Chapter 16

And now are we not all the better for this pleasantry? so womanly, so genial, so rich, and so without a sting,--such a true diversion, with none of the sin of effort or of mere cleverness; and how it takes us into the midst of the strong-brained and strong-hearted men and women of that time! what an atmosphere of sense and good-breeding and kindliness! And then the Scotch! cropping out everywhere as blithe, and expressive, and unexpected as a gowan or sweet-briar rose, with an occasional thistle, sturdy, erect, and bristling with _Nemo me_. Besides the deeper and general interest of these _Mystifications_, in their giving, as far as I know, a unique specimen of true personation--distinct from acting--I think it a national good to let our youngsters read, and, as it were, hear the language which our gentry and judges and men of letters spoke not long ago, and into which such books as Dean Ramsay's and this are breathing the breath of its old life. Was there ever anything better or so good, said of a stiff clay, than that it "girns (grins) a' simmer, and greets (weeps) a' winter?"

"_OH, I'M WAT, WAT!_"

_The father of the Rev. Mr. Steven of Largs, was the son of a farmer, who lived next farm to Mossgiel. When a boy of eight, he found "Robbie" who was a great friend of his, and of all the children, engaged digging a large trench in a field, Gilbert, his brother, with him. The boy pausing on the edge of the trench, and looking down upon Burns, said, "Robbie, what's that ye're doin'?" "Howkin' a muckle hole, Tammie." "What for?" "To bury the Deil in, Tammie!" (one can fancy how those eyes would glow.) "A'but, Robbie," said the logical Tammie, "hoo're ye to get him in?" "Ay" said Burns, "that's it, hoo are we to get Him in!" and went off into shouts of laughter; and every now and then during that summer day shouts would come from that hole, as the idea came over him. If one could only have daguerreotyped his day's fancies!_

"What is love, Mary?" said Seventeen to Thirteen, who was busy with her English lessons.

"Love! what do you mean, John?"

"I mean, what's love?"

"Love's just love, I suppose."

(Yes, Mary, you are right to keep by the concrete; analysis kills love as well as other things. I once asked a useful-information young lady what her mother was. 'Oh, mamma's a _biped_!' I turned in dismay to her younger sister, and said, What do you say? 'Oh, my mother's just my mother.')

"But what part of speech is it?"

"It's a substantive or a verb." (Young Horne Tooke didn't ask her if it was an active or passive, an irregular or defective verb; an inceptive, as _calesco_, I grow warm, or _dulcesco_, I grow sweet; a frequentative or a desiderative, as _nupturio_, I desire to marry.)

"I think it is a verb," said John, who was deep in other diversions, besides those of Purley; "and I think it must have been originally _the Perfect of Live_, like thrive throve, strive strove."

"Capital, John!" suddenly growled Uncle Oldbuck, who was supposed to be asleep in his arm-chair by the fireside, and who snubbed and supported the entire household. "It was that originally, and it will be our own faults, children, if it is not that at last, as well as, ay, and more than at first. What does Richardson say, John? read him out." John reads--

LOVE, _v. s._ To prefer, to desire, as an -LESS. object of possession or enjoyment -LY, _ad. av._ to delight in, to be -LILY. pleased or gratified with, to -LINESS. take pleasure or gratification -ER. in, delight in. -ING. _Love_, the _s_ is app. emph. to -INGLY. the passion between the sexes. -INGNESS. _Lover_ is, by old writers, app. as -ABLE.[A] _friend_--by male to male. -SOME.[B] _Love_ is much used--pref. ERED.[C] [A] _Wiclif._ [B] _Chaucer._ [C] _Shak._

_Love-locks_,--locks (of hair) to set off the beauty; the loveliness.

A. S. _Luf-ian_; D. _Lie-ven_; Ger. _-ben_, amare, diligere. Wach. derives from _lieb_, bonum, because every one desires that which is good: _lieb_, it is more probable, is from _lieb-en_, grateful, and therefore _good_. It may at least admit a conjecture that A. S. _Lufian_, to _love_, has a reason for its application similar to that of L. _Di-ligere_ (_legere_, to gather), to take up or out (of a number), to choose, sc. one in preference to another, to prefer; and that it is formed upon A. S. _Hlif-ian_, to lift or take up, to pick up, to select, to prefer, Be- Over- Un-

_Uncle impatiently._--"Stuff; 'grateful!' 'pick up! stuff! These word-mongers know nothing about it. Live, love; that is it, the perfect of live."[34]

[34] They are strange beings, these lexicographers. Richardson, for instance, under the word SNAIL, gives this quotation from Beaumont and Fletcher's _Wit at Several Weapons_,--

"Oh, Master Pompey! how is 't, man?

