Part 25
Throughout the poetry of Michael Angelo, of which there is much in existence, love is a pervading sentiment, though, without reference to any particular object. Condivi had often heard him discourse upon it as a passion platonically; and Mr. Duppa gives the following sonnet, translated from the Italian of Michael Angelo by Mr. Wordsworth, as exemplifying Michael’s turn of thought:
SONNET,
BY MICHAEL ANGELO.
Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, And I be undeluded, unbetray’d; For, if of our affections none find grace In sight of Heaven, then wherefore hath God made The world which we inhabit? Better plea Love cannot have, than that in loving thee, Glory to that eternal Peace is paid, Who such divinity to thee imparts As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. His hope is treacherous only, whose love dies With beauty, which is varying every hour; But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower That breathes on earth the air of Paradise.
The personal beauty and intellectual endowments of Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara, impressed Michael Angelo with sentiments of affectionate esteem. She admired his genius, and frequently left her residence at Viterbo for the sole purpose of enjoying his society at Rome. He addressed three sonnets and a madrigal to her. In her last moments he paid her a visit, and told Condivi he grieved he had not kissed her cheek, as he had her hand, for there was little hope of his ever seeing her again. He penned an epitaph on her decease: the recollection of her death constantly dejected him.
To the purity of his thoughts, there is a high testimony by Condivi. “In a long intimacy, I have never heard from his mouth a single word that was not perfectly decorous, and had not for its object to extinguish in youth every improper and lawless desire: his nature is a stranger to depravity.” He was religious, not by the show, but from feeling and conviction As an instance, a short poetical supplication, translated by Mr. Duppa into prose, is remarkable for its self-knowledge and simplicity; it is here subjoined:--
“_To the Supreme Being._
“My prayers will be sweet if thou lendest me virtue to make them worthy to be heard; my unfruitful soil cannot produce virtue of itself. Thou knowest the seed, and how to sow it, that it may spring up in the mind to produce just and pious works: if thou showest not the hallowed path, no one by his own knowledge can follow thee. Pour thou into my mind the thoughts that may conduct me in thy holy steps; and endue me with a fervent tongue, that I may alway praise, exalt, and sing thy glory.”
Finally, it may be added, that in an age of splendid vice, Michael Angelo was an illustrious example of virtue.
TO MICHAEL ANGELO--IMMORTAL
Michael! to what thou wert, if I could raise An aspiration, or a holy light, Within one reader, I’d essay to praise Thy virtue; and would supplicate the muse For flowers to deck thy greatness: so I might But urge one youthful artist on to choose A life like thine, I would attempt the hill Where well inspiring floods, and thence would drink Till--as the Pythoness of old, the will No longer then controll’d by sense--I’d think Alone of good and thee, and with loud cries, Break the dead slumber of undeeming man, Refresh him with a gush of truth, surprise Him with thy deeds, and show him thine was Wisdom’s plan.
This zodiacal sign is said to symbolize the fishery of the Nile, which usually commenced at this season of the year. According to an ancient fable, it represents Venus and Cupid, who, to avoid Typhon, a dreadful giant with a hundred heads, transformed themselves into fish. This fabulous monster, it seems, threw the whole host of heathen deities into confusion. His story shortly is, that as soon as he was born, he began to avenge the death of his brethren, the giants who had warred against Olympus, by resuming the conflict alone. Flames of fire darted from his eyes and mouths; he uttered horrid yells, and so frightened the pagan celestials, that Jupiter himself became a ram, Juno a cow, Mercury an ibis, Apollo a crow, Bacchus a goat, Diana a cat, Venus a fish, &c. till Jupiter hurled a rock and buried him under Ætna. The idol Dagon, with a human head and arms, and a fish’s tail, is affirmed to be the symbol of the sun in Pisces, and to allegorize that the earth teems with corn and fruits.
