paper, although in a very 
 different style, resembles its companions in the one grand 
 quaUty of being amongst the best, if not the very best, of its 
 class, at once a promise and a performance. That promise 
 has been amply redeemed. A singular honour befel our 
 English Apollo, that of being recited at the foot of the 
 statue (then still in the Louvre), by no less a person than 
 Mrs. Siddons herself. The grace and harmony of the verse 
 are worthy of such a distinction. 
 
 THE BEIVIDEBB APOL L O. 
 
 An Oxford Prize Poem,, 
 Heard ye the arrow hurtle in the sky ? 
 Heard ye the dragon monster's deathful cry ? 
 In settled majesty of fierce disdain, 
 Proud of his might, yet scornful of the slain. 
 The heavenly archer stands ; — no human birth, 
 No perishable denizen of earth ; 
 Youth blooms immortal in his beardless face, 
 A god in strength vnth more than godlike grace ; 
 All, all divine, — no struggling muscle glows. 
 Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows, 
 But animate with deity alone, 
 In deathless glory lives the "breathing stone. 
 
408 RECOLLBOnONS OF 
 
 Bright kindling with a conqueror's stem delight, 
 His keen eye tracks the arrow's fateful ffight; 
 Bums his indignant cheek with vengeful fire. 
 And hia lip quivers with insulting ire : 
 Firm fixed his tread, yet light, as when on high 
 He walks the impalpable and pathless sky : 
 The rich luxuriance of his hair, confined 
 In graceful ringlets, wantons on the wind 
 That lifts in sport his mantle's drooping fold, 
 Proud to display that form of faultless mould. 
 Mighty Ephesian ! with an eagle's flight 
 Thy proud soul mounted through the fields of light. 
 Viewed the bright concave of Heaven's blest abode, 
 And the cold marble leapt to life a God : 
 Contagious awe through breathless myriads ran. 
 And nations bowed before the work of man. 
 For mild he seemed as in Elysian bowers 
 Wasting in careless ease the joyous hours ; 
 Haughty, as bards have sung, with princely sway 
 Curbing the fierce flame-breathing steeds of day ; 
 Beauteous as vision seen in dreamy sleep 
 By holy maid, on Delphi's haunted steep, 
 Mid the dim twilight of the laurel grove 
 Too fair to worship, too divine to love. 
 
 Yet on that form, in wild delirious trance, 
 
 With more than reverence gazed the Maid of France. 
 
 Day after day the lovesick dreamer stood 
 
 With him alone, nor thought it solitude ; 
 
 To cherish grief, her last, her dearest care ; 
 
 Her one fond hope — to perish of despair. 
 
 Oft as the shifting lijrht her sight beguiled, 
 
 Blushing she shrunk, and thought the marble smiled ; 
 
 Oft breathless listening heard, or seemed to hear — 
 
 A voice of music melt upon her ear. 
 
 Slowly she waned, and, cold and senseless grown, 
 
 Closed her dim eyes, herself benumbed to stone. 
 
 Yet love in death a sickly strength supplied. 
 
 Once more she gazed, then feebly smiled and died. 
 
 It is remarkable that Dean Milman's professional residences 
 have kept close to the great river of England : his first curacy 
 at Ealing, his vicarage at Reading, his Oxford professorship, 
 his stall at Westminster, the deanery of St. Paul's. Well ! 
 there are other ecclesiastical dwellings on the banks of the 
 Thames : Rochester, Fulham, Lambeth ; who knows ! One 
 thing is quite certain, go where he may, he will find respect 
 and welcome, and leave behind him admiration and regret. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 409 
 
 XXSIV. 
 AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO UFTON COURT. 
 W. 0. BENNETT. 
 
 Fifty years ago, our Berkshire valleys abounded in old 
 Catholic houses, to which tradition usually assigned sub- 
 terranean communication with neighbouring nunneries, in the 
 case of abbeys or priories, of which, so far as I know, none 
 hath ever come to light ; or, if the mansions had been secular, 
 secret hiding-places for priests during the religious persecu- 
 tion (sad words to join) of the seventeenth century, especially 
 during the times that preceded and followed Guy Fawkes's 
 unaccomplished crime, and the frightful delusion known by 
 the name of the Popish Plot. That tradition was right 
 enough there, and that the oppressed Catholics did resort to 
 every measure permitted to their weakness, for the purpose 
 of conceaUng the priests to whom and to their peculiar rites 
 and ceremonies they clung as human nature does cling to 
 that which is imrighteously persecuted, there exists no sort 
 of doubt. — In an old house which my own father took down 
 belonging to that time, a small chamber was discovered, to 
 which there was no entrance except by a trap-door cunningly 
 devised in the oak flooring of a large bed-chamber ; and 
 similar places of concealment, sometimes behind a panel, 
 sometimes in a chimney, sometimes in the roof, have come to 
 light in other manor-houses. Now they are nearly all levelled 
 with the ground, these picturesque dwellings of our ancestors ; 
 the ancestral trees are following fast ; and we who love to 
 linger round the grey walls or to ramble amidst the mossy 
 tnmks are left to remember and to deplore. 
 
 One, however, still remains amongst us, thanks to the good 
 taste, the good feeling, and perhaps a little to the abundant 
 wealth of the present proprietor ; and that one is luckily the 
 most interesting of all. I speak of Ufton Court, where Ara- 
 bella Fermor, the Belinda of " The Eape of the Lock," spent 
 her married life; where she dwelt in honour and repute, 
 receiving in the hereditary mansion of the Perkinses the wits 
 of that Augustan age— Pope, Steele, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke ; 
 
410 HECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 where she reared four goodly sons, became a widow, and was 
 finally buried in the little yiUage church. There her monu- 
 ment may still be seen amongst many others of her husband's 
 family, and her name is still shown with laudable pride and 
 interest in that most levelling of books, in whose jages riches 
 and poverty, beauty and deformity, stand side by side — ^the 
 Parish Register. 
 
 To this old house I rarely fail to conduct such of my visitors 
 as happen to be poets ; and that one who deserves that high 
 title accompanied me thither not very long ago will be inferred, 
 I think, by most of those who read the verses that conclude 
 this paper. 
 
 The day was one of those between late May and early June 
 — the May of the old style, the May of the poets ; a day of 
 breeze and of sunshine. Our road wound through dose 
 woody lanes, fragrant with the pearly flo'wers of the hawthorn, 
 and the opening leaves of the oak just disclosing their silky 
 folds of yellowish brown ; then across the viUage-green, gay 
 with happy children let loose from school ; then through the 
 Uttle brook where the road dips so prettily ; then beside the 
 trickling rill flowing down the hill, as we mounted up, until 
 at last we emerged from the shade of the tall trees and the 
 steep banks of the narrow lane into the full flood of the 
 sunlight, shining in all its glory upon the broad table-land of 
 Mortimer Common. 
 
 Never did I see that beautiful spot so beautiful, the fine 
 short turf, exquisite in its tender verdure, was, except in 
 occasional stripes and patches, literally encrusted with the 
 golden-blossomed gorse, loading the air with its heavy odour ; 
 bright ponds of clear water reflected the deep blue sky ; all 
 around in the distance lay cultivated valleys, woods, churches, 
 villages, towns ; and in the foreground one or two groups of 
 old, dark, fantastic firs gave something of a wild rugged relief 
 to a landscape almost too gorgeous. 
 
 Traversing the common, we plunged again into a labyrinth 
 of lanes. This time, however, we pasted between fir planta- 
 tions, mingled with young birches of gresn leaf and silver 
 bark, with blossomed hawthorn and waving broom ; the golden 
 gorse creeping into every nook and comer, and seeming to 
 reflect the yellow sunshine as the water had reflected the blue 
 sky. At length we arrived at the gates opening upon the 
 
A LITERART LIFE. 411 
 
 broad approach to Ufton Court ; an approach still imposmg 
 although the noble double avenue that once adorned it has 
 long fallen under the woodman's axe. 
 
 The situation of the house is so commanding that it would 
 be difficult to deprive it of its stateliness and dignity. It 
 stands on the brow of a hill which slopes abruptly from the 
 broad terrace that surrounds two sides of the mansion, and 
 overhangs an old-fashioned garden once elaborately laid out, 
 down into a deep valley, which, with the stream that creeps 
 along the enamelled bottom, forms a beautiful bit of woodland 
 scenery — beautiful and most extensive ; the wood climbing 
 up to the top of the opposite hill, and spreading on every side 
 until it is lost in the distance. 
 
 On the lawn in front of the mansion are some magnificent 
 elms, splendid both in size and form, and one gigantic broad- 
 browed oak — ^the real oak of the English forest — that must 
 have seen many centuries. 
 
 To the right the lawn sweeps down a steep descent to a 
 chain of fijah-ponds, communicating with each other, as was 
 usual in large country-houses before the Reformation, espe- 
 cially when so far inland ; and, beyond the fish-ponds, a 
 winding road leads through the wood past a clear well over- 
 hung with trees, that almost tempts you to taste the waters 
 of the fountain, until in the depth of the valley we cross 
 a one-arched bridge, and either follow the road up the long 
 acclivity or diverge into the recesses of the woodland, just 
 now interspersed with piles of faggots and a few fallen trees, 
 and purple with the fragrant bells of the wild hyacinth. By 
 the roadside we found a rarer flower, the crimson woodvetcb, 
 which, to our astonishment, we again discovered amongst the 
 grasses upon the terrace — of old as free from all vegetation as 
 the pavement of the hall ; doubtless some bird had carried 
 the seed from its native home among the trees. 
 
 The house itself is an extensive and picturesque erection, 
 certainly not later than the age of Elizabeth, probably much 
 earlier. The projecting wings, with their gables and pinnacles, 
 are borne out by a large and curious porch, also projecting, 
 with two wide seats on either side, so that, although partly 
 open below, it admits of a charming, lightsome lady's room, 
 with three windows, built over it. Tall clusters of twisted 
 shiinneys break the line of the roof. The upper stories, with 
 
412 KBCOLLBCTIONS OF 
 
 their quaintly- carved beams and corbels, project one over the 
 other, and are terminated by little gables and pinnacles, each 
 with its narrow casement, all along the front. Tall, narrow 
 casements indeed — the small panes forming a graceful pattern 
 of octagons and diamonds — prevail on every side ; and the 
 door, of heaviest oak, studded with prodigious nails, would 
 almost resist an ancient battering-ram or a modern petard. 
 
 On entering the mansion, we found cause to conjecture 
 that these straitened windows and this iron-shod door were 
 perhaps but needful precautions in those days of terror. 
 
 The two lower floors offer nothing to view beyond the 
 black and white marble pavement, the decorated ceUings, and 
 the carved oaken panels proper to a large manorial residence 
 of the times of the Tudors. But, on ascending the broad 
 staircase to the third story, we find at every step traces of 
 the shifts to which the unhappy intolerance of the times sub- 
 jected those who adhered firmly to the proscribed faith, as 
 during two centuries, and until the race was extinct, was the 
 proud distinction of the family of Perkins. 
 
 The walls are evidently pierced throughout by a concealed 
 passage, or very probably passages ; leading, it is presumed, 
 to a shaft in the cellar, stiU visible, fi'om whence another 
 passage led under the terrace into the garden, and through 
 that to the woods, where, doubtless, places of refuge or 
 means of escape were held ready for the fugitives. As many 
 as a dozen carefuUy-masked openings into dark hiding-places, 
 varying in extent and size, have been discovered in this 
 story : no doubt they were connected one with the other, 
 although the clue of the labyrinth is wanting. About twenty 
 years ago a larger chamber, entered by a trap, was also acci- 
 dentally laid open. A narrow ladder led into this gloomy 
 retreat, and the only things found there were most significant 
 — two petronels and a small crucifix. 
 
 A shelving apartment in the roof had been used as a 
 chapel ; and, in a small room adjoining, a triangular opening, 
 too small to conceal a man, has been effected with more than 
 ordinary care. It was probably used to conceal the vestments 
 and the plate used in the mass. The little door is so thickly 
 lined with wood, that the most skilful sounder of panels 
 might knock for ever without detecting the slightest hollow 
 sound, and it fiistens itself when closed by a curious and 
 
A LITBBARY LIFE. 413 
 
 complicated wooden bolt. One would fancy that Sir Walter 
 must have seen Ufton Court when he wrote " Woodstock." 
 
 Fifty years ago a Catholic priest was the sole inhabitant of 
 this interesting mansion. His friend, the late Mrs. Lenoir, 
 Christopher Smart's daughter, whose books when taken up, 
 one does not care to put down again, wrote some verses to 
 the gi'eat oak. Her nieces, whom I am proud to call my 
 friends, possess many reliques of that lovely Arabella Termor, 
 of whom Pope, in the charming dedication to the most 
 charming of his poems, said that " the character of Belinda, 
 as it was now managed, resembled her in nothing but beauty." 
 Amongst these reliques are her rosary, and a portrait, taken 
 when she was twelve or thirteen yeai's of age. The face is 
 most interesting : a high, broad forehead ; dark eyes, richly 
 fringed and deeply set ; a straight nose, pouting lips, and 
 a short chin finely rounded. The dress is dark and graceful, 
 with a little white turned back about the neck and the loose 
 sleeves. Altogether I never saw a more charming, girlish 
 portrait, with so much of present beauty, and so true a 
 promise of more — of that order, too, high and intellectual, 
 which great poets love. Her last surviving son died childless 
 in 1769, and the estate passed into another family. 
 
 Yet another interest belongs to Ufton, not indeed to the 
 Court, but to the Eectory. Poor Blanco White wrote under 
 that roof his first work, the well-known "Doblado's Letters ;" 
 and the late excellent rector, Mr. Bishop, in common with 
 the no less excellent Lord Holland and Archbishop Whately, 
 remained through all that tried and alienated other, hearts, 
 his fast friend to his last hour. 
 
 Let me now speak of my companion. 
 
 Of all writers the one who has best understood, best 
 painted, best felt infant nature, is my dear and valued friend, 
 Mr. Bennett. We see at once that it is not only a charming 
 and richly-gifted poet who is describing childish beauty, but 
 a young father writing from his heart. So young indeed is he 
 in reality and in appearance, that he was forced to produce a 
 shoemaker's bill, for certain little blue kid slippers before he 
 could convince an incredulous critic (I believe poor Ebenezer 
 Elhott, the Corn-law Rhymer) that Baby May was really his 
 own child, and not an imaginary personage invented for the 
 nonce ; and yet Greenwich can tell how much this young 
 
414 EEOOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 ardent mind, aided by kindred spirits, has done in the way 
 of baths and washhouses, and schools, and lectures, and 
 libraries, and mechanics' institutes, to further the great cause 
 of progress, mental and bodily. So well do strength and ten- 
 derness of character go together, and so fine a thing is the 
 union of activity with thought. 
 
 " Baby May" is amongst the most popular of Mr. Bennett's 
 lyrics, and amongst the most original, as that which is per- 
 fectly true to nature can hardly fail to be. 
 
 BABT MAT. 
 
 Cheeks as soft as Jvdj peaches — 
 Lips whose Telvet scarlet teaches 
 Poppies paleness — round large eyes 
 Ever great with new surprise — 
 Minutes filled with shadeless gladness — 
 Minutes just as brimmed with sadness — 
 Happy smiles and wailing cries, 
 Crows and laughs and tearful eyes. 
 Lights and shadows, swiftly horn 
 Then on wind-swept Autumn com, 
 Ever some new tiny notion, 
 Making every limb all motion, 
 Catching up of legs and arms, 
 Throwings back and small alarms, 
 Clutching fingers — straightening jerks, 
 Twining feet whose each toe works, 
 Kiokings up and straining risings. 
 Mother's ever new surprisings. 
 Hands all wants and looks all wonder 
 At all things the heavens under, 
 , Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings 
 
 That have more of love than lovings, 
 Mischiefs done with such a winning 
 Archness that we prize such sinning. 
 Breakings dire of plates and glasses, 
 Graspings small at all that passes, 
 PulUngs off of all that's able 
 To be caught from tray or table, 
 Silences — small meditations 
 Deep as thoughts of cares for nations 
 Breaking into wisest speeches 
 In a tongue that nothing teaches, 
 All the thoughts of whose possessing 
 Must be wooed to light my guessing, 
 Slumbers — such sweet angel-seemings 
 That, we "d ever have such dreamings, 
 Till from sleep we see thee breaking, 
 And we 'd always have thee waking. 
 
A LITERARY UFE. 415 
 
 ■Wealth for which we know no measure, 
 Pleasure high above all pleasure, 
 Gladness brimming over gladness, 
 Joy in care— delight in sadness, 
 Loveliness beyond completeness. 
 Sweetness distancing all sweetness, 
 Beauty all that beauty may be. 
 That's May Bennett — that's my baby. 
 
 This is another lyric in tlie same key. 
 TO A looke:i. 
 Oh casket of dear fancies — 
 
 Oh little case of gold — 
 What rarest wealth of memories 
 
 Thy tiny round will hold ; 
 With this first curl of baby's 
 
 In thy small charge will live 
 AU thoughts that all her little life 
 
 To memory can give. 
 
 Oh prize its silken softness, 
 
 Within its amber round 
 What worlds of sweet rememberings 
 
 Will still by us be found ; 
 The weak shrill cry so blessing 
 
 The curtained room of pain. 
 With every since-felt feeling 
 
 To us 't will bring again. 
 
 'T will mind us of her lying 
 
 In rest soft-pillowed deep, 
 While, hands the candle sliding. 
 
 We stole upon her sleep — 
 Of many a blessed moment 
 
 Her little rest above 
 We h\ing in marvelling stillness — 
 
 In ecstasy of love. 
 
 'Twill mind us, radiant sunshine 
 
 For all our shadowed days, 
 Of all her baby wonderings, 
 
 Of all her little ways, 
 Of all her tiny shoutings, 
 
 Of all her starts and fears 
 And sudden mirths out-gleaming 
 
 Through eyes yet hung with tears. 
 
 There 's not a care — a watching — 
 
 A hope — a laugh — a fear 
 Of all her little bringing 
 
 But we shall find it here ; 
 Then tiny golden warder. 
 
 Oh safely ever hold 
 This glossy silken memory, 
 
 This little curl of gold. 
 
416 EBCOLLBCTIOSfS OF 
 
 Here are some epitaphs for infants, of great sweetness and 
 tenderness. 
 
 EPITAPHS rOE INFANTS. 
 1. 
 
 Here the gusts of wild March blow 
 But in murmurs faint and low ; 
 Ever here when Spring is green 
 Be the brightest verdure seen — 
 And when June 's in field and glade. 
 Here be ever freshest shade ; 
 Here hued Autumn's latest stay, 
 Latest call the flowers away ; 
 And when Winter's shrilling by 
 Here its snows the warmest lie ; 
 For a little life is here, 
 Hid in earth for ever dear, 
 And this grassy heap above 
 Sorrow broods and weeping love. 
 
 II. 
 
 On this little grassy mound 
 Never be the darnel found ; 
 Ne'er be venomed nettle seen 
 On this little heap of green ; 
 For the little lost one here 
 Was too sweet for aught of fear, 
 Aught of harm to harbour nigh 
 This green spot where she must lie ; . 
 So be nought but sweetness found 
 On this little grassy mound. 
 
 III. 
 Here in gentle pity, Spring, 
 Let thy sweetest voices sing; 
 Nightingale, be here thy song 
 Charmed by grief to linger long — 
 Here the thrush with longest stay 
 Pipe its speckled song to day — 
 And the blackbird warble shrill 
 All its passions latest still ; 
 Still the old gray tower above 
 Her small rest, the swallow love, 
 And through all June's honied hours 
 Booming bees hum in its flowers. 
 And when comes the eve's cold gray 
 Murmuring gnats unresting play 
 Weave, while round the beetle's flight 
 Drones across the shadowing night ; 
 For the sweetness dreaming here 
 Was a gladness to the year. 
 And the sad months all should bring 
 Dirges o'er her sleep to sing. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE, 417 
 
 Haunter of the opening year, 
 Ever be the primrose here ; 
 Whitest daisies deck the spot, 
 Pausies and forget-me-not. 
 Fairest things that earliest fly„ 
 Sweetness blooming but to die ; 
 For this blossom, o'er whose fall 
 Sorrow sighs, was fair as all. 
 But, alas, as frail as they, 
 AU as quickly fled away. 
 
 These four stanzas, On a subject so hackneyed that many 
 writers would have shrunk from attempting it, would make 
 four charming pictures. 
 
 THE SEASONS. 
 
 A blue-eyed child that sits amid the noon, 
 O'erhung with a laburnum's drooping sprays, 
 
 Singing her little songs, while softly round 
 Along the grass the chequered sunshine plays. 
 
 All beauty that is throned in womanhood 
 Pacing a summer garden's fountained walks, 
 
 That stoops to smooth a glossy spaniel down 
 To hide her flushing cheek from one who talks. 
 
 A happy mother with her fair-faced girls, 
 
 In whose sweet Spring again her youth she sees, 
 
 With shout and dance and laugh and bound and song, 
 Stripping an Autumn orchard's laden trees. 
 
 An aged woman in a wintry room, — 
 
 Frost on the pane, without the whirling snow — 
 
 Eeading old letters of her far-off youth. 
 Of sorrows past and joys of long ago. 
 
 The next specimen shows one of Mr. Bennett's strongest 
 characteristics ; his sincere sympathy with the privations of 
 the working classes, especially the privations that shut them 
 out from natural beauty. 
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS TO HEE MIGNONETTE. 
 
 I love that box of mignonette. 
 
 Though worthless in your eyes, 
 Above your choicest hot-house flowers 
 
 My mignonette I prize — 
 Thank heaven not yet I 've learned on that 
 
 A money worth to set — 
 'T is priceless as the thoughts it brings, 
 
 My box of mignonette. 
 
418 EECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 I know my own sweet mignonette 
 
 Is neither strange nor rare, 
 Your garden flaunters bum with hues 
 
 That it may never wear ; 
 Yet on your garden's rarest blooms 
 
 No eyes were ever set 
 With more delight than mine on yours, 
 
 My box of mignonette. 
 Why do I prize my mignonette 
 
 That lights my window there ? 
 It adds a pleasure to delight — 
 
 It steals a weight from care— 
 What happy daylight dreams it brings — 
 
 Can I not half forget 
 My long long hours of weary work 
 
 With you, my mignonette. 
 
 It tells of May, my mignonette, 
 
 And as I see it blooom, 
 I think the green bright pleasant Spring 
 
 Comes freshly through my room ; 
 Our narrow court is dark and close, 
 
 Yet when my eyes yon met. 
 Wide fields lay stretching from my sight. 
 
 My box of mignonette. 
 
 What talks it of, my mignonette. 
 
 To me it babbles still 
 Of woodland banks of primroses. 
 
 Of heath and breezy hill — 
 Through country lanes and daisied fields — 
 
 Through paths with morning wet — 
 Again I trip as when a girl. 
 
 Through you, my mignonette. 
 
 For this I love my mignonette. 
 
 My window garden small, 
 That country thoughts and scents and sounds 
 
 Abound me loves to call — 
 For this though low in rich men's thoughts 
 
 Your worth and love be set, 
 I bless you, pleasure of the poor. 
 
 My own sweet mignonette. 
 
 I add " Ariadne '' to show how Mr. Bennett can strike the 
 classic lyre. 
 
 ABtADNE. 
 
 Morn rose on Kaxos, — golden devfy mom. 
 Climbing its eastern cliffs with gleaming light. 
 Purpling each inland peak and dusky gorge 
 Of the gray distance, — morn, on lowland slopes. 
 Of olive-ground and vines and yellowing com. 
 Orchard and flowery pasture, white with kine. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 419 
 
 On forest — hill-side cot, and rounding sea, 
 And the still tent of Theseus by the shore. 
 
 Morn rose on Kaxos — chill and freshening mom, 
 Nor yet the unbreathing air a twitter heard 
 From eave or bough, — nor yet a blue smoke rose 
 From glade or misty vale, or far-off town ; 
 One only sign of life, a dusty sail. 
 Stole dark afar across the distant sea 
 Flying ; all else unmoved in stillness lay 
 Beneath the silence of the brightening heavens, 
 Nor sound was heard to break the slumbrous calm, 
 Save the soft lapse of waves along the strand. 
 
 A white form from the tent, — a glance,— a cry. 
 
 Where art thou, Theseus ? — Theseus ! Theseus ! where ? 
 
 Why hast thou stolen thus with earliest dawn. 
 
 Forth from thy couch — forth from these faithless arms. 
 
 That even in slumber should have clasped thee still ? 
 
 Truant ! ah me ! and hast thou learned to fly 
 
 So early from thy Ariadne's love ? 
 
 Where art thou ? Is it well to fright me thus,- — 
 
 To scare me for a moment with the dread 
 
 Of one abandon'd ? Art thou in the woods 
 
 With all that could have told me where thou art ? 
 
 Cruel ! and could'st thou not have left me one. 
 
 Ere this to have laughed away my idle fears ? 
 
 He could have told thee all — the start— the shriek — 
 
 The palHd face, with which I found thee gone. 
 
 And furnished laughter for thy glad return ; 
 
 But thus to leave me, cruel ! thus alone ! 
 
 There is no sound of hoi-ns among the hills. 
 
 No shouts that tell thy track or bay the boar. 
 
 fearful stillness ! that one would speak ! 
 
 O would that I were fronting wolf or pard 
 
 But by thy side this moment ! so strange fear 
 
 Possesses me, love ! apart from thee. 
 
 The galley gone ! Ye Gods ! it is not gone 1 
 
 Here, by this rock it lay but yesternight ! 
 
 Gone I through this track its keel slid down the shore ; 
 
 And I slept calmly as it cleft the sea I 
 
 Gone ! gone 1 where gone? — that sail ! 'tis his ! 'tis his ! 
 
 Eeturn, Theseus ! Theseus, love ! return ! 
 
 Thou wilt return ! Thou dost but try my love ! 
 Thou wilt return to make my foolish fears 
 Thy jest ! Ketum, and I will laugh with thee ! 
 Eeturn ! return ! And canst thou hear my shrieks, 
 Nor heed my cry ? And wouldst thou have me weep ? 
 Weep ! I that wept — white with wild fear— the while 
 Thou slew'st the abhorred monster ! If it be 
 Thou takest pleasure in these bitter tears. 
 Come back, and I will weep myself away — 
 A streaming Niobe — ^to win thy smiles I 
 EE 2 
 
420 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 stony heart 1 why wilt thou wring me thus ? 
 
 heart more cold unto my shrilling cries 
 Than these wild hills that wail to thee, return, 
 Than all these island rocks that shriek, return. 
 Come back ! — Thou seest me rend this blinding hair ; 
 Hast thou not sworn each tress thou didst so prize. 
 That sight of home, and thy gray father's face, 
 Were less a joy to thee, and lightlier held ? 
 
 Thy sail ! thy sail ! O do my watery eyes 
 Take part with thee, so loved ! to crush me down ! 
 Gone ! gone ! and wilt thou — wilt thou not return ? 
 Heartless, unfearing the just Gods, wilt thou, 
 Theseus ! my lord ! my love ! desert me thus ? 
 Thus leaveume, stranger in this strange wild land, 
 Friendless, afar from all I left for thee, 
 Crete, my old home, and my ancestral halls. 
 My father's love, and the remembered haunts 
 Of chUdhood, — all that knew me — all I knew — 
 All — all — woe ! woe ! that I shall know no more. 
 Why didst thou lure me, craftiest, from my home? 
 There if, thy love grown cold, thou thus hadst fled, 
 
 1 had found comfort in fond words and smiles 
 Familiar, and the pity of my kin. 
 
