CHAPTER VIII.

FROM THE DEATH OF SCOTT TO THE PRESENT TIME.

1832-1893.

The literature of the past fifty years is too close to our eyes to enable the critic to pronounce a final judgment, or the literary historian to get a true perspective. Many of the principal writers of the time are still living, and many others have been dead but a few years. This concluding chapter, therefore, will be devoted to the consideration of the few who stand forth, incontestably, as the leaders of literary thought, and who seem likely, under all future changes of fashion and taste, to remain representatives of their generation. As regards _form_, the most striking fact in the history of the period under review is the immense preponderance in its imaginative literature of prose fiction, of the novel of real life. The novel has become to the solitary reader of to-day what the stage play was to the audiences of Elizabeth's reign, or the periodical essay, like the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, to the clubs and breakfast-tables of Queen Anne's. And if its criticism of life is less concentrated and brilliant than the drama gives, it is far more searching and minute. No period has ever left in its literary records so complete a picture of its whole society as the period which is just closing. At any other time than the present, the names of authors like Charlotte Bronte, Charles Kingsley, and Charles Reade--names which are here merely mentioned in passing--besides many others which want of space forbids us even to mention--would be of capital importance. As it is, we must limit our review to the three acknowledged masters of modern English fiction, Charles Dickens (1812-1870), William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), and "George Eliot" (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880).

It is sometimes helpful to reduce a great writer to his lowest term, in order to see what the prevailing bent of his genius is. This lowest term may often be found in his early work, before experience of the world has overlaid his original impulse with foreign accretions. Dickens was much more than a humorist, Thackeray than a satirist, and George Eliot than a moralist; but they had their starting-points respectively in humor, in burlesque, and in strong ethical and religious feeling. Dickens began with a broadly comic series of papers, contributed to the _Old Magazine_ and the _Evening Chronicle_, and reprinted in book form, in 1836, as _Sketches by Boz_. The success of these suggested to a firm of publishers the preparation of a number of similar sketches of the misadventures of cockney sportsmen, to accompany plates by the comic draughtsman, Mr. R. Seymour. This suggestion resulted in the _Pickwick Papers_, published in monthly installments in 1836-1837. The series grew, under Dickens's hand, into a continuous though rather loosely strung narrative of the doings of a set of characters, conceived with such exuberant and novel humor that it took the public by storm and raised its author at once to fame. _Pickwick_ is by no means Dickens's best, but it is his most characteristic and most popular book. At the time that he wrote these early sketches he was a reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_. His naturally acute powers of observation had been trained in this pursuit to the utmost efficiency, and there always continued to be about his descriptive writing a reportorial and newspaper air. He had the eye for effect, the sharp fidelity to detail, the instinct for rapidly seizing upon and exaggerating the salient point, which are developed by the requirements of modern journalism. Dickens knew London as no one else has ever known it, and, in particular, he knew its hideous and grotesque recesses, with the strange developments of human nature that abide there; slums like Tom-all-Alone's, in _Bleak House_; the river-side haunts of Rogue Riderhood, in _Our Mutual Friend_; as well as the old inns, like the "White Hart," and the "dusky purlieus of the law." As a man, his favorite occupation was walking the streets, where, as a child, he had picked up the most valuable part of his education. His tramps about London--often after nightfall--sometimes extended to fifteen miles in a day. He knew, too, the shifts of poverty. His father--some traits of whom are preserved in Mr. Micawber--was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea prison, where his wife took lodging with him, while Charles, then a boy of ten, was employed at six shillings a week to cover blacking-pots in Warner's blacking warehouse. The hardships and loneliness of this part of his life are told under a thin disguise in Dickens's masterpiece, _David Copperfield_, the most autobiographical of his novels. From these young experiences he gained that insight into the lives of the lower classes and that sympathy with children and with the poor which shine out in his pathetic sketches of Little Nell, in _The Old Curiosity Shop_; of Paul Dombey; of poor Jo, in _Bleak House_; of "the Marchioness," and a hundred other figures.

In _Oliver Twist_, contributed, during 1837-1838, to _Bentley's Miscellany_, a monthly magazine of which Dickens was editor, he produced his first regular novel. In this story of the criminal classes the author showed a tragic power which he had not hitherto exhibited. Thenceforward his career was a series of dazzling successes. It is impossible here to particularize his numerous novels, sketches, short tales, and "Christmas Stories"--the latter a fashion which he inaugurated, and which has produced a whole literature in itself. In _Nicholas Nickleby_, 1839; _Master Humphrey's Clock_, 1840; _Martin Chuzzlewit_, 1844; _Dombey and Son_, 1848; _David Copperfield_, 1850, and _Bleak House_, 1853, there is no falling off in strength. The last named was, in some respects, and especially in the skillful construction of the plot, his best novel. In some of his latest books, as _Great Expectations_, 1861, and _Our Mutual Friend_, 1865, there are signs of a decline. This showed itself in an unnatural exaggeration of characters and motives, and a painful straining after humorous effects; faults, indeed, from which Dickens was never wholly free. There was a histrionic side to him, which came out in his fondness for private theatricals, in which he exhibited remarkable talent, and in the dramatic action which he introduced into the delightful public readings from his works that he gave before vast audiences all over the United Kingdom, and in his two visits to America. It is not surprising, either, to learn that upon the stage his preference was for melodrama and farce. His own serious writing was always dangerously close to the melodramatic, and his humor to the farcical. There is much false art, bad taste, and even vulgarity in Dickens. He was never quite a gentleman, and never succeeded well in drawing gentlemen or ladies. In the region of low comedy he is easily the most original, the most inexhaustible, the most wonderful, of modern humorists. Creations such as Mrs. Nickleby, Mr. Micawber, Sam Weller, Sairy Gamp, take rank with Falstaff and Dogberry; while many others, like Dick Swiveller, Stiggins, Chadband, Mrs. Jellyby, and Julia Mills, are almost equally good. In the innumerable swarm of minor characters with which he has enriched our comic literature there is no indistinctness. Indeed, the objection that has been made to him is that his characters are too distinct--that he puts labels on them; that they are often mere personifications of a single trick of speech or manner, which becomes tedious and unnatural by repetition. Thus, Grandfather Smallweed is always settling down into his cushion, and having to be shaken up; Mr. Jellyby is always sitting with his head against the wall; Peggotty is always bursting her buttons off, etc. As Dickens's humorous characters tend perpetually to run into caricatures and grotesques, so his sentiment, from the same excess, slops over too frequently into "gush," and into a too deliberate and protracted attack upon the pity. A favorite humorous device in his style is a stately and roundabout way of telling a trivial incident, as where, for example, Mr. Roker "muttered certain unpleasant invocations concerning his own eyes, limbs, and circulating fluids;" or where the drunken man who is singing comic songs in the Fleet received from Mr. Smangle "a gentle intimation, through the medium of the water-jug, that his audience were not musically disposed." This manner was original with Dickens, though he may have taken a hint of it from the mock heroic language of _Jonathan Wild_; but as practiced by a thousand imitators, ever since, it has gradually become a burden.

It would not be the whole truth to say that the difference between the humor of Thackeray and Dickens is the same as between that of Shakspere and Ben Jonson. Yet it is true that the "humors" of Ben Jonson have an analogy with the extremer instances of Dickens's character sketches in this respect, namely, that they are both studies of the eccentric, the abnormal, the whimsical, rather than of the typical and universal; studies of manners, rather than of whole characters. And it is easily conceivable that, at no distant day, the oddities of Captain Cuttle, Deportment Turveydrop, Mark Tapley, and Newman Noggs will seem as far-fetched and impossible as those of Captain Otter, Fastidious Brisk and Sir Amorous La-Foole.

When Dickens was looking about for some one to take Seymour's place as illustrator of _Pickwick_, Thackeray applied for the job, but without success. He was then a young man of twenty-five, and still hesitating between art and literature. He had begun to draw caricatures with his pencil when a school-boy at the Charter House, and to scribble them with his pen when a student at Cambridge, editing _The Snob_, a weekly under-graduate paper, and parodying the prize poem _Timbuctoo_ of his contemporary at the university, Alfred Tennyson. Then he went abroad to study art, passing a season at Weimar, where he met Goethe and filled the albums of the young Saxon ladies with caricatures; afterward living a bohemian existence in the Latin quarter at Paris, studying art in a desultory way, and seeing men and cities; accumulating portfolios full of sketches, but laying up stores of material to be used afterward to greater advantage when he should settle upon his true medium of expression. By 1837, having lost his fortune of five hundred pounds a year in speculation and gambling, he began to contribute to _Fraser's_, and thereafter to the _New Monthly_, Cruikshank's _Comic Almanac_, _Punch_, and other periodicals, clever burlesques, art criticisms by "Michael Angelo Titmarsh," _Yellowplush Papers_, and all manner of skits, satirical character sketches, and humorous tales, like the _Great Hoggarty Diamond_ and the _Luck of Barry Lyndon_. Some of these were collected in the _Paris Sketch-Book_, 1840, and the _Irish Sketch-Book_, 1843; but Thackeray was slow in winning recognition, and it was not until the publication of his first great novel, _Vanity Fair_, in monthly parts, during 1846-1848, that he achieved any thing like the general reputation that Dickens had reached at a bound. _Vanity Fair_ described itself, on its title-page, as "a novel without a hero." It was also a novel without a plot--in the sense in which _Bleak House_ or _Nicholas Nickleby_ had a plot--and in that respect it set the fashion for the latest school of realistic fiction, being a transcript of life, without necessary beginning or end. Indeed, one of the pleasantest things to a reader of Thackeray is the way which his characters have of re-appearing, as old acquaintances, in his different books; just as, in real life, people drop out of mind and then turn up again in other years and places. _Vanity Fair_ is Thackeray's masterpiece, but it is not the best introduction to his writings. There are no illusions in it, and, to a young reader fresh from Scott's romances or Dickens's sympathetic extravagances, it will seem hard and repellent. But men who, like Thackeray, have seen life and tasted its bitterness and felt its hollowness know how to prize it. Thackeray does not merely expose the cant, the emptiness, the self-seeking, the false pretenses, flunkeyism, and snobbery--the "mean admiration of mean things"--in the great world of London society; his keen, unsparing vision detects the base alloy in the purest natures. There are no "heroes" in his books, no perfect characters. Even his good women, such as Helen and Laura Pendennis, are capable of cruel injustice toward less fortunate sisters, like little Fanny; and Amelia Sedley is led, by blind feminine instinct, to snub and tyrannize over poor Dobbin. The shabby miseries of life, the numbing and belittling influences of failure and poverty on the most generous natures, are the tragic themes which Thackeray handles by preference. He has been called a cynic, but the boyish playfulness of his humor and his kindly spirit are incompatible with cynicism. Charlotte Bronte said that Fielding was the vulture and Thackeray the eagle. The comparison would have been truer if made between Swift and Thackeray. Swift was a cynic; his pen was driven by hate, but Thackeray's by love, and it was not in bitterness but in sadness that the latter laid bare the wickedness of the world. He was himself a thorough man of the world, and he had that dislike for a display of feeling which characterizes the modern Englishman. But behind his satiric mask he concealed the manliest tenderness, and a reverence for every thing in human nature that is good and true. Thackeray's other great novels are _Pendennis_, 1849; _Henry Esmond_, 1852, and _The Newcomes_, 1855--the last of which contains his most lovable character, the pathetic and immortal figure of Colonel Newcome, a creation worthy to stand, in its dignity and its sublime weakness, by the side of Don Quixote. It was alleged against Thackeray that he made all his good characters, like Major Dobbin and Amelia Sedley and Colonel Newcome, intellectually feeble, and his brilliant characters, like Becky Sharp and Lord Steyne and Blanche Amory, morally bad. This is not entirely true, but the other complaint--that his women are inferior to his men--is true in a general way. Somewhat inferior to his other novels were _The Virginians_, 1858, and _The Adventures of Philip_, 1862. All of these were stories of contemporary life, except _Henry Esmond_ and its sequel, _The Virginians_, which, though not precisely historical fictions, introduced historical figures, such as Washington and the Earl of Peterborough. Their period of action was the 18th century, and the dialogue was a cunning imitation of the language of that time. Thackeray was strongly attracted by the 18th century. His literary teachers were Addison, Swift, Steele, Gay, Johnson, Richardson, Goldsmith, Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne, and his special master and model was Fielding. He projected a history of the century, and his studies in this kind took shape in his two charming series of lectures on _The English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_. These he delivered in England and in America, to which country he, like Dickens, made two several visits.