_Clown_--SNAILS, I'm almost starved with love and cold, and one thing or other."

Any one else knows of course that it is "'s nails"--the contraction of the old oath or interjection--_God's nails_.

After this, Uncle sent the cousins to their beds.

Mary's mother was in hers, never to rise from it again. She was a widow, and Mary was her husband's niece. The house quiet, Uncle sat down in his chair, put his feet on the fender, and watched the dying fire; it had a rich central glow, but no flame, and no smoke, it was flashing up fitfully, and bit by bit falling in. He fell asleep watching it, and when he slept, he dreamed. He was young; he was seventeen; he was prowling about the head of North St. David Street, keeping his eye on a certain door,--we call them common stairs in Scotland. He was waiting for Mr. White's famous English class for girls coming out. Presently out rushed four or five girls, wild and laughing; then came one, bounding like a roe:

"Such eyes were in her head, And so much grace and power!"

She was surrounded by the rest, and away they went laughing, she making them always laugh the more. Seventeen followed at a safe distance, studying her small, firm, downright heel. The girls dropped off one by one, and she was away home by herself, swift and reserved. He, imposter as he was, disappeared through Jamaica Street, to reappear and meet her, walking as if on urgent business, and getting a cordial and careless nod. This beautiful girl of thirteen was afterwards the mother of our Mary, and died in giving her birth. She was Uncle Oldbuck's first and only sweetheart; and here was he, the only help our young Horne Tooke, and his mother and Mary had. Uncle awoke, the fire dead, and the room cold. He found himself repeating Lady John Scott's lines--

"When thou art near me, Sorrow seems to fly, And then I think, as well I may, That on this earth there is no one More blest than I.

But when thou leav'st me, Doubts and fears arise, And darkness reigns, Where all before was light. The sunshine of my soul Is in those eyes, And when they leave me All the world is night.

But when thou art near me, Sorrow seems to fly, And then I feel, as well I may, That on this earth there dwells not one So blest as I."[35]

[35] Can the gifted author of these lines and of their music not be prevailed on to give them and others to the world, as well as to her friends?

Then taking down _Chambers's Scottish Songs_, he read aloud:--

"O I'm wat, wat, O I'm wat and weary; Yet fain wad I rise and rin, If I thocht I would meet my dearie. Aye waukin', O! Waukin' aye, and weary; Sleep, I can get nane For thinkin' o' my dearie.

Simmer's a pleasant time, Flowers o' every color; The winter rins ower the heugh, And I long for my true lover.

When I sleep I dream, When I wauk I'm eerie, Sleep I can get nane, For thinkin' o' my dearie.

Lanely nicht comes on, A' the lave are sleepin'; I think on my true love, And blear my e'en wi' greetin'.

Feather beds are saft-- Pentit rooms are bonnie; But ae kiss o' my dear love Better's far than ony.

O for Friday nicht!-- Friday at the gloamin'; O for Friday nicht-- Friday's lang o' comin'!"

This love-song, which Mr. Chambers gives from recitation, is, thinks Uncle to himself, all but perfect; Burns, who in almost every instance, not only adorned, but transformed and purified whatever of the old he touched, breathing into it his own tenderness and strength, fails here, as may be seen in reading his version.

"Oh, spring's a pleasant time! Flowers o' every color-- _The sweet bird builds her nest_, And I lang for my lover. Aye wakin', oh! Wakin' aye and _wearie_; Sleep I can get nane, For thinkin' o' my dearie!

"When I sleep I dream, When I wauk I'm eerie, Rest I canna get, For thinkin' o' my dearie. Aye wakin', oh! Wakin' aye and weary; _Come, come, blissful dream_, Bring me to my dearie.

"_Darksome_ nicht comes doun-- A' the lave are sleepin'; I think on my kind lad, And blin' my een wi' greetin'. Aye wakin', oh! Wakin' aye and wearie; _Hope is sweet_, but ne'er Sae sweet as my dearie!"

