Part 7

Hugh had first been won by her beauty and her destitute condition; her refusal of his offered hand had only added fuel to the flame. Absence, "making the heart grow fonder," and the letters he received, all conspired to blind him. Sincerely was he to be pitied, for he possessed many fine qualities, and was nobly disinterested. The veil was now removed from his eyes, and the dream of love was fast deserting him, like shadows of the morning, when the bright sunlight rises o'er the hills. They went to his parents. We shall pass over the various mortifications which Hugh had to endure. Amy idolized her husband, and he was too kind-hearted to be proof against her fondness. He exerted himself day after day to instruct her, but I do not believe she went much beyond learning to read and write legibly. His parents lived only a few years after these events, and his beautiful wife was attacked about four years after they were married with a slight cough, which was soon followed by that bright flush, which is too frequently the harbinger of death. A southern climate, and every possible means were resorted to, for her restoration to health, but in vain! Her last prayers were offered up for her husband, and a daughter then two years old. Hugh never married again. He continued to live at the family mansion, occupied almost entirely with the education of Eva. When she was ten years of age, she was sent to New York to school. Her life has been attended with circumstances which are not without romance. Should any curiosity be felt on the subject, I may at a future time give a sketch of the life of Eva Sanford.

Years have passed since these events transpired, and the once young and handsome Hugh Sanford is now an old man. His appearance is very much changed, and his faults and foibles have been lost in his progress through life, or have become softened by the hand of time. Certain it is, he is now a very estimable man, and is looked up to with reverence both in public and private life.

A.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

A SCENE FROM "ARNOLD AND ANDRE,"

An unpublished Drama, by the author of "Herbert Barclay," and translator of Schiller's "Don Carlos."

ACT I. _Scene 2_. New York, towards the end of the summer of 1780.

Sir Henry Clinton. Colonel Robinson. An Old British Officer.

SIR H. CLINTON. Rebellion's tatter'd banner droops at last, Wanting the breath of stirring confidence. Discord, twin-brother to defeat, now lifts Within the Congress walls her grating voice-- Fit sound for rebel ears--and in their camp, Lean want breeds discontent and mutiny: The while o'er our embattled squadrons waves High-crested victory, and flaps her wings, Fanning the fire of native valor. Soon Shall peace revisit this oppressed land, So long bestrid by war, whose iron heel With her own life-blood madly stains her sides.

ROBINSON. Our arms' success upon the southern shore,-- Whose thirsty sands are saturate with streams From rebel wounds,--and the discomfiture Of new-born hopes of aid from fickle France, Brought on by Rodney's timely coming, have Ev'n to the stoutest hearts struck black dismay.

OLD OFFICER. Cast down they may be, but despair's unknown To their determin'd spirits. Washington's The same as when in seventy-six he pass'd The Delaware, and in a darker hour Than this is, rallied his dishearten'd troops, And by a stroke of generalship, as shrewd As bold, back turn'd the tide of victory.

ROBINSON. But years of fruitless warfare, sucking up Alike the people's blood and substance, weigh Upon th' exhausted land, like heaped debts Of failed enterprise, that clog the step Of action.

OLD OFFICER. Deem ye not the spirit dull'd, Which first impell'd this people to take arms And brave our mighty power; nor yet the hope Extinct which has their roused energies Upheld against such fearful odds. The blood They've shed, is blood of martyrs--precious oil-- Rich fuel to the flame that's boldly lit On Freedom's altar, and whose dear perfume, Upward ascending, is by heroes snuff'd, Strength'ning the soul of patriotic love With ireful vengeance.

SIR H. CLINTON. Whence, my vet'ran Colonel, Comes it, that you, whose scarred body bears The outward proofs of inward loyalty, Do entertain for rebels such regard?

OLD OFFICER. Custom of war has not so steel'd my heart, But that its pulse will beat in admiration Of noble deeds, ev'n though by foemen done. Nor does my sworn allegiance to my king Forbid all sympathy with men, who fight-- And fight too with a valiantness which naught But conscious justice could inspire--for rights Inherited from British ancestors.