The sun generally enters Pisces about the period of February; for instance, in 1824 on the 16th, in 1825 on the 18th of the month. The Romans imagined that the entrance of the sun into Pisces was attended by bad weather, and gales of uncertainty to the mariner.[1] Thomson sings, that in this month--
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw, Spotted, the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, And floods the country round. The rivers swell, Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O’er rocks and woods, in broad, brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once; And where they rush, the wide resounding plain Is left one slimy waste.
_Thomson._
[1] Dr. Forster’s Perenn. Cal.
~February 18.~
_St. Simeon_, Bp. of Jerusalem, A. D. 116. _Sts. Leo and Paregorius_, 3d Cent.
CHRONOLOGY.
On the 18th of February 1734, the house of commons received a petition from Mr. Samuel Buckley, a learned printer; setting forth that he had, at his sole expense, by several years’ labour, and with the assistance of some learned persons abroad and at home, made collections of original papers and letters relating to “Thuanus’s History,” written in Latin, in order to a new and accurate edition, in 7 vols. folio, which was finished; that the act of the 8th of Q. Anne, for the encouragement of learning, extended only to the authors, purchasers, or proprietors of the copy-right of any book in English, published after the 10th of April, 1710, and allowed the importation or vending of any books in foreign language printed beyond the seas; so that any books, first compiled and printed in this kingdom in any of those languages, might be reprinted abroad and sold in this kingdom, to the great damage of the first printer or proprietor: he therefore prayed, that he might be allowed the same benefit in his copy of the “History of Thuanus,” in Latin, for fourteen years. Leave was given to bring in the bill, and it afterwards passed into an act.
The protection of this excellent work was a justice due to the spirit and liberality of Mr. Buckley. He had been originally a bookseller. John Dunton says of him, “He is an excellent linguist, understands the Latin, French, Dutch, and Italian languages, and is master of a great deal of wit: he prints the ‘Daily Courant,’ and ‘Monthly Register,’ which, I hear, he translates out of the foreign papers himself:”--a great merit, it should seem, in the eyes of old Dunton.
Mr. Buckley was a really learned printer. The collections for his edition of Thuanus were made by Carte, who had fled to France from an accusation of high treason, during the rebellion of 1715 and while in that country possessed himself of so many materials for the purpose, that he consulted Dr. Mead, the celebrated physician, and patron of literary men, concerning the undertaking. By the doctor’s recommendation, it was intrusted to Mr. Buckley, who imported the paper for it, which, with the materials, cost him 2,350_l._ He edited the work with fidelity, and executed it with elegance.
Mr. Buckley was the publisher of the “Spectator,” which appeared in folio from his shop at the Dolphin in Little Britain, a place then filled with booksellers. At the close of the seventh volume this popular work was suspended, but resumed by Buckley in Amen-corner. He attained to opulence and respectability, was in the commission of the peace for Middlesex, and died, greatly esteemed, on the 8th of September, 1741, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.[2]
It is related of the great lord chancellor Hardwicke, that he so highly regarded “Thuanus’s History,” as to have resigned the seals for the express purpose of being enabled to read it in the original language.[3] It has been computed that a person who gave his attention to this work for four hours every day, would not finish the perusal in twelve months. It comprehends the events of sixty-four years, during the times wherein Thuanus lived and flourished as an eminent French author and statesman. His English biographer quotes, as a character of his writings, that, “in a word, they are calculated to render those who attend to them better and wiser men.”[4]
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Wall Speedwell. _Veronica vivensis._ Dedicated to _St. Simeon_ of Jerusalem.
[2] Mr. Nichols’s Lit. Anecdotes.
[3] Bibliog. Dict.
[4] Mr. Collinson’s Life of Thuanus.
~February 19.~
_St. Barbatus, or Barbas_, Bp. A. D. 682.
This saint is patron of Benevento, of which city he was bishop. Butler relates no miracle of him, nor does it appear from him that any other name in the calendar of the Romish church is affixed to this day.
THE SEASON.
A pretty trifle from the Greek is descriptive of appearances about this period:--
_To a Lady on her Birthday_
See amidst the winter’s cold, Tender infant of the spring; See the rose her bud unfold, Every sweet is on the wing.