 Tears wept with mine — tears wept by loving eyes. 
 That had washed out thy traces from my heart. 
 Perchance, in years, had given me back to joy. 
 that thy steps had never trodden Crete ! 
 that these eyes had never on thee fed ! 
 
 that, weak heart ! I ne'er had looked my love. 
 Or, looking, thou hadst thrust it back with hate ! 
 Did I not save thee ? I ? Was it for this. 
 Despite Crete's hate — despite my father's wrath, 
 Perchance to slay me, that I ventured all 
 
 For thee — for thee — forgetting all for thee ! 
 Thou know'st it all, — who knows it if not thou, 
 Save the just Gods — the Gods who hear my cry, 
 And mutter vengeance o'er thy flying head. 
 Forsworn ! And, lo ! on thy accursed track 
 Rush the dread furies ; lo 1 afar I see 
 The hoary .aSgeus, watching for his son. 
 His son that nears him still with hastening oars. 
 Unknown, that nears him but to dash him down, 
 Moaning, to darkness and the dreadful shades. 
 The while, thy grief wails after him in vain ; 
 And, lo, again the good Gods glad my sight 
 With vengeance : blood again, thy blood, I see 
 Streaming; — who bids Hyppolytus depart 
 But thou— thou, sword of lustful Phaedra's hate 
 Against thy boy— thy son— thy fair-haired boy ; 
 
 1 see the ivory chariot whirl him on 
 
 The maddened horses down the rocky way 
 Dashing— the roaring monster in their path ; 
 
A IITEEAEY LIFE. 421 
 
 And plates and ivory splinters of the car, 
 
 And blood and limbs, sprung from thee, crushed and torn, 
 
 Poseidon scatters down the shrieking shores ; 
 
 And thou too late — too late, bewail'st, in vain, 
 
 'I'hy blindness and thy hapless darling's fate. 
 
 And think'st of me, abandoned, and my woe ; 
 
 Thou who didst show no pity, to the Gods 
 
 Shrieking for pity, that my vengeful cries 
 
 Drag thee not down unto the nether gloom, 
 
 To endless tortures and undying woe. 
 
 Dread Gods ! I know these things shall surely be ! 
 
 But other, wOder whispers throng my ears, 
 
 And in my thought a fountain of sweet hope 
 
 Mingles its gladness with my lorn despair. 
 
 Lo ! wild flushed faces reel before mine eyes. 
 
 And furious revels, dances, and fierce glee. 
 
 Are round me, — tossing arms and leaping forms, 
 
 Skin-clad and horny-hoofed, and hands that clash 
 
 Shrill cymbals, and the stormy joy of flutes 
 
 And horns, and blare of trumpets, and aU huoa 
 
 Of Iris' watery bow, on bounding nymphs. 
 
 Vine-crowned and Thyrsus-sceptred, and one form, 
 
 God of the roaring triumph, on a oar 
 
 Golden and jewel-lustred, carved and bossed. 
 
 As by HephsestuB, shouting, rolls along. 
 
 Jocund and panther-drawn, and through the sun, 
 
 Down, through the glaring splendour, with wild bound, 
 
 Leaps, as he nears me, and a mighty cup, 
 
 Dripping with odorous nectar, to my lips 
 
 Is raised, and mad sweet mirth —frenzy divine 
 
 Is in my veins, — hot love burns through mine eyes, 
 
 And o'er the roar and rout I roll along. 
 
 Throned by the God, and lifted by his love 
 
 Unto forgetfulness of mortal pains. 
 
 Up to the prayers and praise and awe of earth. 
 
 Much may be expected fi'om a young poet who has ah'eady 
 done so well ; all the more that he is a man of business, and 
 that literature is with him a staff and not a crutch. 
 
 To return a moment to Ufton Court. 
 
 I am indebted to my admirable friend Mrs. Hughes for the 
 account of another hiding-place, in which the interest is in- 
 sured by that charm of charms — an unsolved and insoluble 
 mystery. 
 
 On some alterations being projected in a large mansion in 
 Scotland, belonging to the late Sir George Warrender, the 
 architect, after examining, and, so to say, studying the house, 
 declared that there was a space in the centre for which there 
 was no accounting, and that there must certainly be a con- 
 
422 RECOLMldlONS OF 
 
 cealed chamber. Neither master nor servant had ever heard 
 of such a thing, and the assertion was treated with some 
 scorn. The. architect, however, persisted, and at last proved, 
 by the sure test of measurement and by comparison with the 
 rooms in an upper story, that the space he had spoken of did 
 exist ; and as no entrance of any sort could be discovered 
 from the surrounding chambers, it was resolved to make an 
 incision in the wall. The experiment proved the architect to 
 have been correct in his calculations. A large and lofty 
 apartment was disclosed, richly and completely furnished as a 
 bedchamber ; a large four-post bed, spread with blankets, 
 counterpanes, and the finest sheets, was prepared for instant 
 occupation. The very wax-lights in the candlesticks stood 
 ready for lighting. The room was heavily hung and carpeted 
 as if to deaden sound, and was, of course, perfectly dark. No 
 token was found to indicate the intended occupant, for it did 
 not appear to have been used, and the general conjecture was 
 that the refuge had been prepared for some unfortunate 
 Jacobite in the '15, who had either fallen into the hands of 
 the Government or had escaped from the kingdom ; while 
 the few persons to whom the secret had necessarily been in- 
 trusted had died oflF without taking any one into their confi- 
 dence — a discretion and fidelity which correspond with many 
 known traits of Scottish character in both rebellions, and 
 were eminently displayed during the escape of Charles Edward. 
 
 XXXV. 
 IRISH AUTHORS. 
 
 GEKALD GEIFPIlf. 
 
 Biography, although to me the most delightful reading in 
 the world, is too frequently synonymous with tragedy, espe- 
 cially the biography of poets. What else are the last two 
 volumes of "Lockhart's Life of Scott"? What else, all the 
 more for its wild and whirling gaiety, the entire "Life of 
 Byron" ? But the book that, above any other, speaks to me 
 of the trials, the sufierings, the broken heart of a man of 
 genius is that " Life of Gerald Griffin," written by a brother 
 worthy of him, which precedes the only edition of his col- 
 
A LITEEARY LIFE, 423 
 
 leoted works. The author of "The Collegians" is so little 
 known in England, that I may be pardoned for sketching the 
 few events of an existence marked only by high aims and 
 bitter disappointments. His parents were poor Irish gentry, 
 with taste and cultivation unusual in their class and country ; 
 and all of his early youth that he could steal from Greek and 
 Latin was spent in the far dearer and more absorbing occupa- 
 tion of sketching secretly drama after drama, or in dreaming 
 sweet dreams of triumphs to come, as he lay floating in his 
 little boat on the broad bosom of the Shannon, which flowed 
 past his happy home. When he was about seventeen, the 
 elder branches of his family emigrated to Canada, leaving him 
 to the care of his brother. Dr. Griffin, who removed to Adare, 
 near Limerick. It was proposed that he also should follow 
 the medical profession. But this destination was little suited 
 to the cherished visions of the young poet ; and about two 
 years after he set off gaily for London, with " Gisippus," and 
 I know not how many other plays in his pocket, for his only 
 resource, and his countryman John Banim for his only friend. 
 He was not yet twenty, poor boy ! had hardly left his father's 
 roof, and he set out for London full of spirits and of hope to 
 make his fortune by the stage. Now we all know what 
 " Gisippus " is — the story of a great benefit, a foul ingratitude, 
 sufiering heaped upon suffering, wrong upon wrong, avenged 
 in the last scene by such a pardon, such a reconciliation as 
 would draw tears from the stoniest heart that ever sate in a 
 theatre. We all know the beauty of " Gisippus " now ; for 
 after the author's death, that very play, in Mr. Macready's 
 hands, achieved perhaps one of the purest successes of the 
 modern drama. But during Gerald Griffin's life it produced 
 nothing but mortifications innumerable and unspeakable. 
 The play and the poet were tossed unread and unheard from 
 actor to actor, from manager to manager, until hope fainted 
 within him, and the theatre was abandoned at once and 
 for ever. 
 
 During this long agony he quarrelled, in some moment of 
 susceptibility, long repented and speedily atoned, with his 
 true friend Banim ; and went about the huge wilderness, 
 London, an unknown, solitary lad, seeking employment 
 amongst the booksellers, fighting the battle of unfriended 
 and unrecognised talent as bravely as ever it was fought, and 
 
424 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 was all but starved in the contest, as Otway and Chatterton 
 had been before him. The production of "The Collegians," 
 the very best tale of what has been termed "The Irish 
 School," averted this catastrophe. But even after the " Col- 
 legians," which O'Oonnell delighted in calling his favourite 
 novel, the struggle, often a losing struggle, seems to have 
 continued. Bitter sufferings ooze out. He speaks of himself 
 in some most affecting stanzas, as doomed to die whilst his 
 powers are stiU unacknowledged : — 
 
 " With this feeling upon me, all feverish and glowing, 
 I rushed up the rugged way panting to fame, 
 I snatched at my laurels while yet they were growing, 
 And won for my guerdon the half of a name." 
 
 Foe the next dozen years he appears to have lived an 
 anxious and unsatisfactory Hfe, partly in arduous and obscure 
 drudgery, working for different booksellers at the several 
 series of " The Munster Festivals," " The Duke of Monmouth," 
 and other tales, partly sharing the happier retirement of his 
 affectionate relations in the county Limerick. But in London, 
 in spite of his fine genius, his high and sterling qualities, he 
 seems to have remained friendless and unknown. Partly, 
 perhaps, this was the fault of a shy and sensitive tempera- 
 ment. He says himself : — 
 
 " I have a heart. I'd live 
 
 And die for him whose worth I knew ; 
 But could not clasp his hand, and give 
 
 My full heart forth as talkers do. 
 And they who loved me, the kind few, 
 
 Believed me changed in heart and tone, 
 And left me while it burned as true, 
 
 To live alone, to live alone." 
 
 And so he laboured on ; working for uncertain remunera- 
 tion with diminished hope, and with (as we are suffered to 
 perceive) the shadow of an unfortunate attachment dimming 
 the faint sunshine that was left, until little by little his 
 courage seems to have failed him, and, in the year 1838, 
 while only thirty-four years of age, he resolved to join the 
 Society of Christian Brethren at Cork. It is an institution 
 half monastic, half educational, consisting, no doubt, of pious 
 and excellent persons, and fitted to do good service among 
 the peasantry of Ireland. But I cannot help doubting 
 whether the companionship or the occupation were exactly 
 
A IJTEHARY LIFE. 425 
 
 that best suited to Gerald GrifBn. One of tlie old Bene- 
 dictine abbeys, where the consolations of religion were 
 blended with the pursuits of learning, where the richly- 
 adorned chapel adjoined the richly-stored library, would have 
 done better. At Cork, his employment was to teach young 
 children their letters : and one day a mendicant from his own 
 coimty craving relief, and he moneyless, according to the rule 
 of the order, proposing to bestow his alms in the form of a 
 little gold seal, the only trinket he had retained, the per- 
 mission to do so was refused. After this it is no surprise to 
 find that the feverish disorders, to which he was constitu- 
 tionally subject, recurred more frequently. In the year 1840, 
 his kind brother. Dr. Griffin, was sent for to attend his sick- 
 bed, and arrived just in time to receive his last sigh. Then 
 came the triumphant representation of " Gisippus," the only 
 one of his plays that he had not destroyed on entering the 
 Christian Brethren, just to show what a dramatist had been 
 let die. 
 
 His lyrics seem to me almost unrivalled for the truth, 
 purity, and tenderness of the sentiment. This is high praise, 
 but I subjoin a few specimens which I think -will bear it 
 out ; — 
 
 Gilli ma chree, 
 
 Sit down by me. 
 We now are joined and ne'er shall sever, 
 
 Thia hearth's our own, 
 
 Our hearts are one. 
 And peace is ours for ever. 
 
 When I was poor 
 
 Your father's door 
 Was closed against your constant lover ; 
 
 With care and pain 
 
 I tried in vain 
 My fortunes to recover : 
 I said, to other lands I '11 roam 
 
 Where Fate may smile on me, love ! 
 I said, Farewell, my own old home ! 
 And I said farewell to thee, love ! 
 
 Sing Gflli ma chree, &c. 
 
 I might have said, 
 My mountain maid, 
 Cc me live with me, your own true lover ; 
 1 know a spot 
 A silent cot, 
 
426 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Your friends can ne'er disooTer, 
 Where gently flows the wavelesB tide 
 
 By one small garden only, 
 Where the heron waves his wings so wide. 
 
 And the linnet sings so lonely. 
 Sing Gilli ma cshree, &c. 
 
 I might have said. 
 
 My mountain maid, 
 A father's right was never given 
 
 True hearts to curse 
 
 With tyrant force 
 That have heon blest in heaven 1 
 But then I said, in after years. 
 
 When thoughts of home shall find her, 
 My love may mourn with secret tears 
 Her friends thus left behind her. 
 
 Sing Gilli ma ohree, &c. 
 
 Oh, no, I said. 
 
 My own dear maid. 
 For me, though all forlorn for ever. 
 
 That heart of thine 
 
 Shall ne'er repine 
 O'er slighted duty, never ! 
 From home and thee though wandering far 
 
 A dreary fate be mine, love, 
 I'd rather live in endless war 
 
 Than buy my peace with thine, love I 
 
 Sing GiUi ma ohree, &c. 
 
 Far, far away. 
 
 By night and day, 
 I toiled to win a golden treasure. 
 
 And golden gains 
 
 Repaid my pains 
 In fair and shining measure. 
 I sought again my native land; 
 
 Thy father welcomed me, love : 
 I poured my gold into his hand. 
 
 And my guerdon found in thee, love ! 
 
 Sing Gilli ma ohree. 
 
 Sit down by me. 
 We now are joined and ne'er shall sever; 
 
 This hearth's our own. 
 
 Our hearts are one. 
 And peace is ours for ever. 
 
 The Mie-na-mallah * now is past, 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru 1 
 
 And I must leave my home at last, 
 wirra-sthru ! O wirra-sthru I 
 
 The Honeymoon. 
 
A HTEKAKT LIFE. 427 
 
 I look into my father's eyes, 
 I hear my mother's parting sighs, — 
 Ah ! fool to pine for other ties ! 
 wirra-sthru ! wiira-sthni ! 
 
 This evening they must sit alone, 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 They '11 talk of me when I am gone, 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 "Who now will cheer my lonely aire 
 "When toil and care his heart shall tire ? 
 My chair is empty by the fire ! 
 , wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 
 How sunny looks my pleasant home, 
 
 wirra-sthru ! O wirra-sthru ! 
 Those flowers for me shall never bloom, 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 I seek new friends, and I am told 
 That they are rich in lands and gold. 
 Ah J -vpill they love me like the old ? 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 
 Farewell, dear friends ! we meet no more ! 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 My husband's horse is at the door ! 
 
 wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 Ah, love ! ah, love ! be kind to me. 
 For by this breaking heart you see. 
 How dearly I have purchased thee ! 
 
 O wirra-sthru ! wirra-sthru ! 
 
 Old times ! old times ! the gay old times. 
 
 When I was young and free. 
 And heard the merry Easter chimes 
 
 Under the sally tree. 
 My Sunday palm beside me placed, 
 
 My cross upon my hand, 
 A heart at rest within my breast, 
 
 And sunshine on the land ! 
 
 Old times 1 old times ! 
 
 It is not that my fortunes flee. 
 
 Nor that my cheek is pale, 
 I mourn whene'er I think of thee. 
 
 My darling native vale. 
 A wiser head I have I know 
 
 Than when I loitered there, 
 But in my wisdom there is woe, 
 
 And in my knowledge care. 
 
 Old times ! old times I 
 
428 EBOOLLEOTIONS OF 
 
 I ' ve lived to know my share of joy, 
 
 To feel my share of pain, 
 To learn that friendship's self can cloy, 
 
 To love and love in vain. 
 To feel a pang and wear a smile. 
 
 To tire of other climes. 
 To like my own unhappy isle. 
 
 And sing the gay old times. 
 
 Old times ! old times ! 
 
 And sure the laud is nothing changed, 
 
 The birds are singing still, 
 The flowers are springing vrhere we ranged. 
 
 There's sunshine on the hill ; 
 The sally, waving o'er my head. 
 
 Still sweetly shades my frame ; 
 But, ah, those happy days are fled, 
 
 And I am not the same. 
 
 Old times ! old times ! 
 
 Oh, come again, ye merry times. 
 
 Sweet, sunny, fresh and calm, 
 And let me hear those Easter chimes. 
 
 And wear my Sunday palm. 
 If I could cry away mine eyes. 
 
 My tears would flow in vain ; 
 If I could waste my heart in sighs 
 
 They '11 never come again. 
 
 A personal feeling probably dictates the following fine 
 stanzas ; one of Gerald Griffin's sisters having joined the 
 Sisters of Charity in Dublin : — 
 
 She once was a lady of honour and wealth, 
 Bright glowed on her features the roses of health, 
 Her vesture was blended of silk and of gold, 
 And her motion shook perfume from every fold ; 
 Joy revelled around her, love shone at her side, 
 And gay was her smile as the glance of a bride. 
 And light was her step in the mirth-sounding hall 
 When she heard of the daughters of Vincent de Paul. 
 She felt in her spirit the summons of grace 
 That called her to live for the suffering race. 
 And heedless of pleasure, of comfort, of home. 
 Rose quickly, like Mary, and answered "I come !" 
 She put from her person the trappings of pride. 
 And passed from her home with the joy of a bride, 
 Nor wept at the threshold as onward she moved. 
 For her heart was on fire in the cause that she loved. 
 Lost ever to fashion, to vanity lost, 
 That beauty that once was the song and the toast ; 
 No more in the ball-room that figure we meet, 
 But gliding at dusk to the wretch's retreat. 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 429 
 
 Forgot in the halls 13 that high-sounding name. 
 
 For the Sister of Charity blushes at fame ; 
 
 Forgot are the claims of her riches and birth. 
 
 For she barters for Heaven the glory of earth. 
 
 Those feet, that to music could gracefully move. 
 
 Now bear her alone on the mission of love ; 
 
 Those hands, that once dangled the perfume or gem. 
 
 Are tending the helpless or lifted for them ; 
 
 That voice, that once echoed the song of the vain, 
 
 Now whispers relief to the bosom of pain ; 
 
 And the hair that was shining with diamond and pearl, 
 
 Is wet with the tears of the penitent girL 
 
 Her down-bed a pallet, her trinkets a bead. 
 
 Her lustre one taper that serves her to read. 
 
 Her sculpture the crucifix nailed by her bed, 
 
 Her paintings one print of the thorn-crowned head. 
 
 Her cushion the pavement that wearies her knees. 
 
 Her music the psalm or the sigh of disease. 
 
 The delicate lady lives mortified there. 
 
 And the feast is forsaken for fasting and prayer. 
 
 Yet not to the service of heart and of mind 
 Are the cares of that heaven-minded virgin confined. 
 Like Him whom she loves, to the mansion of grief 
 She hastes with the tidings of joy and relief; 
 She strengthens the weary, she comforts the weak. 
 And soft is her voice in the ear of the sick ; 
 Where want and affliction on mortals attend. 
 The Sister of Charity there is a friend. 
 
 Unshrinking where Pestilence scatters his breath 
 Like an angel she moves mid the vapour of death; 
 Where rings the loud musket and flashes the sword, 
 TJnfearing she walks, for she follows the Lord. 
 How sweetly she bends o'er each plague-tainted face 
 With looks that are lighted with holiest grace ! 
 How kindly she dresses each suffering limb. 
 For she sees in the wounded the image of Him ! 
 
 Behold her, ye worldly ! behold her, ye vain ! 
 
 Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain. 
 
 Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days — 
 
 Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise ! 
 
 Ye lazy philosophers, self-seeking men, 
 
 Ye fireside philanthropists, great at the pen. 
 
 How stands in the balance your eloquence weighed 
 
 With the life and the deeds of that delicate maid ? 
 
 I add another charming bridal song, the vein in which he 
 excelled, and which he loved so well, omitting only an Irish 
 refrain — ^that pedantry of patriotism which disfigures so many 
 of these lovely lyrics :— 
 
430 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 My Mary of the curling hair, 
 
 The laughing teeth and bashful air, 
 
 Our bridal morn is dawning fair 
 
 With blushes in the skies. 
 
 My love ? my pearl ! 
 My own dear girl ! 
 My mountain maid, arise ! 
 
 Wake, linnet of the osier grove ! 
 Wake, trembling, stainless virgin dove ! 
 Wake, nestling of a parent's love ! 
 Let Moran see thine eyes. 
 
 I am no stranger, proud and gay, 
 To win thee from thy home away, 
 And find thee for a distant day, 
 A theme for wasting sighs. 
 
 But we were known from infancy. 
 Thy father's hearth was home to me, 
 No selfish love was mine for thee, 
 Unholy and unwise. 
 
 And yet (to see what love can do). 
 Though calm my hope has burned and true, 
 My cheek is pale and worn for you, 
 And sunken are mine eyes ! 
 
 But soon my love shall be my bride ; 
 And happy by our own fireside. 
 My veins shall feel the rosy tide 
 That lingering hope denies. 
 
 My Mary of the curling hair. 
 
 The laughing teeth and bashful air. 
 
 Our bridal mom is dawning fair, 
 
 With blushes in the skies. 
 My love ! my pearl ! 
 My own dear girl ! 
 
 My mountain maid, arise ! 
 
 As a novelist, I cannot resist the temptation of pointing 
 out a chapter in one of Gerald Griffin's less-known tales 
 which has always seemed to me remarkable for character, for 
 spirit, and for critical and verbal felicity of the highest order. 
 
 " The Collegians," partly from the striking interest of the 
 story, partly from a certain careless grace and freshness of 
 narration, won immediate popularity. " The Rivals," equally 
 true to individual nature, and superior in constructive skill, 
 was comparatively unsuccessful. 
 
 Perhaps the reason of this failure may be found in the 
 principal incident, resembling in its main points that of 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt's "Legend of Florence." The heroine, like 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 431 
 
 Ginevra, is buried while in a trance, and recovered, not like 
 tlie Italian wife, from the effect of natural causes, but by the 
 half-crazy efforts of her lover, who violates the sanctity of the 
 tomb that he may gaze once again in death upon the form he 
 so loved while living. Now this catastrophe, although it may 
 have occurred, and there is reason to believe has occurred in 
 more instances than one, is yet, even in the Italian version, 
 so improbable and so horrible, so utterly repugnant to human 
 sympathy as to be, in spite of Mr. Hunt's success, of exceed- 
 ingly dangerous and questionable use whether in play or in 
 story. Shakespeare, who always foresaw, as by instinct, the 
 objections of his audience, seems to have composed Juliet's 
 famous speech before taking the sleeping draught, by way of 
 forestaUing their distaste to the possible consequences of the 
 act ; and this horror is so much aggravated, in the Irish tale, 
 by the circumstance of the closed cofBn, that no power of 
 conception or skill in execution could ensure an extensive or 
 a durable popularity to a work founded on such a basis. 
 Therefore, and as I think for that reason only, " The Rivals " 
 will never command the same full applause as "The Col- 
 legians," which, however little talked of at this moment, is 
 sure to retain a permanent station in Irish literature ; and 
 the chapter which I am about to quote, from "The Second 
 Series of Tales of the Munster Festivals," will probably be 
 new even to the admirers of the first. 
 
 This chapter is, strictly speaking, an episode ; a scene in a 
 village school, whose principal actors, the ragged Irish pupil 
 who construes Virgil word for word, and the almost equally 
 ragged usher who corrects his blunders and encourages his 
 successes, never reappear, so far as I can remember, in the 
 whole course of the story. The enthusiasm of the poor 
 ■County Wicklow Professor lighting up as he expounds even 
 to an audience of tattered and ignorant boys the beauties oi 
 his favourite bard, the manner in which his own English, so 
 singularly degraded and provincial in his ordinary talk, 
 becomes elevated and poetical by contact with the great 
 Mantuan, is one of the finest and most pathetic instances of 
 the consolations of scholarship, of the triumph of the intellect 
 over the situation, that I have anywhere met. It would be 
 noted as one of his happiest touches if we found it in Scott. 
 
 I have only to beg pardon for any misprints that may be 
 
432 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 found in my Latin ; of wJiicli, in the regular grammatical 
 Etonian sense, I, an unlearned woman, know absolutely 
 nothing : — referring myself wholly to the care and kindness 
 of Mr. Bentley's excellent body of compositors and readers, 
 who, in this, as in many other matters, are far more accom- 
 plished and scholarly persons than I can pretend to be. Now 
 for Gerald Griffin. 
 
 " The school-house at Glendalough was situated near the 
 romantic river which flows between the wild scenery of 
 Drumgoff and the Seven Churches. It was a low stone 
 building, indifferently thatched ; the whole interior consist- 
 ing of one oblong room, floored with clay, and lighted by two 
 or three windows, the panes of which were patched with old 
 copy-books, or altogether supplanted by school slates. The 
 walls had once been plastered and whitewashed, but now 
 partook of that appearance of dilapidation which charac- 
 terised the whole building. In many places which yet re- 
 mained uninjured, the malign spirit of satire (a demon for 
 whom the court is not too high nor the cottage too humble), 
 had developed itself in sundry amusing and ingenious devices. 
 Here, with the end of a burnt stick, was traced the hideous 
 outline of a human profile, professing to be a likeness of 
 ' Tom Guerin,' and here might be seen the ' woeful lamenta- 
 tion and dying declaration of Neddy Mulcahy,' while that 
 worthy dangled in effigy from a gallows overhead. In some 
 instances, indeed, the village Hogarth with peculiar hardihood 
 seemed to have sketched in a slight hit at ' the Masther,' the 
 formidable Mr. Lenigan himself. Along each wall were placed 
 a row of large stones, the one intended to furnish seats for the 
 boys, the other for the girls ; the decorum of Mr. Lenigan's 
 establishment requiring that they should be kept apart on 
 ordinary occasions, for Mr. Lenigan, it should be understood, 
 had not been furnished with any Pestalozzian light. The 
 only chair in the whole estabhshment was that which was 
 usually occupied by Mr. Lenigan himself, and a table appeared 
 to be a luxury of which they were either ignorant or wholly 
 regardless. 
 
 " A traveller in Ireland who is acquainted with the ancient 
 clironicles of the country, must be struck by the resemblance 
 between the ancient and modern Irish in their mode of edu- 
 cation. In that translation of Stanihurst which Holinshed 
 
L LIMRA.ET LIFE. 433 
 
 admits into his collection we find the following passage : — ' In 
 their schools they grovel upon couches of straw, their books 
 a* their noses, themselves lie flat prostrate, and so they shout 
 out with a loud voice their lessons by piecemeal, repeating 
 two or three words thirty or forty times together.' The 
 system of mnemonics described in the last sentence is still 
 in vigorous use. 
 
 " On the morning after the conversation described in the 
 last chapter, Mr. Lenigan was rather later than his usual hour 
 in taking possession of the chair above alluded to. The sun 
 was mounting swiftly up the heavens. The rows of stones 
 before described were already occupied, and the babble of a 
 hundred voices like the sound of a beehive filled the house. 
 Now and then a school-boy in frieze coat and corduroy 
 trousers with an ink-bottle dangling at his breast, copy-book, 
 slate, Voster, and ' reading-book ' under one arm, and a sod of 
 turf under the other, dropped in and took his place upon the 
 next unoccupied stone. A great boy with a huge slate in his 
 arms stood in the centre of the apartment, making a list of 
 all those' who were guilty of any indecorum in the absence of 
 the ' Masther.' Near the door was a blazing turf fire, which 
 the sharp autumnal winds already rendered agreeable. In a 
 corner behind the door lay a heap of fuel formed by the con- 
 tributions of all the scholars, each being obliged to bring one 
 sod of turf every day, and each having the privilege of sitting 
 by the fire while his own sod was burning. Those who failed 
 to pay their tribute of fuel, sat cold and shivering the whole 
 day long at the farther end of the room, huddling together 
 their bare and frost-bitten toes, and casting a longing, envious 
 eye towards the peristyle of well-marbled shins that sur- 
 rounded the fire. 
 