Thackeray's genius was, perhaps, less astonishing than Dickens's; less fertile, spontaneous, and inventive; but his art is sounder, and his delineation of character more truthful. After one has formed a taste for his books, Dickens's sentiment will seem overdone, and much of his humor will have the air of buffoonery. Thackeray had the advantage in another particular: he described the life of the upper classes, and Dickens of the lower. It may be true that the latter offers richer material to the novelist, in the play of elementary passions and in strong native developments of character. It is true, also, that Thackeray approached "society" rather to satirize it than to set forth its agreeableness. Yet, after all, it is "the great world" which he describes, that world upon which the broadening and refining processes of a high civilization have done their utmost, and which, consequently, must possess an intellectual interest superior to any thing in the life of London thieves, traveling showmen, and coachees. Thackeray is the equal of Swift as a satirist, of Dickens as a humorist, and of Scott as a novelist. The one element lacking in him--and which Scott had in a high degree--is the poetic imagination. "I have no brains above my eyes" he said; "I describe what I see." Hence there is wanting in his creations that final charm which Shakspere's have. For what the eyes see is not all.

The great woman who wrote under the pen-name of George Eliot was a humorist, too. She had a rich, deep humor of her own, and a wit that crystallized into sayings which are not epigrams only because their wisdom strikes more than their smartness. But humor was not, as with Thackeray and Dickens, her point of view. A country girl, the daughter of a land agent and surveyor at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, her early letters and journals exhibit a Calvinistic gravity and moral severity. Later, when her truth to her convictions led her to renounce the Christian belief, she carried into positivism the same religious earnestness, and wrote the one English hymn of the religion of humanity:

O, let me join the choir invisible, etc.

Her first published work was a translation of Strauss's _Leben Jesu_, 1846. In 1851 she went to London and became one of the editors of the Radical organ, the _Westminster Review_. Here she formed a connection--a marriage in all but the name--with George Henry Lewes, who was, like herself, a freethinker, and who published, among other things, a _Biographical History of Philosophy_. Lewes had also written fiction, and it was at his suggestion that his wife undertook story writing. Her _Scenes of Clerical Life_ were contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_ for 1857, and published in book form in the following year. _Adam Bede_ followed in 1859, the _Mill on the Floss_ in 1860, _Silas Marner_ in 1861, _Romola_ in 1863, _Felix Holt_ in 1866, and _Middlemarch_ in 1872. All of these, except _Romola_, are tales of provincial and largely of domestic life in the midland counties. _Romola_ is an historical novel, the scene of which is Florence in the 15th century; the Florence of Macchiavelli and of Savonarola.

George Eliot's method was very different from that of Thackeray or Dickens. She did not crowd her canvas with the swarming life of cities. Her figures are comparatively few, and they are selected from the middle-class families of rural parishes or small towns, amid that atmosphere of "fine old leisure;" whose disappearance she lamented. Her drama is a still-life drama, intensely and profoundly inward. Character is the stuff that she works in, and she deals with it more subtly than Thackeray. With him the tragedy is produced by the pressure of society and its false standards upon the individual; with her, by the malign influence of individuals upon one another. She watches "the stealthy convergence of human fates," the intersection at various angles of the planes of character, the power that the lower nature has to thwart, stupefy, or corrupt the higher, which has become entangled with it in the mesh of destiny. At the bottom of every one of her stories there is a problem of the conscience or the intellect. In this respect she resembles Hawthorne, though she is not, like him, a romancer, but a realist.

There is a melancholy philosophy in her books, most of which are tales of failure or frustration. The _Mill on the Floss_ contains a large element of autobiography, and its heroine, Maggie Tulliver, is, perhaps, her idealized self. Her aspirations after a fuller and nobler existence are condemned to struggle against the resistance of a narrow, provincial environment, and the pressure of untoward fates. She is tempted to seek an escape even through a desperate throwing off of moral obligations, and is driven back to her duty only to die by a sudden stroke of destiny. "Life is a bad business," wrote George Eliot, in a letter to a friend, "and we must make the most of it." _Adam Bede_ is, in construction, the most perfect of her novels, and _Silas Marner_ of her shorter stories. Her analytic habit gained more and more upon her as she wrote. _Middlemarch_, in some respects her greatest book, lacks the unity of her earlier novels, and the story tends to become subordinate to the working out of character studies and social problems. The philosophic speculations which she shared with her husband were seemingly unfavorable to her artistic growth, a circumstance which becomes apparent in her last novel, _Daniel Deronda_, 1877. Finally in the _Impressions of Theophrastus Such_, 1879, she abandoned narrative altogether, and recurred to that type of "character" books which we have met as a flourishing department of literature in the 17th century, represented by such works as Earle's _Microcosmographie_ and Fuller's _Holy and Profane State_. The moral of George Eliot's writings is not obtruded. She never made the artistic mistake of writing a novel of purpose, or what the Germans call a _tendenz-roman_; as Dickens did, for example, when he attacked imprisonment for debt, in _Pickwick_; the poor laws, in _Oliver Twist_; the Court of Chancery, in _Bleak House_; and the Circumlocution office, in _Little Dorrit_.

Next to the novel, the essay has been the most overflowing literary form used by the writers of this generation--a form characteristic, it may be, of an age which "lectures, not creates." It is not the essay of Bacon, nor yet of Addison, nor of Lamb, but attempts a complete treatment. Indeed, many longish books, like Carlyle's _Heroes and Hero Worship_ and Ruskin's _Modern Painters_, are, in spirit, rather literary essays than formal treatises. The most popular essayist and historian of his time was Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859), an active and versatile man, who won splendid success in many fields of labor. He was prominent in public life as one of the leading orators and writers of the Whig party. He sat many times in the House of Commons, as member for Calne, for Leeds, and for Edinburgh, and took a distinguished part in the debates on the Reform bill of 1832. He held office in several Whig governments, and during his four years' service in British India, as member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta, he did valuable work in promoting education in that province, and in codifying the Indian penal law. After his return to England, and especially after the publication of his _History of England from The Accession of James II.,_ honors and appointments of all kinds were showered upon him. In 1857 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of Rothley.

Macaulay's equipment, as a writer on historical and biographical subjects, was, in some points, unique. His reading was prodigious, and his memory so tenacious that it was said, with but little exaggeration, that he never forgot any thing that he had read. He could repeat the whole of _Paradise Lost_ by heart, and thought it probable that he could rewrite _Sir Charles Grandison_ from memory. In his books, in his speeches in the House of Commons, and in private conversation--for he was an eager and fluent talker, running on often for hours at a stretch--he was never at a loss to fortify and illustrate his positions by citation after citation of dates, names, facts of all kinds, and passages quoted _verbatim_ from his multifarious reading. The first of Macaulay's writings to attract general notice was his article on _Milton_, printed in the August number of the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1825. The editor, Lord Jeffrey, in acknowledging the receipt of the manuscript, wrote to his new contributor, "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style." That celebrated style--about which so much has since been written--was an index to the mental character of its owner. Macaulay was of a confident, sanguine, impetuous nature. He had great common sense, and he saw what he saw quickly and clearly, but he did not see very far below the surface. He wrote with the conviction of an advocate, and the easy omniscience of a man whose learning is really nothing more than "general information" raised to a very high power, rather than with the subtle penetration of an original or truly philosophic intellect, like Coleridge's or De Quincey's. He always had at hand explanations of events or of characters which were admirably easy and simple--too simple, indeed, for the complicated phenomena which they professed to explain. His style was clear, animated, showy, and even its faults were of an exciting kind. It was his habit to give piquancy to his writing by putting things concretely. Thus, instead of saying, in general terms--as Hume or Gibbon might have done--that the Normans and Saxons began to mingle about 1200, he says: "The great-grandsons of those who had fought under William and the great grandsons of those who had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other." Macaulay was a great scene painter, who neglected delicate truths of detail for exaggerated distemper effects. He used the rhetorical machinery of climax and hyperbole for all that it was worth, and he "made points"--as in his essay on _Bacon_--by creating antithesis. In his _History of England_ he inaugurated the picturesque method of historical writing. The book was as fascinating as any novel. Macaulay, like Scott, had the historic imagination, though his method of turning history into romance was very different from Scott's. Among his essays the best are those which, like the ones on _Lord Clive, Warren Hastings_, and _Frederick the Great_, deal with historical subjects; or those which deal with literary subjects under their public historic relations, such as the essays on _Addison, Bunyan_, and _The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration_. "I have never written a page of criticism on poetry, or the fine arts," wrote Macaulay, "which I would not burn if I had the power." Nevertheless his own _Lays of Ancient Rome_, 1842, are good, stirring verse of the emphatic and declamatory kind, though their quality may be rather rhetorical than poetic.

Our critical time has not forborne to criticize itself, and perhaps the writer who impressed himself most strongly upon his generation was the one who railed most desperately against the "spirit of the age." Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was occupied between 1822 and 1830 chiefly in imparting to the British public a knowledge of German literature. He published, among other things, a _Life of Schiller_, a translation of Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, and two volumes of translations from the German romancers--Tieck, Hoffmann, Richter, and Fouque--and contributed to the _Edinburgh_ and _Foreign Review_ articles on Goethe, Werner, Novalis, Richter, German playwrights, the _Nibelungen Lied_, etc. His own diction became more and more tinctured with Germanisms. There was something Gothic in his taste, which was attracted by the lawless, the grotesque, and the whimsical in the writings of Jean Paul Richter. His favorite among English humorists was Sterne, who has a share of these same qualities. He spoke disparagingly of "the sensuous literature of the Greeks," and preferred the Norse to the Hellenic mythology. Even in his admirable critical essays on Burns, on Richter, on Scott, Diderot, and Voltaire, which are free from his later mannerism--written in English, and not in Carlylese--his sense of spirit is always more lively than his sense of form. He finally became so impatient of art as to maintain--half-seriously--the paradox that Shakspere would have done better to write in prose. In three of these early essays--on the _Signs of the Times_, 1829; on _History_, 1830, and on _Characteristics_, 1831--are to be found the germs of all his later writings. The first of these was an arraignment of the mechanical spirit of the age. In every province of thought he discovered too great a reliance upon systems, institutions, machinery, instead of upon men. Thus, in religion, we have Bible societies, "machines for converting the heathen." "In defect of Raphaels and Angelos and Mozarts, we have royal academies of painting, sculpture, music." In like manner, he complains, government is a machine. "Its duties and faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable." Against the "police theory," as distinguished from the "paternal" theory, of government, Carlyle protested with ever shriller iteration. In _Chartism_, 1839, _Past and Present_, 1843, and _Latter-day Pamphlets,_ 1850, he denounced this _laissez faire_ idea. The business of government, he repeated, is to govern; but this view makes it its business to refrain from governing. He fought most fiercely against the conclusions of political economy, "the dismal science" which, he said, affirmed that men were guided exclusively by their stomachs. He protested, too, against the Utilitarians, followers of Bentham and Mill, with their "greatest happiness principle," which reduced virtue to a profit-and-loss account. Carlyle took issue with modern liberalism; he ridiculed the self-gratulation of the time, all the talk about progress of the species, unexampled prosperity, etc. But he was reactionary without being conservative. He had studied the French Revolution, and he saw the fateful, irresistible approach of democracy. He had no faith in government "by counting noses," and he hated talking Parliaments; but neither did he put trust in an aristocracy that spent its time in "preserving the game." What he wanted was a great individual ruler; a real king or hero; and this doctrine he set forth afterward most fully in _Hero Worship_, 1841, and illustrated in his lives of representative heroes, such as his _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, 1845, and his great _History of Frederick the Great,_ 1858-1865. Cromwell and Frederick were well enough; but as Carlyle grew older his admiration for mere force grew, and his latest hero was none other than that infamous Dr. Francia, the South American dictator, whose career of bloody and crafty crime horrified the civilized world.