Hark! the purple flow’ret cries, ’Tis for thee we haste away, ’Tis for thee we brave the skies, Smiling on thy natal day, Soon shalt thou the pleasure prove, Which awaits on virtuous love.
Place us ’midst thy flowing hair, Where each lovely grace prevails, Happier we to deck the fair, Than to wait the vernal gales.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Field Speedwell. _Veronica agrestis._ Dedicated to _St. Barbatus_.
~February 20.~
_St. Tyrannio_, Bp. &c. A. D. 310. _Sts. Sadoth_, Bp. &c. A. D. 342. _St. Eleutherius_, Bp. A. D. 532. _St. Mildred_, Abbess. _St. Eucherius_, Bp. A. D. 743. _St. Ulrick._
_St. Mildred._
This saint was the first abbess of Minster, in the isle of Thanet, founded by king Egbert about 670, in satisfaction for having murdered his two nephews, Etheldred and Ethelbright; to which satisfaction he was “miraculously terrified, by seeing a ray of bright light dart from the heavens upon their grave.” In 1033, her remains were removed to St. Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury, and venerated above all the relics there, and worked miracles, as all saints’ relics did in those favoured times. The churches of St. Mildred, Bread-street, and St. Mildred in the Poultry, London, are dedicated to her.[5]
In St. Mildred’s church in the Poultry, Thomas Tusser, whose “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie” have been cited in former pages of this work, was buried, and on his tomb this
EPITAPH.
Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie, That sometime made the pointes of Husbandrie: By him then learne thou maist: here learne we must, When all is done, we sleepe, and turne to dust: And yet, through Christ, to Heaven we hope to goe; Who reades his bookes, shall find his faith was so.[6]
_St. Ulrick._
Of this saint, who died the 28th of February, 1154, Butler says little.
“THE FLOWERS of the LIVES of the most renowned SAINCTS of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, written and collected out of the best authours and manuscripts of our nation, and distributed according to their feasts in the calendar, By THE R. FATHER, HIEROME PORTER, _Priest and Monke of the holy order of Sainct Benedict, of the Congregation of England_, Printed at DOWAY with licence, and approbation of the Ordinary, M.DC.XXXII,” relates of this saint, that he was born in a village called Lenton, or Litton, near Bristol, with many marvels concerning him, and among them this:--He became a priest, but kept hawks and dogs for sport, till he met a beggar who asked alms. Ulrick said, he did not know whether he had aught to bestow: “Look in thy purse,” quoth the beggar, “and there thou shalt find twopence halfpenny.” Ulrick finding as he was told, received thanks, and a prophecy that he should become a saint, whereupon he starved and hermitized at Hessleborough, in Dorsetshire, about thirty miles from Exeter. “The skin only sticking to his bones,” his daintiest food was oaten-bread and water-gruel. He passed many nights without sleep, never slept but when he could not keep awake, and never went to bed, “but, leaning his head to a wall, he tooke a short allowance;” and when he awoke, “he would much blame and chastise his body, as yielding vnto ouermuch nicenesse.” His pillow was ropes of hay, his clothing poor, and lined next the skin with a rough shirt of hair-cloth, till his flesh having overcome its uneasiness, he wore next his skin an iron coat of mail. In the sharpest cold of winter, having first put off his iron shirt, he was wont to get into a vessel of cold water and recite psalms. His coat of mail hanging below his knees, he went to the knight who gave it to him, to take counsel therein. His military adviser persuaded him to send it to London to be cut; but he gave the knight “a payre of sheares.” The knight hesitated, the other entreated. “The one falls to his prayers, the other endeavours with iron and steale to cut iron and steale, when both their labours tooke prosperous effect; for the knight, in his cutting worke, seemed rather to divide a piece of cloath than a peece of iron.” Then the saint, “without any sheeres, pulled asunder the little rings of that part of his coate cutt off, and distributed them charitably to all that desired, by virtue whereof manie diseases were cured.” Envying such rare goodness, an infernal spirit, in most horrible shape, dragged him into the church, and ran him round the pavement, till the apparition of a virgin stopped this rude behaviour; however, the infernal took advantage of the saint when he was sick, and with a staff he had in his hand gave him three knocks on the head, and departed. The devil tormented him other ways; he cast him into an intolerable heat, then he gave him an intolerable cold, and then he made him dream a dream, whereby the saint shamed the devil by openly confessing it at church on Easter-day before all the people. At length, after other wonders, “the joints of his iron coate miraculously dissolved, and it fell down to his knees.” Upon this, he foretold his death on the next Saturday, and thereon he died. Such, and much more is put forth concerning St. Ulrick, by the aforesaid “Flowers of the Saincts,” which contains a prayer to be used preparatory to the perusal, with these words, “that this holy reading of their lives may soe inflame our hearts, that we may follow and imitate the traces of their glorious example, that, after this mortall life, we may be made worthie to enjoy their most desired companie.”