 "Full in the influence of the cherishing flame was placed 
 the hay-bottomed chair that supported the person of Mr. 
 Henry Lenigan, when that great man presided in person in 
 his rural academy. On his right lay a close bush of hazel of 
 astounding size, the emblem of his authority, and the imple- 
 ment of castigation. Near this was a wooden sthroker, that 
 is to say, a large rule of smooth and polished deal, used for 
 sthroking lines in the copy-book, and also for sthroking the 
 palms of refractory pupils. On the other side lay a lofty 
 heap of copy-books, which were left there by the boys and 
 
434 Rj;C0LLECTI0N8 OP 
 
 girls for the purpose of having their copies 'sot' by the 
 'Masther!' 
 
 "About noon a sudden hush was produced by the appear- 
 ance at the open door of a young man, dressed in rusty black, 
 and with something clerical in his costume and demeanour. 
 This was Mr. Lenigan's classical assistant ; for to himself the 
 volumes of ancient literature were a fountain sealed. Five 
 or six stout young men, aU of whom were intended for 
 learned professions, were the only portion of Mr. Lenigan's 
 scholars that aspired to those lofty sources of information. 
 At the sound of the word ' Virgil ! ' from the lips of the 
 assistant, the whole class started from their seats, and 
 crowded round him, each brandishing a smoky volume of the 
 great Augustan poet, who, could he have looked into this 
 Irish academy, from that part of the infernal regions in 
 which he had been placed by his pupil Dante ; might have 
 been tempted to exclaim in the pathetic words of his own 
 hero : — • 
 
 " Sunt hio etiam sua prsemia laudi, 
 
 Sunt laohryma rerum et meutem mortalia taagunt." 
 
 " ' Who's head 1 ' was the first question proposed by the 
 assistant, after he had thrown open the volume at that part 
 marked as the day's lesson. 
 
 " ' Jim Naughtin, Sir.' 
 
 " ' Well, Naughtin, begin. Consther,* consther now, an' be 
 quick.' 
 
 " ' At puer Ascanius mediis in vallibus acrl 
 
 Gaudet equo ; jamque hos cursu, jam prseterit illos : 
 Spumantemque dari — ' 
 
 " ' Go on, Sir. Why don't you consther ? ' 
 
 "'At puer Ascanitis,' the person so addressed began, 'but 
 
 the boy Ascanius ; mediis in vallibus, in the middle of the 
 
 valley ; gaudet, rejoices.' 
 
 " ' Exults, ara gal, exults is a betther word.' 
 
 " ' Gaudet, exults ; acri equo, upon his bitther horse.' 
 
 "'Oh, murther alive; his bitther horse, inagh? Erra, 
 
 what would make a horse be bitther, Jim! Sure 'tis not 
 
 of sour beer he's talking! Rejoicin' upon a bitther horse! 
 
 Dear knows what a show he was ! what raison he had for 
 
 • ConBtrue— translate. 
 
A LITEBAKT LIFE. 435 
 
 iU AcH equo, upon his mettlesome steed ; that's the con- 
 sthruction.' 
 
 " Jim proceeded : — 
 
 " ' AcH equo, upon his mettlesome steed ; jamque, and now ; 
 preeterit, he goes beyond — ^ 
 
 " ' Outsthrips, aohree ! ' 
 
 " ' Prtpterit, he outsthrips ; hos, these ; jamque illos, and now 
 those ; cursu, in his course ; que, and ; optat, he longs — ' 
 
 " ' Very good, Jim ; lonffs is a very good word there ; I 
 thought you were going to say mshes. Did anybody tell 
 you that ? ' 
 
 " ' Dickens a one, Sir j ' 
 
 "'That's a good boy.' Weill' 
 
 " ' Optat, he longs ; spumantum aprum, that a foaming boar ; 
 dari, shall be given ; votis, to his desires ; aut fulvum leonuw, 
 or that a tawny lion — ' 
 
 " ' That's a good word again. Tawny is a good word ; 
 i)etther than yellow.' 
 
 " ' Decendere, shall descend ; monte, from the mountain.' 
 
 " ' Now, boys, observe the beauty of the poet. There's 
 great nature in the picture of the boy Ascanius. Just the 
 same way as we see young Misther Keiley, of the Grrove, at 
 the fox-chase the other day, leadin' the whole of 'em right 
 and left, jamque hos, jamque illos, an' now Misther Cleary, an 
 now Captain Davis, he outsthripped in his course. A beau- 
 tiful picture, boys, there is in them four lines, of a fine high- 
 blooded youth. Yes, people are always the same ; times an 
 manners change, but the heart o' man is the same now as it 
 was in the day of Augustus. But oonsther your task, Jim, 
 an' then I give you an' the boys a little commentary upon its 
 beauties.' 
 
 " The boy obeyed, and read as far as prtstexit nomine culpam, 
 after which the assistant proceeded to pronounce his little 
 commentary. Unwilling to deprive the literary world of any 
 advantage which the mighty monarch of the Eoman epopee 
 may derive from his analysis, we subjoin the speech without 
 any abridgment. 
 
 " ' Now, boys, for what I told ye. Them seventeen lines 
 that Jim Naughtiu consthered this minute contains as much 
 as iifty in a modhem book. I pointed out to ye before the 
 1SS% 
 
436 BBCOLLECTIOSB OF 
 
 picture of Asoaniua, an' I'll back it again the wodd for nature. 
 Then there's the incipient storm : — 
 
 " ' Interea magna misceri munnure coelum 
 Incipit.' 
 
 Erra ! don't be talkin', but listen to that ! There's a rumbling 
 in the language hke the sound of coming thundher — 
 
 '* * — insequitur commistO/ grandine nimbus.' 
 
 B'ye hear the change ? D'ye hear all the s's 1 D'ye hear 
 'em whistlin' ? D'ye hear the black squall comin' up the 
 hill-side, brushiu' up the dust and dhry leaves off the 
 road, and hissiu' through the threes and bushes 1 An' d'ye 
 hear the hail dhriven afther, and spattherin' the laves, 
 and whitenin' the face o' the oounthry ? Commistd graviine 
 nimbus ! That I mightn't sin, but when I read them words, 
 I gather my head down between my shouldhers, as if it was 
 hailin' a top o' me. An' then the sighth of all the huntin' 
 party ! Dido, an' the Throjans, an' all the great court ladies 
 and the Tyrian companions scatthered like cracked people 
 about the place, lookin' for shelther, and peltin' about right 
 and left, hether and thether in all directions for the bare life, 
 an' the floods swellin' an' comin', an' thundherin' down in 
 fivers from the mountains, an' all in three lines : — 
 
 " ' Et Tyrii comites passim, et Trojana juventTis 
 Dardaniusque nepos Veneris, diversa per agros 
 Teota metu petiere : ruunt de montibus amnes.' 
 
 An' see the beauty of the poet, followin' up the character 
 of Ascanius ; he makes him the last to quit the field. First 
 the Tyrian comrades, an effeminate race, that ran at the 
 sighth of a shower, as if they were made o' salt that they'd 
 melt under it ; an' then the Throjan youth, lads that were 
 used to it in the first book ; an' last of aU the spirited boy 
 Ascanius himself. (Silence near the doore !) 
 
 " ' Speluncam Dido, dux et Trojanus eandem, 
 Deveniunt.' 
 
 Observe, boys, he no longer calls him as of old, the pi'us Mmas, 
 Only Bux Trojanus the Throjan laidher, an' 'tis he that was the 
 laidher and the lad ; see the taste of the poet not to call him 
 the pious iEneas now, nor even mention his name, as if he 
 were half ashamed of him, knowin' well what a lad he had to 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 437 
 
 dale with. There's where Virgil took the crust out o' Homer's 
 mouth in the nateness of his language, that you'd gather b, 
 part o' the feelin' from the very shape o' the line an' turn o' 
 the prosody. As formerly, when Dido was askin' Mneas 
 ooncernin' where he come from, an' where he was born i He 
 makes answer : — 
 
 " ' Est locus Hesperiam Graii oognomine dieuut : 
 Terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glebie, 
 Hue cursus f uit :' 
 
 An' there the line stops short, as much as to say, just as 1 
 cut this line short in spakin' to you, just so our coorse was 
 out, in going to Italy. The same way, when Juno is vexed in 
 talkin' o' the Throjans, he makes her spake bad Latin to show 
 how mad she is : (Silence !) 
 
 '" — Mene inoepto desistere victam 
 
 Kec posse Italia Teucrorum avertere regem ? 
 Quippe vetor fatis ! Pallasue exurere classem 
 Argivflm, atque ipsos potuit submergere ponto.' 
 
 So he laves you to guess what a passion she is in, when he 
 makes her lave an infinitive mood without anything to govern 
 it. You can't attribute it to ignorance, for it would be a 
 dhroll thing in airnest, if Juno, the queen of all the gods, 
 didn't know a common rule in syntax, so that you have 
 nothing for it but to say that she must be the very moral 
 of a jury. Such, boys, is the art o' poets, an' the janius o' 
 languages. 
 
 " ' But I kept ye long enough. Go along to ye'r Greek now, 
 as fast as ye can, an' reharse. An' as for ye,' continued the 
 learned commentator, turning to the mass of English scholars, 
 ' I see one comin' over the river that'll taich ye how to 
 behave yerselves, as it's a thing ye won't do for me. Put up 
 yer Virgils now, boys, an' out with the Greek, an' remember 
 the beauties I pointed out to ye, for they're things that few 
 can explain to ye, if ye hav'n't the luck to think of 'em 
 yerselves.' 
 
 "The class separated, and a hundred anxious eyes were 
 directed towards the open door. It afforded a glimpse of a 
 sunny green, and a babbling river, over which Mr. Lenigan, 
 followed by his brother David, was now observed in the act 
 of picking his cautious way. At this apparition a sudden 
 change took place in the condition of the entire school. 
 
438 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Stragglers flew to their places ; the impatient burst of 
 laughter was cut short ; the growing fit of rage was quelled ; 
 the uplifted hand dropped harmless by the side of its owner ; 
 merry faces grew serious, and angry ones peaceable ; the eyes 
 of all seemed poring on their books ; and the extravagant 
 uproar of the last half hour was hushed on a sudden into a 
 diligent murmur. Those who were most proficient in the 
 study of ' the Masther's ' physiognomy detected in the ex- 
 pression of his eyes, as be entered and greeted his assistant, 
 something of a. troubled and uneasy character. He took the 
 list with a severe countenance, from the hands of the boy 
 above mentioned, sent all those whose names he found upon 
 the fatal record to kneel down in a corner, until he should 
 find leisure to ' hoise ' them, and then prepared to enter upon 
 his daily functions." 
 
 For the present, however, the delinquents are saved by the 
 entrance of a fresh character upon the scene. 
 
 " The new-comer was a handsome yoimg woman, who 
 carried a, pet child in her arms, and held another by the 
 hand. The sensation of pleasure which ran among the young 
 culprits at her appearance showed her to be their 'great 
 Captain's Captain,' the beloved and loving helpmate of Mr. 
 Lenigan. Casting, unperceived by her lord, an encouraging 
 smile towards the kneeling culprits, she took an opportunity, 
 while engaged in a wheedling conversation with her husband, 
 to purloin his deal rule, and to blot out the list of the pro- 
 cribed from the slate, after which she stole out calling David 
 to dig the potatoes for dinner." 
 
 And so, we too will leave the school. 
 
 XXX.VI. 
 MOCK-HEROIC POETRY. 
 
 JOHN HOOKHAM PKEEE. 
 
 Long before "Beppo" the experiment of imitating the 
 well-known Italian school, which unites so strangely the 
 wildest romance of chivalry with pungent satire and good- 
 humoured pleasantry, had been successfully tried by John 
 Ilookham Frere, one of Mr. Canning's most brilliant co- 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 439 
 
 adjutors in the poetry of the "Anti-Jacobin." The mock- 
 heroic in question bore the curious title of " Prospectus and 
 Specimen of an intended National Work by William and 
 Kobert Whistlecroft, of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, Harness and 
 Collar Makers. Intended to comprise the most interesting 
 Particulars relating to King Arthur and his round table." 
 Two cantos were published by Mr. Murray in 1817 ; and a 
 third and fourth rapidly followed. The success was decided ; 
 but the poem has been long out of print, and is now amongst 
 the scarcest books in modern literature. 
 
 To attempt to tell the story of a poem which travels 
 backward and forward from knights to giants and from giants 
 to monks, no sooner interesting you in one set of personages 
 than he casts them off to fly to other scenes and other actors, 
 would be a fruitless task. Who would venture to trace the 
 adventures of the Orlando Furioso ? and Mr. Prere, in imi- 
 tating the "Morgante Maggiore," and other parodies of the 
 great poet of romance, has won for himself the privilege of 
 wandering at pleasure over the whole realm of chivalrous 
 fable, and makes the best use of that privilege by being often 
 picturesque, often amusing, and never wearisome. 
 
 The poem opens with a feast given by King Arthur at 
 CarUsle to his knights, who are thus described : — 
 
 They looked a manly generous generation, 
 
 Beards, Bhouldevs, eye-brows, broad and square and thick ; 
 
 Their accents firm and loud in conversation, 
 
 Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp and quick, 
 
 Showed them prepared on proper provocation 
 
 To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick ; 
 
 And for that very reason it is said 
 
 They were so very courteous and well-bred. 
 
 Then come the giants, living in a valley near Carlisle. The 
 description of this place affords an excellent opportunity 
 for displaying Mr. Frere's command over a higher order of 
 poetry. 
 
 Huge mountains of immeasurable height 
 
 Encompassed all the level valley round 
 
 With mighty slabs of rooks, that stood upright. 
 
 An insurmountable and enormous mound. 
 
 The very river vanished out of sight. 
 
 Absorbed in secret channels underground ; 
 
 That vale was so sequestered and secluded 
 
 All search for ages past it had eluded. 
 
440 BECOLLEdTIONS OF 
 
 A rock was in the centre, like a oene , 
 
 Abruptly rising from a miry pool. 
 Where they beheld a hill of massy stone, 
 Which masons of the rude primseval school 
 Had reared by help of giant hands akme. 
 With rocky fragments unreduced by rule ; 
 Irregular like nature more than art. 
 Huge, rugged, and compact in every part. 
 
 A wild tumultuous torrent raged around 
 Of fragments tumbling from the mountain's height ; 
 The whistling clouds of dust, the deafening sound. 
 The hurried motion that amazed the sight, 
 The constant quaking of the solid ground. 
 Environed them with phantoms of affright ; 
 Yet with heroic heai'ts they held right on 
 Till the last point of their ascent was won. 
 
 The giants who dwelt in this romantic spot had captured 
 some ladies, whom the knights thought it their duty to 
 deliver. They overcame the grisly warriors as a matter of 
 course ; and the state in which they find the fair prisoners is 
 related in a stanza of which the concluding couplet bears 
 some resemblance to a well-known transition in " Don Juan :" 
 
 The ladies ! They were tolerably well, 
 At least as well as could be well expected : 
 Many details I must forbear to tell, 
 Their toilet had been very much neglected ; 
 But by supreme good luck it so befel 
 That, when the castle's capture was effected. 
 When those vile cannibals were overpowered 
 Only two fat duennas were devoured. 
 
 In the third book, according to the universal practice of 
 the Italian poets, the story takes a backward leap, and 
 recounts a previous feud between the giants and the in- 
 habitants of a neighbouring monastery. A certain monk, 
 Brother John by name, who had gone out alone to fish in a 
 stream near the Abbey, is luckily enabled to give notice to 
 the brethren of the approach of their enemies. The scene of 
 his sport is finely described :— 
 
 A mighty current unoonfined and free, 
 
 Ran wheedling round beneath the mountain's shade. 
 
 Battering its wave-worn base ; but you might see 
 
 On the near margin many a watery glade. 
 
 Becalmed beneath some little island's lee. 
 
 All tranquil and transparent, close embayed ; 
 
 Reflecting in the deep serene and even 
 
 Each flower and herb, and every cloud of heaven. 
 
A LITEBABT l,ie%, 441 
 
 The painted ting-fisher, the branch above her 
 Hard in the steadfast miiTor fixed and true ; 
 Anon the fitful breezes brood and hover, 
 Freshening the surface with a rougher hue ; 
 Spreading, withdrawing, pausing, passing over. 
 Again returning to retire anew : 
 So rest and motion in a narrow range 
 Feasted the sight with joyous interchange. 
 
 A stout resistance is made by the monks, and the giants at 
 length withdraw from the scene of action : — ■ 
 
 And now the gates are open, and the throng 
 Forth issuing the deserted camp survey ; 
 " Here Murdomack and Mangonel the strong 
 And Gorbuduc were lodged, and here," they say, 
 " This pigstye to Poldavy did belong ; 
 Here Bundleback and here Phigander lay." 
 They view the deep indentures, broad and round. 
 Which mark their postures squatting on the ground. 
 
 Then to the traces of gigantic feet. 
 Huge, wide apart, with half a dozen toes ; 
 They track them on till they' converge and meet 
 (An earnest and assurance of repose) 
 Close at the foi'd. The cause of this retreat 
 They all conjecture, bnt no creature knows; 
 It was ascribed to causes multifarious. 
 To saints, to Jerome, George, and Januarius, 
 
 To their own pious founder's intercession. 
 To Ave-Marias and our Lady's Psalter ; 
 To news that Friar John was in possession. 
 To new wax-candles placed upon the altar. 
 To their own prudence, valour and discretion ; 
 To reliques, rosaries, and holy water ; 
 To beads and psalms, and feats of arms ; — in short 
 There was no end of their accounting for't. 
 
 In the last volume of Mr. Lookhart's " Life of Sir Walter 
 Scott," is a very interesting account of the delight which the 
 great minstrel took to the last in Mr. Frere's spirited versions 
 of the old Spanish ballads. " In speaking of Mr. Frere's 
 translations, he repeated a pretty long passage from his 
 version of one of the romances of the Cid (pubhshed in the 
 Appendix to Southey's Quarto), and .seemed to enjoy a 
 spirited charge of the knights therein described, as much as 
 he could have done in his best days ; placing his walking- 
 stick in rest Uke a lance, to suit the action to the word." — 
 HxtractfromMrs. John Davy's Journal of Sir Walter Seotfs Resi- 
 dence in Malta. - 
 
442 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 The following is the passage referred to : — 
 
 The gates were then thrown open, and forth at once they rushed. 
 
 The outposts of the Moorish hosts back to the camp were pushed; 
 
 The camp was all in tumult, and there was such a thunder 
 
 Of cymbals and of drams, as if earth would cleave in sunder. 
 
 There you might see the Moors arming themselves in haste, 
 
 And the two main battles how they were forming fast. 
 
 Horsemen and footmen mixed, a countless troop and vast. . . 
 
 The Moors are moving forwai-d, the battle soon must join : 
 
 " My men, stand here in order, ranged upon a line ! 
 
 Let not a man move from his rank before I give the sign." 
 
 Pero Bermuez heard the word, but he could not refrain. 
 
 He held the banner in his hand, he gave the horse the rein. 
 
 " You see yon foremost squadron there, the thickest of the foes, 
 
 Noble Cid, God be your aid, for there your banner goes ! 
 
 Let him who serves and honours it show the duty that he owes." 
 
 Earnestly the Cid called out : " For Heaven's sake be still I " 
 
 Bermuez cried, " I cannot hold ! " so eager was his will. 
 
 He spurred his horse and drove him on amid the Moorish rout ; 
 
 They strove to win the banner, and compassed him about. 
 
 Had not his armour been so true, he had lost either life or limb ; 
 
 The Cid called out again : " For Heaven's sake succour him ! " 
 
 Their shields before their breasts forth at once they go. 
 
 Their lauces in the rest levelled fair and low, 
 
 Tlieir heads all stooping down towards the saddle-bow. 
 
 The Cid was in the midst, his shout was heard afar, 
 
 " I am Buy Diaz, the champion of Bivar ! 
 
 Strike among them, gentlemen, for sweet Mercy's sake ! " 
 
 Then where 13ermuez fought amidst the foe they brake ; 
 
 Three hundred bannered knights, it was a gallant show. 
 
 Three hundred Moors they killed, a man at every blow ! 
 
 When they wheeled and turned, as many more lay slain, 
 
 You might see them raise their lances, and level them again. 
 
 There yuu might see the breast -plates, how they were cleft in twain. 
 
 And many a Moorish shield lie scattered on the plain. 
 
 The pennons that were white marked with a crimson stain. 
 
 The hordes running wild whose riders had been slain. 
 
 Mr. Frere's familiaritj- with Spanish literature probably 
 took its rise from his employment in various diplomatic 
 missions during the Peninsular war ; but his great achieve- 
 ment as a translator is of a far higher and more difficult 
 order. The following specimen of his version of "The 
 Frogs" of Aristophanes will show how completely he has 
 contrived to naturalise the wit and humour of the old 
 Athenian dramatist. The passage about "full and equal 
 franchise " might pass for a translation from half a dozen 
 modern languages at the present hour : — 
 
A LITERARI LIFE. 443 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Uuse attend our solemn summons, 
 And survey the assembled Commons, * 
 Congregated as they sit, 
 An enormous mass of wit, 
 —Full of genius taste and fire, 
 Jealous pride and critic ire — 
 Cleophou among the rest 
 (Like the swallow from her nest 
 A familiar foreign bird) 
 Chatters loud and will be heard, 
 (With the accent and the grace 
 Which he brought with him from Thrace) 
 But we fear the tuneful strain 
 Must be turned to grief and pain ; 
 He must sing a dirge perforce 
 When his trial takes its course ; 
 We shall hear him moan and wail 
 Like the plaintive nightingale. 
 It behoves the sacred Chorus and of right to them belongs, 
 To suggest sagacious councils in their verses and their songs. 
 In performance of our office we suggest with all humility 
 A proposal for removing groundless fears and disability ; 
 * » » » » 
 
 Better would it be, believe us, casting off revenge and pride, 
 To receive as friends and kinsmen all that combat on our side 
 Into full and equal franchise : on the other hand we fear 
 If your hearts are filled with fancies, proud, captious and severe, 
 While the shook of instant danger threatens shipwreck to the State, 
 Such resolves will be lamented and repented of too late. 
 If the Muse forsees at all 
 What in future will befall 
 Dirty Cleigenes the small — 
 He the scoundrel at the bath — 
 Will not long escape from scath, 
 But must perish by and by. 
 With his potash and his lye. 
 And his soap and scouring ball, 
 And his washes, one or all ; 
 Therefore he can never cease 
 To declaim against a peace. 
 
 These two portraits of Cleophon and Cleigenes are so 
 graphic, that they might serve H. B. as models for a carica- 
 ture. What follows introduces the celebrated contest for 
 supremacy between .(Eschylus and Euripides. The scene is 
 laid in the Infernal Regions : — 
 
444 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Enter Xanthias and ^aous. 
 
 ^CAcns. 
 By Jupiter ! but he 's a gpntlemaa 
 That master of yours. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 A gentleman ! to be sure he is ; 
 
 Why he does nothing else but wench and drink. 
 
 iEAOUB. 
 His never striking you when you took his name, — 
 Outfacing him and contradicting him ! 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 It might have been worse for him if he had. 
 
 jEAcns. 
 Well, that 's well spoken, like a true-bred slave. 
 It 's just the sort of language I delight in. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 You love excuses ? 
 
 iEACUS. 
 
 Yes, but I prefer 
 Cursing my master quietly in private. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 Mischief you 're fond of ? 
 
 iEACUS. 
 
 Very fond indeed. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 What think ye of muttering as you leave the room 
 After a beating ? 
 
 iSACtrs. 
 Why that 's pleasant too. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 By Jove it is ! But listening at the door 
 To hear their secrets ? 
 
 JEACCS. 
 
 Oh ! there 's nothing like it ! 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 And then the reporting them in the neighbourhood. 
 
 .SACUS. 
 
 That's beyond everything, that's quite ecstatic. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 Well, give me your hand, and there, take mine,— and buss me, 
 
 And there again— and tell me, for Jupiter's sake, 
 
 For he 's the patron of our kicks and beatings — 
 
 What 's all that noise and bustle and abuse 
 Within there ? 
 
A LITERAnT LIFE. 445 
 
 jEaous. 
 ^sohylus and Eurijjides only. 
 
 XAHTHIAa. 
 
 Ha! 
 
 ^ACUS. 
 
 Why, there 's a custom we have established 
 In favour of professors of the arts. 
 "When any one, the first man in his line 
 Comes down amongst us here, he stands entitled 
 To privilege and precedence, with a seat 
 At Pluto's royal board. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 I understand you. 
 
 iEAOnS. 
 
 So he maintains it, till there comes a bettor 
 Of the same sort, and then resigns it up. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 But why should ^schylus be disturbed at this ? 
 
 ^AO0S. 
 
 He held the seat for Tragedy, as being master 
 In that profession. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 Well, and who 's there now ? 
 
 .ffiACUS. 
 
 He kept it till Euripides appeared ; 
 
 But he collected audiences about him. 
 
 And flourished aud exhibited and harangued 
 
 Before the thieves and housebreakers, and rogues 
 
 Cutpurses, cheats and vagabonds and villains. 
 
 That make the mass of population here ; 
 
 And they — being quite transported and delighted 
 
 With all his subtleties, and niceties. 
 
 Equivocations, quibbles and so forth, 
 
 Evasions and objections and replies, — 
 
 In short — they raised an uproar, and declared him 
 
 Archpoet, by a general acclamation. 
 
 And he with this grew proud and confident, 
 
 And laid a claim to the seat where jEschylus sate. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 And did not he get pelted for his pains ? 
 
 jEAons. 
 Why, no. — The mob called out, and it was carried 
 To have a public trial of skill between them. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 You mean the mob of scoundrels that you mentioned. 
 
 iEAOUS. 
 
 Scoundrels, indeed ! Ay, scoundrels without.number. 
 
446 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 lABTHIAS. 
 
 But ^schylus must have had good friends and liearly. 
 Yes ; but good men are scarce, both here and elsewhere. 
 
 ZANTHIAS, 
 
 Well, what has Pluto settled to have done ? 
 
 iEAcns. 
 To have a trial and examination 
 In public. 
 
 XANTHIAS. 
 
 But how comes it, Sophocles ? 
 Why does not he put in his claim amongst them ? 
 
 JEACVS, 
 
 No, no, not he I — the moment he came down here 
 
 He went up and saluted ^schylus, 
 
 And kissed his cheek and took his hand quite kuidly; 
 
 And ^sohylus edged a little from his chaiy 
 
 To give him room ; so now the story goes 
 
 (At least I had it from Cleidemidcs), 
 
 He means to attend there as a stander-by. 
 
 Professing to take up the conqueror. 
 
 If Jischylus gets the better, — well and good, 
 
 He gives up his pretensions ; — but if not 
 
 Ha'U stand a trial, he says, against Euripides. 
 
 It is impossible for any translator to give a more perfect 
 rendering of comedy. The facility, the flow, the Mving, 
 breathing, chattering impudence of the two slaves, is inimit- 
 ably lively and true. It may be doubted if Sheridan knew 
 much about Aristophanes, but following the same gieat 
 model, Nature, he has produced a companion scene to this 
 dialogue in the opening of "The Eivals." The compliment 
 to Sophocles and .^schylus is very graceful. Bacchus, the 
 appointed judge, now enters, accompanied by the rival bards, 
 and the contest begins : — 
 
 CItorits. 
 
 Here beside you, here are we 
 Eager all to hear and see 
 This abstruse and curious battle, 
 Of profoimd and learned prattle, 
 — But as it appears to me, 
 Thus the course of it will be ; 
 That the junior aild appellant 
 Will advance as the assailant. 
 Aiming shrewd satyrio darts 
 At his rival's noble parts. 
 
A UTEEAKT LITE. 447 
 
 And, with sallies sharp and keen, 
 Try to wound him in the spleen ; 
 While the veteran rends and raises 
 Rifted rough uprooted phrases. 
 Wields them like a threshing-staff, 
 And dispels th«> dust and chaff. 
 