The essay on _History_ was a protest against the scientific view of history which attempts to explain away and account for the wonderful. "Wonder," he wrote in _Sartor Resartus_, "is the basis of all worship." He defined history as "the essence of innumerable biographies." "Mr. Carlyle," said the Italian patriot, Mazzini, "comprehends only the individual. The nationality of Italy is, in his eyes, the glory of having produced Dante and Christopher Columbus." This trait comes out in his greatest book, _The French Revolution_, 1837, which is a mighty tragedy enacted by a few leading characters--Mirabeau, Danton, Napoleon. He loved to emphasize the superiority of history over fiction as dramatic material. The third of the three essays mentioned was a Jeremiad on the morbid self-consciousness of the age, which shows itself, in religion and philosophy, as skepticism and introspective metaphysics; and in literature, as sentimentalism, and "view-hunting."

But Carlyle's epoch-making book was _Sartor Resartus_ (The Tailor Retailored), published in _Fraser's Magazine_ for 1833-1834, and first reprinted in book form in America. This was a satire upon shams, conventions, the disguises which overlie the most spiritual realities of the soul. It purported to be the life and "clothes-philosophy" of a certain Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, Professor _der Allerlei Wissenschaft_--of things in general--in the University of Weissnichtwo. "Society," said Carlyle, "is founded upon cloth," following the suggestions of Lear's speech to the naked bedlam beggar: "Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art;" and borrowing also, perhaps, an ironical hint from a paragraph in Swift's _Tale of a Tub_: "A sect was established who held the universe to be a large suit of clothes....If certain ermines or furs be placed in a certain position, we style them a judge; and so an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin we entitle a bishop." In _Sartor Resartus_ Carlyle let himself go. It was willful, uncouth, amorphous, titanic. There was something monstrous in the combination--the hot heart of the Scot married to the transcendental dream of Germany. It was not English, said the reviewers; it was not sense; it was disfigured by obscurity and "mysticism." Nevertheless even the thin-witted and the dry-witted had to acknowledge the powerful beauty of many chapters and passages, rich with humor, eloquence, poetry, deep-hearted tenderness, or passionate scorn.

Carlyle was a voracious reader, and the plunder of whole literatures is strewn over his pages. He flung about the resources of the language with a giant's strength, and made new words at every turn. The concreteness and the swarming fertility of his mind are evidenced by his enormous vocabulary, computed greatly to exceed Shakspere's, or any other single writer's in the English tongue. His style lacks the crowning grace of simplicity and repose. It astonishes, but it also fatigues.

Carlyle's influence has consisted more in his attitude than in any special truth which he has preached. It has been the influence of a moralist, of a practical rather than a speculative philosopher. "The end of man," he wrote, "is an action, not a thought." He has not been able to persuade the time that it is going wrong, but his criticisms have been wholesomely corrective of its self-conceit. In a democratic age he has insisted upon the undemocratic virtues of obedience, silence, and reverence. _Ehrfurcht_, reverence--the text of his address to the students of Edinburgh University in 1866--is the last word of his philosophy.

In 1830 Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), a young graduate of Cambridge, published a thin duodecimo of 154 pages entitled _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_. The pieces in this little volume, such as the _Sleeping Beauty, Ode to Memory_, and _Recollections of the Arabian Nights_, were full of color, fragrance, melody; but they had a dream-like character, and were without definite theme, resembling an artist's studies, or exercises in music--a few touches of the brush, a few sweet chords, but no _aria_. A number of them--_Claribel, Lilian, Adeline, Isabel, Mariana, Madeline_--were sketches of women; not character portraits, like Browning's _Men and Women_, but impressions of temperament, of delicately differentiated types of feminine beauty. In _Mariana_, expanded from a hint of the forsaken maid in Shakspere's _Measure for Measure_, "Mariana at the moated grange," the poet showed an art then peculiar, but since grown familiar, of heightening the central feeling by landscape accessories. The level waste, the stagnant sluices, the neglected garden, the wind in the single poplar, re-enforce, by their monotonous sympathy, the loneliness, the hopeless waiting and weariness of life in the one human figure of the poem. In _Mariana_, the _Ode to Memory_, and the _Dying Swan_, it was the fens of Cambridge and of his native Lincolnshire that furnished Tennyson's scenery.

Stretched wide and wild, the waste enormous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity, The trenched waters run from sky to sky.

A second collection, published in 1833, exhibited a greater scope and variety, but was still in his earlier manner. The studies of feminine types were continued in _Margaret, Fatima, Eleanore, Mariana in the South_, and _A Dream of Fair Women_, suggested by Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_. In the _Lady of Shalott_ the poet first touched the Arthurian legends. The subject is the same as that of _Elaine_, in the _Idylls of the King_, but the treatment is shadowy, and even allegorical. In _OEnone_ and the _Lotus Eaters_ he handled Homeric subjects, but in a romantic fashion which contrasts markedly with the style of his later pieces, _Ulysses_ and _Tithonus._ These last have the true classic severity, and are among the noblest specimens of weighty and sonorous blank verse in modern poetry. In general, Tennyson's art is unclassical. It is rich, ornate, composite; not statuesque so much as picturesque. He is a great painter, and the critics complain that in passages calling for movement and action--a battle, a tournament, or the like--his figures stand still as in a tableau; and they contrast such passages unfavorably with scenes of the same kind in Scott, and with Browning's spirited ballad, _How we brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix_. In the _Palace of Art_ these elaborate pictorial effects were combined with allegory; in the _Lotus Eaters_, with that expressive treatment of landscape noted in _Mariana_; the lotus land, "in which it seemed always afternoon," reflecting and promoting the enchanted indolence of the heroes. Two of the pieces in this 1833 volume, the _May Queen_ and the _Miller's Daughter_, were Tennyson's first poems of the affections, and as ballads of simple rustic life they anticipated his more perfect idyls in blank verse, such as _Dora_, the _Brook, Edwin Morris_, and the _Gardener's Daughter._ The songs in the _Miller's Daughter_ had a more spontaneous lyrical movement than any thing he had yet published, and foretokened the lovely songs which interlude the divisions of the _Princess_, the famous _Bugle Song_, the no-less famous _Cradle Song_, and the rest. In 1833 Tennyson's friend, Arthur Hallam, died, and the effect of this great sorrow upon the poet was to deepen and strengthen the character of his genius. It turned his mind in upon itself, and set it brooding over questions which his poetry had so far left untouched; the meaning of life and death, the uses of adversity, the future of the race, the immortality of the soul, and the dealings of God with mankind.

Thou madest Death: and, lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.

His elegy on Hallam, _In Memoriam_, was not published till 1850. He kept it by him all those years, adding section after section, gathering up into it whatever reflections crystallized about its central theme. It is his most intellectual and most individual work; a great song of sorrow and consolation. In 1842 he published a third collection of poems, among which were _Locksley Hall_, displaying a new strength, of passion; _Ulysses_, suggested by a passage in Dante: pieces of a speculative cast, like the _Two Voices_ and the _Vision of Sin_; the song _Break, Break, Break_, which preluded _In Memoriam_; and, lastly, some additional gropings toward the subject of the Arthurian romance, such as _Sir Galahad, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere_, and _Morte d' Arthur._ The last was in blank verse, and, as afterward incorporated in the _Passing of Arthur_, forms one of the best passages in the _Idylls of the King_. The _Princess, a Medley_, published in 1849, represents the eclectic character of Tennyson's art; a mediaeval tale with an admixture of modern sentiment, and with the very modern problem of woman's sphere for its theme. The first four _Idylls of the King_, 1859, with those since added, constitute, when taken together, an epic poem on the old story of King Arthur. Tennyson went to Malory's _Morte Darthur_ for his material, but the outline of the first idyl, _Enid_, was taken from Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of the Welsh _Mabinogion_. In the idyl of _Guinevere_ Tennyson's genius reached its high-water mark. The interview between Arthur and his fallen queen is marked by a moral sublimity and a tragic intensity which move the soul as nobly as any scene in modern literature. Here, at least, the art is pure and not "decorated;" the effect is produced by the simplest means, and all is just, natural, and grand. _Maud_--a love novel in verse--published in 1855, and considerably enlarged in 1856, had great sweetness and beauty, particularly in its lyrical portions, but it was uneven in execution, imperfect in design, and marred by lapses into mawkishness and excess in language. Since 1860 Tennyson has added little of permanent value to his work. His dramatic experiments, like _Queen Mary_, are not, on the whole, successful, though it would be unjust to deny dramatic power to the poet who has written, upon one hand, _Guinevere_ and the _Passing of Arthur_, and upon the other the homely dialectic monologue of the _Northern Farmer_.

When we tire of Tennyson's smooth perfection, of an art that is over exquisite, and a beauty that is well-nigh too beautiful, and crave a rougher touch, and a meaning that will not yield itself too readily, we turn to the thorny pages of his great contemporary, Robert Browning (1812-1889). Dr. Holmes says that Tennyson is white meat and Browning is dark meat. A masculine taste, it is inferred, is shown in a preference for the gamier flavor. Browning makes us think; his poems are puzzles, and furnish business for "Browning Societies." There are no Tennyson societies, because Tennyson is his own interpreter. Intellect in a poet may display itself quite as properly in the construction of his poem as in its content; we value a building for its architecture, and not entirely for the amount of timber in it. Browning's thought never wears so thin as Tennyson's sometimes does in his latest verse, where the trick of his style goes on of itself with nothing behind it. Tennyson, at his worst, is weak. Browning, when not at his best, is hoarse. Hoarseness, in itself, is no sign of strength. In Browning, however, the failure is in art, not in thought.

He chooses his subjects from abnormal character types, such as are presented, for example, in _Caliban upon Setebos_, the _Grammarian's Funeral, My Last Duchess_ and _Mr. Sludge, the Medium_. These are all psychological studies, in which the poet gets into the inner consciousness of a monster, a pedant, a criminal, and a quack, and gives their point of view. They are dramatic soliloquies; but the poet's self-identification with each of his creations, in turn, remains incomplete. His curious, analytic observation, his way of looking at the soul from outside, gives a doubleness to the monologues in his _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1845, _Men and Women_, 1855, _Dramatis Personae_, 1864, and other collections of the kind. The words are the words of Caliban or Mr. Sludge; but the voice is the voice of Robert Browning. His first complete poem, _Paracelsus_, 1835, aimed to give the true inwardness of the career of the famous 16th century doctor, whose name became a synonym with charlatan. His second, _Sordello_, 1840, traced the struggles of an Italian poet who lived before Dante, and could not reconcile his life with his art. _Paracelsus_ was hard, but _Sordello_ was incomprehensible. Browning has denied that he was ever perversely crabbed or obscure. Every great artist must be allowed to say things in his own way, and obscurity has its artistic uses, as the Gothic builders knew. But there are two kinds of obscurity in literature. One is inseparable from the subtlety and difficulty of the thought or the compression and pregnant indirectness of the phrase. Instances of this occur in the clear deeps of Dante, Shakspere, and Goethe. The other comes from a vice of style, a willfully enigmatic and unnatural way of expressing thought. Both kinds of obscurity exist in Browning. He was a deep and subtle thinker, but he was also a very eccentric writer; abrupt, harsh, disjointed. It has been well said that the reader of Browning learns a new dialect. But one need not grudge the labor that is rewarded with an intellectual pleasure so peculiar and so stimulating. The odd, grotesque impression made by his poetry arises, in part, from his desire to use the artistic values of ugliness, as well as of obscurity; to avoid the shallow prettiness that comes from blinking the disagreeable truth: not to leave the saltness out of the sea. Whenever he emerges into clearness, as he does in hundreds of places, he is a poet of great qualities. There are a fire and a swing in his _Cavalier Tunes_, and in pieces like the _Glove_ and the _Lost_ _Leader_; and humor in such ballads as the _Pied Piper of Hamelin_ and the _Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_, which appeal to the most conservative reader. He seldom deals directly in the pathetic, but now and then, as in _Evelyn Hope_, the _Last Ride Together_, or the _Incident of the French Camp_, a tenderness comes over the strong verse

as sheathes A film the mother eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes.