SIR H. CLINTON. Their yet unconquer'd souls, and the stern front They have so long oppos'd in equal strife To our war-practis'd soldiery, attest Their valor: and for us to stint the meed Of praise for gallant bearing in the field, Were self-disparagement, seeing that still They hold at bay our far-outnumb'ring host. But for the justice of their cause,--the wrong, Skill'd to bedeck itself in garb of right, Oft cheats the conscience broad credulity, And thus will vice, with virtue's armature Engirt, fight often unabash'd. Unloose The spurs, wherewith desire of change, the pride Of will, hot blood of restless uncurb'd youth Wanting a distant parent's discipline, And bold ambition of aspiring chiefs, Do prick them on to this unnatural war; And then, how tam'd would be their fiery mettle, Heated alone by patriotic warmth.

OLD OFFICER. My General, I know this people well. And all the virtues which Old England claims, As the foundations of her happiness And greatness,--such as reverence of law And custom, prudence, female chastity, And with them, independence, fortitude, Courage and sturdiness of purpose,--have Been here transplanted from their native soil, And flourish undegenerate. From these,-- Sources exhaustible but with the life That feeds them,--their severe intents take birth, And draw the lusty sustenance to mould The limbs and body of their own fulfilment, So that performance lag not after purpose. They are our countrymen. They are, as well In manly resolution as in blood, The children of our fathers. Washington Doth know no other language than the one We speak: and never did an English tongue Give voice unto a larger, wiser mind. You'll task your judgment vainly to point out Through all this desp'rate conflict, in his plans A flaw, or fault in execution. He In spirit is unconquerable, as In genius perfect. Side by side I fought With him in that disastrous enterprise, Where brave young Braddock fell; and there I mark'd The vet'ran's skill contend for mastery With youthful courage in his wondrous deeds. Well might the bloody Indian warrior pause, Amid his massacre confounded, and His baffled rifle's aim, till then unerring, Turn from "that tall young man," and deem in awe That the Great Spirit hover'd over him; For he, of all our mounted officers, Alone came out unscath'd from that dread carnage, To guard our shatter'd army's swift retreat. For years did his majestic form hold place Upon my mind, stampt in that perilous hour, In th' image of a strong-arm'd friend, until I met him next, as a resistless foe. 'Twas at the fight near Princeton. In quick march, Victorious o'er his van, onward we press'd; When, moving with firm pace, led by the Chief Himself, the central force encounter'd us. One moment paus'd th' opposing hosts--and then The rattling volley hid the death it bore: Another--and the sudden cloud, uproll'd, Display'd, midway between the adverse lines, His drawn sword gleaming high, the Chief--as though That crash of deadly music, and the burst Of sulphurous vapor, had from out the earth Summon'd the God of war. Doubly exposed He stood unharm'd. Like eagles tempest-borne Rush'd to his side his men; and had our souls And arms with two-fold strength been braced, we yet Had not withstood that onset. Thus does he Keep ever with occasion even step,-- Now, warily before our eager speed Retreating, tempting us with battle's promise Only to toil us with a vain pursuit-- Now, wheeling rapidly about our flanks, Startling our ears with sudden peal of war, And fronting in the thickest of the fight The common soldier's death, stirring the blood Of faintest hearts to deeds of bravery By his great presence,--and his every act, Of heady onslaught as of backward march, From thoughtful judgment first infer'd.

ROBINSON. If that You do report him truly, and your words Be not the wings to float a brain-born vision, But are true heralds who deliver that Which will in corporal doings be avouch'd, Then was this man born to command. And shall Ingrate revolt be justified by fate, And Britain's side bleed with the rending off Of this vast member; they will find it so, Who seek to gain a greater liberty Than does befit man's passion-guided state. Jove's bird as soon shall quail his cloud-wet plumage, Sinking his sinewy wafture to the flight Of common pinions,--or the silent tide Break its mysterious law at the wind's bidding, Remitting for a day its mighty flood Upon this shore,--as that, one recogniz'd To have all kingly qualities, shall not Assert his natural supremacy, And weaker men submit to his full sway. Power does grow unto the palm that wields it. The necks that bend to make ambition's seat, Must still uphold its overtopping weight, Or, moving, be crush'd under it.