 BAOCHtrS. 
 
 Come now begin and speak away ; but first I give you warning 
 That all your language and discoure must be genteel and clever,' 
 Without abusive similes, or common vulgar joking. 
 
 ETJEIPIDES. 
 
 At the first outset I forbear to state my own pretensions ; 
 Hereafter I shall mention them when his have been refuted ; 
 And after I have proved and shown how he abused and cheated 
 The rustic audience that he found, which Phrynichus has bequeathed 
 He planted first upon the stage a figure veiled and muffled, [him. 
 An Achilles or a Niobe that never showed their faces. 
 But kept a tragic attitude without a word to utter. 
 
 BAOCHUa. 
 
 Ifo more they did ; it 's very true. — 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 In the meanwhile the Chorus 
 Strung on ten strophes right an end, but they remained in silence. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 I liked that silence well enough ; as well perhaps or better 
 Than those new talking characters. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 That's from your want of judgment. 
 Believe me. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 Why perhaps it is : — but what was his intention ? 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Why mere conceit and insolence — to keep the people waiting 
 Till Niobe should deign to speak, to driye his drama forward. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 what a rascal ! Now I see the tricks he used to play me. 
 
 [To JSschylus, who is showing signs of indignation ly 
 various contortions^ 
 ■ — What makes you writhe and wince about ? 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Because he feels my censures : 
 Then having dragged and drawled along half way to the conclusion. 
 He foisted in a dozen words of noisy boisterous accent, 
 With " nodding plumes and shaggy brows," mere bugbears of the 
 That no man ever heard before. [language, 
 
 iESCHTLUS. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! 
 
448 RaCOLLECTlONS OF 
 
 baochus \To jEscliylvis]. 
 
 Hare done tliere ! 
 
 EUKIPIDES. 
 His words were never clear or plain. 
 
 BAOOHTja [To jEschylua]. 
 
 Don't grind your teeth so strangely. 
 
 EDKIPIDBS. 
 
 But.Bulwarks and Scamauders, and Hippogrifs, and Gorgons, 
 " Embost on brazen bucklers " and grim remorseless phrases 
 Which nobody could understand. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 "Well, I confess for my part, 
 I used to keep awake at night, conjecturing and guessing 
 To think what kind of foreign bird he meant by griffin-horses. 
 
 JESCHTLUS. 
 
 A figure on the heads of sMps ; you goose, you must have seen them. 
 
 BAOCHtrs. 
 I took it for Philoxenus, for my part, from the likeness. 
 
 EUKIPIDES. 
 
 So ! figures from the heads of sikipa are fit for tragic diction. 
 
 j;SCHTLUS. 
 
 Well then, thou paltry wretch, explain — What were thy own devices ! 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Not stories about flying stags, like yours, and griffin-horses ; 
 Nor terms nor images derived from tapestry Persian hangings. 
 When I received the Muse from you, I found her puffed and 
 
 pampered. 
 With pompous sentences and terms, a cumbrous huge virago. 
 My first attention was applied to make her look genteelly. 
 And bring her to a moderate bulk by dint of lighter diet. 
 I fed her with plain household phrase and cool familiar salad. 
 With water-gruel episode, with sentimental jelly. 
 With moral mince-meat ; till at length I brought her within compass ; 
 Cephisophon, who was my cook, contrived to make them relish 
 I kept my plots distinct and clear ; and to prevent confusion 
 My leading characters rehearsed their pedigrees for prologues. 
 
 *Twas well at least that you forbore to (Juote your own extraction. 
 
 (This is a most gharacteristio bit of Athenian malice. 
 Euripides was illegitimate.) 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 From the first opening of the scene, all persons wei-e in action : 
 The master spoke, the slave replied ; — the women, old and yonng 
 All had their equal share of talk. [ones, 
 
 iESCHTLUS. 
 Come then, stand forth and tell us 
 What forfeit less than death is due for such au innovation ? 
 
A LITKBAEY LIFB, 449 
 
 BUEIPIDIS. 
 
 I did it upon principle, from democratic motives. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 Take care, my friend ; upon that ground your footing is but ticklish. 
 
 EUKIPIDES. 
 I taught these youths to speechify. 
 
 MSORYUja. 
 
 I Bay so too. Moreover 
 I say, that for the public good, you ought to have been hanged first. 
 
 BUBIPIDES. 
 The rules and forms of rhetoric ; the laws of composition; 
 To prate, to state, and in debate to meet a question fairly ; 
 At a dead lift to turn and shift ; to make a nice distinction. 
 
 iESCHTLOS. 
 
 I grant it all ; I make it all my ground of accusation. 
 
 EUKIflDES. 
 
 The whole in oases and concerns, occurring and recui'ring. 
 
 At every turn and every day, domestic and familiar ; 
 
 So that the audience, one and all, from personal experience. 
 
 Were competent to judge the piece and form a fair opinion 
 
 Whether my scenes and sentiments agreed with truth and nature. 
 
 I never took them by surprise, to storm their understandings 
 
 With Memnons and Tydides's and idle rattle-trappings 
 
 Of battle-steeds and clattering shields, to scare them from their senses. 
 
 But for a test (perhaps the best) our pupils and adherents 
 
 May be distinguished instantly by person and behaviour ; 
 
 His are Phormisius the rough, Meganetes the gloomy. 
 
 Hobgoblin-headed, trumpet-mouthed, grim-visaged, ugly-bearded ; 
 
 But mine are Cleitophon the smooth, Theramenes the gentle. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 Theramenes ! a clever hand, an universal genius ; 
 
 I never found him at a loss, in all the turns of party. 
 
 To change his watch-word at a word, or at a moment's warning. 
 
 EUEIPIDES. 
 Thus it was that I began 
 With a nicer, neater plan ; 
 Teaching men to look about. 
 Both within doors and without; 
 To direct their own affairs 
 And their house and household wares ; 
 Marking everything amiss — 
 " Where is that ? and what is this ? 
 This is broken — That is gone ;" — 
 'T is the system and the tone. 
 
 BACCHUS. 
 Yes, by Jove ! and now we see 
 Citizens of each degree, 
 G G 
 
450 EECOIiLECTIONS OF 
 
 That the moment they come in 
 Baise an uproar and a din. 
 Bating all the servants round : 
 " If it 'b lost it must be found. 
 Why was all the garlic wasted ? 
 There that honey has been tasted ; 
 And these olives pilfered here. 
 Where 's the pot we bought last year ? 
 What 's become of all the fish ? 
 Which of you has broke the dish ? " 
 Thus it is ; but heretofore 
 They sat them down to doze and snore. 
 
 Nothing is more remartable in this scene than the skill 
 ■with which the poet has made Euripides, all along the chief 
 object of his satire, expose his own faults in the very speeches 
 in which he affects to magnify his merits. The translation is 
 far above my praise, but as a woman privileged to avow her 
 want of learning, it may be permitted to express the gratitude 
 which the whole sex owes to the late illustrious scholar, who 
 has enabled us to penetrate to the heart of one of the 
 scholar's deepest mysteries, and to become acquainted with 
 something more than the name of Aristophanes. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 AUTHOES ASSOCIATED "WITH PLACES. 
 
 VISIT TO DONNINSTON — BATTLE OF NEWBURY. 
 LORD OLAEENDON— QEOFFKET CHATJOER — JOHN K0QHE3. 
 
 Of all places connected with the Great Civil War, none 
 retains traces more evident and complete of its ravages than 
 the beautiful district which a tolerable pedestrian may traverse 
 in a morning walk, and which comprises the site of the two 
 battles of Newbury, and the ruins of Donnington Castle, one 
 of the most memorable sieges of the Parliamentary Army. 
 
 I went over that most interesting ground (not, however, on 
 foot) on one of the most brilliant days of the last brilliant 
 autumn, with the very companion for such an excursion : one 
 who has shown in his " Bosoobel " how well he can unite the 
 most careful and accurate historical research with the rarer 
 power which holds attention fixed upon the page ; and who. 
 
A IiITEHABT IiIPB. 451 
 
 possessing himself a fine old mansion at the foot of the Castle 
 Hill, and having a good deal of the old cavalier feeling in his 
 own character, takes an interest almost personal in the events 
 and the places of the story. 
 
 The first of these engagements took place, according to 
 Clarendon, on the 18th of September, 1643, and has been most 
 minutely related by contemporary writers, — the noble his- 
 torian of the Rebellion, Oldmixon, Heath, the anonymous 
 author of " The Memoirs of Lord Essex," and many others, 
 varying as to certain points, according to their party predilec- 
 tions, but agreeing in the main. A very brief summary must 
 answer my purpose. 
 
 Charles commanded the Eoyalists in person, whilst the 
 Parliamentary forces were led by Essex, — the King's object 
 being to intercept the enemy, and prevent his reaching London. 
 The common, then and i; ow called " The Wash," was, together 
 with the neighbouring lanes, the principal scene of the combat. 
 The line of road has been in some measure altered, still suffi- 
 cient indications remain to localise the several incidents of 
 this hotly-contested field. Essex, assailed on his march from 
 Hungerford by the fiery Eupert the evening before, encamped 
 on the open common, "impatient," as one of the Common- 
 wealth narrators says, " of the sloth of darkness," all the more 
 so that the King is said to have sent the Earl a challenge to 
 give battle the next day. On that day the great battle took 
 place, when the valour of the raw and undisciplined train- 
 bands, the citizen soldiers, so much despised by the cavaliers, 
 withstood the chivalry of the royal army, and enabled the 
 General, although hotly pursued for several miles, and furiously 
 charged by Prince Rupert, who had three horses killed under 
 him that day, to accomplish his object, and conduct his troops 
 to London. 
 
 Essex, previous to his advance towards Reading, sent a 
 "ticket" to Mr. Fulke, the minister of Enborne parish, com- 
 manding him to bury all the dead on either side ; and three 
 huge mounds still attest the compliance of the clergyman 
 with an order worthy of a Christian soldier. His Majesty, 
 hearing of the "pious wish" of the Lord-General, issued his 
 warrant to the Mayor of Newbury for the recovery of the 
 wounded. Rival historians differ as to the number of the 
 killed. But it seems certain that the loss of the Parliament- 
 aaZ 
 
452 EBCOLLEOTIONS 6F 
 
 arians amounted to more than five hundred ; and that on the 
 King's part not fewer than a thousand were wovmded and 
 slain. Amongst them fell many distinguished loyalists — 
 above all, the yoimg, the accomplished, the admirable Lord 
 Falkland, he who, for talent and virtue, might be called the 
 Hampden of his party, and who, like Hampden, left no equal 
 behind. 
 
 The night before the battle he had slept at the house of 
 Mr. Head, whom my companion (a man of ancient family 
 and high connexions) was proud to claim among his ancestry ; 
 and tradition says, that being convinced that an engagement 
 the next day was inevitable, and being strongly impressed 
 with the presentiment that it would prove fatal to himself, 
 he determined, in order to be fully prepared for the event, to 
 receive the sacrament. Accordingly very early on the morning 
 of the battle it was administered to him by the clergyman of 
 Newbury, and Mr. Head and the whole family, by Lord Falk- 
 land's particular wish, were present. It is also related that his 
 corpse, a few hours afterwards, was brought slung on a horse, 
 and deposited in the Town HaU, from whence it was subse- 
 quently removed for interment. 
 
 Such strong impressions of coming death were not uncom- 
 mon in that age to men of imaginative temperament. But it 
 is not improbable that Lord Falkland, in that hour of danger, 
 remembered a prediction which had come across him strangely 
 not many years before, and which is thus related : — 
 
 " Whilst he was with the Bang at Oxford, his Majesty went 
 one day to see the Library, where he was shown, among other 
 books, a ' Virgil,' nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The 
 Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his Majesty 
 make a trial of the Sortes VirgiliansB, an usual kind of divina- 
 tion in ages past, made by opening a ' Virgil.' The King, 
 opening the book, the passage which happened to come up 
 was that part of Dido's imprecation against iEneas, Ma. IV. 
 615, &o., which is thus translated by Dryden : 
 
 " ' Oppressed with numbers in the unequal field. 
 His men discouraged, and himself dispelled. 
 Let him for succour sue from place to place, 
 Tom from his subjects, and his son's embrace.' 
 
 " King Charles seeming concerned at this accident, the Lord 
 Falkland, who observed it, would likewise try his own fortune 
 
A LrrERARX LIFE. 453 
 
 in the same manner, hoping that he might fall upon some 
 passage that could have no relation to his case, and thereby 
 divert the King's thoughts from any impression the other 
 might make upon him ; but the place Lord Falkland stumbled 
 upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had 
 been to the King's, being the following expressions of Bvander 
 upon the untimely death of his son, Pallas, ^n. XI. 162 : 
 
 " ' Pallaa ! thou hast failed thy plighted word I 
 To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword, 
 I warned thee, but in vain ; for well I knew 
 What perils youthful ardour would pursue ; 
 That boiling blood would carry thee too far, 
 Toung as thou wert in dangers, raw to war. 
 curst essay of arms ! disastrous doom 1 
 Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come ! ' " 
 
 Charles was notoriously superstitious ; and we may well 
 imagine, that besides the grief of losing the noble adherent, 
 whose very presence conferred honour and dignity on his 
 cause, a strong personal feeling must have pressed upon him 
 as he recollected the double prophecy, one half of which had 
 been so fatally fulfilled. 
 
 I could not choose a better specimen of Clarendon, that 
 great master of historical portrait-painting, than his character 
 of Lord Falkland. The writer who so immortalizes another, 
 gains immortality himself : — 
 
 " In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falk- 
 land, a person of such prodigious parts of learning and know- 
 ledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, 
 of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to man- 
 kind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, 
 that if there were no other brand upon this odious and 
 accursed civil war than that single loss is, it must be most 
 infamous and accursed to all posterity. 
 
 " Before this parliament, his condition of life was so happy 
 that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came 
 to twenty years of age he was master of a noble fortune, which 
 descended to him by the gift of a grandfather. His education 
 for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was 
 Lord-Deputy ; so that when he returned into England, to the 
 possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any ac- 
 quaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom 
 of conversation, and therefore was to make a pure election of 
 
454 BECOLLECIIONB OF 
 
 his company, which he chose by other-rules than were pre- 
 scribed to the young nobihty of that time. And it cannot be 
 denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the 
 agreeableness of their mannei-s and their undoubted affection 
 to him, that his familiarity and friendship for the most part 
 was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of 
 untouched reputation in point of integrity, and such men had 
 a title to his bosom. 
 
 " He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good parts 
 in any man ; and if he found them clouded with poverty or 
 want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even 
 above his fortune ; of which in those administrations he was 
 such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to such 
 uses ; and if there had been the least of vice in his expense, 
 he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant 
 and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to 
 be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end ; 
 and therefore having once resolved not to see London, which 
 he loved above all other places, tiU he had perfectly learned 
 the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country, 
 and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it will 
 not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and 
 had accurately read all the Greek historians. 
 
 " In this time his house being within little more than tea 
 miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with 
 the most polite and accurate men of that University, who 
 found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of 
 judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most 
 logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not 
 ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility as if he 
 had known nothing, that they frequently resided and dwelt 
 with him, as in a college, situated in a purer air ; so that his 
 house was a University in a less volume, where they came 
 not so much for repose as for study, and to examine and 
 reform those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent 
 made current in vulgar conversation. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 " He was superior to all those passions and affections which 
 attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition 
 than of knowledge and to be reputed a lover of all good men ; 
 and that made him too much a contemner of those acts which 
 
A LITEKAEY LIFE. 456 
 
 must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In 
 the last short parliament he was a burgess in the House of 
 Commons. * * * The great opinion he had of the uprightness 
 and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, 
 especially of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting 
 any design against the peace of the kingdom ; and though he 
 differed from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long 
 their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed 
 what was law, and discerned in them a desire to control that 
 law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed 
 their attempts, or gave the adverse party more trouble by 
 reason and argumentation ; insomuch as he was by degrees 
 looked upon as an advocate for the Court ; to which he con- 
 tributed so little that he declined more addresses and even 
 those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to 
 entertain. And he -was so jealous of the least imagination 
 that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a 
 moroseness to the Court, and to the courtiers, and left nothing 
 undone which might prevent and divert the King's or Queen's 
 favour to him but the deserving it. 
 
 ***** 
 " He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and 
 so far from fear that he seemed not without some appetite of 
 danger ; and therefore upon an occasion of action he always 
 engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the 
 forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest 
 engaged ; and in aU such encounters he had about him an ex- 
 traordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the execution 
 that usually attended them ; in which he took no delight, but 
 took pains to prevent it when it was not by resistance made 
 necessary ; insomuch that at Edge-hill, when the enemy was 
 routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing 
 to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against 
 whom it may be others were more fierce for their having 
 thrown them away ; so that a man might think he came into 
 the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and 
 to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inchna- 
 tion he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a 
 soldier ; and shortly after he came to his fortime, before he 
 was of age, he went into the Low Countries with a resolution 
 of procuring command to give himself up to it ; from which 
 
456 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 he was direrted by tlie complete inactivity of that summer ; 
 so he returned again into England, and shortly after entered 
 upon that yebement course of study we mentioned before, till 
 the first alann from the north ; then again be made ready for 
 the field, and though be received some repulse in the com- 
 mand of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went 
 a volunteer with the Earl of Essex. 
 
 "From the entrance into this unnatural war his natm'al 
 vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of 
 spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to. * * * 
 This grew into a perfect habit of unoheerfulness ; and he who 
 had been so exactly easy and affable to all men, that his face 
 and countenance was always present and vacant to his com- 
 pany, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the 
 visage a kind of moroseness or incivility, became on a sudden 
 less communicaWe ; and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly 
 affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he 
 had minded before with more neatness and industry and 
 expense than is usual to so great a sou], he was not now only 
 incurious but too negligent ; and in his reception of suitors 
 and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick, 
 and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men — 
 strangers to his name and disposition — who believed him 
 proud and imperious, from which no mortaj man was ever 
 more free. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " When there was any overture or hope of peace he would 
 be more easy and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press 
 anything which he thought might promote it ; and sitting 
 among his friends often after a deep silence and frequent 
 sighs, would with a shrill and sad aocebt ingeminate the word 
 ' Peace ! Peace ! ' and would passionately profess that the very 
 agony of the war, and the calamities and desolation the king- 
 dom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would 
 shortly break his heart ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 " In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, 
 he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first ranks of 
 the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, 
 who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, from 
 whence he was shot with a musket, and in the instant fell 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 457 
 
 from his horse. * * * Thus died that incomparable young 
 man in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much 
 dispatched the true business of hfe, that the eldest rarely 
 attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not 
 into the world with more innooency : whosoever leads such 
 a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is 
 taken from him." 
 
 I had thought to insert as a companion picture Lord 
 Clarendon's character of Hampden, but I find on reference 
 that it does less justice to its subject and to its author. Such 
 is party spirit ! 
 
 The second battle of Newbury was fought about a twelve- 
 month after, the King having come to relieve Donnington 
 Castle, and being suddenly attacked by Waller while at Mr. 
 Doleman's house at Shaw. 
 
 I cannot attempt to give more than a brief description of 
 the principal scene of action. 
 
 Shaw House is a stately specimen of Tudor architecture, 
 with bay windows, porch and pinnacles, surrounded by mag- 
 nificent trees, many of which must have been in existence 
 two centuries ago, the clear bright stream of the Lamborne — 
 that Lamborne which a thousand of the train-bands forded 
 the morning of the combat— flowing peacefully through the 
 park, and the entrenchments thrown up for the defence of 
 the mansion, now forming the turfy boundaries of a bright 
 flower garden and a velvet bowling-green. A brass plate near 
 an upper window now overhanging the brilliant beds of scarlet 
 geranium and golden calceolaria, mark the place where a 
 cannon-ball lodged which was fired at the King as he was 
 shaving in his chamber, and various other reliques of sharp 
 attack and desperate resistance are carefully preserved in the 
 house, the condition of which, so perfect in its venerable 
 antiquity, free alike from any symptom of decay or any token 
 of modern renovation, does the highest honour to Mr. Eyre, 
 the present possessor. It would be difiBcult to point to a spot 
 that appeals more forcibly to the imagination, or is more fitted 
 to be the scene of stirring deeds. Just so it might have looked 
 when the forces of Waller appeared before it, and the train- 
 bands, no longer the soofled-at holiday soldiers, waded through 
 
 the stream. . 
 
 No great result followed : the King with Prmce Charles, 
 
45b EEOOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 then a boy, maintaining liis ground through the day, and 
 retreating towards Oxford during the following night ; but the 
 general eflfect, as through the whole contest, was disastrous to 
 his cause. Cromwell (for that ho association may be wanting, 
 that great name appears on this occasion,) accused Manchester 
 in the Commons of having suffered the royal army to escape 
 through cowardice and lukewarmness, adding that he himself 
 went to him and showed how they might be defeated, and 
 " desired him if he would give him leave, with his own 
 brigade of horse to charge the King's army in their retreat, 
 and the Earl, with the rest of his army, might look on if he 
 thought fit." 
 
 Although the result on the side of the Cavaliers was called 
 by their enemies an escape, and must, perhaps, be considered 
 as a retreat, yet the Royalists could boast, as usual, many 
 instances of individual bravery. Colonel Lisle, in three suc- 
 cessful charges near Shaw House, in the first charge, "used 
 for his field- word, 'For the Crown;' in the second. Tor 
 Prince Charles ; ' in the third, ' For the Duke of York.' Had 
 the enemy returned, he had resolved to have gone over all the 
 King's children until he had not left one rebel to fight against 
 the crown or the royal progeny." Lisle himself fought with- 
 out defensive armour, and having laid aside his buff doublet, 
 led on his men " in a good Holland shirt," a mode not unoom* 
 monly adopted by the CavaUers, for the purpose of inspiring 
 their followers with courage, and evincing their own contempt 
 of danger. 
 
 The defence of Donnington Castle is one of the most me- 
 morable stories of this memorable war. Situate on an abrupt 
 and lofty eminence, this fortress, of which nothing now re- 
 mains but two towers on either side of an arched gateway 
 and a beautiful hall immediately behind the entrance, was oi 
 considerable importance as commanding the main roads be- 
 tween London and the West frequently traversed by the 
 Parliamentarians, and the road between Oxford and Walling- 
 ford the royal strongholds. 
 
 A small garrison was thrown into it by the King at the 
 commencement of the contest ; and although besieged with 
 more or less activity to the end. Colonel Boys contrived to 
 maintain the place tiU the very last, only surrendering it 
 when every other fortress had yielded, and aJl hope was lost. 
 
A LITBRART LIFE. 459 
 
 At one time Colonel Horton, after a long blockade, battered it 
 with cannon for twelve days, beating down three towers and 
 a part of the wall. He then summoned the Governor in form, 
 offering quarter if the place were given up by twelve o'clock 
 the next day. Boys treated this summons, as he had done all 
 former ones, with contempt, and returned for answer that he 
 would neither give nor receive quarter. The assaults of the 
 besiegers were generally followed by sallies and skirmishes, 
 and endeavours to take the place by sap were equally unsuc- 
 cessful. A field near the Castle is stiU called Dalbier's Meadow, 
 in remembrance of one of the Parliamentary leaders who 
 established a battery there ; Fairfax himself was amongst the 
 besiegers ; and the day after the second battle of Newbury 
 the whole army appeared before the Castle and summoned 
 the Governor and his garrison to surrender to them, or they 
 would not leave one stone upon another ; to which Sir John 
 Boys (having no other means of reward, Charles appears to 
 have knighted this brave soldier) returned this laconic and 
 spirited answer : " That he was not bound to repair the Castle, 
 but by God's help he would keep the ground afterwards." 
 
 The siege, however, with aU its glories, forms but a part of 
 the glory of Donnington. It is said, upon evidence which 
 appears incontestible, that the father of English poety, almost 
 of the English language, Geoffrey Chaucer, once gazed from 
 this fair hill, and inhabited these massive towers. Godwin, 
 who certainly spared no pains in the investigation, and a host 
 of biographers and antiquaries, assume it as an undoubted 
 fact ; and local tradition — no mean authority in local questions 
 
 comes in aid of their assertion. A noble grove of oaks 
 
 about half-way down the hill has always borne the name of 
 Chaucer's Grove, and " Chaucer's Head " served as the sign 
 of an old public-house which existed during the present 
 century. 
 
 The scene is worthy of the poet. The old castle stands on 
 the brow of a lofty eminence, whose picturesque abruptness 
 may in some places perhaps have been assisted by art, as the 
 steepness of the hill must have formed the chief defence of 
 the fortress. But nature has long resumed her rights. The 
 precipitous ascent is everywhere carpeted with turf of the 
 richest verdure, garlanded with hawthorn and trailing plants, 
 and interspersed vrith forest trees of the noblest growth. The 
 
460 BBOOtLECTIONS op 
 
 outer wall of the castle, enclosing the whole table-lamd of the 
 hill-top, levelled with the earth in many places, and ruinous 
 in all, has been taken down and replaced by a lower fence 
 composed of the original stones, and clothed with evergreens 
 surrounding a tasteful flower-garden. The towera, too, al- 
 though stiU bearing visible marks of the ravages of war, have 
 been repaired and wreathed with ivy ; and the care taken of 
 this venerable ruin is most honourable to Mr. Hartley, in 
 whose family it has long been. One of the towers, containing 
 a geometrical staircase, had its walls torn asunder, exposing 
 the steep stone steps, although of such massive strength that 
 it seems like rending a solid rock. The other, less injured by 
 the besieging army, is pierced with loop-holes, mere slits on 
 the outer side, but gradually widening within ; and there, no 
 doubt, has stood many a marksman, matchlock in hand, picking 
 off the Roundheads in the valley below. 
 
 These towers with their battlements, and the deep, arched 
 entrance, with the marks of the portcullis still visible, and a 
 basket of shot picked up about the place standing within the 
 gate, speak of little but war in its sternest form ; but the 
 little hall, with its beautiful groined roof, and a certain mix- 
 ture of rude splendour and homely comfort, which makes it 
 even now a most covetable apartment, tells of the genial poet 
 whose healthy, cordial, hearty spirit, must have made him the 
 delight of every board, and most especially of his own. 
 
 I was much tempted to extract some passage in harmony 
 with this feeling ; some bright and life-like portrait from the 
 description of the Canterbury Pilgrims, or that inimitable 
 character of the Good Parson, which amongst its innumerable 
 merits has none higher than the proof it affords of Chaucer's 
 own love of piety and virtue. But these fine fragments are 
 too well known. I subjoin (taking no other freedom than 
 that of changing the orthography) one of my own favourite 
 bits, less familiar probably to the general reader, but full, as it 
 seems to me, of tenderness, pathos, and truth. 
 
 Custance and her infant are banished by her husband, and 
 sent adrift in a vessel. 
 
 Weepeu both yoimg and old in all that place, 
 When that the King this cursed letter sent : 
 And Custance with a deadly pal6 face. 
 
A LITBEART LIFE. 461 
 
 The fourthe day toward the ship she went ; 
 But natheless ahe tak'th in good intent 
 The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strond 
 She saide : " Lord, aye welcome be thy sond. 
 
 He that me keptfi from the fake blame 
 
 While I was in the land amongea you, 
 
 He can me keep from harm and else from shame 
 
 In the salt sea, although I see not how ; 
 
 As strong as ever he was, he is yet now ; 
 
 In him trust I, and in bis Mother dear ; 
 
 That is to me my sail and eke my steer." 
 
 Her little chUd lay weeping in her arm ; 
 And kneeling, piteously to him she said — 
 " Peace, little son, I will do thee no harm." 
 With that, her kerchief off her head she bmd, 
 And over his little eyen she it laid, 
 And in her arm she lulleth it full fast. 
 And into th' Heaven her eyen up she cast. 
 