Perhaps the most astonishing example of Browning's mental vigor is the huge composition, entitled _The Ring and the Book,_ 1868; a narrative poem in twenty-one thousand lines in which the same story is repeated eleven times in eleven different ways. It is the story of a criminal trial which occurred at Rome about 1700, the trial of one Count Guido for the murder of his young wife. First the poet tells the tale himself; then he tells what one half the world said and what the other; then he gives the deposition of the dying girl, the testimony of witnesses, the speech made by the count in his own defense, the arguments of counsel, etc., and, finally, the judgment of the pope. So wonderful are Browning's resources in casuistry, and so cunningly does he ravel the intricate motives at play in this tragedy and lay bare the secrets of the heart, that the interest increases at each repetition of the tale. He studied the Middle Age carefully, not for its picturesque externals, its feudalisms, chivalries, and the like; but because he found it a rich quarry of spiritual monstrosities, strange outcroppings of fanaticism, superstition, and moral and mental distortion of all shapes. It furnished him especially with a great variety of ecclesiastical types, such as are painted in _Fra Lippo Lippi, The Heretic's Tragedy,_ and _The Bishop Orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church._

Browning's dramatic instinct always attracted him to the stage. His tragedy, _Strafford_ (1837), was written for Macready, and put on at Covent Garden Theater, but without pronounced success. He wrote many fine dramatic poems, like _Pippa Passes, Colombe's Birthday_, and _In a Balcony_; and at least two good acting plays, _Luria_ and _A Blot in the Scutcheon._ The last named has recently been given to the American public, with Lawrence Barrett's careful and intelligent presentation of the leading role. The motive of the tragedy is somewhat strained and fantastic, but it is, notwithstanding, very effective on the stage. It gives one an unwonted thrill to listen to a play, by a contemporary English writer, which is really literature. One gets a faint idea of what it must have been to assist at the first night of _Hamlet_.

1. English Literature in the Reign of Victoria. Henry Morley. (Tauchnitz Series.)

2. Victorian Poets. E.C. Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1886.

3. Dickens. Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Tale of Two Cities.

4. Thackeray. Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Newcomes.

5. George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life, Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Adam Bede, Middlemarch.

6. Macaulay. Essays, Lays of Ancient Rome.

7. Carlyle. Sartor Resartus, French Revolution, Essays on History, Signs of the Times, Characteristics, Burns, Scott, Voltaire, and Goethe.

8 The Works of Alfred Tennyson. London: Stranham & Co., 1872. 6 vols.

9. Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1880. 2 vols.

APPENDIX.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

THE PRIORESS.

[From the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales.]

There was also a nonne, a prioresse, That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy; Hire gretest othe n'as but by Seint Eloy; And she was cleped[23] madame Eglentine. Ful wel she sange the service devine, Entuned in hire nose ful swetely; And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly[24] After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,[25] For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe. At mete was she wel ytaught withalle; She lette no morsel from hire lippe falle, Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe. Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest. In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.[26] Hire over lippe wiped she so clene That in hire cuppe was no ferthing[27] sene Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught. Ful semely after hire mete she raught.[28] And sikerly[29] she was of grete disport And ful plesant and amiable of port, And peined hire to contrefeten chere Of court,[30] and ben estatelich of manere And to ben holden digne[31] of reverence. But for to speken of hire conscience, She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caughte in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde With rested flesh and milk and wastel brede.[32] But sore wept she if on of hem were dede, Or if men smote it with a yerde[33] smert:[34] And all was conscience and tendre herte.

[Footnote 23: Called.] [Footnote 24: Neatly.] [Footnote 25: Stratford on the Bow (river): a small village where such French as was spoken would be provincial.] [Footnote 26: Delight.] [Footnote 27: Farthing, bit.] [Footnote 28: Reached.] [Footnote 29: Surely.] [Footnote 30: Took pains to imitate court manners.] [Footnote 31: Worthy.] [Footnote 32: Fine bread.] [Footnote 33: Stick.] [Footnote 34: Smartly.]

PALAMON'S FAREWELL TO EMELIE.

[From the Knightes Tale.]

Naught may the woful spirit in myn herte Declare o[35] point of all my sorwes smerte To you, my lady, that I love most. But I bequethe the service of my gost To you aboven every creature, Sin[36] that my lif ne may no lenger dure. Alas the wo! alas the peines stronge That I for you have suffered, and so longe! Alas the deth! alas min Emelie! Alas departing of our compagnie! Alas min hertes quene! alas my wif! Min hertes ladie, euder of my lif! What is this world? what axen[37] men to have? Now with his love, now in his colde grave Alone withouten any compagnie. Farewel my swete, farewel min Emelie, And softe take me in your armes twey,[38] For love of God, and herkeneth[39] what I sey.

[Footnote 35: One.] [Footnote 36: Since.] [Footnote 37: Ask.] [Footnote 38: Two.] [Footnote 39: Hearken.]

EMELIE IN THE GARDEN.

[From the Knightes Tale.]

Thus passeth yere by yere, and day by day, Till it felle ones in a morwe[40] of May That Emelie, that fayrer was to sene[41] Than is the lilie upon his stalke grene, And fresher than the May with floures newe, (For with the rose colour strof hire hewe; I n'ot[42] which was the finer of hem two) Er it was day, as she was wont to do, She was arisen and all redy dight,[43] For May wol have no slogardie a-night. The seson priketh every gentil herte, And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte, And sayth, "Arise, and do thin observance." This maketh Emelie han remembrance To dou honour to May, and for to rise. Yclothed was she fresh for to devise.[44] Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse Behind hire back, a yerde long I gesse. And in the gardin at the sonne uprist[45] She walketh up and doun wher as hire list.[46] She gathereth floures, partie white and red, To make a sotel[47] gerlond for hire bed, And as an angel hevenlich she song.

[Footnote 40: Morning.] [Footnote 41: See.] [Footnote 42: Know not.] [Footnote 43: Dressed.] [Footnote 44: Describe.] [Footnote 45: Sunrise.] [Footnote 46: Wherever it pleases her.] [Footnote 47: Subtle, cunningly enwoven.]

ALISON.

[From the Millere's Tale.]

Fayre was this yonge wif, and therwithal As any wesel hire body gent and smal[48] A seint[49] she wered, barred al of silk, A barm-cloth[50] eke as white as morne milk[51] Upon hire lendes[52] ful of many a gore, White was hire smok, and brouded[53] al before And eke behind on hire colere[54] aboute Of cole-black silk within and eke withoute. The tapes of hire white volupere[55] Were of the same suit of hire colere; Hire fillet brode of silk and set ful hye; And sikerly[56] she had a likerous[57] eye, Ful smal ypulled[58] were hire browes two, And they were bent and black as any slo, She was wel more blisful on to see Than is the newe perjenete[59] tree, And softer than the wolle is of a wether. And by hire girdle heng a purse of lether, Tasseled with silk and perled with latoun,[60] In all this world to seken up and doun Ther n'is no man so wise that coude thenche[61] So gay a popelot[62] or swiche[63] a wenche. Ful brighter was the shining of hire hewe Than in the tour, the noble yforged newe. But of hire song, it was as loud and yerne[64] As any swalow sitting on a berne. Thereto she coude skip and make a game As any kid or calf folowing his dame. Hire mouth was swete as braket[65] or the meth,[66] Or horde of apples laid in hay or heth. Winsing[67] she was, as is a jolly colt, Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt. A broche she bare upon hire low colere. As brode as is the bosse of a bokelere.[68] Hire shoon were laced on hire legges hie; She was a primerole,[69] a piggesnie,[70] For any lord, to liggen[71] in his bedde, Or yet for any good yeman[72] to wedde.

[Footnote 48: Trim and slim.] [Footnote 49: Girdle.] [Footnote 50: Apron.] [Footnote 51: Morning's milk.] [Footnote 52: Loins.] [Footnote 53: Embroidered.] [Footnote 54: Collar.] [Footnote 55: Cap.] [Footnote 56: Surely.] [Footnote 57: Wanton.] [Footnote 58: Trimmed fine.] [Footnote 59: Young pear.] [Footnote 60: Ornamented with pearl-shaped beads of a metal resembling brass.] [Footnote 61: Think.] [Footnote 62: Puppet.] [Footnote 63: Such.] [Footnote 64: Brisk.] [Footnote 65: A sweet drink of ale, honey, and spice.] [Footnote 66: Mead.] [Footnote 67: Skittish.] [Footnote 68: Buckler.] [Footnote 69: Primrose.] [Footnote 70: Pansy.] [Footnote 71: Lie.] [Footnote 72: Yeoman.]

* * * * *

ANONYMOUS BALLADS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

WALY, WALY BUT LOVE BE BONNY.

O waly,[73] waly up the bank, And waly, waly down the brae,[74] And waly, waly yon burn[75] side, Where I and my love wont to gae.

I lean'd my back unto an aik,[76] I thought it was a trusty tree; But first it bow'd and syne[77] it brak, Sae my true love did lightly me.

O waly, waly but love be bonny, A little time while it is new; But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld, And fades away like the morning dew.

O wherefore should I busk[78] my head? Or wherefore should I kame[79] my hair? For my true love has me forsook, And says he'll never love me mair.

Now Arthur-Seat shall be my bed, The sheets shall ne'er be fyl'd by me; Saint Anton's well[80] shall be my drink, Sinn my true love has forsaken me.

Martinmas' wind, when wilt thou blaw And shake the green leaves off the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou come? For of my life I'm aweary.

'Tis not the frost that freezes fell, Nor blawing snow's inclemency; 'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry, But my love's heart grown cauld to me.

When we came in by Glasgow town We were a comely sight to see; My love was clad in the black velvet, And I myself in cramasie.[81]

But had I wist, before I kissed, That love had been sae ill to win, I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, And pin'd it with a silver pin.

Oh, oh, if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee, And I myself were dead and gane, And the green grass growing over me!

[Footnote 73: An exclamation of sorrow, woe! alas!] [Footnote 74: Hillside.] [Footnote 75: Brook.] [Footnote 76: Oak.] [Footnote 77: Then.] [Footnote 78: Adorn.] [Footnote 79: Comb.] [Footnote 80: At the foot of Arthur's-Seat, a cliff near Edinburgh.] [Footnote 81: Crimson.]

THE TWO CORBIES.[82]

As I was walking all alane I heard twa corbies making a mane; The tane unto the t'other say, "Where sail we gang and dine to-day?"

"In behint yon auld fail[83] dyke, I wot there lies a new-slain knight; And naebody kens that he lies there But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

"His hound is to the hunting gane, His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame, His lady's ta'en another mate, So we may mak our dinner sweet.

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,[84] And I'll pick out his bonny blue een; Wi' ae[85] lock o' his gowden hair, We'll theck[86] our nest when it grows bare.

"Mony a one for him makes mane, But nane sail ken where he is gane; O'er his white banes, when they are bare, The wind sail blow for evermair."

BONNIE GEORGE CAMPBELL.

Hie upon Highlands and low upon Tay, Bonnie George Campbell rade out on a day. Saddled and bridled and gallant rade he; Hame cam' his horse, but never cam' he.

Out came his auld mother, greeting[87] fu' sair; And out cam' his bonnie bride, riving her hair. Saddled and bridled and booted rade he; Toom[88] hame cam' the saddle, but never cam' he.

"My meadow lies green and my corn is unshorn; My barn is to bigg[89] and my babie's unborn." Saddled and bridled and booted rade he; Toom cam' the saddle, but never cam' he.

[Footnote 82: The two ravens.] [Footnote 83: Turf.] [Footnote 84: Neck-bone.] [Footnote 85: One.] [Footnote 86: Thach.] [Footnote 87: Weeping.] [Footnote 88: Empty.] [Footnote 89: Build.]

EDMUND SPENSER.

THE SUITOR'S LIFE.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride, What hell it is in suing long to bide; To lose good days that might be better spent; To wast long nights in pensive discontent: To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peere's[90]: To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeers, To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires: To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undone!

THE MUSIC OF THE BOWER OF BLISS.

[From the _Faerie Queene_. Book II. Canto XII.]