OLD OFFICER. And heads That quit the roof of shelt'ring peace, and bare them To war's fierce lightning for a principle, Do crown the limbs of men, each one a rock Baffling with loftiness ambition's step, Whose ladder is servility. Were they Susceptible of usurpation's sway, This conflict had not been; and then the world Had miss'd a Washington, whose greatness is Of greatness born. Him have they rais'd because Of his great worth; and he has headed them For that they knew to value him. Had he Been less, then they had pass'd him by; and had Their souls lack'd nobleness, his tow'ring trunk, Scanted of genial sap, had fail'd to reach Its proper altitude. No smiling time Is this for hypocritical ambition To cheat men's minds with virtue's counterfeit. What made him Washington, makes him the chief Of this vast league,--and that's integrity, The which his noble qualities enlinks In one great arch, to bear the sudden weight Of a new cause, and, strength'ning ever, hold Compact 'gainst time's all-whelming step.

SIR H. CLINTON. What now You speak, you'll be reminded of, belike, Ere many weeks are past. And well I know, Your arm will not be backward, if there's need, To prove your own words' falsity. Meanwhile, Hold you in readiness for sudden march.

[_Exit Old Officer_.]

ROBINSON. A better soldier than a prophet.

SIR H. CLINTON. Yet, Scarce does his liberal extolment stretch Beyond its object's merits; for, were he Not rooted in his compeers' confidence, And in his generalship unmatched, this league Had long since crumbled from within, and o'er Its sever'd bands our arms had quickly triumph'd. In all his mighty spirit's ordinant, The while his warriors, rang'd in council round him, Listen to plans of learned generalship. Within the Congress is his voiceless will Potential as the wisest senator's. Ever between their reeling cause and us, Comes his stern brow to awe fell Ruin's spirit. 'Tis a grand game he plays, and, by my soul, Worthy the game and player is the stake. A fair broad continent is't for a kingdom: If he can win't, he's welcome to't.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

ENGLISH POETRY.

CHAP. II.

I have heard it remarked, that the study of our early poets was like a journey through a country of rich groves and pleasant gardens. There surely _is_ something pleasing in the study of old poetry. A ripeness of feeling meets us on the yellow and stained page, which, gradually mingling with the legitimate feelings of our own hearts, "makes us to glow with a rich fervor."

But this pleasure, like all other exquisite pleasures, is rather of the inexpressible kind. To impart it, condensation is necessary: and to condense it, is like bottling fragrance, or gathering foam into a beaker.

The reader may therefore prepare himself for nothing more than a straight forward story--broken in upon at intervals, by such rambling episodes of "remark" as I may think suitable.

I. Geoffry Chaucer, the poet

"That made first to dystylle and rayne The gold dewe dropys of speche and eloquence, Into our tunge thrugh his excellence."[1]

has ever stood first among the writers who have drunk at "the well of English undefiled."[2] He has been called the father of English verse, and properly. He travelled several times into the countries of the south, and, as great minds are seldom idle ones, we might infer, without the proof which exists in so many shapes, that he became a pupil to the Italian masters.

[Footnote 1: Lydgate.]

[Footnote 2: The term "well of English undefiled," was applied to Chaucer by Spenser, because he arranged and settled the language--stripping it of many barbarisms and foreign incumbrances. I am aware that he introduced as many foreign words as he cast out; but the rejected were corrupt fragments of the Norman French, which yet (though soft compared with the Saxon,) bore in part a mark of its parentage; and the selections made for the purpose of replacing them, were from the _Langue D'Oc_--the most beautifully musical of all tongues. He consequently did not _defile_ the English language.]