 ' Mother,' quod she, ' and maiden bright Mary ! 
 Soth is that thorough woman's eggment 
 Mankind was lorn, and damned aye to die, 
 For which thy child was on a cross yrent ; 
 Thy bUssful eyen saw all his torment ; 
 Then there is no comparison between ' 
 
 Thy woe, and any woe men may sustain. 
 
 Thou saw'st thy child y slain before thine eyen. 
 And yet now liveth my little child parfay : 
 Now, lady bright 1 to whom all woeful cryen, 
 Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May ! 
 Thou haven of refute, bright star of day ! 
 Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness 
 Kuest on every rueful in distress. 
 
 ' little child ; alas ! what is thy guilt 
 That never wroughtest sin as yet, pardie ? 
 Why will thy harde father have thee spilt ? 
 mercy, deare Constable ! ' quod she, 
 ' As let my little child dwell here with thee ; 
 And if thou dar'st not saven him from blame 
 So kiss him ones in his fathers name.' 
 
 Therewith she looketh backward to the land 
 And saide, ' Farewell, husband rutheless ! ' 
 And up she rose and walked down the strand 
 Toward the ship ; her foUoweth all the press. 
 And ever she prayeth her child to hold his peace, 
 And tak'th her leave, and with a holy intent 
 She blesseth her, a>nd into the ship she went. 
 
 Viotailled was the ship, it is no drede. 
 Abundantly for her a full long space ; 
 And other necessaries that should need 
 
462 EECOIiLECTIONS OF 
 
 She had enow, heried be Qodde's grace : 
 For wind and weather, Almighty God purchase. 
 And bring her home ! I can no better say. 
 But in the sea she driveth forth her way. 
 
 It must be remembered that both the poet and his heroine 
 were Koman Catholics, and that a Eoman Cathoho mother 
 would naturally pray to the Virgin for her child. 
 
 I could not help wondering, as my kind host and I stood 
 together under that groined roof, whether any of the monks 
 of Chaucer's day — for in Chaucer's time there was an eccle- 
 siastical establishment at the bottom of the hill on whose 
 foundation indeed, and probably comprising part of the walls, 
 the beautiful mansion called the Priory now stands ; — I could 
 not help wondering whether any of the monks of that day 
 were as well suited to the old bard as its present master 
 would undoubtedly have proved ; and from wondering I got 
 to wishing that four centuries could have been annihilated, 
 and Geoffrey Chaucer and John Hughes have been placed 
 each in his own residence with only that beautiful winding 
 up-hill road between them ; neighbours hardly a mile apart. 
 How they would have given each other legend for legend, tale 
 for tale, wisdom for wisdom, song for song, jest for jest ! In 
 his one great art Chaucer would of course have had the 
 better — indeed of whom except of Shakespeare and Milton 
 would he not 1 But my friend would have made it up in his 
 infinite variety. To say nothing of the classical learning for 
 which he has always been renowned, a scholar amongst scho- 
 lars ; does he not write and talk as a native nearly all the 
 languages of Europe, all certainly that have a literature to 
 tempt to the acquirement 1 Was not his " Provence and the 
 Rhone" almost the only book ever praised in the " "Waverley 
 Novels 1 " Does not he contrive in his journals to make his 
 pen do double duty as sketcher and writer ? And are not 
 those pen and ink drawings of his something astonishing for 
 spirit and truth ? Is he not also an artist in wood, embroi- 
 dering his oaken wainscoats with every quirk and quiddity 
 that comes into his head from a comic masque to an old 
 English motto ? Is he not such a reciter that he can make 
 people laugh till they cry with his fun, and afraid to go to 
 bed with his ghost stories ? Can the very beasts of the field 
 resist him 1 Did not he frighten me out of my wits, by 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 463 
 
 calling around him all the wild cattle of Highclere from the 
 box of his own carriage ? Unhappy creatures ! he enchanted 
 them with his mimicry till they took him for one of them- 
 selves. Is there anything he cannot do 1 that is the fitter 
 question. Cannot he, if he hears a German soldier in a 
 barrack-yard singing an old song whilst polishing his musket, 
 note down the air, retain the words, put them into English 
 verse adapted to the tune, and sing it as heartily as the soldier 
 could have done for the life of him ? Did he not do so by 
 the ballad of " Prince Eugene," said to have been composed 
 words and air by one of the Prince's old troopers, and long as 
 popular in the German army as " Tom Bowling" or " Tom 
 Tough" amongst the British tars. Here is Mr. Hughes's 
 version : — 
 
 Prince Eugene, our noble leader, 
 Made a vow in death to bleed, or 
 
 Win the Emperor back Belgrade : 
 " Launch pontoons, let all be ready 
 To bear our ordnance safe and steady 
 
 Over the Danube " — thus he said. 
 
 There was mustering on the border 
 When our bridge in marching order 
 
 Breasted first the roaring stream ; 
 Then at Semlin, vengeance breathing. 
 We encamped to scourge the heathen 
 
 Back to Mahound and fame redeem. 
 
 'T was on August one and twenty, 
 Scouts with glorious tidings plenty 
 
 Galloped in through storm and rain ; 
 Turks they swore three hundred thousand 
 Marched to give our Prince a rouse, and 
 
 Dared us forth to battle-plain. 
 
 Then at Prince Eugene's head quarters 
 Met our fine old fighting Tartars, 
 
 Generals and Field-Marshalls all ; 
 Every point of war debated. 
 Each in his turn the signal waited! 
 
 Forth to march and on to fall. 
 
 For the onslaught all were eager 
 
 When the word sped round our leaguer : 
 
 " Soon as the clock chimes twelve to-night 
 Then bold hearts sound boot and saddle. 
 Stand to your arms and on to battle. 
 
 Every one that has hands to fight ! " 
 
4L64 RECOLLECTIONS OVt 
 
 Musqueteers, horse, yagers, forming 
 Sword in hand each bosom warming, 
 
 Still as death we all advance ; 
 Each prepared come blows or booty 
 German-like to do our duty, 
 
 Joining hands in the gallant dance. 
 
 Our cannoneers, those tough old heroes. 
 Struck a lusty' peal to cheer us, 
 
 Kring ordnance great and small ; 
 Eight and left our cannon thundered 
 Till the Pagans quaked and wondered, 
 
 And by platoons began to fell. 
 
 On the right, like a lion angered, 
 
 Bold Eugene cheered on the bold vanguard ; 
 
 Ludovio spurred up and down, 
 Crying " On, boys, every hand to 't. 
 Brother Germans, nobly stand to 't. 
 
 Charge them home for our old renown ! " 
 
 Gallant Prince ! he spoke no more ; he 
 Pell in early youth and glory, 
 
 Struck from his horse by some curst ball : 
 Great Eugene long sorrowed o'er him, 
 For a brother's love he bore him. 
 
 Every soldier mourned his fall. 
 In Waradin we laid his ashes ; 
 Cannon peals and musket flashes 
 
 O'er his grave due honours paid : 
 Then the old Black Eagle flying, 
 All the Pagan powers defying. 
 
 On we marched and stormed Belgrade. 
 
 Mr. Hughes was honoured with the friendship of Sir Waller 
 Scott, and amongst the most valued treasures of the Priory 
 is the last portrait ever taken of the great novelist. 
 
 5XXVIIL 
 UNBECOQNISED POETS. 
 
 OEORQE DAELET — THB EOBV. KDWAKD WILLIAM BABNARD. 
 
 UNRBCoaNiSED Poets ! many, very many are there doubtless 
 of the world's finest spirits, to whom these words may be 
 truly applied ; poets whom the world has not kucrwn, or has 
 refused to acknowledge. If Wordsworth had died fifty years 
 ago, after the "Excursion," after "Euth," after the "Tew 
 Trees," after the very finest of his shorter poems had been 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 465 
 
 published, he would have been amongst the disowned. But he 
 was strong of frame and of lieart, vigorous and self-reliant ; 
 competence came to hitn early ; moreover he dwelt in the 
 healthy atmosphere of the northern hills, and heard no more 
 of the critical onslaught than served to nerve him for fresh 
 battles. So he lived through the time of tribulation, and 
 gathered from the natural effect of the reaction more of fanae 
 and praise than would have fallen to his share had he won 
 his laurels without the long probation and the fierce contest 
 which preceded his recognition as the " Great' High Priest of 
 all the Nine." 
 
 Men of less power and of less faith die of the trial. Of 
 such was George Darley. Gifted certainly with high talents, 
 and with the love of song, which to enthusiastic youth seems 
 the only real vocation, he offended his father, a wealthy alder- 
 man of Dublin, by devoting his whole existence to poetry, 
 and found, when too late, that the fame for which he had 
 sacrificed worldly fortune eluded his pui'suit. It is impossible 
 not to sympathise with such a trial ; not to feel how severe, 
 must be the sufferings of a man conscious of no common 
 power, who sees day by day the popularity for which he 
 yearns won by far inferior spirits, and works which he des- 
 pises passing through edition after edition, whilst his own 
 writings are gathering dust upon the publisher's shelves, or 
 sold as waste paper to the pastry cook or the chandler. What 
 wonder that the disenchanted poet should be transmuted into 
 a cold and caustic critic, or that the disappointed man should 
 withdraw into the narrowest limits of friendly society, a 
 hermit in the centre of London ! 
 
 To add to these griefs, Mr. Darley was afflicted by a natural 
 infirmity not uncommon with men of high talent, and nervous 
 and susceptible temperament. He stammered so much as to 
 render conversation pain'ful and dif&cult to himself, and dis- 
 tressing to his companions. The consciousness of this im- 
 pediment (which he called his mask) increased its intensity, 
 causing him to shrink from all unnecessary communications, 
 except with the few to whom he was famiUariy accustomed, 
 and of whose appreciation he was sure. They seem to hav". 
 esteemed him much. 
 
 I myself never saw him. But I suppose I owed to the too 
 partial report of some of his own most valued friends the 
 
466 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 honour of being admitted amongst liis con'espondents. Much 
 as I admired him, and sincerely grateful as I felt for his 
 notice, I confess that these elaborate epistles frightened me 
 not ,a little. Startling to receive, these epistles, resembling 
 the choicest parts of the choicest orations, were terrible to 
 answer ; and as my theory as to letter-writing ia that it should 
 be like the easiest, most careless o£f-harid talk, and my prac- 
 tice full of blots and blunders, and of every sort of imper- 
 tinence that a pen can by any chance commit, is apt to carry 
 out my theory even to excess, I have no doubt but I often 
 returned the compHment by startling my correspondent. 
 
 Besides these letters, Mr. Darley sent me a little volume 
 called " Sylvia or the May Queen," -a dramatic pastoral full 
 of lyrical beauty, a tragedy on the story of Thomas-a-Beoket, 
 of which the most original scene is one in which Richard is 
 represented as a boy, a boy foreshowing the man, the playful, 
 grand, and noble cub, in which we see the future lion ; and 
 an unpublished poom, called "Nepenthe," as different in 
 appearance from the common run of books " printed for 
 private distribution," which are usually models of typo- 
 graphy, of paper, and of binding as it is in subject and in 
 composition. Never was so thorough an abnegation of all 
 literary coxcombry as was exhibited in the outward form of 
 this " Nepenthe," unless there may be some suspicion of 
 affectation in the remarkable homeliness, not to say squa- 
 lidness, of the strange little pamphlet as compared with the 
 grace and refinement of the poetry. Printed with the most 
 imperfect and broken types, upon a coarse discoloured paper, 
 like that in which a country shopkeeper puts up his tea, with 
 two dusky leaves of a still dingier hue, at least a size too 
 small, for cover, and garnished at top and bottom with a 
 running margin in his own writing, such (resembling nothing 
 but a street ballad or an old "broadside") is the singular 
 disguise (ah, Mr. Darley might well have called that a mask !) 
 of the striking poem of which I am about to offer an extract. 
 There is no reading the whole, for there is an intoxication 
 about it that turns one's brain. Such a poet could never have 
 been popular. But he was a poet. 
 
 The first page is headed as follows, in Mr. Barley's hand? 
 writing, " Seeking the panacea called ' Nepenthe,' the wan- 
 derer finds himself on the hill of Solitude." 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 467 
 
 NEPENTHE. 
 
 Over a blooming land, untrod 
 
 By heavier foot than bird or bee 
 Lays on the grasgy-bosomed sod, 
 
 t passed one day in reverie : 
 High on his unpavilioned throne 
 The heaven's hot tyrant sat alone, 
 And like the fabled king of old, 
 Was turning all he touched to gold ; 
 The glittering fountains seemed to pour 
 Steep dov?nward rills of molten ore, 
 Glassily trickling smooth between 
 Broom-shaded banks of golden green. 
 And o'er the yellow pasture straying. 
 Dallying still yet undelaying, 
 In hasty trips from side to side 
 Footing adown their steepy slide. 
 Headlong impetuously playing 
 With the flowery border pied. 
 That edged the rooky mountain stair. 
 They pattered down incessant there. 
 To lowlands sweet and calm and wide. 
 With golden lip and glistening bell 
 Bowed every bee-cup on the fell, 
 Whate'er its native unsunned hue, 
 ' Snow-white or crimson or cold blue ; 
 Even the black lustres of the sloe 
 Glanced as they sided to the glow, 
 And furze in russet frock arrayed 
 With saffron knots, like shepherd maid. 
 Broadly tricked out her rough brocade. 
 The singM mosses curling here, 
 A golden fleece too short to shear ! 
 Crumbled to sparkling dust beneath 
 My light step on that sunny heath. 
 
 Light ! for the ardour of the clime 
 Made rare my spirit, that sublime 
 Bore me as buoyant as young Time 
 Over the green earth's grassy prime. 
 Ere his slouched wing caught up her slime ; 
 And sprang I not from clay and crime, 
 Had from those humming beds of thyme 
 Lifted me near the stony chime 
 To learn an empyrean rhyme. 
 
 No melody beneath the moon 
 Sweeter than this deep runnel tune ! 
 Here on the greensward grown hot gray, 
 Crisp as the unshorn desert hay. 
 Where his moist pipe the dulcet rill 
 For humorous grasshopper doth fill, 
 HH 2 
 
468 liECOLLECTIOKS OF 
 
 That spits himself from blade to blade 
 By long o'er-rest uneasy made ; 
 Here ere the stream by fountain pushes 
 Lose himself brightly in the rushes 
 With Butterfly path among the bushes, 
 I "11 lay me on these mosses brown, 
 Murmuring beside his murmurs down, 
 And from the liquid tale he tells 
 Glean out some broken syllables ; 
 Or close mine eyes in dreamy swoon, 
 As by hoarse winding deep Gihoon 
 Soothes with the hum his idle pain 
 The melancholy Tartar swain, 
 Sole mark on that huge-meadowed plain ! 
 
 Hie on to great Ocean ! hie, on ! hie on ! 
 Fleet as water can gallop, hie on ! 
 Hear ye not through the ground 
 How the sea-trumpets sound 
 Round the sea-monarch's shallop, hie on ! 
 
 Hie on to brave Ocean I hie on ! hie on ! 
 
 From the sleek mountain levels, hie on I 
 
 Hear ye not in the boom 
 
 Of the water-bell's womb 
 
 Pleasant whoop to sea-revels, hie on ! 
 
 Hie on to bright Ocean ! hie on ! hie ou ! 
 
 'Tis the store of rich waters, hie on ! 
 
 Hear ye not the rough sands 
 
 Rolling gold on the strands, 
 
 For poor Earth's sons and daughters, hie on ! 
 
 Hie on to calm Ocean ! hie on ! hie on ! 
 Summer rest from earth-riot, hie ou ! 
 Hear ye not the smooth tide 
 With deep murmur and wide 
 Call ye down to his quiet, hie on ! 
 
 Thus to the babbling streamlet elves 
 
 To haste them down the slopes and shelves, 
 
 Methought some Naiad of their fall 
 
 In her bright dropping sparry hall. 
 
 Sang to her glassy virginal. 
 
 " Perchance to me monition sweet ? " 
 I started upright to my feet 
 Attent : 'twas but a fancy dream ! 
 I only heard in measure meet 
 The pulses of the fountain beat, 
 As onward prest the throbbing stream, 
 Fair fell no leas my fancy dream ! 
 ] have been still led like a child 
 My heedless wayward path and wild 
 
A LITEHARY LIFE. 469 
 
 Through this rough world by feebler clues 
 (So they were bright) than rainbows' dews 
 Spun by the insect gossamer 
 To climb with through the ropy air. 
 
 Fair fall ye, then, my fairy dream ! 
 I'll with this labyrinthian stream, 
 Where'er it flow, where'er it cease, 
 There be ray pathway and my peace ! 
 
 Swift as a star falls through the night. 
 Swift as a sun-shot dart of light 
 Down from the hill's heaven-touching height 
 The streamlet vanished from my sight. 
 
 The poet is carried away by the phoenix, and laid at the 
 bottom of her tree, in Arabia Felix, where he beholds her 
 
 dissolution. 
 
 blest unfabled Incense Tree 
 That burns in glorious Araby, 
 With red scent ohalioing the air, 
 Till earth-life grow Elysian there ! 
 Half buried to her flaming breast 
 
 In this bright tree she makes her nest. 
 Hundred-sunned Phoenix ! where she must 
 Crumble at length to hoary dust ! 
 Her gorgeous death-bed ! her rich pyre 
 Burnt up with aromatic fire ! 
 Her urn set high from spoiler men ! 
 Her birth-place when self-bom again ! 
 The mountainless green wilds among 
 Here ends she her unechoing song ! 
 With amber tears and odorous sighs 
 Mourned by the desert where she dies ! 
 Laid like the young fawn mossily 
 In suDgreen vales of Araby 
 
 1 woke, hard by the Phoenix tree 
 
 That with shadeless boughs flamed over me ; 
 And upward called by a dumbery 
 With moon broad orbs of wonder, I 
 Beheld the immortal bird on high 
 Glassing the great sun in her eye ; 
 Steadfast she gazed upon his fire 
 Still her destroyer and her sirfe. 
 As if to his her soul of flame 
 Had flown already whence it came ; 
 Like those who sit and glare so still 
 Intense with their death-struggle till 
 W*e touch and curdle at their chill ! 
 But breathing yet while she doth burn 
 The deathless Daughter of the Sun ! 
 Slowly to crimson embers turn 
 The beauties of the brightsome one. 
 
470 KEC0LLECTI0N8 OP 
 
 O'er the broad nest her silver wings 
 Shook down their wasteful glitterings ; 
 Her brindled neck high arched in air 
 Like a small rainbow faded there. 
 But brighter glowed her plumy crown 
 Mouldering to golden ashes down ; 
 With fume of sweet woods to the skies. 
 Pure as a saint's adoring sighs, 
 Warm as a prayer in Paradise, 
 Her life-breath rose in sacrifice ! 
 The while with shrill triumphant tone 
 Sounding aloud, aloft, alone, 
 Ceaseless her joyful death-wail she 
 Sang to departing Araby ! 
 
 Deep melancholy wonder drew 
 
 Tears from my heart-spring at that view ; 
 
 Like cresset shedding its last flaie 
 
 "Upon some wistful mariner. 
 
 The bird fast blending with the sky 
 
 Turned on me her dead-gazing eye 
 
 Once — and as surge to shallow spray 
 
 Sank down to vapoury dust away. 
 
 O fast her amber blood doth flow 
 From the heart-wounded Incense Tree, 
 Fast as earth's deep embosomed woe 
 In silent rivulets to the sea ! 
 
 Beauty may weep her fair first-bom 
 Perchance in as resplendent tears. 
 Such golden dew-drops bow the corn 
 When the stem sickleman appears. 
 
 But oh ! such perfume to a bower 
 Never allured sweet-seeking bee 
 As to sip fast that nectarous shower 
 A thirstier minstrel drew in me. 
 
 Mr. Barley's death was even more lonely than his life. The 
 kind and admirable persons who had been his best and truest 
 friends in London, wrote to his brother in Dublin as soon 
 as the imminent danger of his last illness was known. No 
 answer arrived. He died ; and they wrote again stiU more 
 pressingly, and then, after a delay which rendered his inter- 
 ment inevitable, it was discovered that the brother in Ireland 
 lay dead also. 
 
 The story of Mr. Barnard is very different. Emine'nt for 
 scholarship, rich in friends, easy in circumstances, secure of 
 preferment in the sacred profession to which he was an 
 honour, and married to the lovely woman whom he so truly 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 4'/l 
 
 loved, it is probable that the very felicity of his lot prevented 
 him from devoting himself to literary pursuits. Excepting 
 the light and pleasant task of translating the Latin poems of 
 Flaminio, and the composition of such short lyrics as were 
 suggested by the events or the feelings of the hour, he never 
 went beyond the plans and projects with which most men of 
 talent amuse their leisure. Even such verse as he did write 
 remained in manuscript until it was collected and printed 
 after his death by his accomplished father-in-law, Mr. Arch- 
 deacon Wrangham. 
 
 Few as they are, these lyrics are remarkable, not only for 
 grace and beauty, but for a vigour of thought, a fulness, a 
 body, very unusual in occasional vei-ses. Had longer life been 
 lent to Mr. Barnard, we might have boasted another writer of 
 high and pure poetry. 
 
 MT GKETHOUNDS. 
 
 Oh ! dear is the naked wold to mo 
 
 Where I move alone in my majesty I 
 
 Thyme and eistus kiss my feet, 
 
 And spread around their incense sweet, 
 
 The laverock springing from his bed, 
 
 Pours royal greeting o'er my head ; 
 
 My gallant guards, my greyhounds tried 
 
 March in order by my side ; 
 
 And everything that's earthly born, 
 
 Wealth and pomp, and pride, I scorn — 
 
 And chiefly thee. 
 Who lifts SO high thy little horn, 
 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Wilt thou say that life is short ; 
 That wisdom loves not hunter's sport, 
 But virtue's golden fruitage rather 
 Hopes in cloistered cell to gather ? 
 Gallant greyhounds, tell her, here 
 Trusty faith and love sincere, 
 Here do grace and zeal abide, 
 And humbly keep their master's side. 
 Bid her send whateer hath sold 
 Human hearts — lust, power and gold — 
 
 Accursed train ! 
 And blush to find that on the wold 
 
 They bribe in vain. 
 
 Then let her preach ! The Muse and I 
 Will turn to Goshawk, Gaze and Guy ; 
 And give to worth its proper place 
 Though found in nature's lowliest race-. 
 
472 RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 And when we would be great or wise, 
 Lo ! o'er our heads are smiling skies ; 
 And thence we'll draw instruction true 
 That worldly science never knew, 
 Then let her argue as she will ; — 
 I '11 wander with my greyhounds still 
 
 (Halloo ! halloo !) 
 And hunt for health on the breeze-woi-n hill, 
 
 And wisdom too. 
 
 THE LAUNCH OF THE NAUTILUS. 
 
 Up with thy thin transparent sail 
 
 fhou tiny mariner ! — The gale 
 
 Comes gently from the land and brings 
 
 The odour of all lovely things 
 
 That zephyr in his wanton play 
 
 Scatters in spring's triumphant way ; — 
 
 Of primrose pale, and violet, 
 
 And young anemone, beset 
 
 By thousand spikes of every hue, 
 
 Purple and scarlet, white and blue : 
 
 And every breeze that sweeps the earth 
 
 Brings the sweet sounds of love and miith ; 
 
 1"he shrilly pipe of things unseen 
 
 That pitter in the meadow green ; 
 
 The linnet's love-sick melody. 
 
 The laverock's carol loud and high ; 
 
 And mellowed, as from distance borne 
 
 The music of the shepherd's horn. 
 
 Up, little Nautilus I— Thy day 
 
 Of life and joy is come ; — Away ! 
 
 The ocean's flood that gleams so bright 
 
 Beneath the morning's ruddy light 
 
 With gentlest surge scarce ripples o'er 
 
 The lucid gems that pave the shore ; 
 
 Each billow wears its little spray 
 
 As maids wear wreaths on holiday ; 
 
 And maid ne'er danced on velvet green 
 
 More blithely round the May's young queen. 
 
 Than thou shalt dance on yon bright sea 
 
 That woos thy prow so lovingly. 
 
 Then lift thy sail ! — 'Tis shame to rest 
 
 Here on the sand thy pearly breast. 
 
 Away ! thou first of mariners. 
 
 Give to the wind all idle fears ; 
 
 Thy freight demands no jealous care ; 
 
 Yet navies might be proud to bear 
 
 The wondrous wealth, the unbought spell 
 
 That load thy ruby-cinctured shell. 
 
 A heart is there to nature true, 
 
 Which wrath or envy never knew ; 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 473 
 
 A heart that calls no creature foe, 
 And ne'er designed a brother's woe ; 
 A heart whose joy o'erflows its home 
 Simply because sweet spring is come. 
 
 Up, beauteous Nautilus ! Away ! 
 
 The idle Muse that chides thy stay 
 
 Shall watch thee long with anxious eye 
 
 O'er thy bright course delighted fly ; 
 
 And when black storms deform the main, 
 
 Cry welcome to the sands again ! 
 
 Heaven grant that she through life's wild flow 
 
 May sail as innocent as thou ; 
 
 And homeward turned like thee may find 
 
 Sure refuge from the wave and wind. 
 
 TO MT HOME. 
 
 Yon old grey wall, whose gable high 
 
 Lifts the Redeemer's sign, 
 Whose tendrils green like tracery 
 
 O'er arch and mullion twine — 
 It is indeed a holy place ; 
 For God Himself hath deigned to grace 
 
 This humble home of mine ; 
 And thoughts of Him are blended fair 
 With every joy I \e tasted there. 
 
 The one best friend whose modest worth 
 
 E'en from my praises flies ; 
 The babe whose soul is budding forth 
 
 From her blue smiling eyes ; 
 And prattling still the sturdy boy 
 Who climbs my knee with heart of joy 
 
 To gain his little prize — 
 Their looks of love how can I see 
 Nor think, great Sire of Love, on Thee 1 
 
 Pride enters not yon peaceful room ; 
 
 But books and arts abound ; 
 Nor there do vain Penates come 
 
 To reign — 'tis holy ground ! 
 And duly. Lord, when evening brings 
 Kelease from toil on balmy wings, 
 
 An household band is found 
 To raise Thy throne, and offer there 
 The gift Thou lov'st, Domestic Prayer. 
 
 Within all studies end in Thee ; 
 
 And when abroad I rove, 
 There's not a herb, a flower, a tree, 
 
 That speaks not of Thy love ; 
 There's not a leaf, that whirled on high 
 Wanders alonj the stormy sky, 
 
 That hath not words to prove 
 
474 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 How like would be my restless lot. 
 If Grace Divine upheld me not ! 
 
 Oh ! look upon yon glorious scene, 
 
 Wood, hill, and wave survey; 
 Mark every path where God hath been. 
 
 And own His wondrous w;iy. 
 For me I daily come to bless, 
 Dear landscape, all thy loveliness ; 
 
 And dare not turn away 
 Till I have spoken the Psalmist's line, 
 " These gracious works, dread Lord, are Thine 1" 
 
 My Home ! my Home ! I 've paused awhile 
 
 In many a stranger land. 
 And Been in all boon Nature smile 
 
 Beneath her Maker's hand ; 
 But never since calm Eeaaon took 
 From Fancy's clutch her rhyming bpok, 
 
 A joyful resting planned — 
 Till here the blessed scene I laid. 
 Here in mine own romantic shade. 
 
 My Home ! my Home ! oh ! ever dear 
 
 Thy hallowed scenes shall be ; 
 In joy or grief, in hope or fear, 
 
 My spirit clings to thee. 
 I deem my home an emblem meet 
 Of that enduring last retreat 
 
 From pain and passion free. 
 Where Peace shall fix her bright abode,' 
 And yield her followers up to God. 
 
