Part 36

As jars the hinge, what sullen echoes call! Oh haste, unfold the hospitable hall! That hall, where once in antiquated state, The chair of justice held the grave debate.

Now stained with dews, with cobwebs darkly hung, Oft has its roof with peals of rapture rung; When round yon ample board in due degree, We sweetened every meal with social glee. The heart's light laugh pursued the exciting jest; And all was sunshine in each little breast. 'Twas here we traced the slipper by the sound. And turned the blindfold hero round and round. 'Twas here, at eve, we formed our fairy ring; And Fancy fluttered on her wildest wing. Giants and genii chained each wondering ear; And orphan sorrows drew the ready tear. Oft with the babes we wandered in the wood, Or viewed the forest feats of Robin Hood. Oft, fancy-led, at midnight's fearful hour, With startling step we scaled the lonely tower, O'er infant innocence to hang and weep, Murdered by ruffian hands, when smiling in its sleep.

Ye household deities! whose guardian eye Marked each pure thought we registered on high; Still, still ye walk the consecrated ground, And breathe the soul of inspiration round.

As o'er the dusky furniture I bend, Each chair awakes the feelings of a friend. The storied arras, source of fond delight, With old achievement charms the wildered sight; And still with heraldry's red hues impressed, On the dim window glows the pictured crest; The screen unfolds its many colored chart; The clock still points its moral to the heart-- That faithful monitor 'twas heaven to hear, When soft it spoke a promised pleasure near; And has its sober hand, its simple chime, Forgot to trace the feathered feet of Time? That massive beam with curious carvings wrought, Whence the caged linnet soothed my pensive thought; Those muskets cased with venerable rust. Those once-loved forms still breathing through their dust, Still from the frame in mold gigantic cast, Starting to life--all whisper of the past!"

This is so exquisite and old-English that it will continue to charm as long as there are hearts and memories. The whole of the first part of the poem is of the like tone and feature; the old garden, the old school and its porch, the Gipsy group, the old beggar, the village church and church-yard--

"On whose gray stone, that fronts the chancel door, Worn smooth by tiny feet now seen no more, Each eve we shot the marble through the ring, When the heart danced, and life was in the spring."

As it advances, however, it takes a wider range, and gradually embraces higher topics and more extensive regions. History, and death, and eternity, all swell into its theme.

A new element of style also marks the progress of this poem. There are more animated invocations, and a greater pomp of versification. It looks as if the muse of Darwin had infused its more ambitious tone, without leading the poet away from his purely legitimate subjects. By whatever passing influences, or what processes of thought, this change was produced, there it is. This poem, and this peculiar style of versification, soon caught the ear and fascinated the mind of Campbell, when a very young man, and out of the Pleasures of Memory sprung the Pleasures of Hope. The direct imitation of both style, manner, subject, and cast of subject, by Campbell, is one of the most striking things in the language; the peculiarities of the style and phraseology only, as was natural by an enthusiastic youth, much exaggerated. In Campbell, that which in Rogers is somewhat sounding and high-toned, becomes, with all its beauty, turgid, and often bordering on bombast. The very epithets are the same. "The wild bee's wing"--"the war-worn courser," and "pensive twilight in her dusky car," continually in the Pleasures of Hope remind you of the Pleasures of Memory.

"Hark, the bee winds her small but mellow horn, Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, And many a stream allures her to its source. 'Tis noon, 'tis night. That eye so finely wrought, Beyond the reach of sense, the soar of thought, Nor vainly asks the scenes she left behind: Its orb so full, its vision so confined! Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell? With conscious truth retrace the mazy clew Of summer scents, that charmed her as she flew? Hail, Memory, hail! thy universal reign Guards the least link of being's glorious chain."--_Rogers._

In the disciple the manner is reproduced, and yet modified as in these lines:--

"Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe; Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour. The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower; There as the wild bee murmurs on the wing, What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring! What viewless forms th' Æolian organ play, And sweep the furrowed lines of conscious thought away."

How the master and the scholar may be again recognized in the following passages:--

"So, when the mild TUPIA dared explore Arts yet untaught, and worlds unknown before; And with the sons of science wooed the gale, That rising, swelled their strange expanse of sail; So when he breathed his firm, yet fond adieu, Borne from his leafy hut, his carved canoe, And all his soul best loved, such tears he shed While each soft scene of summer beauty fled. Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast, Long watched the streaming signal from the mast; Till twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye, And fairy forests fringed the evening sky."--_Rogers_.