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote[2] delight a daintie eare, Such as attonce[91] might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, To read what manner of music that mote[92] bee; For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee; Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade, Their notes unto the voyce attempred sweet; Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made To th' instruments divine respondence meet; The silver sounding instruments did meet With the base[93] murmure of the waters fall; The waters fall with difference discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; The gentle warbling wind low answered to all....

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay; Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine[94] to see, In springing flowre the image of thy day! Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly shee Doth first peepe foorth with bashfull modestee, That fairer seemes the lesse ye see her may! Lo! see, soone after how more bold and free Her bared bosome she doth broad display; Lo! see, soone after how she fades and falls away.

So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre; Ne more doth florish after first decay, That earst[95] was sought to deck both bed and bowre Of many a lady, and many a paramowre! Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime,[96] For soone comes age that will her pride deflowre: Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime.

[Footnote 90: A reference to Lord Burleigh's hostility to the poet] [Footnote 91: Might.] [Footnote 92: At once.] [Footnote 93: Bass.]

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP.

[From the _Faerie Queene_. Book I. Canto I.]

He, making speedy way through spersed ayre, And through the world of waters wide and deepe, To Morpheus' house doth hastily repaire: Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe And low, where dawning day doth never peepe, His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed, Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred....

And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne. No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes, As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard; but careless quiet lyes Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

[Footnote 94: Rejoice.] [Footnote 95: First, formerly.] [Footnote 96: Spring.]

WILLIAM SHAKSPERE.

SONNET XC.

Then hate me when thou wilt: if ever, now: Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow, And do not drop in for an after loss. Ah! do not when my heart hath scaped this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquered woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purposed overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite; But in the onset come: So shall I taste At first the very worst of fortune's might; And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.

SONG.

[From _As You Like It_.]

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho! Sing heigh ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly, Then heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot; Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! etc.

THE SLEEP OF KINGS.

[From _Henry IV_.--Part II.]

How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopy of costly state, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile, In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch, A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge; And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds, That, with the hurly, death itself awakes? Can'st thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And, in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low-lie-down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

FALSTAFF AND BARDOLPH.

[From _Henry IV_.--Part I.]

_Falstaff_. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle?

Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John.

Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villainous company hath been the spoil of me:

_Bardolph_. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

_Fal_. Why, there it is. Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

_Bard_. Why you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

_Fal_. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop--but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp.

_Bard_. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

_Fal_ No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head or a _memento mori_: I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert anyway given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be: By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light of thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou runn'st up Gad's Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an _ignis fatuus_, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that Salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

[From _As You Like It_.]

_Jacques_. All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms; Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school: and then, the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow: Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth: And then the justice, In fair round belly, with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well-saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans[97] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die--to sleep-- No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished: to die, to sleep; To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life: For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus take With a bare bodkin?[98] Who would fardels[99] bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn away And lose the name of action.

[Footnote 97: Without.]

DETACHED PASSAGES FROM THE PLAYS.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Our revels now are ended: these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself-- Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack[100] behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded[101] with a sleep.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and uncertain thoughts Imagine howling! 'tis too horrible!

O who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow, By thinking on fantastic summer's heat? O no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat, like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.

Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth: But either it was different in blood; Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied[102] night, That, in a spleen,[103] unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

[Footnote 98: Small sword.] [Footnote 99: Burdens.] [Footnote 100: Cloud.] [Footnote 101: Encompassed.] [Footnote 102: Black.] [Footnote 103: Caprice, whim.]

FRANCIS BACON.

OF DEATH.

[From the Essays.]

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, _Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa._[104] Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death, and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth[105] it. It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood: who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours of death; but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is _Nunc dimittis_[106] when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: _Extinctus amabitur idem_.[107]

[Footnote 104: The shows of death terrify more than death itself.] [Footnote 105: Anticipates.] [Footnote 106: Now thou dismissest us.] [Footnote 107: The same man will be loved when dead.]

OF STUDIES.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. 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 marshaling 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 affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor 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;[108] 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 arguments,[109] and the meaner sorts 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 little, 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. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend: _Abeunt studia in mores_;[110] nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises--bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head and the like; so, if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school-men, for they are _Cymini sectores_;[111] if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

[Footnote 108: Attentively.] [Footnote 109: Subjects.] [Footnote 110: Studies pass into the character.] [Footnote 111: Hair-splitters.]

OF ADVERSITY.

It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired"--_Bona rerum secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia_. Certainly, if miracles be the command over Nature, they appear most in adversity. It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a heathen), "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god "--_Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem dei_. This would have done better in poesy, where transcendencies are more allowed; and the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery;[112] nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian; "that Hercules, when he went to unbind _Prometheus_ (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher," lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh through the waves of the world. But, to speak in a _mean_[113] the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor. Yet, even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground: judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed[114] or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

[Footnote 112: An allegorical meaning.] [Footnote 113: Moderately, that is, without poetic figures.] [Footnote 114: Burnt.]

BEN JONSON.

SONG TO CELIA.

Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee, As giving it a hope, that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon did'st only breathe And sent'st it back to me: Since when it grows and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee.

LONG LIFE.

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauty see; And in short measures life may perfect be.

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.

THE THANKLESS MUSE.

[From _The Poetaster_.]

O this would make a learned and liberal soul To rive his stained quill up to the back, And damn his long-watched labours to the fire-- Things that were born when none, but the still night And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes; Were not his own free merit a more crown, Unto his travails than their reeling claps.[115] This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips, And apts me rather to sleep out my time, Than I would waste it in contemned strifes With these vile Ibides,[116] these unclean birds That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge From their hot entrails. But I leave the monsters To their own fate. And, since the Comic Muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try If tragedy have a more kind aspect: Her favors in my next I will pursue, Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one, So he judicious be, he shall be alone A theater unto me. Once I'll 'say[117] To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains, As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, Give cause to some of wonder, some despite, And more despair to imitate their sound. I, that spend half my nights and all my days Here in a cell, to get a dark pale face, To come forth worth the ivy or the bays, And in this age can hope no other grace-- Leave me! There's something come into my thought That must and shall be sung high and aloof, Safe from the wolf's black jaw and the dull ass's hoof.[118]

[Footnote 115: Applauses.] [Footnote 116: Plural of ibis.] [Footnote 117: That is, I will try once for all.] [Footnote 118: That is, envy and stupidity.]

JOHN FLETCHER AND FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

A SONG OF TRUE LOVE DEAD.

[From _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.

A SONG OF CRUEL LOVE.[119]

[From _Rollo, Duke of Normandy_.]

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.

SWEET MELANCHOLY.[120]

[From _The Nice Valor_.]

Hence, all your vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There's naught in this life sweet, If man were wise to see't, But only melancholy: O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fastened on 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 still gloomy valley: Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

[Footnote 119: The first stanza of this song was probably Shakspere's.] [Footnote 120: This should be compared with Milton's _Il Penserosa_.]

CAESAR'S LAMENT OVER POMPEY.

[From _The False One._]

O thou conqueror, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity: Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate followed thee and plucked thee on To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian? The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger That honorable war ne'er taught a nobleness, Nor worthy circumstance showed what a man was? That never heard thy name sung but in banquets And loose lascivious pleasures? To a boy That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness?... Egyptians, dare you think your high pyramides, Built to out-dure the sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? No, brood of Nilus, Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; No pyramid set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness, To which I leave him.

JOHN MILTON.

FAME.

[From _Lycidas._]

Alas! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless Muse? Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,[121] And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise," Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears: "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed."

THE PLEASURES OF MELANCHOLY.

[From _Il Penseroso._]

Sweet bird that shun'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft the woods among I woo, to hear thy even-song; And, missing thee, I walk unseen On the dry smooth-shaven green, To behold the wandering moon, Riding near her highest noon, Like one that had been led astray Through the heaven's wide pathless way, And oft, as if her head she bowed, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. Oft, on a plat of rising ground, I hear the far-off curfew sound, Over some wide-watered shore, Swinging slow with sullen roar; Or, if the air will not permit, Some still removed place will fit, Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom, Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth, Or the bellman's drowsy charm[122] To bless the doors from nightly harm.... But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof. With antique pillars massy-proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced quire below, In service high and anthem clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heaven before mine eyes. And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience do attain To something like prophetic strain. These pleasures, Melancholy, give; And I with thee will choose to live.

[Footnote 121: Atropos, the fate who cuts the thread of life.] [Footnote 122: The watchman's call.]

THE PROTECTION OF CONSCIENCE.

[From _Comus_.]

Scene: A wild wood; night.

_Lady_: My brothers, when they saw me wearied out With this long way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favor of these pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then when the grey-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labor of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stolen them from me. Else, O thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars That Nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light To the misled and lonely traveller? This is the place, as well as I may guess, Whence even now the tumult of loud mirth Was rife, and perfect in my listening ear; Yet nought but single darkness do I find. What might this be? A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory, Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues that syllable men's names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses. These thoughts may startle well, but not astound The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, Conscience. O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, Thou hovering angel girt with golden wings, And thou unblemished form of Chastity! I see ye visibly, and now believe That He, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill Are but as slavish officers of vengeance, Would send a glistening guardian, if need were, To keep my life and honor unassailed.... Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night? I did not err: there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night, And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

INVOCATION TO LIGHT.

[From _Paradise Lost_.]

Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou Revisitest not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene[123] hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equalled with me in fate, I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,[124] And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark, Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. So much the rather thou, celestial Light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.

[Footnote 123: The _gutta serena_, or cataract.] [Footnote 124: Homer.]

SATAN.

[From _Paradise Lost_.]

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield, Etherial temper, massy, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist[125] views At evening from the top of Fesole,[126] Or in Valdamo, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe. His spear (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand) He walked with, to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, not like those steps On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore beside, vaulted with fire. Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High over-arched embower, or scattered sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld From the safe shore their floating carcasses And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn, Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, Under amazement of their hideous change.

[Footnote 125: Galileo.] [Footnote 126: A hill near Florence.]

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT.[127]

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant,[128] that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.[129]

[Footnote 127: This sonnet refers to the persecution instituted in 1655 by the Duke of Savoy against the Vaudois Protestants.] [Footnote 128: The Pope, who wore the triple crown or tiara.] [Footnote 129: The Papacy, with which the Protestant reformers identified Babylon the Great, the "Scarlet Woman" of Revelation.]

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

THE VANITY OF MONUMENTS.

[From _Urn Burial_]

There is no antidote against the opium of time, which temporally considereth all things. Our fathers find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks....The iniquity[130] of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations and Thersites[131] is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favor of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methusaleh's long life had been his only chronicle.

Oblivion is not to be hired.[132] The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first story, and the reported names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetic which scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina[133] of life, and even pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets at right descensions and makes but winter arches, and, therefore, it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes. Since the brother[134] of death daily haunts us with dying mementoes, and time that grows old in itself bids us hope no long duration; diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation....

There is nothing strictly immortal but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God, who can only[135] destroy our souls, and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustrations, and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape[136] in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery[137] in the infamy of his nature.

[Footnote 130: Injustice.] [Footnote 131: See Shakspere's _Troilus and Cressida_.] [Footnote 132: That is, bribed, bought off.] [Footnote 133: The goddess of childbirth. We must die to be born again.] [Footnote 134: Sleep.] [Footnote 135: That is, the only one who can.] [Footnote 136: Freak.] [Footnote 137: Ostentation.]

* * * * *

JOHN DRYDEN.

THE CHARACTER OF ZIMRI.[138]

[From _Absalom and Achitophel_.]

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was every thing by turns, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, 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! Railing and praising were his usual themes, And both, to show his judgment, in extremes: So over-violent or over-civil That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools whom still he found[139] too late, He had his jest, and they had his estate. He laughed himself from court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For spite of him, the weight of business fell To Absalom and wise Achitophel.[140] Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left.

[Footnote 138: This is a satirical sketch of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.] [Footnote 139: Found out, detected.] [Footnote 140: The Duke of Monmouth and the Earl of Shaftesbury.]

THE CHEATS OF HOPE.

[From _Aurengzebe_.]