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Navelwort. _Cynoglossum omphalodes._ Dedicated to _St. Mildred_.
CHRONOLOGY.
On the 20th of February 1749, Usher Gahagan, by birth a gentleman, and by education a scholar, perished at Tyburn. His attainments were elegant and superior; he was the editor of Brindley’s beautiful edition of the classics, and translated Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” into Latin verse. Better grounded in learning than in principle, he concentrated liberal talents to the degrading selfishness of robbing the community of its coin by clipping. During his confinement, and hoping for pardon, he translated Pope’s “Temple of Fame,” and his “Messiah,” into the same language, with a dedication to the duke of Newcastle. To the same end, he addressed prince George and the recorder in poetic numbers. These efforts were of no avail. Two of his miserable confederates in crime were his companions in death. He suffered with a deeper guilt, because he had a higher knowledge than ignorant and unthinking criminals, to whom the polity of society, in its grounds and reasons, is unknown.
Accomplishments upon vice are as beautiful colours on a venomous reptile. Learning is a vain show, and knowledge mischievous, without the love of goodness, or the fear of evil. Children have fallen from careless parents into the hands of the executioner, in whom the means of distinguishing between right and wrong might have become a stock for knowledge to ripen on, and learning have preserved the fruits to posterity. Let not him despair who desires to know, or has power to teach--
There is in every human heart, Some not completely barren part, Where seeds of truth and love might grow And flowers of generous virtue blow: To plant, to watch, to water there, This be our duty, be our care.
_Bowring._
[5] Butler’s Lives of the Saints.
[6] Stow.
~February 21.~
_St. Severianus_, Bp. A. D. 452. _Sts. German_, Abbot, and _Randaut_, or _Randoald_, A. D. 666. _Sts. Daniel_ and _Verda_, A. D. 344. B. _Pepin_, of Landen, A. D. 640.
BREAKFAST IN COLD WEATHER.
“Here it is,” says the “Indicator,” “ready laid. Imprimis, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives and forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug in coming down into one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us; a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things, the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of good-humoured urchins, and the sole empty chair at its accustomed corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone, we could not help reading at meals: and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an entertaining book at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup of tea at one’s elbow, and a piece of buttered toast in one’s hand. The first look at the page, accompanied by a coexistent bite of the toast, comes under the head of intensities.”
THE SEASON.
The weather is now cold and mild alternately. In our variable climate we one day experience the severity of winter, and a genial warmth prevails the next; and, indeed, such changes are not unfrequently felt in the same day. Winter, however, at this time breaks apace, and we have presages of the genial season.
Oxen, o’er the furrow’d soil, Urging firm their annual toil; Trim cottages that here and there, Speckling the social tilth, appear: And spires, that as from groves they rise, Tell where the lurking hamlet lies: Hills white with many a bleating throng, And lakes, whose willowy banks along, Herds or ruminate, or lave, Immersing in the silent wave. The sombre wood--the cheerful plain, Green with the hope of future grain: A tender blade, ere Autumn smile Benignant on the farmer’s toil, Gild the ripe fields with mellowing hand, And scatter plenty through the land.