"And such thy strength-inspiring aid, that bore The hardy Byron to his native shore,-- In horrid climes where Chiloe's tempests sweep Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep, 'Twas his to mourn misfortune's rudest shock, Scourged by the winds, and cradled on the rock, To wake each joyless morn and search again The famished haunts of solitary men; Whose race, unyielding as their native storm, Know not a trace of nature but the form; Yet at thy call the hardy tar pursued, Pale, but intrepid, sad, but unsubdued; Pierced the deep woods, and hailing from afar The moon's pale planet, and the northern star; Paused at each dreary cry unheard before, Hyenas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore; Till led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime, He found a warmer world, a milder clime, A home to rest, or shelter to defend, Peace and repose, a Briton and a friend!"--_Campbell_.

Into every form of expression the scholar follows his master:--

"When Diocletian's self-corrected mind The imperial fasces of a world resigned, Say, why we trace the labors of his spade In calm Salona's philosophic shade? Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne, To muse with monks unlettered and unknown, What from his soul the parting tribute drew, What claimed the sorrows of a last adieu?"--_Rogers_.

"And say, when summoned from the world and thee, I lay my head beneath the willow-tree, Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear, And soothe my parting spirit lingering near?"--_Campbell_.

But the likeness is found everywhere--in phrase, in imagery, in topics, and in tone. When, after a lapse of twenty-seven years, Mr. Rogers produced his poem of Human Life, what a change of manner, what a transformation of style had taken place in him! No longer the grandiloquent invocations were found; no longer the sounding style, no longer the easy recurrence of the cadence, pausing on the cæsura and falling at the close of the line. Here the whole rhythm and construction were of a new school and a new generation. The style was more simple and more vigorous. The sentences marched on with a rare recurrence of the cæsura, the cadence did not fall with the end of the line, but oftener far in the middle of it, and the verse abounded with triplets.

"He reads thanksgiving in the eyes of all-- All met as at a holy festival! --On the day destined for his funeral! Lo! there the friend, who, entering where he lay, Breathed in his drowsy ear--'Away, away! Take thou my cloak--Nay, start not, but obey! Take it, and leave me.'"

What a total revolution is here! The old chime is gone, the old melody is exchanged for a new. All depends on entirely new principles, and seeks to give pleasure through an utterly fresh medium. But the poem itself is one of the most beautiful things in any language. It is human life from the cradle to the tomb, with all its pleasures, aspirations, trials, and triumphs. Every thing which clings round the spirit of man as precious, every thing which wins us onward, and sustains us in sorrow, and soothes us under the infliction of wrong--the glory of public good, and the hallowed charm of domestic affection, is thrown into this poem, with the art of a master and the great soul of a sanctified experience. Never either were the varied scenes of English life more sweetly described. The wedding and the burial, the village wake and the field sports, the battle and the victory, all are blended inimitably into the great picture of existence, and at times the aged minstrel rises into a strain of power and animation, such as rebuke the doubters of those attributes in him.

"Then is the age of admiration--Then Gods walk the earth, or beings more than men; Who breathe the soul of inspiration round, Whose very shadows consecrate the ground! Ah! then comes thronging many a wild desire, And high imagining, and thought of fire! Then from within, a voice exclaims--'Aspire!' Phantoms, that upward point, before him pass, As in the cave athwart the wizard's glass; They, that on youth a grace, a luster shed, Of every age, the living and the dead!"

Still this poem of Human Life is but the life of one section of our fellow-men--that of the gentry. It is curious, that it does not descend into the midst of the multitude, and give us any of those deep and somber shades which abound so much in Crabbe. The reason is obvious. Crabbe had seen it and felt it. He had been born among it, and had himself to struggle. Rogers has gone on that easy path of life that is paved with gold, and "the huts where poor men lie," therefore, probably never for a moment protruded themselves through the charmed circle of his poetic inspiration. Happily for him his are fully the Pleasures of Memory. Yet it is not the less true, or less honorable, that in actual life, there is no man who has remembered the struggling more sympathetically, nor has held out so generous a hand to the aid of unfriended merit.

From the Voyage of Columbus the following extract will afford an example of the beautiful description and rich imaginative power which abound in that poem:--

THE NEW WORLD.