 To Mr. Barnard, also, I was personally a stranger. So 1 
 was to the excellent friend and delightful correspondent, 
 Mr. AreMeacon Wrangham, to whose kindness I owe the 
 possession of his poems. Twice I was about to visit the 
 Archdeacon, and twice Death came between. The first time 
 he invited me to his prebendal residence at Chester, to 
 meet another dear and most valued correspondent and friend, 
 Mrs. Hemans ; he even proposed to come as far as Oxford to 
 fetch me. But my mother was already seized by the illness 
 from which she never recovered ; and the three friends, of 
 whom I am the only survivor, and of whom none was then 
 old, said all — Another time ! None of us foresaw how 
 soon the youngest and the most gifted of the three should 
 die in her Irish home ; and the two that remained had little 
 heart to plan joyous meetings. But nine years ago, when my 
 dear father was also taken from me, the good Archdeacon 
 mixed with his condolences an invitation to visit him at 
 
A LITERARY LIFE., 475 
 
 Huumanby. The letter was singularly interesting, telling 
 of his own father's death just after his early Cambridge 
 triumphs, and of the strange and solemn mixture of that 
 great grief with his joy. Singularly enough, with that kind 
 and gracious invitation to the vicarage at Hunmanby came 
 one equally gracious and kind from the head of my own 
 family, Admiral Osbaldiston Mitford, to visit him and Mrs. 
 Mitford at Hunmanby Hall. I answered both letters by 
 return of post ; and before that to my venerable friend 
 reached its destination, he too was dead. 
 
 Let me add a less gloomy recollection of this accomplished 
 scholar, who was an eminent book collector. About thirty 
 years ago, one of the cleverest writers of the day having pub- 
 lished (as sometimes happens) a very silly book, the Arch- 
 deacon hastened to secure it for his library. " What could 
 induce you to purchase that nonsense ? " inquired a friend. 
 " Because it is so bad that it is sure to become scarce," was 
 the reply. The prediction has been verified to the letter. I 
 should not wonder if that copy were an unique. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 AMERICAN PEOSE WRITERS. 
 
 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 In spite of her apparent barrenness at the late Exhibition — 
 a barrenness which probably resulted mainly from the actual 
 riches of that vast country, its prodigious territory, and its 
 stiU growing youth' — in spite of our susceptibilities — and in 
 spite of her own — America is a great nation, and the Ameri- 
 cans are a great people ; and if that Fair of the World had 
 been a book fair, as at Leipsic. I suspect that we should have 
 seen our kinsfolk over the water cutting a very good figtire 
 with their literary ware. 
 
 Certain it is, that when a people, hardly seventy years old, 
 who have still living amongst them men that remember when 
 their republic was a province, can claim for themselves such 
 divines as Dr. Channing, and my friend Professor Norton, the 
 friend of Mrs. Hemans ; such an historian as Mr. Prescott ; 
 
476 BEC0LLECTI0N8 OF 
 
 and such-an orator as Daniel Webster, they have good right 
 to be proud of their sons of the soil. 
 
 To say nothing of these ornaments of our common lan- 
 guage, or of the naturalists Wilson and Audubon — are they 
 American 1 — they are worth fighting for ; or of the travellers, 
 Dana, Stephens, and Willis, who are certainly transatlantic ; 
 or of the fair writers, Mrs. Sigourney and Miss Sedgwick, 
 both my fiiends ; or of the poor Margaret Fuller, drowned so 
 deplorably only the other day, with her husband and her 
 infant, on her own shores (her Italian husband said only 
 the day before leaving Florence that it had been predicted to 
 him that he should die at sea) ; or of the great historian of 
 Spanish literature, Mr. Tioknor (another friend ! ) ; or of a 
 class of writers in which New England is rich — orator- 
 writers, whose eloquence, first addressed to large audiences, 
 is at once diffused and preserved by the press — witness the 
 orations of Mr. Sumner, and the lectures of Mr. Whipple and 
 Mr. Giles ; to say nothing of these volumes, which will bear 
 a competition with any of their class in the elder country, 
 let us look at the living novelists, and see if they be of an 
 ordinary stamp. 
 
 The author of the "Sketch-book" is almost as much a 
 classic with us as in his own country. That book, indeed, 
 and one or two that succeeded it, were so purely English in 
 style and feeling, that when their success — their immense and 
 deserved success — induced the reprint of some drolleries 
 which had for subject New York in its Dutch state, it was 
 difficult to believe that they were by the same author. Since 
 then, Mr. Washington Irving, having, happily for literature, 
 filled a diplomatic post in Spain, has put forth other works, 
 half Spanish, half Moorish, equally full of local colour and 
 local history, — books as good as history, that almost make us 
 live in the Alhambra, and increase our sympathy with the 
 tasteful and chivalrous people who planned its halls and 
 gardens. Then he returned home ; and there he has done for 
 the backwoods and the prairies what he before did for the 
 manor-house of England and the palace of Granada. Few, 
 very few, can show a long succession of volumes so pure, so 
 graceful, and so varied as Mr. Irving. To my poor cottage, 
 rich only in printed paper, people often come to borrow books 
 for themselve.s or their childi'en. Sometimes they make their 
 
A LITEBARY LIFE. 477 
 
 own selection ; sometimes, much against my will, they leave 
 the choice to me ; and in either case I know no works that 
 are oftener lent than those that bear the pseudonym of 
 Geoflfrey Crayon. 
 
 Then Mr. Cooper ! original and natural as his own Pioneers ; 
 adventurous as Paul Jones ; hardy as Long Tom ; persevering 
 and indomitable as thai Leather-stocking whom he has con- 
 ducted through fifteen volumes without once varying from 
 the admirable portrait which he originally designed. They 
 say that he does not value our praise — that he has no appre- 
 ciation for his appreciators. But I do not choose to believe 
 such a scandal. It can only be a " they say." He is too richly 
 gifted to be wanting in sympathy even with his own admirers ; 
 and if he have an odd manner of showing that sympathy, why 
 it must pass as "Pretty Fanny's way." Since these light 
 words were written, I grieve to say that Mr. Cooper is dead. 
 I trust his gifted daughter will become his biogi-apher. Few 
 lives would be more interesting. 
 
 Next comes one with whom my saucy pen must take no 
 freedom, — one good and grave, and pure and holy ; whose 
 works, by their high aim and their fine execution, claim the 
 respect of all. Little known by name, the excellently-selected 
 i-eprints of my friend Mr. Chambers have made Mr. "Ware's 
 letters from Palmyra and from Rome familiar to all who seek 
 to unite the excitement of an early Christian story, a tale of 
 persecution and of martyrdom, with a style and detail so full 
 of calm and sober learning, that they seem literally saturated 
 with classical lore. So entire is the feeling of scholarship 
 pervading these two books, in one of which Zenobia appears 
 in her beautiful Palmyra a powerful queen, in the other 
 dragged through the streets of Rome a miserable captive, 
 that we seem to be reading a translation from the Latin. 
 There is not a trace of modern habits or modes of thinking ; 
 and if Mr. "Ware had been possessed by the monomania of 
 Macpherson or of Chatterton, it would have rested with him- 
 self to produce these letters as a close and literal version of 
 manuscripts of the third century. 
 
 Another talented romancer is Dr. Bird, whose two works on 
 the conquest of Mexico have great merit, although hidden 
 behind the mask of most unpromising titles (one of them is 
 called, I think, " Abdallah the Moor ; or, the Infidel's Doom "). 
 
478 RECOLIECTIOSS OF 
 
 I never met with any one who had read them but myself, to 
 whom that particular subject has an unfaihng interest. His 
 " Nick of the Woods," a striking but very painful Indian 
 novel, and his description of those wonderful American caves, 
 in which truth leaves fiction far behind, are generally known 
 and duly appreciated. 
 
 These excellent writers have been loiig before the public ; 
 but a new star has lately sprung into light in the Western 
 horizon, who, in a totally different manner — and nothing is 
 more remarkable amongst all these American noveUsts than 
 their utter difference from each other — will hardly fail to 
 cast a bright illumination over both hemispheres. It is hardly 
 two years since Mr. Hawthorne, until then known only by 
 one or two of those little volumes which the sagacious hold 
 as promises of future excellence, put forth that singular 
 book, " The Scarlet Letter ; " a-propos to which, Dr. Holmes, 
 who so well knows the value of words, uses this significant 
 expression : — 
 
 " I snatch the book along whose burning leaves 
 His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves." 
 
 And it is the very Word. " We do snatch the book ; " and 
 until we have got to the end, very few of us, I apprehend, 
 have sufficient strength of will to lay it down. 
 
 The story is of the early days of New England ; those days 
 when, as Mr. Whittier has shown in his clever mystification, 
 called " Margaret Smith's Journal," the Pilgrim Fathers, just 
 escaped from persecution in Europe, persecuted those who 
 presumed to follow their example, and to exercise Uberty of 
 thought and worship in the new home of freedom. Lament- 
 able inconsistency of human action ! Nothing but the strongest 
 historical evidence could make ua believe that they who had 
 cast away fortune and country, and every worldly good for 
 conscience' sake, should visit with fire and faggot the peaceful 
 Quaker and poor demented creatures accused of witchcraft, 
 and driven by the accusation into the confession, perhaps into 
 a diseased craving for the power and the crime. But so it is. 
 Oppression makes oppression ; persecution propagates perse- 
 cution. There is no end to the evil when once engendered. 
 
 " The Scarlet Letter " is not, however, a story of witch, or 
 of Quaker, although an atmosphere of sorcery seems to per- 
 vade the air, but one of'that strict and rigid morality peculiai 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 479 
 
 to the Puritans, who loved to visit with legal penalties such 
 sins as are now kept in check by pubUc opinion. Accordingly, 
 our first sight of Hester, is exposed upon a scaffold, wearing 
 upon her breast a scarlet A, glittering with gold embroidery, 
 and carrying in her arms a female infant. She had been sent, 
 without her husband, under the protection of some of the 
 elders of the colony, and the punishment was not merely 
 caused by the birth of this child of shame, but by her reso- 
 lute concealment of the partner of her guUt. Step by step, 
 the reader becomes acquainted with the secret. The partici- 
 pator of her frailty was a young and eloquent preacher, famed 
 not only tor learning and talent, but for severe sanctity. The 
 husband ariives under a false character, recognised only by 
 the erring wife, before whom, cruel, vindictive, hating and 
 hateful, he appears as a visible conscience ; and the sufferings 
 of the proud and fiery Hester, eudiu'ing a daily martyrdom of 
 shame and scorn, and of the seducer perishing under the 
 terrible remorse of undeserved praise, respect, and honour, 
 are amongst the finest and most original conceptions of tragic 
 narrative. Detestable as the husband is, aud with all the 
 passionate truth that Mr. Hawthorne has thrown into the long 
 agony of the seducer, we never, in our pity for the sufferer, 
 lose our abhorrence of the sin. 
 
 Scarcely a twelvemonth has passed, and another New Eng- 
 - land story, " The House with the Seven Gables," has come to 
 redeem the pledge of excellence given by the first. 
 
 In this tale, Fate plays almost as great a part as in a Greek 
 Trilogy. Two centuries ago, a certain wicked and powerful 
 Colonel Pynoheon, was seized with a violent desire to possess 
 himself of a certain bit of ground, on which to build the 
 large and picturesque wooden mansion from which the story 
 takes its title. Master Maule, the original possessor, obstinate 
 and poor, refused all offers of money for his land ; but being 
 shortly afterwards accused, no one very well knows why, of 
 the fashionable sin of witchcraft, the poor man is tried, con- 
 demned, and burnt ; the property forfeited and sold ; and the 
 rich man's house erected without let or pause. But the shadow 
 of a great crime has passed over the place. A bubbling spring, 
 famous for the purity aud freshness of its waters, turns salt 
 and bitter, and the rich man himself— the great, powerful, 
 wicked Colonel Pyncheon— is found dead in his own hall, 
 
480 EECOLLECTI03SB 01 
 
 stricken by some strtoge, sudden, mysteiious death, on the 
 very day of his taking possession, and when he had invited 
 half the province to his house-warming. Both proprietors— 
 the poor old wizard, and the wealthy Colonel — leave one child, 
 and during two succeeding centuries these races, always dis- 
 tinct and peculiar, come at long intervals strangely across 
 each other. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the skill with which this part of the 
 book is managed. The story is not told ; we find it out ; we 
 feel that there is a legend ; that some strange destiny has 
 hovered over the old house, and hovers there still. The 
 slightness of the means by which this feeUng is excited is 
 wonderful. The mixture of the grotesque and the super- 
 natural in Hoffman and the German School, seems coarse and 
 vulgar blundering in the comparison ; even the mighty magi- 
 cian of Udolpho, the Anne Radcliflfe whom the Erench quote 
 with so much unction, was a bungler at her trade, when com- 
 pared with the vague, dim, vapoury, impalpable ghastUness 
 with which Mr. Hawthorne has contrived to envelope his 
 narrative. 
 
 Two hundred years have passed. The Maules have disap- 
 peared ; and the Pyucheons are reduced, by the mysterious 
 death of the last proprietor, to a poor old maid in extreme 
 poverty, with little left but this decaying mansion ; a brother 
 whom she is expecting home after a long imprisonment, also 
 a mystery ; a Judge, flourishing and prosperous, in whom we 
 at once recognise a true descendant of the wicked Colonel ; 
 and a little New England girl, a country cousin, who is the 
 veriest bit of hfe and light, the brightest beam of sunshine 
 that has ever crossed the Atlantic. Monsieur Eugene Sue had 
 some such inspiration when, in his very happiest moment, he 
 painted Eigolette ; but this rose is fresher still. Her name 
 (there is a great deal in names, let Juliet say what she will) is 
 Phojbe. I am not going to tell the story of this book, but 
 I must give one glimpse of Phoebe, although it will very in- 
 adfequately convey the charm that extends over the whole 
 volume ; and to make that understood, I must say that the 
 poor old cousin Hepzibah, " Old Maid Pynoheou," as she is 
 called by her townsfolk— (I wonder whether the Americans do 
 actually bestow upon all their single women that expressive 
 designation : one has some right to be curious as to the titles 
 
A LITaEAUY LIFE. 481 
 
 conferred upon one's own order ;)— " Old Maid Pyncheon" had 
 that very day, for the purpose, as it afterwards appeared, of 
 supporting the liberated prisoner, opened in this aristocratic 
 mansion a little shop. — N.B. I had once a fancy to set up a 
 shop myself, not quite of the same kind ; but there were 
 other sorts of pride besides my own to be consulted, so 
 beyond a jest, more than half-earnest, with a rich neighbour, 
 who proposed himself as a partner, the faucy hardly came to 
 words. Ah, I have a strong fellow-feeling for that poor 
 Hepzibah — a decayed gentlewoman, elderly, ugly, awkward, 
 near-sighted, cross ! I have a deep sympathy with " Old 
 Maid Pyncheon," as she appears on the morning of this 
 great trial : 
 
 "Forth she steps into the dusky time-darkened passage ; 
 a tall figui-e, clad in black silk, with a long and shrunken 
 waist, feeling, her way towards the stairs, like a near-sighted 
 person, as in truth she is. 
 
 " We must linger a moment on the unfortunate expression 
 of poor Hepzibah's brow. Her scowl — as the world, or such 
 part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at 
 the window, wickedly persisted in calling it— her scowl had 
 done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office in establishing her cha- 
 racter as an ill-tempered old maid ; nor does it appear impro- 
 bable that, by often gazing at herself in a dim looking-glass, 
 and perpetually encountering her own frown within its ghostly 
 sphere, she had been led to interpret her expression almost 
 as unjustly as the world did. ' How miserably cross I look,' 
 she must often have whispered to herself; and ultimately 
 have fancied herself so by a sense of inevitable doom. But 
 her heart never frowned. It was naturally tender, sensitive, 
 and full of little tremors and palpitations ; all of which it 
 retained, while her visage was growing perversely stern, and 
 even fierce. Nor had Hepzibah ever any hardihood, except 
 what came from the very warmest nook in her affections. 
 
 " All this time, however, we are loitering faint-heartedly on 
 the threshold of our story. In very truth, we have a reluc- 
 tance to disclose what Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon was about 
 to do. 
 
 " It has already been observed, that in the basement story 
 of the gable fronting on the street, an unworthy ancestor, 
 nearly a century ago, had fitted up a shop. Ever since the 
 
 II 
 
482 KECOUECTIONS OF 
 
 old gentleman retired ft'om trade and fell asleep under his 
 coffln-lid, not only the shop-door, but the inner arrangements 
 had been suffered to remain unchanged, while the dust of ages 
 gathered inch-deep over the shelves and counter, and partly 
 filled an old pair of scales, as if it were of value enough to be 
 weighed. It treasured itself up too in the half-open till, where 
 there still lingered a base sixpence, worth neither more nor less 
 than the hereditary pride that had here been put to shame. 
 Such had been the condition and state of the little shop in 
 old Hepzibah's childhood, when she and her brother used to 
 play at hide-and-seek in its forsaken precincts. Such it had 
 remained uutil within a few days past. 
 
 " But now, though the shop-window was still closely cur- 
 tained from the public gaze, a remarkable change had taken 
 place in its interior. The rich and heavy festoons of cobweb 
 which it had cost a long ancestral succession of spiders their 
 hfe's labour to spin and weave, had been carefully brushed 
 away from the ceiling. The counter, shelves, and floor had all 
 been scoured, and the latter was overstrewn with fresh blue 
 sand. The brown scales, too, had evidently undergone rigid 
 discipline in an unavailing effort to rub oif the rust which, 
 alas ! had eaten through and through their substance. Neither 
 was the little old shop any longer empty of merchantable 
 goods. A curious eye, privileged to take an account of stock 
 and investigate behind the countei-, would have discovered a 
 barrel — yea, two or three barrels and half ditto — one contain- 
 ing fiour, another apples, and a third perhaps, Indian meal. 
 There was likewise a square box of pine-wood full of soap iu 
 bars ; also another of the same size, in which were tallow 
 candles, ten to the pound. A small stock of brown sugar, 
 some white beans and spUt peas, and a few other commodities 
 of low price, and such as are constantly in demand, made up 
 the bulkier portion of the merchandize. It might have been 
 taken for a ghostly or phantasmagoric reflection of the old 
 shopkeeper Pynchson's shabbily-provided shelves, save that 
 some of the articles were of a description and outward form 
 which would hardly have been known in his day. For in- 
 stance, there was a glass pickle-jar filled with fragments of 
 Gibraltar rook ; not indeed splinters of the veritable stone 
 production of the famous fortress, but bits of delectable 
 candy neatly done up in white paper. Jim Crow, moreover, 
 
A LITERAKY LIFE. 483 
 
 was seen executing his world-renowned dance in gingerbread. 
 A party of leaden dragoons were seen galloping along one of 
 the shelves in equipments and uniform of modern cut ; and 
 there were some sugar figures with no strong resemblance to 
 the humanity of any epoch, but less unsatisfactorily re- 
 presenting our own fashions than those of a hundred years 
 ago. Another phenomenon still more strikingly modem, was 
 a package of lucifer matches, which in old times would have 
 been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame 
 from the nether fires of Tophet. 
 
 " In short, to bring the matter at once to a point, it was 
 incontrovertibly evident that somebody had taken the shop 
 and fixtures of the long-retired and forgotten Mr. Pyncheon, 
 and was about to renew th« enterprise of that departed worthy 
 with a different set of customers. Who could this bold ad- 
 venturer be ? And of all places in the world why had he chosen 
 the House of the Seven Gables for the scene of his commercial 
 speculations ? 
 
 " We return to the elderly maiden. She at length withdrew 
 her eyes from the dark countenance of the Colonel's portrait, 
 heaved a sigh — indeed her breast was a very cave of jEoIus 
 that morning — and stepped across the room on tip-toe, as 
 is the customary gait of elderly women. Passing through an 
 intervening passage, she opened a door which communicated 
 with the shop just now so elaborately described, owing to the 
 projection of the upper atory, and still more to the dark 
 shadow of the Pyncheon elm, which stood almost directly in 
 front of the gable — the twilight here was still as much akin to 
 night as morning. Another heavy sigh from Miss Hepzibah, 
 after a moment's pause on the threshold, peering towards the 
 window with her near-sighted scowl, as if frowning down some 
 bitter enemy, she projected herself into the shop. The haste, 
 and, as it were, the galvanic impulse of the movement, were 
 quite startling. 
 
 " Nervously, in a sort of frenzy we might almost say, she 
 began to busy herself in arranging some children's playthings 
 and other little wares on the shelves and at the shop-window. 
 In the aspect of this dark-arrayed, pale-faced, ladylike old 
 figure, there was a deeply tragic character that contrasted 
 irreconoileably with the ludicrous pettiness of her employ- 
 ment. It seemed a strange anomaly, that so gaunt and 
 11 2 
 
484 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 dismal a personage should take a toy in hand ; a miracle, that 
 the toy did not vanish in her grasp ; a miserably absurd idea, 
 that she should go on perplexing her stiff and sombre intellect 
 with the question how to tempt little boys into her premises ! 
 Yet ,suoh is undoubtedly her object. Now she places a ginger- 
 bread elephant against the window, but with so tremulous a 
 touch that it tumbles upon the floor with the dismemberment 
 of three legs and its trunk ; it has ceased to be an elephant, 
 and has become a few bits of musty gingerbread. There again 
 she has upset a tumbler of marbles, all of which roll different 
 ways, and each individual marble, devil-directed, into the 
 most difficult obscurity that it can find. Heaven help our 
 poor old Hepzibah, and forgive us for taking a ludicrous view 
 of her position ! As her rigid and rusty frame goes down 
 upon its hands and knees in quest of the absconding marbles, 
 we positively feel so much the more inclined to shed tears of 
 sympathy from the very fact that we must needs turn aside 
 and laugh at her. For here — and if we fail to impress it 
 suitably upon the reader, it is our own fault and not that 
 of the theme — here is one of the truest points of interest that 
 occur in ordinary life. It was the final throe of what called 
 itself old gentility. A lady, who had fed herself from child- 
 hood with the shadowy food of aristocratic reminiscences, and 
 whose religion it was that a lady's hand soils itself imme- 
 diately by doing aught for bread, this born lady, after sixty 
 years of harrowing means, is fain to step down from her 
 pedestal of imaginary rank. Poverty, treading close upon her 
 heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last. She must 
 earn her own food or starve. And we have stolen upon Miss 
 Hepzibah Pyncheon too irreverently at the instant of time 
 when the patrician lady is to be transformed into the plebeian 
 woman. 
 
 " In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of 
 our social life, somebody is always at the drowning point. 
 The tragedy is enacted with as continual a repetition as that 
 of a popular drama on a holiday ; and, nevertheless, is felt as 
 deeply perhaps as when an hereditary noble sinks below his 
 . order. More deeply ; since with us rank is the grosser sub- 
 stance of wealth and a splendid establishment, and has no 
 spiritual existence after the death of these, but dies hopelessly 
 ?.long with them. And therefore since we have been so 
 
A LITERAHT LIFB. 485 
 
 unfortunate as to introduce our heroine at so inauspicious a 
 juncture, we would entreat for a mood of due solemnity in the 
 spectators of her fate. Let us behold in poor Hepzibah, the 
 immemorial lady, two hundred years old, on this side of the 
 water, and thrice as many on the other, with her antique 
 portraits, pedigrees, coats of arms, and her claim as first 
 heiress to that princely territory at the eastward, no longer a 
 wilderness but a populous fertility — born too in Pynoheon 
 Street, under the Pynoheon elm, and in the Pyncheon house 
 where she has spent all her days, reduced now in that very 
 house to be the huckstress of a cent shop. 
 
 "This business of setting up a petty shop is almost the 
 only resource of woman in circumstances at all similar to 
 tho.se of our unfortunate recluse. With her near-sightedness 
 and those tremulous fingers of hers, at once inflexible and 
 delicate, she could not be a seamstress, although her sampler 
 of fifty years gone-by exhibited some of the most recondite 
 specimens of ornamental needle-work. A school for little 
 children had been often in her thoughts, and, at one time, she 
 had begun a review of her early studies in the New England 
 Primer, with a view to prepare herself for the office of 
 instructress. But the love of children had never been 
 quickened in Hepzibah's heart, and was now torpid if not 
 extinct ; she watched the little people of the neighbourhood 
 from her chamber-window, and doubted whether she could 
 tolerate a more intimate acquaintance with them. Besides, 
 in our day the very ABC had become a science greatly too 
 abstruse to be any longer taught by pointing a pen from letter 
 to letter. A modern child could teach old Hepzibah more 
 than old Hepzibah could teach the child. So with many a 
 cold, deep heart-quake at the idea of at last coming into sordid 
 contact with the world, from which she bad so long kept 
 aloof, while every added day of seclusion had rolled another 
 stone against the cavern door of her hermitage, the poor thing 
 bethought herself of the ancient shop-window, the rusty 
 scales, and dusty till. She might have held back a little 
 longer ; but another circumstance not yet hinted at, had 
 somewhat hastened her decision. Her humble preparations, 
 therefore, were duly made, and the enterprise was now to be 
 commenced. Nor was she entitled to complain of any re- 
 markable singularity in her fate. For in the town of her 
 
486 RECOLLECTIONS OV 
 
 nativity we might point to several little shops of a similar 
 desciiption ; some of them in houses as ancient as that of the 
 Seven Gables, and one or two it may be where a decayed 
 gentlewoman stands behind the counter, as grim an image of 
 family pride as Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon herself. 
 
 " Oar miserable old Hepzibah ! It is a heavy annoyance to 
 a writer who endeavours to represent nature, its various atti- 
 tudes and circnmstanoes, in a reasonably correct outline and 
 true colouring, that so much of the mean and ludicrous should 
 be hopelessly mixed up with the purest pathos that life any- 
 where supplies to him. "What tragic dignity, for example, can 
 be wrought into a scene like this 1 How can we elevate our 
 history of retribution for sin of long ago, when, as one of our 
 most prominent figures, we are compelled to introduce, not 
 a young and lovely woman, nor even the stately remains of 
 beauty storm-shattered by affliction, but a gaunt, sallow, 
 rusty-jointed maiden, in a long-waisted silk gown, and with 
 the strange horror of a turban on her head ? Nevertheless, if 
 we look through all the heroic fortunes of mankind, we shall 
 find the same entanglement of something mean or trivial 
 with whatever is noblest in joy or sorrow. What is called 
 poetic insight is the gift of discerning in this sphere of 
 strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which 
 are compelled to assume a garb so sordid." 
 
 It would be difficult to deny the gift of "poetic insight" 
 to this mixture of admirable detail with something at once 
 higher and deeper. Balzac, the great novehst of modern 
 France, known only to those amongst us who thoroughly pos- 
 sess his language, for he is untranslated and untranslatable, 
 has in certain romances of provincial life the same perfection 
 of Dutch painting and of homely tragedy. But Mr. Hawthorne 
 is free from Balzac's scoff. The story of the first day behind 
 the counter goes on with inimitable truth, minuteness and 
 variety. The cracked bell tinkles, and the poor old lady 
 totters nervously to her post. Her first customer is a friendly 
 (Due ; a young artist — an artist after a somewhat American 
 fashion, a Daguerreotypist— who inhabited one of the Seven 
 Gables, and affords a capital specimen of the adventurous 
 youth of the United States. Manly, comely, cheerful, kind, 
 brimful of determined energy and common sense, he has 
 already tried some half-score of careers— schoolmaster, editor, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE 487 
 
 agent, engineer — and is sure to conquer fortune at last. Their 
 conversation lets us iuto much of the story, and shows besides 
 that poor Hepzibah will not make her fortune by her shop, 
 for he conies to purchase biscuits, and she begs to be for one 
 moment a gentlewoman, and not be forced into accepting 
 money from her only friend. Then comes an oldj humble, 
 sauntering neighbour, who again helps on the narrative ; then 
 a greedy boy, who finding the cent which he offered for the 
 gingerbread Jim Crow refused from pure disgust, returns in 
 half an hour and eats the elephant. Then the rich Judge 
 passes : and Hepzibah trembles as his shadow darkens the 
 window — and then the common crew. 
 