How weak these italics! No one can doubt which of these is the better. The old song is perfect in the procession, and in the simple beauty of its thoughts and words. A ploughman or shepherd--for I hold that it is a man's song--comes in "wat, wat" after a hard day's work among the furrows, or on the hill. The _watness_ of wat, wat, is as much wetter than wet as a Scotch mist is more of a mist than an English one; and he is not only wat, wat, but "weary," longing for a dry skin and a warm bed and rest; but no sooner said and felt, than, by the law of contrast, he thinks on "Mysie" or "Ailie," his Genevieve; and then "all thoughts, all passions, all delights," begin to stir him, and "fain wad I rise and rin" (what a swiftness beyond run is "rin"!) Love now makes him a poet; the true imaginative power enters and takes possession of him. By this time his clothes are off, and he is snug in bed; not a wink can he sleep; that "fain" is domineering over him,--and he breaks out into what is as genuine passion and poetry, as anything from Sappho to Tennyson--abrupt, vivid, heedless of syntax. "Simmer's a pleasant time." Would any of our greatest geniuses, being limited to one word, have done better than take "pleasant?" and then the fine vagueness of "time!" "Flowers o' every color;" he gets a glimpse of "herself a fairer flower," and is off in pursuit. "The water rins ower the heugh" (a steep precipice); flinging itself wildly, passionately over, and so do I long for my true lover. Nothing can be simpler and finer than

"When I sleep, I dream; When I wauk, I'm eerie."

"Lanely nicht;" how much richer and touching than "darksome." "Feather beds are saft;" "paintit rooms are bonnie;" I would infer from this, that his "dearie," his "true love," was a lass up at "the big house"--a dapper Abigail possibly--at Sir William's at the Castle, and then we have the final paroxysm upon Friday nicht--Friday at the gloamin'! O for Friday nicht!--Friday's lang o' comin'!--it being very likely Thursday before daybreak, when this affectionate _ululatus_ ended in repose.

Now, is not this rude ditty, made very likely by some clumsy, big-headed Galloway herd, full of the real stuff of love? He does not go off upon her eyebrows, or even her eyes; he does not sit down, and in a genteel way announce that "love in thine eyes forever sits," &c. &c., or that her feet look out from under her petticoats like little mice: he is far past that; he is not making love, he is in it. This is one and a chief charm of Burns' love-songs, which are certainly of all love-songs except those wild snatches left to us by her who flung herself from the Leucadian rock, the most in earnest, the tenderest, the "most moving delicate and full of life." Burns makes you feel the reality and the depth, the truth of his passion; it is not her eyelashes or her nose, or her dimple, or even

"A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I' the bottom of a cowslip,"

that are "winging the fervor of his love;" not even her soul; it is herself. This concentration and earnestness, this _perfervor_ of our Scottish love poetry, seems to me to contrast curiously with the light, trifling philandering of the English; indeed, as far as I remember, we have almost no love-songs in English, of the same class as this one, or those of Burns. They are mostly either of the genteel, or of the nautical (some of these capital), or of the comic school. Do you know the most perfect, the finest love-song in our or in any language; the love being affectionate more than passionate, love in possession not in pursuit?

"Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee: Or did Misfortune's bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a', to share it a'.

"Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, The desert were a paradise, If thou wert there, if thou wert there: Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen."

The following is Mr. Chambers' account of the origin of this song:--Jessy Lewars had a call one morning from Burns. He offered, if she would play him any tune of which she was fond, and for which she desired new verses, that he would do his best to gratify her wish. She sat down at the piano, and played over and over the air of an old song, beginning with the words--

"The robin cam' to the wren's nest, And keekit in, and keekit in: 'O weel's me on your auld pow! Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? Ye' se ne'er get leave to lie without, And I within, and I within, As lang 's I hae an auld clout, To row ye in, to row ye in.'"

Uncle now took his candle, and slunk off to bed, slipping up noiselessly that he might not disturb the thin sleep of the sufferer, saying in to himself--"I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;" "If thou wert there, if thou wert there;" and though the morning was at the window, he was up by eight, making breakfast for John and Mary.

* * * * *

Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away; but love is of God, and cannot fail.

_ARTHUR H. HALLAM._

"PRAESENS _imperfectum,--perfectum, plusquam perfectum_ FUTURUM."--GROTIUS.