"Long on the deep the mists of morning lay, Then rose, revealing, as they rolled away, Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods: And say,--when all to holy transport given, Embraced and wept as at the gate of Heaven, When one and all of us, repentant, ran, And on our faces, blessed the wondrous man,-- Say, was I thus deceived, or from the skies Burst on my ear seraphic harmonies? 'Glory to God!' unnumbered voices sung, 'Glory to God!' the vales and mountains rung-- Voices that hailed creation's primal morn, And to the shepherds sung a Savior born.

Slowly, bareheaded, through the surf we bore The sacred cross, and kneeling, kissed the shore. But what a scene was there? Nymphs of romance! Youths graceful as the fawn, with eager glance Spring from the glades, and down the alleys peep; Some headlong rush, bounding from steep to steep, And clap their hands, exclaiming as they run, 'Come and behold the children of the sun!' When hark, a signal-shot! The voice it came Over the sea, in darkness and in flame! They saw, they heard; and up the highest hill, As in a picture, all at once were still! Creatures so fair, in garments strangely wrought, From citadels, with Heaven's own thunder fraught, Checked their light footsteps--statue-like they stood, As worshiped forms, the Genii of the Wood!

At length the spell dissolves! the warrior's lance Rings on the tortoise with wild dissonance! And see, the regal plumes, the coach of state! Still, where it moves, the wise in council wait! See now borne forth the monstrous masks of gold, And ebon chair of many a serpent fold; These now exchanged for gifts that thrice surpass The wondrous ring, and lamp, and horse of brass. What long-drawn tube transports the gazer home, Kindling with stars at noon the ethereal dome? 'Tis here: and here circles of solid light Charm with another self the cheated sight; As man to man another self disclose, And now with terror starts, with triumph glows!"

Italy, Mr. Rogers's last published poem of any length, is a fine production, full of that glorious land, and abounding with the finest subjects for the painter and the sculptor; but we must not be tempted to speak further of it here.

The changes of Mr. Rogers's life, or of his abodes, have not been many. He was born at Newington-green, in 1763, and is, consequently, eighty-three years of age. Newington-green, his birthplace, has all the marks of an old locality. In this neighborhood the Tudor princes used to live a good deal. Canonbury, between this green and Islington, was a favorite hunting-seat of Elizabeth, and no doubt the woods and wastes extended all round this neighborhood. There is Kingsland, now all built on, there is Henry VIII.'s walk, and Queen Elizabeth's walk, all in the vicinity; and this old, quiet green seems to retain a feeling and an aspect of those times. It is built round with houses, evidently of a considerable age. There are trees and quietness about it still. In the center of the south side is an old house standing back, which is said to have been inhabited by Henry VIII. At the end next to Stoke Newington stands an old Presbyterian chapel, at which the celebrated Dr. Price preached, and of which, afterward, the husband of Mrs. Barbauld was the minister. Near this chapel De Foe was educated, and the house still remains. In this green lived, too, Mary Wollstoncraft, being engaged with another lady in keeping a school. Samuel Rogers was born in the stuccoed house at the southwest corner, which is much older than it seems. Adjoining it is a large, old garden. Here his father, and his mother's father, lived before him. By the mother's side he was descended from the celebrated Philip Henry, the father of Matthew Henry, and was therefore of an old Non-conformist family. Mr. Rogers's grandfather was a gentleman, pursuing no profession, but his father engaged in banking. Mr. Rogers continued to reside in this house till after his father's death, and wrote and published here his Pleasures of Memory, which appeared a short time before his father's decease.

On quitting Newington-green, Mr. Rogers took chambers in the Temple, where he continued to reside five years, or till about 1800, when he removed to his present house; so that he has occupied his present abode the greater part of half-a-century. In this house, 22, St. James's-place, he has not only written every one of his chief poems, except the Pleasures of Memory, but he has been visited in it by a vast number of the most celebrated men of his time, among them Byron, Scott, Moore, Crabbe, Fox, Campbell, Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, etc.

At an early period of his life he was anxious to purchase an estate in the country, not too far from London, where he could build a house after his own taste. He pitched on Fredley farm, in Norbury-park, near Mickleham, in Surrey, which was to be disposed of. By some means it escaped him, and disappointed in his object, he seems to have given up the search for another situation, and contented himself with building his house on paper. The result was the abode described in his Epistle to a Friend, published in 1798. His villa is placed in a rustic hamlet, has few apartments, but is not without its library and cold bath, and is furnished with prints after the best painters, and casts from the antique. The whole of this poem breathes the love of the country, of simplicity of life, and condemns the pomp and the follies of London fashionable life. Its accompaniments, its exterior and interior, are all of the same unostentatious character--it is an abode that any man of taste might possess without any great wealth.