 "Customers came in as the forenoon advanced, but rather 
 slowly ; in some cases too, it must be owned, with little satis- 
 faction either to themselves or Miss Hepzibah ; nor, on the 
 whole, with an aggregate of very rich emolument to the till. 
 A little girl, sent by her mother to match a skein of cotton 
 thread of a peculiar hue, took one that the near-sighted old 
 lady pronounced extremely like, but very isobn came running 
 back with a blunt and cross message that it would not do, and 
 besides, was very rotten ! Then there was a pale, care- 
 wrinkled woman, not old, but haggard, and already with 
 streaks of grey among her hair, like silver ribbons ; one of 
 those women naturally delicate, whom you at once recognise 
 as worn to death by a brute, probably a drunken brute of a 
 husband, and at least nine children. She wanted a few pounds 
 of flour, and offered the money, which the decayed gentle- 
 woman silently rejected, and gave the poor soul better mea- 
 sure than if she had taken it. Shortly afterwards, a man in 
 a blue cotton frock, much soiled, came in and bought a pipe, 
 filHng the whole shop meanwhile with the hot odour of strong 
 drink, not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere of his breath, 
 but oosing out of his whole system, like an inflammable gas. 
 It was impressed on Hepzibah's mind that this was the hus- 
 band of the care-wrinkled woman. He asked for a paper of 
 tobacco, and as she had neglected to provide herself with the 
 article, her brutal customer dashed down his newly-purchased 
 pipe, and left the shop, muttering some unintelligible words, 
 which had the tone and bitterness of a curse. Hereupon 
 Hepzibah threw up her eyes, unintentionally soowhng in the 
 face of Providence. 
 
488 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 "No less than five persons during the forenoon inquired 
 for ginger-beer or root-beer, or any drink of a similar beve- 
 rage, and obtaining nothing of the kind, went off in exceedingly 
 bad humour. Three of them left the door open ; but the 
 other two pulled it so spitefully in going out, that it played 
 the very deuce with Hepzibah's nerves. A round, bustling, 
 fire-ruddy housewife of the neighbourhood burst breathless 
 into the shop, fiercely demanding yeast ; and when the poor 
 gentlewoman, with her cold shyness of manner, gave her 
 customer to understand that she did not keep the article, this 
 very capable housekeeper took upon herself to administer a 
 regular rebuke : 
 
 " ' A cent shop and no yeast ! ' quoth she ; ' that will never 
 do ! Who ever heard of such a thing ? Your loaf will never 
 rise, no more than mine will to-day. You had better shut up 
 shop at once.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said Hepzibah, heaving a deep sigh, ' perhaps I 
 had.' " 
 
 And so the day wears on. Some come obviously from 
 curiosity, and the old lady loses her temper, and becomes 
 more and more bewildered. 
 
 " Her final operation was with the little devourer of Jim 
 Crow and the elephant, who now proposed to eat a camel. In 
 her tribulation, she oiFered him first a wooden dragoon, and 
 next a handful of marbles ; neither of which being adapted 
 to his else omnivorous appetite, she hastily held out her 
 whole remaining stock of natural history in gingerbread, and 
 huddled the small customer out of the shop. She then 
 muffled the bell in an unfinished stocking, and put up the 
 oaken bar across the door. 
 
 " During the latter process, an omnibus came to a stand- 
 still under the branches of the elm-tree. A gentleman 
 alighted ; but it was only to offer his hand to a young girl, 
 whose slender figure nowise needing such assistance, now 
 lightly descended the steps, and made an airy httle jump 
 from the final one to the side-walk. She rewarded her cavalier 
 with a smile, the cheery glow of which was seen reflected on 
 his own face as he re-entered the vehicle. The girl then 
 turned towards the House of the Seven Gables ; to the door 
 of which meanwhile — not the shop-door, but the antique 
 portal — the omnibus man had carried a light trunk and a 
 
A LITEEAKT LIFE. 489 
 
 bandbox. First giving a, sharp rap of the old iron knocker, 
 he left his passenger and her luggage at the door-step and 
 departed. 
 
 "'Who can it be?' thought Hepzibah, who had been 
 screwing her visual organs into the aoutest focus of which 
 they were capable. 'The girl must have mistaken the 
 house.' 
 
 " She stole softly into the hall, and, herself invisible, gazed 
 through the side-lights of the portal at the young, blooming, 
 and very cheerful face which presented itself for admittance 
 into the gloomy old mansion. It was a, face to which almost 
 any door would have opened of its own accord. 
 
 " The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so 
 orderly and so obedient to common rules as you at once 
 recognise her to be, was widely in contrast at that moment 
 with everything around her. The sordid and ugly luxuriance 
 of gigantic weeds that grew in the angle of the house, and 
 the heavy projection that overshadowed her, and the time- 
 worn framework of the door, none of these things belonged 
 to her sphere. But even as a ray of sunshine, fall into what 
 dismal place it may, ii;stantaneously creates for itself a pro- 
 priety in being thercj so did it seem altogether fit that the 
 girl should be standing at the threshold. It was no less 
 evidently proper that the door should swing open to admit 
 her. The maiden Iswiy herself, sternly inhospitable in her 
 fii'st purposes, soon began to feel that the bolt ought to be 
 shoved back, and the rusty key be turned in the reluctant 
 lock. 
 
 " ' Can it be Phoebe ? ' questioned she within herself. ' It 
 must be little Phoebe ; for it can be nobody else ; and there 
 is a look of her father about her too ! Well ! she must have 
 a night's lodging, I suppose, and to-morrow the child shall go 
 back to her mother.' 
 
 " Phoebe Pyncheon slept, on the night of her arrival, in 
 a chamber that looked down on the garden of the old house. 
 It fronted towards the east, so that at a very seasonable hour 
 a glowing crimson light came flooding through the window 
 and bathed the dingy ceiling and paper-hangings of its own 
 hue. There were curtains to Phoebe's bed; a dark antique 
 canony and ponderous festoons, of a stuff that had been mag- 
 nificent in its time but which now brooded over the girl like 
 
4f)0 KECOLLECTIOKB OP 
 
 a cloud, making a night in that one corner, while elsewhere it 
 was beginning to be day. The morning light, however, soon 
 stole into the aperture at the foot of the bed betwixt those 
 faded curtains. Finding the new guest there with a bloom 
 on her cheeks like the morning's own, and a gentle stir of 
 departing slumber in her limbs, as when an early breeze 
 moves the foliage, the dawn kissed her brow. It was the 
 caress which a dewy maiden — such as the dawn is immortally 
 — gives to her sleeping sister, partly from the impulse of iiTe- 
 sistible fondness, and partly as a pretty hint that it is time 
 now to unclose her eyes. 
 
 " At the touch of those lips of light, Phoebe quietly awoke, 
 and for a moment did not recognise where she was, nor how 
 those heavy curtains chanced to be festooned around her. 
 Nothing indeed was absolutely plain to her, except that it 
 was now early morning, and that, whatever might happen 
 next, it was proper first of all to get up and say her prayers. 
 She was the more inclined to devotion from the grim aspect 
 of the chamber and its furniture, especially the tail stiff 
 chairs ; one of which stood close to her bedside, and looked 
 as if some old-fashioned personage had been sitting there 
 all night, and had vanished only just in season to escape 
 discovery. 
 
 " When Phoebe was quite dressed, she peeped out of the 
 window, and saw a rose-bush in the garden. Beiug a very 
 tall one, and of luxuriant growth, it had been propped up 
 against the side of the house, and was literally covered with 
 a rare and very beautiful species of white rose. A large 
 portion of them, as the girl afterwards discovered, had blight 
 or mildew at their hearts ; but viewed at a fair distance, the 
 whole rose-bush looked as if it had been brought from Eden 
 that very summer, together with the mould in which it grew. 
 The truth was, nevertheless, that it had been planted by 
 Alice Pyncheon— she was Phoebe's great-great-grand-aunt — ^in 
 soil which, reckoning only its cultivation as a garden-plat, 
 was now unctuous with nearly two hundred years of vegetable 
 decay. Growing as they did, however, out of the old earth, 
 the flowers still sent a fresh and sweet incense up to their 
 Creator ; nor could it have been the less pure and acceptable 
 because Phoebe's young breath mingled with it, as the fragrance 
 floated past the window. Hastening down the creaking and 
 
A MTEKARY LIFE. 491 
 
 carpetless staircase, she found her way into the garden, 
 gathered some of the most perfect of the roses, and brought 
 them to her chamber. 
 
 " Little Phoebe was one of those persons who possess, as 
 their exclusive patrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. 
 It is a kind of natural magic that enables these favoured 
 ones to bring out the hidden capabilities of things around 
 them ; and particularly to give a lools; of comfort and habit- 
 ableness to any place which, for however brief a period, may 
 happen to be their home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed 
 together by wayfarers through the primitive forest, would 
 acquire the home aspect by one night's lodging of such a 
 woman, and would retain it long after her quiet figure had 
 disappeared into the surrounding shade. No less a portion 
 of such homely witchcraft was requisite to reclaim, as it were, 
 Phoebe's waste, cheerless, dusky chamber, which had been 
 untenanted so long, except by spiders, and mice, and rats, and 
 ghosts, that it was all overgrown with the desolation which 
 watches to obliterate every trace of men's happier homes. 
 What was precisely Phcebe's process we find it impossible to 
 say. She appeared to have no preliminary design, but gave 
 a touch here and another there ; brought some ai'ticle.s of 
 furniture to light, and dragged others into the shadow ; looped 
 up or let down a window-curtain ; and in the course of half 
 an hour had fully succeeded in throwing a kind and hospitable 
 smile over the apartment. 
 
 "There was still another peculiarity of this inscrutable 
 charm. The bedchamber, no doubt, was a chamber of very 
 great and varied experience as a scene of human life. Here 
 had come the bridegroom with his bride ; new immortals had 
 here drawn their earliest breath ; and here the old had died. 
 But whether it were the white roses, or whatever the subtle 
 influence might be, a person of delicate instinct would have 
 known at once that it was now a maiden's bedchamber, and 
 had been purified of all former evil and sorrow by her sweet 
 breath and happy thoughts." 
 
 There is a touch of Gothe's Margaret, the Margaret of 
 "Faust," in the last paragraph. But Phcebe is a truly original 
 conception. To quote her thousand prettinesses of thought 
 and action, would be to copy half the volume. Suffice it that 
 she stays with her good old cross cousin ; and that, under her 
 
492 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 auspices, the shop flourishes, and the tottering mansion loses 
 half its gloom. 
 
 P.S. — I have just received an American reprint of Mr. Haw- 
 thorne's earliest volumes, " Twice Told Tales," two or three 
 of which are as fine as his larger efforts — one especially, in 
 which a story is told by a succession of unspoken sounds as 
 clearly as it could have been by pictures. It is one of Messrs. 
 Tioknor, Eeed, and Field's beautiful editions, and the preiace 
 and portrait are most interesting. Nothing can exceed the 
 modesty of that preface, and I am told that Mr. Hawthorne is 
 astonished at his own reputation, and thinks himself the most 
 over-rated man in America. Then that portrait — what a head ! 
 and he is said to be of the height and build of Daniel Webster. 
 So much the better. It is well that a fine intellect should be 
 fitly lodged ; such harmony is amongst the best and rarest of 
 natural gifts. 
 
 Mr. Hawthorne is engaged in another tale, and on a work 
 for young people, -which, from such a man, will probably prove 
 quite as acceptable to children of a larger growth as to those 
 for whom it is ostensibly written. 
 
 XL 
 OLD POETS., 
 
 ANDKEW MAEVELL. 
 
 Andrew Maevbll's very name suggests the idea of incor- 
 ruptible patriotism. The well-known story of his refusing a 
 court bribe, by calling his servant to prove that he had dined 
 three times upon a shoulder of mutton, although probably 
 apocryphal, serves to prove the notion universally entertained 
 of the uncompromising member for Hull,— unassailable as 
 Eobespierre himself to all money temptations, and strong 
 enough to have resisted the subtler temptations of power. 
 His learning, too, is generally acknowledged. He shared with 
 Milton the high and honourable office of Latin Secretary to 
 the Lord Protector, — was the champion of the great poet's 
 living reputation, the supporter of free principles against all 
 assailants, and is praised even by Swift, not addicted to over- 
 praise, for the keen wit and fiery eloquence of his polemical 
 
A UTERARY LIFE. 493 
 
 tr?.ots ; nay, the Dean paid him the still more unequivocal 
 compliment of imitating his style pretty closely. 
 
 As a poet he is little known, except to the professed and 
 unwearied reader of old folios. And yet his poems possess 
 many of the finest elements of popularity — a rich profusion 
 of fancy, which almost dazzles the mind as bright colours 
 dazzle the eye — an earnestness and heartiness which do not 
 always, do not often, belong to these flowery fancies, but 
 which, when found in their company, add to them inex- 
 pressible vitality and savour — and a frequent felicity of phrase, 
 which, when once read, fixes itself in the memory, and will 
 not be forgotten. 
 
 Mixed with these dazzling qualities is much carelessness 
 and a prodigality of conceits which the stern Roundhead 
 ought to have left, with other frippery, to his old enemies, the 
 Cavaliers. But it was the vice of the age— all ages have their 
 favourite hterary sins — and we must not blame MarveU too 
 severely for falling into an error to which the very exuberance 
 of his nature rendered him peculiarly prone. His mind was 
 a bright garden, such a garden as he has described so finely ; 
 and that a few gaudy weeds should mingle with the healthier 
 plants, does but serve to prove the fertility of the soil. 
 
 BERMUDAS. 
 
 Where the remote Bermudas ride 
 
 In the ocean s bosom unespied ; 
 
 From a smiiJl hoat that rowed along 
 
 The listening winds received their song. 
 
 " What should we do but sing His praise 
 
 That led ns through the watery maze. 
 
 Unto an isle so long unknown, 
 
 And yet far kinder than our own ? 
 
 " Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks 
 
 That lift the deep upon their backs, 
 
 He lands us on a grassy stage, 
 
 Safe from the storms and prelate's rage. 
 
 " He gave us this eternal spring, 
 
 Which here enamels everything ; 
 
 And sends the fowls to us in care 
 
 On daily visits through the air. 
 
 '■ He hangs in shades the orange bright 
 
 Like golden lamps in a green night. 
 
 And does in the pomegranates close 
 
 Jewels more rich than Ormus shows. 
 
494 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 " He mates the figs our mouths to meet ; 
 And throws the melons at our fnet ; 
 But apples, plants of such a price, 
 No tree could ever bear them twice. 
 " With cedars, chosen by His Hand, 
 From Lebanon He stores the land ; 
 And makes the hollow seas that roar 
 Proclaim the ambergris on shore. 
 " He easts, of which we rather boast, 
 The Gospel's pearl upon our coast ; 
 And in these rocks for us did frame 
 A Temple where to sound His name. 
 " Oh let our voice His praise exalt 
 Till it shall reach to Heaven's vault. 
 Which thence, perhaps, rebounding may 
 Echo beyond the Mexique bay ! " 
 Thus sang they in the English boat, 
 A holy and a cheerful note ; 
 And all the way, to guide their chime, 
 With falling oars they kept the time. 
 
 THE GARDEK. 
 
 How vainly men themselves amaze 
 Tj win the palm, the oak, or bays ; 
 And their incessant labours see 
 Crowned from some single herb or tree, 
 Whose short and narrow verged shade 
 Does prudently their toils upbraid : 
 While all the flowers and trees do close, 
 To weave the garland of repose. 
 
 Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, 
 And Inuocenoe, thy sister dear ? 
 Mistaken long, I sought you then 
 In busy companies of men. 
 Your sacred plants, if here below. 
 Only among the plants will grow. 
 Society is all but rude 
 To this delicious solitude. 
 
 No white nor red was ever seen 
 
 So amorous as this lovely greeu. 
 
 Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, 
 
 Cut in these trees their mistiess' name. 
 
 Little, alas ! they know or lieed 
 
 How far these beauties her exceed ! 
 
 Fair trees ! where'er your backs I wound, 
 
 No name shall but your own be found. 
 
 ■When we have run our passion's heat, 
 Love hither makes his best retreat. 
 
A LITERARY LIFK. 495 
 
 The gorls, who mortal beauty chase, 
 Still in a tree did end their race. 
 Apollo hunted Daphne so, 
 Only that she might laurel grow; 
 And Pan did after Syrinx speed, 
 Not as a nymph, but for a seed. 
 
 What wondrous life in this T lead I 
 Ripe apples drop about my head ; 
 The luscious clusters of the vine 
 Upon my mouth do crush their wine ; 
 The nectarine, the curious peach 
 Into my hands themselves do reach ; 
 Stumbling on melons, as I pass. 
 Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 
 
 Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less 
 
 Withdraws into its happiness ; 
 
 The mind, that ocean, where each kind 
 
 Does straight its own resemblance find, 
 
 Yet it creates, transcending these, 
 
 Far other worlds, and other seas ; 
 
 Annihilating all that's made 
 
 To a green thought in a green shade. 
 
 Here at the fountain's sliding foot. 
 Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, 
 Casting the body's vest aside, 
 My soul into the boughs does glide : 
 There like a bird it sits and sings. 
 Then whets and claps its silver wings ; 
 And till prepared for longer flight. 
 Waves in its plumes the various light. 
 
 Such was that happy garden-state. 
 While man there walked without a mate ; 
 After a place so pure and sweet. 
 What other help could yet be meet I 
 But 'twas beyond a mortal's share 
 To wander solitary there ; 
 Two Paradises are in one. 
 To live in Paradise alone ! 
 
 How well the skilful gardener drew 
 Of flowers and herbs this dial new : 
 Where, from above, the milder sun 
 Does through a fragrant Zodiac run : 
 And as it works, the industrious bee 
 Computes his time as well as we. 
 How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
 Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers ? 
 
 Wicked person ! I was over-charitable in forgiving his con- 
 ceits. It is not in woman to pardon his want of gallantry. 
 One can only suppose that the unhajipy man was an old 
 
496 EECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 bachelor. If the last stanza but one be provoking to female 
 vanity, the last of all excites another feminine quality, called 
 curiosity. What does the new dial mean ? Is there really 
 nothing new under the sun 1 And had they in the middle of 
 the seventeenth century discovered the horologe of Flora ? 
 
 THE NYMPH OOMFLAINIKQ POR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN. 
 
 The wanton troopers riding by 
 
 Have shot my fawn, and it will die. 
 
 Ungentle men ! they cannot thrive 
 
 Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst alive 
 
 Them any harm. Alas ! nor could 
 
 Thy death to them do any good. 
 
 I 'm sure I never wished them ill ; 
 
 jSTor do I for all this ; nor will : 
 
 Bat if my simple prayers may yet 
 
 Prevail with Heaven to forget 
 
 Thy murder, I will join my tears 
 
 Rather than fail. But oh, my fears ! 
 
 It cannot die so. Heaven's King 
 
 Keeps register of everything, 
 
 And nothing may we use in vain : 
 
 Even beasts must be with justice slain. 
 
 * * * » 
 
 Inconstant Silvio, when yet 
 I had not found him counterfeit, 
 One morning (I remember well). 
 Tied in this silver chain and bell, 
 Gave it to me ; nay, and I know 
 What he said then ; I 'm sure I do. 
 Said he, " Look how your huntsman here 
 Hath taught a fawn to hunt his deer." 
 But Silvio soon hath me beguiled. 
 This wasfed tame, while he grew wild, 
 And, quite regardless of my smart. 
 Left me his fawn, but took his heart. 
 Thenceforth I set myself to play 
 My solitary time away 
 With this, and very well content 
 Could so my idle life have spent ; 
 For it was full of sport, and light 
 Of foot and heart ; and did invite 
 Me to its game ; it seemed to bless 
 Itself in me. How could I less 
 Than love it ? Oh ! I cannot be 
 Unkind to a beast that loveth me. 
 Had it lived long, I do not know 
 Whether it too might have done so 
 As Silvio did; his gifts might be 
 Perhaps as false or more than he. 
 
A. LITERARY LIFt". 497 
 
 Bat I am sure, for aught that I 
 
 Could in so short a time espy, 
 
 Thy love was far more better than 
 
 The love of false and cruel man. 
 
 With sweetest milk and sugar, first 
 
 I it at my own fingers nurst ; 
 
 And, as it grew, so every day 
 
 It waxed more sweet and white than thev : 
 
 It had so sweet a breath. And oft 
 
 I blushed to see its foot more soft 
 
 And white, shall I say than my hand f 
 
 Nay, any lady's of the land. 
 
 It is a wondrous thing how fleet 
 
 'T was on those little silver feet ; 
 
 With what a pretty skipping grace 
 
 It oft would challenge me the race ; 
 
 And, when 't had left me far away, 
 
 'T would stay, and run again, and stay ; 
 
 For it was nimbler much than hinds. 
 
 And trod as if on the four winds. 
 
 I have a garden of my own, 
 
 But so with roses overgrown 
 
 And lUiea, that you would it guess 
 
 To be a little wilderness. 
 
 And all the spring-time of the year 
 
 It only lov&d to be there. 
 
 Among the beds of lilies I 
 
 Have sought it oft where it should lie, 
 
 Yet could not, till itself would rise, 
 
 Find it, although before mine eyes ; 
 
 For in the flaxen lUies' shade 
 
 It like a bank of lUies laid ; 
 
 Upon the roses it would feed. 
 
 Until its lips even seemed to bleed ; 
 
 And then to me 't would boldly trip, 
 
 And print those roses on my lip. 
 
 But all its chief delight was still 
 
 On roses thus itself to fill. 
 
 And its pure virgin limbs to fold 
 
 In whitest sheets of lilies cold. 
 
 Had it lived long, it would have beau 
 
 Lilies without, roses within. . 
 
 * m * » 
 
 Nothing can exceed the tender grace, the delicate prettiness 
 of this little poem. There is a trippingness in the measure, 
 now stopping short, now bounding on, which could not have 
 been exceeded by the playful motions of the poor fawn itself. 
 We must forgive his want of gallantry; it must have been all 
 pretence. No true woman-hater could so have embodied a 
 
498 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 feeling peculiar to the sex, the innocent love of a young girl 
 for her innocent pet. 
 
 I must find room for a few stanzas of Marvell's Horatian 
 Ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland. Fine as the praise 
 of Cromwell is, it yields in grandeur and beauty to the tribute 
 paid by the Eoundhead poet to the demeanour of the King 
 upon the scaffold, by far the noblest of the many panegyrics 
 upon the martyred King. 
 
 Tis time to leave the books in dust, 
 And oil the unused armour's rust ; 
 
 Removing from the wall 
 
 The corselet o' he hall. 
 
 So restless CroD',rt'«ll could not cease 
 In the Inglorious arts of peace, 
 
 But through adventurous war 
 
 Urgfed his active star : 
 
 i!r ^ St Jjff 
 
 And if we would speak true, 
 Kuch to the man is due. 
 
 Who from his private gardens, -where 
 He lived reserved and austere, 
 
 (As if his highest plot 
 
 To plant the bergamot). 
 
 Could by industrious valour climb 
 To win the greatest work of Time, 
 
 And cast the kingdoms old 
 
 Into another mould ! 
 
 Though justice against fate complain 
 
 And plead the ancient rights in vain. 
 
 But those do hold or break 
 
 As men are strong or weak. 
 
 iN'ature that hateth emptiness 
 
 Allows of penetration less. 
 
 And therefore must make room 
 Where greater spirits come. 
 
 What field of all the civil war 
 Where his were not the deepest soar ! 
 
 And Hampden shows what part 
 
 He had of wiser art : 
 
 Where, twining civil fears with hope, 
 lie wove a net of such a scope, 
 
 That Charles himself might chaso 
 To Carisbrooke'a narrow case : 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 499 
 
 That thence the royal actor borne 
 The tragic scaffold might adorn. 
 
 While round the armJd bands 
 
 Did clap their bloody hands, 
 He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 
 But ■with his keener eye 
 
 The axe's edge did try : 
 
 Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, 
 To vindicate his helpless right ; 
 
 But bowed his comely head 
 
 Down, as upon a bed. 
 
 Aud he who wrote this was Cromwell's Latin Secretary ! — 
 and Cromwell's other Latin Secretary was Milton ! There 
 have been many praises of the Lord Protector written latterly, 
 but these two facts seem to me worth them all. 
 
 XLI. 
 SCOTTISH POETS. 
 
 WILLIAM MOTHBEWELL. 
 
 Two of the ballads of William Motherwell are amongst the 
 most beautiful in the Scottish dialect, so full of lyrical beauty ; 
 and yet the one that is the most touching is scarcely known, 
 except to a few lovers of poetry. " Jeanie Morrison," indeed, 
 has an extensive popularity in Scotland ; and yet even that 
 charming song is comparatively little known in this country. 
 
 Bvirns is the only poet with whom, for tenderness and 
 pathos, Motherwell can be compared. The elder bard has 
 written much more largely, is more various, more fiery, more 
 abundant ; but I doubt if there be in the whole of his collec- 
 tion anything so exquisitely finished, so free from a line too 
 many, or a word out of place, as the two great ballads of 
 Motherwell. Aud let young writers observe that this finish 
 was the result, not of a curious felicity, but of the nicest 
 elaboration. By touching and retouching, during many years, 
 did " Jeanie Morrison " attain her perfection ; and yet how 
 completely has art concealed art ! How entirely does that 
 charming song appear like an irrepressible gush of feeling that 
 ■would find vent ! In " My held is like to rend, Willie," the 
 KK 2 
 
SOO RECOLUECTIONS OF 
 
 appearance of spontaneity is still more striking, as the passion 
 is more intense — intense, indeed, almost to painfulness. 
 
 Like Burns, Motherwell died before he attained his fortieth 
 year ; and like him, too, although a partisan of far different 
 opinions, he was ardently engaged in political discussion as 
 the editor of a Tory newspaper, in Glasgow. He was even the 
 secretary of an institution that sounds strangely in English 
 ears — a Scotch Orange Lodge. I notice these facts, only to 
 observe that they are already almost forgottSb. The elements 
 of bitterness and hatred, in which the politician revels, Uve 
 through their little day, then pass away for ever ; while the 
 deep and pure feelings of a true poet are imperishable. 
 
 As with " Percy's Reliques," my own copy of Mothei-well 
 has to me an interest besides that of its high literary merits. 
 If I would explain the source of that interest, I must even 
 tell the story, luckOy a very short one. 
 
 Three years ago, a friend, to whom I owe a thousand obli- 
 gations of all sorts and kinds, posted London over to procure 
 this volume. Now, my friend is a man of book-shops and 
 book-stalls, but only one copy could he meet with, and that 
 was neither Scotch nor English, but American, from the great 
 Boston publishers, Ticknor and Company. The book became 
 immediately a favourite, and was laid on the table — a phrase 
 which in my little drawing-room has a very different sense 
 from that which it bears in the House of Commons. 
 
 One fine summer afternoon, shortly after I had made this 
 acquisition, two young Americans made their appearance, 
 with letters of introduction from some honoured friends. 
 There was no mention of profession or calling, but I soon 
 found that they were not only men of intelligence and educa- 
 tion, but of literary taste and knowledge ; one especially had 
 the look, the air, the conversation of a poet. We talked 
 on many subjects, and got at last to the delicate question 
 of American reprints of English authors ; on which, much to 
 their delight and a little to their surprise, there was no dis- 
 agreement ; I for my poor part pleading guilty to the taking 
 pleasure in such a diffusion of my humble works. " Besides," 
 continued I, "you send us better things — things otherwise 
 unattainable. I could only procure the fine poems of Mother- 
 well in this Boston edition." My two visitors smiled at each 
 other. " This is' a most singular coincidence," cried the one 
 
A LITERARY BIFE. 501 
 
 whom I knew by instiuct to be a poet. " I am a younger 
 partner in this Boston house, and at my pressing instance 
 this book was reprinted. I cannot tell you how pleased I am 
 to see it here ! " 
 
 Mr. Field's visit was necessarily brief; but that short inter- 
 view has laid the foundation of a friendship which will, I 
 think, last as long as my frail life, and of which the benefit is 
 all on my side. He sends me charming letters, verses which 
 are fast ripening into true poetry, excellent books ; and this 
 autumn he brought back himself, and came to pay me a second 
 visit ; and he mixst come again, for of all the kindnesses with 
 which he loads me, I like his company best. 
 