When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit, Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; To-morrow's falser than the former day. Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain, And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give. I'm tired of waiting for this chymic[141] gold Which fools us young and beggars us when old.

[Footnote 141: The gold which the alchemists tried to make from base metals.]

* * * * *

JONATHAN SWIFT.

THE EMPEROR OF LILLIPUT.

[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]

He is taller by almost the breadth of my nail than any of his court; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders. His features are strong and masculine, with an Austrian lip and arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, all his motions graceful, and his deportment majestic. He was then past his prime, being twenty-eight years and three quarters old, of which he had reigned about seven in great felicity, and generally victorious. For the better convenience of beholding him, I lay on my side, so that my face was parallel to his, and he stood but three yards off; however, I have had him since many times in my hand, and therefore cannot be deceived in the description. His dress was very plain and simple, and the fashion of it between the Asiatic and the European; but he had on his head a light helmet of gold, adorned with jewels and a plume on the crest. He held his sword drawn in his hand to defend himself, if I should happen to break loose; it was almost three inches long: the hilt and scabbard were gold enriched with diamonds. His voice was shrill, but very clear and articulate, and I could distinctly hear it, when I stood up.

THE STRULDBRUGS.

[From _Gulliver's Travels_.]

One day in much good company, I was asked by a person of quality whether I had seen any of their _Struldbrugs_, or immortals? I said I had not, and desired he would explain to me what he meant by such an appellation, applied to a mortal creature. He told me that sometimes, though very rarely, a child happened to be born in a family with a red circular spot in the forehead, directly over the left eyebrow, which was an infallible mark that it should never die....He said these births were so rare that he did not believe there could be above eleven hundred _Struldbrugs_ of both sexes in the whole kingdom; of which he computed about fifty in the metropolis, and among the rest, a young girl born about three years ago; that these productions were not peculiar to any family, but a mere effect of chance; and the children of the _Struldbrugs_ themselves were equally mortal with the rest of the people....After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the _Struldbrugs_ among them. He said they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession; for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral they lament and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of any thing but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very imperfect, And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others....At ninety, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same reason they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.... They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly....They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women were homelier than the men Beside the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between them.

* * * * *

ALEXANDER POPE.

A CHARACTER OF ADDISON.

[From the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.]

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires True genius kindles and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged; And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like _Cato_,[142] give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars[143] every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise-- Who but must laugh if such a man there be? Who would not weep if Atticus were he?

AN ORNAMENT TO HER SEX.

[From the _Epistle of the Characters of Women_.]

See how the world its veterans rewards! A youth of frolic, an old age of cards; Fair to no purpose, artful to no end, Young without lovers, old without a friend; A fop their passion, but their prize a sot; Alive, ridiculous, and dead, forgot. Ah! Friend,[144] to dazzle let the vain design; To raise the thought and touch the heart be thine! That charm shall grow, while what fatigues the Ring[145] Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing. So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, All mild ascends the moon's more sober light, Serene in virgin majesty she shines, And unobserved, the glaring orb declines. Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day; She who can love a sister's charms, or hear Sighs for a daughter with unwounded ear; She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting sways, Yet has her humour most when she obeys; Let fops or fortune fly which way they will, Disdains all loss of tickets or Codille;[146] Spleen, vapours, or small-pox, above them all, And mistress of herself though china fall.... Be this a woman's fame; with this unblest, Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest. This Phoebus promised (I forget the year) When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere; Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care, Averted half your parents' simple prayer; And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself. The generous God who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

[Footnote 142: A reference to Addison's tragedy of _Cato_.] [Footnote 143: Young lawyers resident in the temple. See Spenser's _Prothalamion_.] [Footnote 144: Martha Blount, a dear friend of the poet's.] [Footnote 145: The fashionable promenade in Hyde Park.] [Footnote 146: The "pool" in the game of ombre.]

* * * * *

JOSEPH ADDISON.

SIGNOR NICOLINI AND THE LION.

[From the _Spectator_.]

There is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signor Nicolini's combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain....But before I communicate my discoveries I must acquaint the reader that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me in a gentle voice that I might come by him if I pleased; "for," says he, "I do not intend to hurt any body." I thanked him very kindly and passed by him, and in a little time after saw him leap upon the stage and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by several that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance, which will not seem strange when I acquaint the reader that the lion has been changed upon the audience three several times.

The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who, being a fellow of a testy, choleric temper, overdid his part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observed of him that he grew more surly every time he came out of the lion; and having dropt some words in ordinary conversation, as if he had not fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back in the scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr. Nicolini for what he pleased, out of his lion's skin, it was thought proper to discard him; and it is verily believed to this day that had he been brought upon the stage another time he would certainly have done mischief. Besides, it was objected against the first lion that he reared himself so high upon his hinder paws, and walked in so erect a position, that he looked more like an old man than a lion.

The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and peaceful man in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish, for his part; inasmuch that, after a short, modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of 'Hydaspes'[147] without grappling with him and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips; it is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-colored doublet; but this was only to make work for himself in his private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes.

The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says very handsomely, in his own excuse, that he does not act for gain, that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it, and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner than in gaming and drinking; but at the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his name should be known the ill-natured world might call him _the ass in the lion's skin_. This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.

I must not conclude my narrative without taking notice of a groundless report that has been raised to a gentleman's disadvantage, of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signor Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another and smoking a pipe together behind the scenes, by which their common enemies would insinuate that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage; but upon inquiry I find that if any such correspondence has passed between them it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked upon as dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Besides, this is what is practiced every day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as soon as they are out of it.

[Footnote 147: In the opera of _Hydaspes_, presented at the Haymarket in 1710, the hero, whose part was taken by Signor Nicolini, kills a lion in the amphitheater.]

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

DETACHED PASSAGES FROM BOSWELL'S LIFE.

We talked of the education of children, and I asked him what he thought was best to teach them first. _Johnson_: Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learnt them both.

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to see it done at all.

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage married immediately after his wife died. Johnson said it was a triumph of hope over experience.

He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield, for he was educated in England. "Much," said he, "may be made of a Scotchman if he be _caught_ young." _Johnson_: An old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out." A gentleman who introduced his brother to Dr. Johnson was earnest to recommend him to the doctor's notice, which he did by saying: "When we have sat together some time you'll find my brother grow very entertaining."

"Sir," said Johnson, "I can wait."

"Greek, sir," said he, "is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can."

Lord Lucan tells a very good story, that when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about with an inkhorn and pen in his button-hole, like an exciseman, and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, "We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

_Johnson_: My dear friend, clear your _mind_ of cant. You may _talk_ as other people do; you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are _not_ his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times. You tell a man, "I am sorry you had such bad weather the last day of your journey and were so much wet." You don't care sixpence whether he is wet or dry. You may _talk_ in this manner; it is a mode of talking in society, but don't _think_ foolishly.

A lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written _Paradise Lost_ should write such poor sonnets: "Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus from a rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones."

A gentleman having said that a _conge d'elire_ has not, perhaps, the force of a command, but may be considered only as a strong recommendation. "Sir," replied Johnson, "it is such a recommendation as if I should throw you out of a two pair of stairs window, and recommend you to fall soft."

Happening one day to mention Mr. Flaxman, the doctor replied, "Let me hear no more of him, sir; that is the fellow who made the index to my _Ramblers_, and set down the name of Milton thus: 'Milton, _Mr_, John.'"

Goldsmith said that he thought he could write a good fable, mentioned the simplicity which that kind of composition requires, and observed that, in most fables, the animals introduced seldom talk in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill," continued he, "consists in making them talk like little fishes." While he indulged himself in this fanciful reverie, he observed Johnson shaking his sides and laughing. Upon which he smartly proceeded, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES."

He expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I caught it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China, had I not children of whom it was my duty to take care. "Sir," said he, "by doing so, you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a luster reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China--I am serious, sir."

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE VILLAGE PASTOR AND SCHOOL-MASTER.

[From _The Deserted Village_.]

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose. A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year; Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. Unskillful he to fawn or seek for power By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour: Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. His house was known to all the vagrant train-- He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain; The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast. The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire and talked the night away; Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe; Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave e'er charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side.... At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; E'en children followed with endearing wile And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed; To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitable gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view; I knew him well, and every truant knew. Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes (for many a joke had he); Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal, tidings when he frowned Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore for learning was his fault. The village all declared how much he knew-- 'Twas certain he could write and cipher too; Lands he could measure, times and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.

* * * * *

EDMUND BURKE.

THE DECAY OF LOYALTY.

[From _Reflections on the Revolution in France_.]

It is sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France,[148] then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in; glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy. O, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall. Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from the scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness....On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which is as void of solid wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported only by their own terms, and by the concern which each individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expresssion, in persons; so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is incapable of filling their place. These public affections, combined with manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as corrections, always as aids, to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true as to states. _Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto_. There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

[Footnote 148: Marie Antoinette.]

* * * * *

THOMAS GRAY.

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry's[149] holy shade; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead, survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way:

Ah happy hills, ah pleasing shade, Ah fields beloved in vain, Where once my careless childhood strayed, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.

Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race, Disporting on thy margent green, The paths of pleasure trace, Who, foremost now delight to cleave With pliant arm thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthral? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball?

While some, on earnest business bent, Their morning labors ply 'Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint To sweeten liberty: Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare discry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, Less pleasing when possest; The tear forgot as soon as shed, The sunshine of the breast: Theirs buxom health of rosy hue, Wild wit, invention ever new, And lively cheer of vigour born; The thoughtless day, the easy night, The spirits pure, the slumbers light, That fly th' approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom The little victims play. No sense have they of ill to come, Nor care beyond to-day: Yet see how all around them wait The ministers of human fate, And black Misfortune's baleful train! Ah, show them where in ambush stand, To seize their prey the murth'rous band! Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear, The vultures of the mind, Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, And Shame that skulks behind; Or pining Love shall waste their youth, Or Jealousy with rankling tooth, That only gnaws the secret heart, And Envy wan, and faded Care, Grim-visaged, comfortless Despair, And Sorrow's piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise, Then whirl the wretch from high, To bitter Scorn a sacrifice, And grinning Infamy, The stings of Falsehood those shall try, And hard Unkindness' altered eye, That mocks the tear it forced to flow; And keen Remorse with blood defiled, And moody Madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.

Lo in the vale of years beneath A grisly troop are seen, The painful family of Death, More hideous than their queen: This racks the joints, this fires the veins, That every laboring sinew strains, Those in the deeper vitals rage: Lo, Poverty, to fill the band, That numbs the soul with icy hand, And slow consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men, Condemned alike to groan, The tender for another's pain, The unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies, Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

[Footnote 149: Henry VI., founder of Eton College.]

* * * * *

WILLIAM COWPER.

FROM LINES ON THE RECEIPT OF HIS MOTHER'S PICTURE.

O, that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, "Grieve not, my child; chase all thy fears away!" My mother! When I learnt that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day; I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away; And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. What ardently I wished I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived; By expectation every day beguiled, Dupe of _to-morrow_ even from a child. Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learnt at last submission to my lot; But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.

WINTER EVENING.

[From _The Task_.]

Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steaming column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.... O winter! ruler of the inverted year, Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheek Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, But urged by storms along its slippery way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest, And dreaded as thou art. Thou holdest the sun A prisoner in the yet undawning east, Shortening his journey between morn and noon, And hurrying him, impatient of his stay, Down to the rosy west; but kindly still Compensating his loss with added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering, at short notice, in one group The family dispersed, and fixing thought, Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares. I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening know.

* * * * *

MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN.

[From _The Task_.]

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of shade, Where rumor of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war Might never reach me more! My ear is pained, My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong or outrage with which earth is filled. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, It does not feel for man; the natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

* * * * *

ROBERT BURNS.

TAM O'SHANTER.