"Still must my partial pencil love to dwell On the home prospects of my hermit-cell: The mossy pales that skirt the orchard green Here hid by shrub-wood, there by glimpses seen; And the brown pathway that with careless flow Sinks, and is lost among the trees below. Still must it trace, the flattering tints forgive,-- Each fleeting charm that bids the landscape live. Oft o'er the mead, at pleasing distance pass, Browsing the hedge by fits, the panniered ass; The idling shepherd-boy with rude delight, Whistling his dog to mark the pebble's flight; And, in her kerchief blue, the cottage maid, With brimming pitcher from the shadowy glade Far to the south a mountain vale retires, Rich in its groves, and glens, and village spires; Its upland lawns, and cliffs with foliage hung, Its wizard stream, nor nameless, nor unsung. And through the various year, the various day, What scenes of glory burst and melt away!"

His interior embellishment shall be my last extract:--

"Here no state chambers in long line unfold, Bright with broad mirrors, rough with fretted gold: Yet modest ornament, with use combined, Attracts the eye to exercise the mind. Small change of scene, small space his home requires, Who leads a life of satisfied desires. What though no marble breathes, no canvas glows, From every point a ray of genius flows! Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill, That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will; And cheaply circulates through distant climes The fairest relics of the purest times. Here from the mold to conscious being start Those finer forms, the miracles of art; Here chosen gems, impressed on sulphur shine, That slept for ages in the secret mine; And here the faithful graver dares to trace A Michael's grandeur and a Raphael's grace! Thy gallery, Florence, gilds my humble walls, And my low roof the Vatican recalls."

But Mr. Rogers had the power to procure the originals; and therefore the same taste put him in possession of them. He was destined to spend his life in London, and only premising that the front of his house overlooks the Green-park, and possesses a gateway into it, I shall present the account of its interior, or rather of its treasures of art, from the pen of the well known Professor Waagen of Berlin, knowing from the poet himself that it is accurate.

"By the kindness of Mr. Solly, who continues to embrace every opportunity of doing me service, I have been introduced to Mr. Rogers the poet, a very distinguished and amiable man. He is one of the few happy mortals to whom it has been granted to be able to gratify, in a worthy manner, the most lively sensibility to every thing noble and beautiful. He has accordingly found means, in the course of his long life, to impress this sentiment on every thing about him. In his house you are everywhere surrounded and excited with the higher productions of art. In truth one knows not whether more to admire the diversity or the purity of his taste. Pictures of the most different schools, ancient and modern sculptures, Greek vases, alternately attract the eye, and are so arranged, with a judicious regard to their size, in proportion to the place assigned them, that every room is richly and picturesquely ornamented, without having the appearance of a magazine from being overfilled, as we frequently find. Among all these objects none is insignificant; several cabinets and portfolios contain, beside the choicest collections of antique ornaments in gold that I have hitherto seen, valuable miniatures of the middle ages, fine drawings by the old masters, and the most agreeable prints of the greatest of the old engravers, Marcantonio, Durer, etc., in the finest impressions. The enjoyment of all these treasures was heightened to the owner by the confidential intercourse with the most eminent, now deceased, English artists, Flaxman and Stothard; both have left him a memorial of their friendship. In two little marble statues of Cupid and Psyche, and a mantle-piece, with a bas-relief representing a muse with a lyre and Mnemosyne by Flaxman, there is the same noble and graceful feeling which has so greatly attracted me from my childhood in his celebrated compositions after Homer and Æschylus. The hair and draperies are treated with great, almost too picturesque softness. Among all the English painters, none, perhaps, has so much power of invention as Stothard. His versatile talent has successfully made essays in the domains of history, or fancy and poetry, of humor, and lastly, even in domestic scenes, in the style of Watteau. To this may be added much feeling for graceful movements, and cheerful, bright coloring. In his pictures, which adorn a chimney-piece, principal characters from Shakspeare's plays are represented with great spirit and humor; among them Falstaff makes a very distinguished and comical figure. There is also a merry company, in the style of Watteau; the least attractive is an allegorical representation of Peace returning to the earth, for the brilliant coloring approaching to Rubens can not make up for the poorness of the heads and the weakness of the drawing.

"As there are among the pictures some of the best works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, fine specimens of the works of three of the most eminent British artists of an earlier date are here united.