 My held is like to rend, Willie, 
 My heart is like to break, — 
 
 I 'm wearin' aff my feet, WiUie, 
 I 'm dying for your sake ! 
 
 lay your cheek to mine, Willie, 
 Your band on my briest-bane, — 
 
 say ye'll think on me, Willie, 
 When I am deid and gane ! 
 
 It 'a vain to comfort me, Willie, 
 
 Sair grief maun ha'e its will, — 
 But let me rest upon your briest, 
 
 To sab and greet my fill. 
 Let me sit on your knee, Willie, 
 
 Let me shed by your hair. 
 And look into the face, Willie, 
 
 I never sail see mair ! 
 
 1 'm sittiu' on your knee, Willie, 
 
 For the last time in my life, — 
 A puir heart-broken thing, Willie, 
 
 A mither, yet nae wife. 
 Ay, press your hand upon my heart. 
 
 And press it mair and mair, — 
 Or it will burst the silken twine, 
 
 Sae strong is its despair ! 
 
 Oh wae's me for the hour, Willie, 
 
 When we thegither met, — 
 Oh wae's me for the time, Willie, 
 
 That our first tryst was set ! 
 Oh wae 's me for the loanin' green 
 
 Where we were wont to gae, — 
 And wae's me for the destinie 
 
 That gaii; me luve thee sae ! 
 
502, RECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 Oil ! dinna mind my words, Willie, 
 
 I dowua seek to blame, — 
 But oh ! it 's hard to live, Willie, 
 
 And dree a warld's shame ! 
 Het tears are hailin' o'er your cheek 
 
 And hailin' o'er your chin ; 
 Why weep ye sae for worthlessness, 
 
 For soiTow and for sin ! 
 
 I 'm weary of this warld, Willie, 
 
 And sick yn.* a' I see, — 
 I canna live as I hae lived. 
 
 Or be as I should be. 
 But fauld unto your heart, Willie, 
 
 The heart that still is thine, — 
 And kiss ance mair the white white cheek 
 
 Ye said was red lang syne. 
 
 A stoun' gaea through my heid, Willie, 
 
 A sair stoun' through my heart, — 
 Oh ! haud me up and let me kiss 
 
 Thy brow ere we twa pairt. 
 Anither, and anither yet. 
 
 How fast my heart-strings break ! — 
 Fareweel ! fareweel ! through yon kirkyard 
 
 Step lichtly for my sake ! 
 
 The laverock in the lift, Willie, 
 
 That lilts far ower our heid. 
 Will sing the morn as merrilie 
 
 Abune the clay-cauld deid ; 
 And this green turf we're sittin' on 
 
 Wi' dew-draps shimmerin' sheen, 
 Will hap the heart that luvit thee 
 
 As warld has seldom seen. 
 
 But oh ! remember me, Willie, 
 
 On land where'er ye be, — 
 And oh ! think on the leal, leal heai-t. 
 
 That ne'er luvit ane but thee ! 
 And oh ! think on the cauld, cauld mools, 
 
 That file my yellow hair, — 
 That kiss the cheek, and kiss the chin 
 
 Ye never sail kiss mair ! 
 
 The following Cavalier Song was first given by Motherwell 
 as an original manuscript by Lovelace, aooidently discovered 
 on a fly-leaf of his poems. The story found believers. They 
 ought to have seen that the imitation, though very skilful, 
 was too close. Lovelace was the last man in the world to have 
 repeated his own turns of phrase. 
 
A. LITERARY LIFB. 503 
 
 A steede ! a steede of matoUesa speed, 
 
 A aword of metal keene ! 
 All else to noble heartes is drosse, 
 
 All else on earth is meane. 
 The ueighyinge of the war-horae prowde, 
 
 The rowliuge of the drum, 
 The clangor of the trumpet lowde, 
 
 Be soundes from heaven that come. 
 And oh 1 the thundering presse of knightea 
 
 When aa their war-cryes swell. 
 May toll from heaven an angel brighte, 
 
 And rouse a £end from hell. 
 
 Then mouute I then mounte, brave gallants, all, 
 
 And don your helmea amalne , 
 Death'a oouriera. Fame and Honour, oall 
 
 Us to the field againe. 
 No shrewish teares shall fill our eye 
 
 When the sword-hilt's in our hand — 
 Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe 
 
 For the fayreat of the land ; 
 Let piping swaine and craven wight 
 
 Thus weep and puling orye. 
 Our business is like men to fight. 
 
 And hero-like to die ! 
 
 JEANIE MORKISON. 
 
 I've wandei'ed east, I've wandered west, 
 
 Through niony a weary way ; 
 But never, never can forget 
 
 The luve 6' life's young day ! 
 The fire that's blawn on Beltane e'en 
 
 May weel be black gin Yule ; 
 But blacker fa' awaits the heart 
 
 Where first fond love grows oule. 
 
 dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, 
 
 The thochts o' bygane years 
 Still fling their shadows ow'r my path 
 
 And blind my een wi' tears : 
 They blind my een wi' saut, aaut tears. 
 
 And sair and sick I pine. 
 As memory idly summons up 
 
 The blithe blinks o' langsyne. 
 
 'Twas then we luvit ilk ither weel, 
 
 'Twas then we twa did part ; 
 Sweet time ! sad time ! twa bairns at schule, 
 
 Twa bairns and but ae heart ! 
 'Twas then we sat on ae laigh bink, 
 
 To leir ilk ither lear ; 
 And tones and looks and smiles were shed, 
 
 Remembered ever mair. 
 
504 KECOLLECTIONS OP 
 
 I wonder, Jeanie, aften yet, 
 
 When sitting on that bink, 
 Cheek touchin' cheek, loof locked in loof, 
 
 What our wee heads could think ? 
 When baith bent doun ower ae braid page 
 
 Wi' ae buik on our knee, 
 Thy lids were on thy lesson, but 
 
 My lesson was in thee. 
 
 Oh mind ye how we hung our heads. 
 
 How cheeks brent red wi' shame. 
 Whene'er the achule-weans laughin' said 
 
 We cleeked thegither hame ? 
 And mind ye o' the Saturdays 
 
 (The scule then skail't at noon). 
 When we ran aff to speel the braes, 
 
 The broomy braes o' June ? 
 
 My head rins round and round about. 
 
 My heart flows like a sea, 
 As ane by ane the thochts rush back 
 
 0' scule-time and o' thee. 
 mornin' life ! momin' luve ! 
 
 lichtsome days and lang, 
 When hinnied hopes around our hearts 
 
 Like simmer blossoms sprang. 
 
 Oh, mind ye, luve, how oft we left 
 
 The deavin* dinsome toun. 
 To wander by the green burnside, 
 
 And hear its waters croon ? 
 The simmer leaves hung ower our heads, 
 
 The flowers burst round our feet. 
 And in the gloamin' o' the wood 
 
 The throssil whusslit sweet. 
 
 The throssil whusslit in the wood. 
 
 The burn sang to the trees, 
 And we with Nature's heart in tune 
 
 Concerted harmonies ; 
 And, on the knowe abune the bum, 
 
 For hours thegither sat 
 r the silentness o' joy, till baith 
 
 Wi' very gladness grat. 
 
 Ay, ay, dear Jeanie Morrison, 
 
 Tears trinkled doun your cheek. 
 Like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane 
 
 Had ony power to speak I 
 That was a time, a blessed time. 
 
 When hearts were fresh and young. 
 When freely gushed all feelings forth 
 
 Unsyllabled, unsung ! 
 
A LITERARY IIPB. 503 
 
 I marvel, Jeanie Morrison, 
 
 Gin I hae been to thee 
 As closely twined wi' earliest thoohta 
 
 As ye hae been to me ? 
 Oh ! tell (ne gin their musin fills 
 
 Thine ear as it does mine ? 
 Oh ! say gin e'er your heai-t grov/s grit 
 
 Wi' dreamings o' lang syne ? 
 
 I 've wandered east, I 've wandered west, 
 
 I 've borne a weary lot ; 
 But in my wanderings, far or near. 
 
 Ye never were forgot. 
 That fount that first burst frae this heart 
 
 Still travels on itn way ; 
 And channels deeper as it rius, 
 
 The luve o' life's young day. 
 
 Oh, dear, dear Jeanie Morrison, 
 
 Since we were sindered young, 
 I've never seen your face, nor heard 
 
 The music o' your tongue ; 
 But I could hug all wretchedness. 
 
 And happy could I die. 
 Did I but ken your heart still dreamed 
 
 0' bygane days and me ! 
 
 XLII. 
 GREAT PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 LORD EAOON — JOHN MILTON — ^JEREMY TAYLOR — JOHN RUSKIN — 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Of the many illustrious prose writers who adorned the reigns 
 of Elizabeth and James the First, Bacon is the one whose 
 shrewdness, and power, and admirable good sense have left 
 the deepest traces in our literature. His essays are still read 
 with avidity and delight, every fresh perusal bringing forth 
 fresh proofs of his knowledge of human nature and felicity of 
 language. We cannot but be grateful to the author, however 
 we may dislike as a man the treacherous friend of Essex and 
 the cringing parasite of James. 
 
 I do not know any single passage that more advantageously 
 displays his fulness and richness of thought and of style than 
 this on the use of study. 
 
 "Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. 
 
506 KECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring ; for 
 ornament is in discourse ; and for ability is in the judgment 
 and disposition of business ; for expert men can execute, and 
 perhaps judge of particulars one by one ; but the general 
 counsels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs come best 
 from those that are learned. To spend too much time in 
 studies is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament is affec- 
 tation ; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour 
 of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by 
 experience ; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that 
 need pruning by study ; and studies themselves do give forth 
 directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by 
 experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire 
 them, and wise men use them ; for they teach not their own 
 use ; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, 
 won by observation. Read, not to contradict and confute, 
 nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and 
 discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be 
 tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and 
 digested : that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; 
 others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be 
 read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books 
 also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by 
 others ; but that would be only in the less important argu- 
 ments, and the meaner sort of books ; else distilled books are 
 like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh 
 a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact 
 man ; and, therefore, if a man write httle, he had need have 
 a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a 
 present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much 
 cunning to seem to know that he doth not." 
 
 I add one very fine illustration : 
 
 " If the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which 
 carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and con- 
 sooiateth the most remote regions in participation of their 
 fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which 
 as ships pass through the vast sea of Time, and make ages so 
 distant participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inven- 
 tions, the one of the other ! " 
 
 In John Milton's grand and holy fame there is no alloy. 
 The man was as great and pure as the author. I am not sure 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 507 
 
 whether (always excepting the minor poepas) I do not prefer 
 the stately and weighty march of his prose, even to his lofty 
 and resounding verse. I select some noble passages from his 
 " Appeal for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." 
 
 " I do not deny but it is of the greatest concernment in the 
 Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books 
 demean themselves as well as men ; and therefore to confine, 
 imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors ; for 
 books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency 
 of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny 
 they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in a phial, the purest 
 efiBcacy and extraction of that which bred them. I know 
 they are as lively, as vigorously productive as those fabulous 
 dragons' teeth ; and being sown up and down, may chance to 
 spring up armed men ; and yet, on the other hand, unless 
 wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good 
 book : who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's 
 image : but he who kills a good book, kills reason itself, kills 
 the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives 
 a burden to the earth ; but a good book is the precious life- 
 blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on 
 purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true no age can restore a 
 life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss ; and revolutions 
 of ages do not often recover the loss of a rejected truth, for 
 the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should 
 be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the 
 living labours of public men ; how spill that treasured life of 
 man preserved and stored up in books, since we see what 
 a homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of 
 martyrdom ; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind 
 of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying an 
 elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and soft essence, 
 the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than 
 
 a hfe. 
 
 » * * » * 
 
 " Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up 
 together almost inseparably ; and the knowledge of good is so 
 involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in 
 so many cunning resemblances hardly to be discerned, that 
 those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an 
 incessant labour to cull out and sort asunder, were not more 
 
508 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 
 intermixed. It was from out the rind of one apple tasted 
 that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving 
 together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is 
 that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, 
 that is to say, of knowing good by evil. As, therefore, 
 the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to 
 choose, what continence to forbear, without the know- 
 ledge of evil 1 He that can apprehend and consider vice with 
 all her baits and seeming pleasures and yet abstain, and 
 yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he 
 is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive 
 and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never 
 sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race 
 where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust 
 and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, 
 we bring impurity much rather. That which purifies us is 
 trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue, there- 
 fore, which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, 
 and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers 
 and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a grace ; which was 
 the reason why our sage and serious poet Spenser (whom 
 I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotua or 
 Aquinas), describing true temperance under the person of 
 Guion, brings him in with his palmer through the cave of 
 Mammon and the bower of earthly bliss that he might see 
 and know, and yet abstain. 
 
 ***** 
 "If, therefore, ye be loith to dishearten utterly and dis- 
 content, not the mercenary crew and false pretenders to 
 learning, but the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently 
 were born to study, and love learning for itself, not for lucre, 
 or any other end, but the service of God and of truth, and 
 perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of pi-aise which God 
 and good men have consented shall be the reward of those 
 whose published labours advance the good of mankind ; then 
 know that so far to disturb the judgment and. honesty of one 
 who hath but a common repute in learning, and never yet 
 offended, as not to count him fit to print his mind without a 
 tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a schism or some- 
 thing of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity 
 to a free. and knowing spirit that can be put upon him. What 
 
A LIIBHAHY LIFE. 509 
 
 advantage is it to be a man over a boy at school if we have 
 only escaped the ferula to come under the fescue of an impri- 
 mator ? — if serious and elaborate writings, as if they were no 
 more than the theme of a grammar lad under his pedagogue, 
 must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a temporising 
 and extemporising licenser ? He who is not trusted with his 
 own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and standing 
 to the hazard of the law and penalty, has no great reason 
 to think himself reputed in the Commonwealth wherein 
 he was bom for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man 
 writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and de- 
 liberation to assist him ; he searches, meditates, is industrious, 
 and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends ; 
 after all which is done, he takes himself to be informed in 
 what he writes, as well as any that writ before him ; if in this, 
 the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no in- 
 dustry, no former proof of his ability can bring him to that 
 state of maturity as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, 
 unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight 
 watohings, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps 
 much his younger, perhaps much his inferior in judgment, 
 and perhaps one who never knew the labour of book- writing." 
 
 " And lest some should persuade ye. Lords and Commons, 
 that these arguments of learned men's discouragement at 
 this your order, are mere flourishes, and not real, I could 
 recount what I have seen and heard in other countries, where 
 this kind of inquisition tyrannises ; when I have sat amongst 
 their learned men (for that honour I had) and been counted 
 happy to be bom in such a place of philosophic freedom as 
 they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing 
 but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst 
 them was brought ; that this was it which had damped the 
 glory of Italian wits ; that nothing had been there written 
 now these many years but flattery and fashion. There 
 it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown 
 old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy 
 otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican masters 
 thought. And though I knew that England was then groan- 
 ing loudest under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless,.! took it 
 
510 EECOIXECTIONS OP 
 
 as a pledge of future happiness that other nations were so 
 persuaded of her liberty." 
 
 " Lords and Commons of England ! consider what nation 
 it is whereof ye are the governors ; a nation not slow and 
 dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spii'it, acute to 
 invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach 
 of any point that human capacity can soar to. * * * Methinks 
 I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation, rousing herseli 
 like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible looks ; 
 methinks I see her as an eagle, showing her mighty youth 
 and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam ; 
 purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain 
 itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole voice of timorous 
 and flocking birds, with those also that love the twihght, 
 flutter about amazed at what she means. 
 
 » * « » * 
 
 " Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play 
 upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injudiciously, 
 by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let 
 her and Falsehood grapple ; who ever knew Truth put to the 
 worse in a free and open encounter 1 Her confuting is the 
 best and purest suppressing. He who hears what praying 
 there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among 
 us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond 
 the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricated already to our 
 hands. Yet when the new hght which we beg for shines in 
 upon us, there be who envy and oppose if it come not first in 
 at their casements. What a collusion is this ! whereas we are 
 exhorted by the wise man to use dihgence, ' to seek for wisdom 
 as for hidden treasures,' early and late, that another order 
 shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute ! When a 
 man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep 
 mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all 
 their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle 
 ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls 
 out his adversary into the plain, ofiers him the advantage of 
 wind and sun if he please, only that he may try the matter 
 by dint of argument ; for his opponents then to skulk, to lay 
 ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the 
 challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldier- 
 
LITER AKY LIFE. 511 
 
 ship, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. 
 For who knows not that Truth is strong next to the Almighty V 
 She needs no poUcies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make 
 her victorious ; those are the shifts and the defences that 
 error uses against her power. Give her but room, and do not 
 bind her when she sleeps." 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, the great ornament of English pulpit elo- 
 q^uence, is the fit successor of John Milton ; yet no two 
 writers, each being so admirable, can be more different. The 
 prelate, with his inimitable grace, his fertiUty, and his fancy ; 
 the poet, with his fulness, his grandeur, and his force. They 
 who would enjoy the pleasure of seeing the life and works of 
 Bishop Taylor related and analysed by a kindred mind, should 
 read the charming work of my friend, Mr. Willmott. I con- 
 tent myself with extracting one splendid passage from his 
 sermon on the Marriage Bing. 
 
 " Marriage is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the 
 duty of parents and the charity of i-elations ; here kindness 
 is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre. 
 Marriage is the nursery of heaven. The virgin sends prayers 
 to God, but she carries but one soul to Him ; but the state of 
 marriage fills up the number of the elect, and hath in it the 
 labour of love and the delicacies of friendship, the blessing of 
 society, and the union of hands and hearts. It hath in it 
 less of beauty but more of safety than the single life ; it hath 
 more ease but less danger ; it is more merry and more sad ; is 
 fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys ; it lies under more bur- 
 dens, but is supported by all the strengths of love and charity, 
 and those burdens are delightful. 
 
 " Marriage is the mother of the world, and preserves king- 
 doms, and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself. Celibate, 
 like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual 
 sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singu- 
 larity ; but marriage, like the useful bee, builds a house, and 
 gathers sweetness from every flower, and labours and unites 
 into societies and repubUcs, and sends out colonies, and feeds 
 the world with delicacies, and obeys their King, and keeps 
 order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the interest 
 of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God 
 hath designed the present constitution of the world." 
 
 Mr. Buskin's name is not unworthy of being included in 
 
512 BECOIiLECTIONS OF 
 
 this illustrious catalogue. Nothing in modern literature was 
 more remarkable than the appearance of the young Oxford 
 graduate in the great field of art, attacking 'vrith fearless bold- 
 ness all that had been consecrated by the veneration of ages ; 
 demolishing old idols, setting up new ; often no doubt right, 
 sometimes probably wrong; but always striking, always elo- 
 quent, always -true to his own convictions and his own noble 
 nature. I am too ignorant of his great subject to venture 
 any opinion upon particular decisions ; but it is certain that 
 nothing but good can result from drawing, as he has done, 
 the attention of the Enghsh public to the merits of their 
 Hving countrymen, and sending the patrons of Art from the 
 picture-dealer to the painter : nothing but ^ood either to the 
 taste or the heart from his own written pictures, holy and 
 pure, and bright, as those of his favourite Wordsworth. Many 
 passages of " The Modern Painters " are really poems in their 
 tenderness, their sentiment, and their grandeur. Who except 
 a poet could put, as he has done, life into a flower, in his ex- 
 quisite description of the Soldanella of the Alps, a coarse and 
 common plant, when seen in luxuriant health in a fertile 
 valley, but rising into a touching, almost an ideal grace, when 
 languishing through a faint and feeble existence, on the 
 extreme borders of those eternal snows, where it shows, 
 like a memory of beauty, a consolation and a hope amidst the 
 horrors and desolation of a stem and barren world. 
 
 But the greatest triumph of Mr. Ruskin is that long series 
 of cloud pictures, unparalleled, I suppose, in any language, 
 whether painted or written. I transcribe the fine opening of 
 these magnificent chapters : 
 
 OF THE OPEN SKT. 
 
 " It is a strange thing how little, in general, people know 
 about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has 
 done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and 
 evident purpose of talking to him, and teaching him, than in 
 any other of her works ; and it is just the part in which we 
 least attend to her. There are not many of her other works 
 in which some more material or essential purpose than the 
 mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their 
 organization ; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so 
 far as we know, be answered if, once in three days or there- 
 
A UIBRAHY LIFE, 513 
 
 abouts, a great ugly black rain-cloud were brouglit up over the 
 blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till 
 next time, with, perhaps, a film of morning and evening mist 
 for dew. And, instead of this, there is not a moment of any 
 day of our lives when Nature is not producing scene after 
 scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working 
 still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most 
 perfect beauty, that it is quite certain that it is all done for 
 us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, 
 wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest 
 or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noble.st 
 scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few ; it is 
 not intended that man should live always in the midst of 
 them : he injures them by his presence ; he ceases to feel 
 them if he be always with them : but the sky is for all ; bright 
 as it is, it is not ' too bright nor good for human nature's 
 daily food ;' it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual 
 comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it, and 
 purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, 
 sometimes capricious, sometimes awful — never the same fbr 
 two moments together ; almost human in its passions, almost 
 spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its 
 appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as its ministry 
 of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal, is essentiaL 
 And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of 
 thought, but as it has to do with ou.r animal sensations ; we 
 look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to 
 brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of the 
 Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault 
 than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and 
 the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and mono- 
 tonous accident, too common and too vain to be worthy of a 
 moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admiration. If, in 
 our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the 
 sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak 
 of 1 One says it has been wet, and another it has been windy, 
 and another it has been warm. Who, among the whole chat- 
 tering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of 
 the chain of tall white mountains that gilded the horizon at 
 noon yesterday ? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came 
 out of the south, and smote upon their summits, until they 
 
514 RECOLLECTIONB OP 
 
 melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain 1 Who saw 
 the dance of the dead clouds, when the sunlight left them 
 last night, and the west wind blew them before it, like withered 
 leaves ? All has passed unregi'etted or unseen ; or, if the 
 apathy be ever shaken off, ev^n for an instant, it is only by 
 what is gross, or what is extraordinary ; and yet it is not in 
 the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, 
 not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, 
 that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. 
 God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the stiU 
 small voice. They are but the blunt and the low faculties of 
 our nature, which can only be addressed through lampblack 
 and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unob- 
 trusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual — 
 that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is 
 understood — things which the angels work out for us daily, 
 and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never 
 repeated, which are to be found always, yet each found but 
 once. It is through these that the lesson of devotion is 
 chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given." 
 
 Jeremy Taylor himself has nothing more holy or more 
 beautiful than this passage. 
 
 My most kind friend, Mr. Euskin, will understand why I 
 connect his name with the latest event that has befallen me, 
 the leaving the cottage that for thirty years had been my 
 shelter. In truth, it was leaving me. All above the founda- 
 tion seemed mouldering, like an old cheese, with damp and 
 rottenness. The rain came dripping through the roof and 
 steaming through the walls. The hailstones pattered upon 
 my bed through the casements, and the small panes rattled 
 and fell to pieces every high wind. My pony was driven from 
 his stable by a great hole where the bricks had fallen out of 
 the side, and from the coach-house, where he was placed for 
 refuge, by a huge gap in the thatch above. There was some 
 danger that his straw bed must be spread in the little hall ; 
 but the hall itself was no safer, for one evening, crossing from 
 the door to the staircase, I found myself dragging off the 
 skirting-board by no stronger impulsion than the flounce of a 
 muslin gown. The poor cottage was crumbling around us, 
 and if we had stayed much longer we should have been buried 
 in the ruins, 
 
A LITERARY LIFE. 616 
 
 And yet it was great grief to go. Besides my hatred of all 
 change, especially change of place, a tendency to take root 
 where I am planted, and to eschew all fresh dwellings, which 
 renders me quite an anachronism in this locomotive age, — 
 besides my general aversion to new habitations, I had asso- 
 ciations with those old walls which endeared them to me more 
 than I can tell. There I had toiled and striven, and tasted as 
 deeply of bitter anxiety, of fear, and of hope, as often falls to 
 the lot of woman. There, in the fulness of age, I had lost 
 those whose love had made my home sweet and precious. 
 Alas ! there is no hearth so humble but it has known such 
 tales of joy and of sorrow ! 
 
 Other recollections, less dear and less sad, added their 
 interest to the place. Friends, many and kind, — strangers, 
 whose mere names were an honour, had come to that bright 
 garden, and that garden room. The list would fill more pages 
 than I have to give. There Mr. Justice Talfourd had brought 
 the delightful gaiety of his brilliant youth, and poor Haydon 
 had talked more vivid pictures than he ever painted. The 
 illustrations of the last century — Mrs. Opie, Miss Porter, Mr. 
 Gary — had mingled there with poets, still in their earliest 
 dawn. It was a heart-tug to leave that garden. 
 
 But necessity (may I not rather say Providence ?) works 
 for us better than our own vain wishes. I did move — I was 
 compelled to move from the dear old house ; not very far ; not 
 much farther than Cowper when he migrated from Olney to 
 Weston, and with quite as happy an effect. I walked from 
 the one cottage to the other on an autumn evening, when the 
 vagrant birds, whose habit of assembling here for their annual 
 departure gives, I suppose, its name of Swallowfield to the 
 village, were circling and twittering over my head ; and 
 repeated to myself the pathetic lines of Hayley as he saw 
 those same birds gathering upon his roof during his last 
 illness : ^ 
 
 " Ye gentle birds, that perch aloof, 
 And smooth your pinions on my roof, 
 Preparing for departure hence 
 Ere winter's angry threats commence ; 
 Like you my soul would smooth her plume 
 For longer flights beyond the tomb. 
 
516 KECOLLECTIONS Of A LITBBART LIFE. 
 
 " Jlay God, by whom is seen and heard 
 Departing man and wandering bird, 
 In mercy mark us for His Own 
 And guide us to the land unknown ! " 
 
 Thouglits soothing and tender came with those touching 
 lines, and gayer images followed. Here I am in this prettiest 
 village, in the snuggest and cosiest of all snug cabins ; a trim 
 cottage garden, divided by a hawthorn hedge from a little field 
 guarded by grand old trees ; a cheerful glimpse of the high- 
 road in front, just to hint that there is such a thing as the 
 peopled world ; and on either side the deep silent woody lanes 
 that form the distinctive character of English scenery. Very 
 lovely is my favourite lane, leading along a gentle declivity to 
 the valley of the Loddon, by pastoral water meadows studded 
 with willow pollards, past picturesque farmhouses and quaint 
 old mills, the beautiful river glancing here and there like 
 molten silver, until it disappears through a rustic bridge 
 among the shades and avenues of the Duke's park, a scene 
 that belongs to history. 
 
 We have another historical mansion close at hand, where 
 Lord Clarendon wrote his thrilling tale of the Great Re- 
 belHon, and where the inhabitants and the library are worthy 
 of such a predecessor. And they are so kind to me ! and 
 everybody is so kind ; and the new cottage is already dearer 
 than the old. 
 
 The very gipsies have found us out. Even as I write, my 
 little maid is bargaining for baskets with my friend of the 
 lane, and seems likely to be as well taken in as I could be ; 
 the pony is rolling in the meadow ; the mill-waggon, with the 
 jolly miller's handsome son, is looming in the distance ; aud< 
 on the green before our court little Henry is driving Fan- 
 chon, who sits perched in the wheelbarrow, whilst her brown 
 curls are turning into gold in the wintry sun, that lends its 
 charm and its glory to the simplest landscape and the 
 humblest homo. 
 
 THI! END. 
 

 
 IK 
 
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