When chapman billies[150] leave the street, And drouthy[151] neebors neebors meet, As market-days are wearing late An' folk begin to tak the gate;[152] While we sit bousing at the nappy,[153] An' getting fou[154] and unco[155] happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses,[156] waters, slaps,[157] and styles, That lie between us and our hame, Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. This truth fand honest Tam O'Shanter, As he frae Ayr ae[158] night did canter, (Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonnie lasses.) O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum,[159] A blethering,[160] blustering, drunken blellum;[161] That frae November till October, Ae market-day thou wasna sober; That ilka melder,[162] wi' the miller, Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That every naig was ca'd[163] a shoe on, The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirten Jean till Monday. She prophesy'd that, late or soon, Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon, Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,[164] To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened, sage advices The husband frae the wife despises! . . Nae man can tether time or tide; The hour approaches Tam maun[165] ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; And sic[166] a night he taks the road in, As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; The rattling showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed; Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed: That night, a child might understand, The Deil had business on his hand.

(Mounted on his gray mare Maggie, Tarn pursues his homeward way in safety till, reaching Kirk-Alloway, he sees the windows in a blaze, and, looking in, beholds a dance of witches, with Old Nick playing the fiddle. Most of the witches are any thing but inviting, but there is one winsome wench, called Nannie, who dances in a "cutty-sark," or short smock.)

But here my muse her wing maun cower; Sic flights are far beyond her power; To sing how Nannie lap and flang[167] (A souple jade she was, and strang), And how Tam stood like are bewitched, And thought his very e'en enriched. Even Satan glowered and fidged fu' fain,[168] And hotch'd[169] and blew wi' might and main; Till first ae caper, syne[170] anither, Tam tint[171] his reason a' thegither, And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!" And in an instant all was dark: And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, When out the hellish legion sallied. As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,[172] When plundering herds assail their byke;[173] As open pussie's mortal foes, When, pop! she starts before their nose; As eager runs the market-crowd When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud. So Maggie runs, the witches follow Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow, Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'![174] In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'! In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin': Kate soon will be a woefu' woman. Now do thy speedy utmost Meg, And win the key-stane of the brig;[175] There at them thou thy tail may toss, A running stream they dare na cross, But ere the key-stane she could make, The fient[176] a tale she had to shake, For Nannie, far before the rest, Hard upon noble Maggie pressed, And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;[177] But little wist she Maggie's mettle-- Ae spring brought aff her master hale,[178] But left behind her ain gray tail; The carlin[179] claught[180] her by the rump, And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

[Footnote 150: Peddler fellows.] [Footnote 151: Thirsty.] [Footnote 152: Road home.] [Footnote 153: Ale.] [Footnote 154: Full.] [Footnote 155: Uncommonly.] [Footnote 156: Swamps.] [Footnote 157: Gaps in a hedge.] [Footnote 158: One.] [Footnote 159: Good-for-nothing.] [Footnote 160: Babbling.] [Footnote 161: Gossip.] [Footnote 162: Every time corn was sent to the mill.] [Footnote 163: Driven.] [Footnote 164: Makes me weep.] [Footnote 165: Must.] [Footnote 166: Such.] [Footnote 167: Leaped and flung.] [Footnote 168: Stared and fidgeted with eagerness.] [Footnote 169: Hitched about.] [Footnote 170: Then.] [Footnote 171: Lost.] [Footnote 172: Fuss.] [Footnote 173: Hive.] [Footnote 174: Deserts.] [Footnote 175: Bridge.] [Footnote 176: Devil.] [Footnote 177: Aim.] [Footnote 178: Whole.] [Footnote 179: Hag.] [Footnote 180: Caught.]

JOHN ANDERSON.

John Anderson, my jo,[181] John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonnie brow was brent;[182] But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snow; But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither; And monie a canty[183] day, John, We've had wi' are anither: Now we maun totter down, John, But hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo.

[Footnote 181: Sweetheart.] [Footnote 182: Smooth] [Footnote 183: Merry.]

* * * * *

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

SONNET.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers-- For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

THE PRE-EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL.

[From Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.]

Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy: Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy; But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day....

O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benedictions: not, indeed, For that which is most worthy to be blest; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast-- Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble, like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of all our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence: truths that wake To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy. Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither; Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

LUCY.

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 from the eye: Fair 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!

THE SOLITARY REAPER.

Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chant More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands.

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending, I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending; I listened, motionless and still, And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.

SKATING AT NIGHT.

[From the _Prelude_.]

So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparking clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.

* * * * *

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

THE SONG OF THE SPIRITS.

[From _The Ancient Mariner_.]

Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky, I heard the skylark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments, And now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune.

THE LOVE OF ALL CREATURES.

[From the same.]

O wedding guest, this soul hath been Alone on a wide, wide sea: So lonely 'twas that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company.

To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men and babes and loving friends, And youths and maidens gay.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee, thou wedding guest; He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

ESTRANGEMENT OF FRIENDS.

[From _Christabel_.]

Alas! they had been friends in youth But whispering tongues can poison truth, And constancy lives in realms above, And life is thorny and youth is vain, And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain. And thus it fared, as I divine, With Roland and Sir Leoline. Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother; But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining. They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs that had been rent asunder: A dreary sea now flows between, But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder Can wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once has been.

WALTER SCOTT.

NATIVE LAND.

[From _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_.]

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said. This is my own, my native land? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand? Still, as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as, to me, of all bereft Sole friends thy woods and streams are left: And thus I love them better still Even in extremity of ill. By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, Though none should guide my feeble way Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, Although it chill my withered cheek; Still lay my head by Teviot's stone, Though there, forgotten and alone, The bard may draw his parting groan.

SUNSET ON THE BORDER.

[From _Marmion_.]

Day set on Norham's castled steep And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, And Cheviot's mountains lone: The battled towers, the donjon keep, The loop-hole grates where captives The flanking walls that round it sweep, In yellow luster shone. The warriors on the turrets high, Moving athwart the evening sky Seemed forms of giant height: Their armor; as it caught the rays, Flashed back again the western blaze, In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay, Now faded, as the fading ray Less bright, and less was flung; The evening gale had scarce the power To wave it on the donjon tower, So heavily it hung. The scouts had parted on their search, The castle gates were barred; Above the gloomy portal arch, Timing his footsteps to a march, The warden kept his guard; Low humming, as he passed along, Some ancient border-gathering song.

PROUD MAISIE.

Proud Maisie is in the wood Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush Singing so rarely.

"Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?" --"When six braw[184] gentlemen Kirkward shall carry ye."

"Who makes the bridal bed, Birdie, say truly?" "The gray-headed sexton That delves the grave duly.

"The glow-worm o'er grave and stone Shall light thee steady; The owl from the steeple sing Welcome, proud lady."

[Footnote 184: Brave, fine.]

PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU.

Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Pibroch of Donuil, Wake thy wild voice anew, summon Clan-Conuil. Come away, come away, hark to the summons! Come in your war array, gentles and commons.

Come from deep glen and from mountain so rocky, The war-pipe and pennon are at Inverlochy. Come every hill-plaid and true heart that wears one, Come every steel blade and strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd, the flock without shelter; Leave the corpse uninterred, the bride at the altar; Leave the deer, leave the steer, leave nets and barges: Come with your fighting gear, broadswords and targes.

Come as the winds come when forests are rended; Come as the waves come when navies are stranded; Faster come, faster come; faster and faster, Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master.

Fast they come, fast they come; see how they gather! Wide waves the eagle plume blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, forward each man set! Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, knell for the onset!

* * * * *

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR.

I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the stars are shining bright.

I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me--who knows how?-- To thy chamber-window, sweet.

The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream; The champak odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart, As I must die on thine, O beloved as thou art!

O lift me from the grass! I die, I faint, I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heartbeats loud and fast: O! press it close to thine again, Where it will break at last.

VENICE.

[From _Lines Written in the Euganean Hills_.]

Sun-girt city, thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier. A less drear ruin then than now, With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne among the waves, Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state; Save where many a palace gate With green sea-flowers overgrown, Like a rock of ocean's own Topples o'er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters of his path.

A LAMENT.

O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, When will return the glory of your prime? No more--O, never more!

Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring and summer and winter hoar Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more--O, never more!

THE POET'S DREAM.

[From _Prometheus Unbound_.]

On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept. Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aerial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy bloom, Nor heed nor see what things they be; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality.

GEORGE GORDON BYRON.

ELEGY ON THYRZA.

And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth: And form so soft and charms so rare, Too soon returned to earth: Though earth received them in her bed, And o'er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved and long must love Like common earth can rot; To me there needs no stone to tell 'Tis nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past And canst not alter now. The love where death has set his seal Nor age can chill, nor rival steal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep, Nor need I to repine That all those charms have passed away, I might have watched through long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched Must fall the earliest prey; Though by no hand untimely snatched, The leaves must drop away: And yet it were a greater grief To watch it withering leaf by leaf, Than see it plucked to-day; Since earthly eye but ill can bear To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne To see thy beauties fade; The night that followed such a morn Had worn a deeper shade: Thy day without a cloud hath past, And thou wert lovely to the last, Extinguished, not decayed; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep, My tears might well be shed, To think I was not near to keep One vigil o'er thy bed; To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity, Returns again to me, And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years.

THE BALL AT BRUSSELS ON THE NIGHT BEFORE WATERLOO.

[From _Childe Harold_.]

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered there Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men: A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined! No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet-- But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!...

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale which but an hour ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated: who could guess If evermore should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise?

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips, "The foe! They come! they come!"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose, The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years; And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears.

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave--alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow, In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

JOHN KEATS.

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.

Thou still unravished bride of quietness! Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme; What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet; but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal--yet do not grieve: She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss, Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And happy melodist, unwearied Forever piping songs forever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, Forever panting and forever young; All breathing human passion far above, That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of its folk this pious morn? Ah! little town, thy streets forever more Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

MADELINE.

[From _The Eve of St. Agnes_.]

Out went the taper as she hurried in; Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died; She closed the door, she panted, all akin To spirits of the air and visions wide; No uttered syllable, or, woe betide! But to her heart her heart was voluble, Paining with eloquence her balmy side; As though a tongueless nightingale should swell Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled in her dell.

A casement high and triple-arched there was, All garlanded with carven imageries Of fruits and flowers and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes As are the tiger-moth's deep-damasked wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed, Save wings, for heaven: Porphyro grew faint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

CHARLES DICKENS.

BOB SAWYER'S BACHELOR PARTY.

[From _Pickwick Papers_.]

After supper another jug of punch was put on the table, together with a paper of cigars and a couple of bottles of spirits. Then there was an awful pause; and this awful pause was occasioned by a very common occurrence in this sort of places, but a very embarrassing one, notwithstanding.

The fact is that the girl was washing the glasses. The establishment boasted four; we do not record this circumstance as at all derogatory to Mrs. Raddle, for there was never a lodging-house yet that was not short of glasses. The landlady's glasses were little thin blown-glass tumblers, and those which had been borrowed from the public-house were great, dropsical, bloated articles, each supported on a huge gouty leg. This would have been in itself sufficient to have possessed the company with the real state of affairs; but the young woman of all work had prevented the possibility of any misconception arising in the mind of any gentleman upon the subject, by forcibly dragging every man's glass away long before he had finished his beer, and audibly stating, despite the winks and interruptions of Mr. Bob Sawyer, that it was to be conveyed down-stairs and washed forthwith....

The sight of the tumblers restored Bob Sawyer to a degree of equanimity which he had not possessed since his interview with his landlady. His face brightened up, and he began to feel quite convivial.

"Now, Betsy," said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with great suavity, and dispersing, at the same time, the tumultuous little mob of glasses that the girl had collected in the center of the table; "Now, Betsy, the warm water; be brisk, there's a good girl."

"You can't have no warm water," replied Betsy.

"No warm water!" exclaimed Mr. Bob Sawyer.

"No," said the girl, with a shake of the head which expressed a more decided negative than the most copious language could have conveyed. "Missis Raddle said you wasn't to have none."

The surprise depicted on the countenances of his guests imparted new courage to the host.

"Bring up the warm water instantly--instantly!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer, with desperate sternness.

"No; I can't," replied the girl. "Missis Raddle raked out the kitchen fire afore she went to bed, and locked up the kettle."

"O, never mind, never mind. Pray don't disturb yourself about such a trifle," said Mr. Pickwick, observing the conflict of Bob Sawyer's passions, as depicted on his countenance, "cold water will do very well."

"O, admirably," said Mr. Benjamin Allen.