_Baron Smith._
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
White crocus. _Crocus versicolor._ Dedicated to _St. Servianus_.
~February 22.~
_The Chair of_ St. Peter at _Antioch_. _St. Margaret_, of Cortona, A. D. 1297. _Sts. Thalasius_ and _Limneus_. _St. Baradat._
_St. Margaret._
She was a penitent, asked public pardon for her sins with a rope about her neck, punished her flesh, and worked miracles accordingly.[7]
_Sts. Thalasius_ and _Limneus_.
St. Thalasius dwelt in a cavern, “and was endowed with extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost; but was a treasure unknown to the world.” St. Limneus was his disciple, and “famous for miraculous cures of the sick,” while his master “bore patiently the sharpest cholics, and other distempers, without any human succour.”[8]
_St. Baradat._
This saint lived in a trellis-hut, exposed to the severities of the weather, and clothed in the skins of beasts.[9]
* * * * *
FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Herb Margaret. _Bellis perennis._ Dedicated to _St. Margaret_, of Cortona.
SPORTING CALENDAR.
A valued correspondent obliges the _Every-Day Book_ with an original sketch, hasty and spirited as its hero, when the sports of the field allured him from the pursuits of literature at college, and the domestic comforts of wife and home.
_To the Editor._
To disemburthen oneself of ennui, and to find rational amusement for every season of the year, is a grand desideratum in life. Luckily I have hit on’t, and beg leave, as being the properest place, to give my recipe in the Everlasting Calendar you are compiling. I contrive then to give myself employment for every time of year. Neither lively Spring, glowing Summer, sober Autumn, nor dreary Winter, come amiss to me; for I have contrived to make myself an Universal Sportsman, and am become so devoted a page of Diana, that I am dangling at her heels all the year round without being tired of it. In bleak and frozen _January_, besides sliding, skating in figures, and making men of snow to frighten children with, by means of a lantern placed in a skull at the top of them, I now and then get a day’s cock shooting when the frost breaks, or kill a few small birds in the snow. In lack of other game, a neighbour’s duck, or goose, or a chicken, shot and pocketed as I sally out to the club dinner, are killed more easily than my dairymaid does it, poor things!
In _February_, the weather being rainy or mild, renders it worth my while to send my stud into Leicestershire for hunting again; and so my white horse Skyscraper, my old everlasting chestnut Silvertail, the only good black in the hunt Sultan, and the brown mare Rosinante, together with Alfana the king of the Cocktails, a hack or two, and a poney for errands, are “pyked off” pack and baggage for Melton; and then from the first purple dawn of daylight, when I set off to cover, to the termination of the day with cards, I have plenty of rational amusement. Next month, forbearing _March_ hares, I shoot a few snipes before they are all gone, and at night prepare my fishing tackle for _April_, when the verdant meadows again draw me to the riverside to angle.
My wife has now rational employment for the rest of the Summer in catching and impaling the various flies of the season against my trout mania comes, which is usual early in _May_, when all her maids assist in this flyfowling sport. I have generally been successful in sport, but I shall never forget my disappointment when on throwing in a flyline which was not baited by myself, I found that Sally, mistaking her new employment, had baited my hook with an earwig. In _June_ I neglected my Grass for the same sport, and often let it stand till the Hay is spoiled by Swithin, who wipes his watery eyes with what ought to be my Winter’s fodder. This gives me rational, though troublesome, employment in buying Hay or passing off the old at market. _July_, however, affords plenty of bobfishing, as I call it, for roach, dace, perch, and bleak. I also gudgeon some of my neighbours, and cast a line of an evening into their carp and tench ponds. I have not, thank my stars, either stupidity or patience enough for barbel. But in _August_, that is before the 12th, I get my trolling tackle in order, and am reminded of my old vermin college days, when shutting my room door, as if I was “sported in” and cramming Euclid, I used to creep down to the banks of the Cam, and clapping my hands on my old rod, with his long line to him, exclaimed, in true Horatian measure, the only Latin line I ever cited in my life,
_Progenie longa gaudes captare Johannes._