"_The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep Into my study of imagination; And every lovely organ of thy life Shall come apparelled in more precious habit-- More moving delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of my soul, Than when thou livedst indeed._"

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, rest the mortal remains of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great philosophic historian and critic,--and the friend to whom "_In Memoriam_" is sacred. This place was selected by his father, not only from the connection of kindred, being the burial-place of his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise "on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its humble old church, its outlook over the waste of waters, where "the stately ships go on," was, we doubt not, in Tennyson's mind, when the poem, "Break, break, break," which contains the burden of that volume in which are enshrined so much of the deepest affection, poetry, philosophy, and godliness, rose into his "study of imagination"--"into the eye and prospect of his soul."[36]

[36] The passage from Shakspeare prefixed to this paper, contains probably as much as can be said of the mental, not less than the affectionate conditions, under which such a record as _In Memoriam_ is produced, and may give us more insight into the imaginative faculty's mode of working, than all our philosophizing and analysis. It seems to let out with the fulness, simplicity, and unconsciousness of a child--"Fancy's Child"--the secret mechanism or procession of the greatest creative mind our race has produced. In itself, it has no recondite meaning, it answers fully its own sweet purpose. We are not believers, like some folks, in the omniscience of even Shakspeare. But, like many things that he and other wise men and many simple children say, it has a germ of universal meaning, which it is quite lawful to bring out of it, and which may be enjoyed to the full without any wrong to its own original beauty and fitness. A dew-drop is not the less beautiful that it illustrates in its structure the law of gravitation which holds the world together, and by which "the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong." This is the passage. The Friar speaking of Claudio, hearing that Hero "died upon his word," says,--

"The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life Shall come apparelled in more precious habit-- More moving delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed."

We have here expressed in plain language the imaginative memory of the beloved dead, rising upon the past, like moonlight upon midnight,--

"The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme."

This is its simple meaning--the statement of a truth, the utterance of personal feeling. But observe its hidden abstract significance--it is the revelation of what goes on in the depths of the soul, when the dead elements of what once was, are laid before the imagination, and so breathed upon as to be quickened into a new and higher life. We have first the _Idea of her Life_--all he remembered and felt of her, gathered into one vague shadowy image, not any one look, or action, or time--then the idea of her life _creeps_--is in before he is aware, and SWEETLY creeps,--it might have been softly or gently, but it is the addition of affection to all this, and bringing in another sense--and now it is in his _study of imagination_--what a place! fit for such a visitor. Then out comes the _Idea_, more particular, more questionable, but still ideal, spiritual--_every lovely organ of her life_--then the clothing upon, the mortal putting on its immortal, spiritual body--_shall come apparelled in more precious habit, more moving delicate_--this is the transfiguring, the putting on strength, the _poco piu_--the little more which makes immortal,--_more full of life_, and all this submitted to--_the eye and prospect of the soul_.

"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 vanish'd 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."

Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, and sounding as the sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all _In Memoriam_, as a stream flows out of its spring--all is here. "I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"--"the touch of the vanished hand--the sound of the voice that is still,"--the body and soul of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom of the valley of the shadow of death,--

"The mountain infant to the sun comes forth Like human life from darkness;"

and how its waters flow on! carrying life, beauty, magnificence,--shadows and happy lights, depths of blackness, depths clear as the very body of heaven. How it deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider views, "thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affections, but still retaining its pure living waters, its unforgotten burden of love and sorrow. How it visits every region! "the long unlovely street," pleasant villages and farms, "the placid ocean-plains," waste howling wildernesses, grim woods, _nemorumque noctem_, informed with spiritual fears, where may be seen, if shapes they may be called--

"Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow;"

now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the College bells, and the vague hum of the mighty city. And overhead through all its course the heaven with its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars; but always, and in all places, declaring its source; and even when laying its burden of manifold and faithful affection at the feet of the Almighty Father, still remembering whence it came,--

"That friend of mine who lives in God, That God which ever lives and loves; One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves."

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January, 1834, that he refers in poem XVIII. of _In Memoriam_.

"'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand Where he in English earth is laid, And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land.

"'Tis little; but it looks in truth As if the quiet bones were blest Among familiar names to rest, And in the places of his youth."

And again in XIX.:--

"The Danube to the Severn gave The darken'd heart that beat no more; They laid him by the pleasant shore, And in the hearing of the wave.

"There twice a day the Severn fills, The salt sea-water passes by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills."

Here, too, it is, LXVI.:--

"When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest, By that broad water of the west; There comes a glory on the walls:

"Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o'er the number of thy years."

This young man, whose memory his friend has consecrated in the hearts of all who can be touched by such love and beauty, was in nowise unworthy of all this. It is not for us to say, for it was not given to us the sad privilege to know, all that a father's heart buried with his son in that grave, all "the hopes of unaccomplished years;" nor can we feel in its fulness all that is meant by

"Such A friendship as had mastered Time; Which masters Time indeed, and is Eternal, separate from fears. The all-assuming months and years Can take no part away from this."