"My landlady is subject to slight attacks of mental derangement," remarked Bob Sawyer, with a ghastly smile; "I fear I must give her warning."

"No, don't," said Ben Allen.

"I fear I must," said Bob, with heroic firmness. "I'll pay her what I owe her and give her warning to-morrow morning."

Poor fellow! How devoutly he wished he could!...It was at the end of the chorus to the first verse that Mr. Pickwick held up his hand in a listening attitude, and said, as soon as silence was restored, "Hush! I beg your pardon. I thought I heard somebody calling from up-stairs."

A profound silence immediately ensued, and Mr. Bob Sawyer was observed to turn pale.

"I think I hear it now," said Mr. Pickwick. "Have the goodness to open the door."

The door was no sooner opened than all doubt on the subject was removed.

"Mr. Sawyer--Mr. Sawyer," screamed a voice from the two-pair landing.

"It's my landlady," said Bob Sawyer, looking round him with great dismay. "Yes, Mrs. Raddle."

"What do you mean by this, Mr. Sawyer?" replied the voice, with great shrillness and rapidity of utterance. "'Aint it enough to be swindled out of one's rent, and money lent out of pocket besides, and abused and insulted by your friends that dares to call themselves men, without having the house turned out of window, and noise enough made to bring the fire-engines here at two o'clock in the morning? Turn them wretches away."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Mr. Raddle, which appeared to proceed from beneath some distant bed-clothes.

"Ashamed of themselves!" said Mrs. Raddle. "Why don't you go down and knock 'em every one down-stairs? You would, if you was a man."

"I should if I was a dozen men, my dear," replied Mr. Raddle, pacifically; "but they've rather the advantage of me in numbers, my dear."

"Ugh, you coward!" replied Mrs. Raddle, with supreme contempt. "Do you mean to turn them wretches out, or not, Mr. Sawyer?"

"They're going, Mrs. Raddle, they're going," said the miserable Bob. "I'm afraid you'd better go," said Mr. Bob Sawyer to his friends. "I _thought_ you were making too much noise."

"It's a very unfortunate thing," said the prim man. "Just as we were getting so comfortable, too." The fact was that the prim man was just beginning to have a dawning recollection of the story he had forgotten.

"It's hardly to be borne," said the prim man, looking round; "hardly to be borne, is it?"

"Not to be endured," replied Jack Hopkins; "let's have the other verse, Bob; come, here goes."

"No, no, Jack, don't," interposed Bob Sawyer; "it's a capital song, but I am afraid we had better not have the other verse. They are very violent people, the people of the house."

"Shall I step up-stairs and pitch into the landlord?" inquired Hopkins, "or keep on ringing the bell, or go and groan on the staircase? You may command me, Bob."

"I am very much indebted to you for your friendship and good-nature, Hopkins," said the wretched Mr. Bob Sawyer, "but I am of opinion that the best plan to avoid any farther dispute is for us to break up at once."

"Now, Mr. Sawyer," screamed the shrill voice of Mrs. Raddle, "are them brutes going?"

"They're only looking for their hats, Mrs. Raddle," said Bob; "they are going directly."

"Going!" said Mrs. Raddle, thrusting her night-cap over the bannisters, just as Mr. Pickwick, followed by Mr. Tupman, emerged from the sitting-room. "Going! What did they ever come for."

"My dear ma'am," remonstrated Mr. Pickwick, looking up.

"Get along with you, you old wretch!" replied Mrs. Raddle, hastily withdrawing her night-cap. "Old enough to be his grandfather, you villain! You're worse than any of 'em."

Mr. Pickwick found it in vain to protest his innocence, so hurried down-stairs into the street, whither he was closely followed by Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass.

WILLIAM MAKEPIECE THACKERAY.

BECKY GOES TO COURT AND DINES AT GAUNT HOUSE.

[From _Vanity Fair_.]

The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit, and discoursed to her followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the _Morning Post_ from town, and gave a vent to their honest indignation. "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "you might have had superb diamonds, forsooth, and have been presented at court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But you're only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have only some of the best blood in England in your veins, and good principles and piety for your portion. I myself, the wife of a baronet's younger brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going to court--nor would other people if good Queen Charlotte had been alive." In this way the worthy rectoress consoled herself; and her daughters sighed, and sat over the _Peerage_ all night....

When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private, and seldom disturbed the females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box in the grand tier)--his lordship, we say, appeared among the ladies and the children, who were assembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of Rebecca.

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."

"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said, in a flutter. "Lady Gaunt writes them."

"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after she had spoken. It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had offended him.

"Send the children out of the room. Go!" said he, pulling at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened before him, retired; their mother would have followed too. "Not you." he said. "You stop."

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more, will you have the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for your dinner on Friday?"

"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt said; "I will go home."

"I wish you would, and stay there. You will find the bailiffs at Bare-acres very pleasant company; and I shall be freed from lending money to your relations, and from your own damned tragedy airs. Who are you, to give orders here? You have no money. You've got no brains. You were here to have children, and you have not had any. Gaunt's tired of you; and George's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were."

"I wish I were," her ladyship answered, with tears and rage in her eyes.

"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue; while my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as every body knows, and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my young friend, Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best of women; that lies are often told about the most innocent of them. Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"

"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter suffering always put his lordship into a good humor.

"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindnesss. I only wish to correct little faults in your character. You women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here. You musn't give yourselves airs: you must be meek and humble, my blessings. For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-humored Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more innocent than herself. Her husband's character is not good, but it is as good as Bareacres's, who has played a little and not payed a great deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had, and left you a pauper on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very well born; but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones."

"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady George cried out--

"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the marquis said, darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honors; your little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't give _me_ any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I sha'n't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady, by even hinting that it even requires a defense. You will be pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with a laugh. "Who is the master of it, and what is it? This temple of virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by----they shall be welcome."

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord Steyne treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared in his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt wrote the invitation which his lordship required, and she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

GEORGE ELIOT.

PASSAGES FROM ADAM BEDE.

It was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light, silver-stemmed birch--just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs; you see their white sun-lit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs or peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you hear their soft liquid laughter--but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough. Not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss--paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you....It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty's cheek was like a rose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about her white shell-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low plum-colored stuff bodice, or how the linen butter-making apron, with its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, since it fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soled buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly have had when empty of her foot and ankle--of little use unless you have seen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, for otherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she would not in the least resemble that distracting kitten-like maiden. I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred, silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue? I could never make you know what I meant by a bright spring day. Hetty's was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of innocence--the innocence of a young star-browed calf, for example, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, leads you a severe steeple-chase over hedge and ditch, and only comes to a stand in the middle of a bog.

Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion, and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes--ah! so like our mother's--averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years ago. The father to whom we owe our best heritage--the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modeling hand--galls us, and puts us to shame by his daily errors. The long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humors and irrational persistence.

It was to Adam the time that a man can least forget in after life--the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays by a slight something--a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or an eyelid--that she is at least beginning to love him in return....So unless our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory, we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood; doubtless that joy is wrought up into our nature, or as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up into the soft mellowness of the apricot; but it is gone forever from our imagination as we can only _believe_ in the joy of childhood. But the first glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the recurrent sensation of a sweet odor breathed in a far-off hour of happiness. It is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy, and adds the last keenness to the agony of despair.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

MIDNIGHT IN THE CITY.

[From _Sartor Resartus_.]

"_Ach, mein Lieber!_" said he once, at midnight, when we had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, "it is a true sublimity to dwell here. These fringes of lamp-light, struggling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some fathoms into the ancient reign of night, what thinks Booetes of them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed-in and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like night-birds, are abroad: that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven! O, under that hideous coverlet of vapours and putrefactions and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid! The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are being born: men are praying,--on the other side of a brick partition men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars, _Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard, hungry Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides down to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and blood-shot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow: comes no hammering from the _Rabenstein_?--their gallows must even now be o' building. Upward of five hundred thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie round us in horizontal positions; their heads all in night-caps and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten.--All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between them;--crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel;--or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed Vipers, each struggling to get its _head above_ the other: _such_ work goes on under that smoke-counterpane!--But I, _mein Werther,_ sit above it all; I am alone with the Stars."

GHOSTS.

[From the Same.]

Again, could any thing be more miraculous than an actual authentic Ghost? The English Johnson longed, all his life to see one; but could not, though he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church-vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did he never, with the mind's eye as well as with the body's, look around him into that full tide of human Life he so loved; did he never so much as look into himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual and authentic as heart could wish; well-nigh a million of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time; compress the threescore years into three minutes: what else was he, what else are we? Are we not Spirits, that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance; and that fade away again into air, and Invisibility? This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific _fact_: we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are Apparitions; round us, as round the veriest spectre, is Eternity; and to Eternity minutes are as years and aeons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beatified souls? And again, do not we squeak and gibber (in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and recriminatings); and glide bodeful and feeble and fearful; or uproar (_poltern_), and revel in our mad Dance of the Dead,--till the scent of the morning-air summons us to our still Home; and dreamy Night becomes awake and Day? Where now is Alexander of Macedon: does the steel Host, that yelled in fierce battle-shouts, at Issus and Arbela, remain behind him; or have they all vanished utterly, even as perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and his Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns! Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt; which has now, with its howling tumult that made Night hideous, flitted away?--Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million walking the Earth openly at noontide; some half-hundred have vanished from it, some half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks once....

Thus, like some wild-flaming, wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this mysterious Mankind thunder and flame, in long-drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the unknown Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane; haste stormfully across the astonished Earth; then plunge again into the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and her seas filled up, in our passage: can the Earth, which is but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which have reality and are alive? On the hardest adamant some foot-print of us is stamped in; the last Rear of the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But whence?--O Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God.

"We _are such stuff_ As Dreams are made of, and our little Life Is rounded with a sleep!"

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE.

[From _The Princess_.]

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more....

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O death in life, the days that are no more.

THE PASSING OF ARTHUR.

[From _Morte D'Arthur_.]

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell: I am going a long way With these thou seest--if indeed I go-- (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns, And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away.

BUGLE SONG.

[From _The Princess_.]

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.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O 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.

O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.

Break, break, break On thy cold gray stones, O sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

PEACE OR WAR?

[From _Maud_.]

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovelled and hustled together, each sex, like swine, When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie; Peace in her vineyard--yes!--but a company forges the wine.

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread, And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.

And Sleep must lie down armed, for the villainous centre-bits Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights, While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits To pestle a poisoned poison behind his crimson lights.

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea, War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.

STANZAS FROM IN MEMORIAM.

I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes His license in the fields of time, Unfettered by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth, But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whatever befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

SONG FROM MAUD.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown; Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirred To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone? She is weary of dance and play." Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, "The brief night goes In babble and revel and wine. O young lord-lover, what sighs are those For one that will never be thine? But mine, but mine," so I swore to the rose, "For ever and ever mine."

ROBERT BROWNING.

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: A mile or so away On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall"-- Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy: You hardly could suspect-- (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two.

"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace We've got you Ratisbon! The Marshal's in the market-place, And you'll be there anon To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I, to heart's desire, Perched him!" The chiefs eye flashed; his plans Soared up again like fire.

The chief's eye flashed; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother-eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes; "You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride Touched to the quick, he said: "I'm killed, sire!" And his chief beside, Smiling the boy fell dead.

THE LOST LEADER.

Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat-- Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others, she lets us devote; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed: How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die! Shakspere was of us, Milton was for us, Burns, Shelley were with us--they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering--not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us--not from his lyre; Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain, Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight, Never glad confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

MEETING AT NIGHT.

The gray sea and the long black land, And the yellow half-moon large and low; And the startled little waves that leap In fiery ringlets from their sleep, As I gain the cove with pushing prow And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; Three fields to cross till a farm appears; A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch And blue spurt of a lighted match, And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, Than the two hearts beating each to each!

WORK AND WORTH.

[From _Rabbi Ben Ezra_.]

Not on the vulgar mass Called "work" must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD.

O, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf Round the elm-tree hole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England--now!

And after April, when May follows, And the white throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dew-drops--at the bent spray's edge-- That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower, Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!