He was a student, and returned to England laden with the fruits of his study. It was his fate to come between the scholars of that and preceding ages, who worked their religious and scientific instructions into _heavy_ Latin metre, and the court minions, who sang to their mistresses and patrons in Norman French, and lay a solid foundation out of the scattered fragments of real English poetry. With little fancy, less imagination, and the little of the first clipped, by his matter-of-fact employment as _wool inspector_, he has succeeded in story-telling better than any of his successors. In a tale, the more vivid the picture drawn, the more interesting the tale. To be minute and particular in description, is to beget a vivid picture: and this is the secret of Chaucer's popularity. He writes as if he were taking an inventory of, rather than describing, things around him. Ages after, when this same talent for descending skilfully into particulars, was used in the description of natural scenery and of the workings of the human breast, it gave Spenser's Pastorals, and the tragedies of Shakspeare and poor Shelly, a beauty which in the first two, men have long ago learned to appreciate, and which in the course of time, will place the last on the seat to which he is entitled. The whole secret of Chaucer's charm is, as I have said, particularity. If he had used this talent in describing the many workings of the human heart, he would probably have failed--for no man can describe that of which he is ignorant.[3] If he had turned his attention to pastoral poetry, he _might_ have succeeded; and indeed, in the descriptions of nature scattered throughout his various poems, he has succeeded admirably. But something more is wanting than this power of description, in the song of a shepherd. From his wild and unrestrained life among the hills of a legendary country--surrounded as he is, by "kids and lambs, and blithe birds," we not only look for minuteness of description, but affecting plaintiveness and imaginative imbodyings. This last is one great aid to Spenser's pastoral poetry. But I am anticipating my subject.

[Footnote 3: Chaucer has the reputation of being a great "painter of characters;" but he excels in describing manner, bearing, dress, &c.--not in picturing the workings of the "human heart."]

Chaucer was the founder of a style which after poets have often attempted to imitate. Dryden and Pope have paraphrased his works; and Keates tells us that he is too weak to do other than "stammer where Dan Chaucer sung." The Canterbury tales were modelled after, and for the most part copied from the Decameron of Boccacio. The prologue to these is the most perfect thing of its kind extant. His satires are strong, and chiefly aimed against the enemies of Wickliffe, and his patron John of Lancaster. Chaucer was a philosopher too--a great one for his age. His treatise on the Astrolabe, intended for the benefit of his son, manifests more information than we would look for in the reign of Edward III. His satires against the opponents of Wickliffe are rather political than religious. In religious matters he seems to have possessed a praiseworthy spirit of toleration--a quality unknown for ages after to the "agents elect" of a peace-loving Christ.[4] Altogether, Chaucer was a wonderful man, and certainly, for his time, a poet as "parfite" and as "gentil" as his own knight.[5] His Canterbury tales are his _great_ works: they gave a tone to English poetry. In these days, when all literature has lost its freshness, it would be a pleasant thing if we could

"Call up him that left half told The story of Cambuscan bold, Of Camball and of Algarsife, And who had Canacè to wife, That owned the virtuous ring and glass, And of the wondrous horse of brass On which the Tartan king did ride."[6]

I should like to believe in the Pythagorean doctrine, if only for the pleasant consciousness that old Geoffry Chaucer had left his spirit behind him. He died on the 25th of October, (the same day of the same month on which died King Alfred,) in the year 1400; and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where for a long time these words were upon his tomb:

"Galfridus Chaucer, vates et fama poesis Maternæ hac sacra sum tumulatis humo."

[Footnote 4: It is in a letter to his son, where he is remarking upon the merits of the different sects that we find this odd similitude--"There are many roads leading to Rome." He was not narrow brained enough to believe that there was but one.]

[Footnote 5: "He was a veray parfite gentil knight."--_Prol. Can. Tales._]

[Footnote 6: Milton's Il Pensoroso, in allusion to the Squire's tale in Chaucer.]

II. Before passing on to the celebrated poets of the time of Henry VIII, I will make a few remarks upon the ancient ballad of "Chevy Chase."

Little or nothing more than the name of the author of this fine old heroic ballad, is at present known. Dr. Percy's conjecture with regard to the date of its composition, may or may not be correct. But I will assume it as an accurate one. The manuscript copy belonging to the Harleian Library, has the name of Richard Sheale attached to it. Sheale perhaps lived in the reign of Henry VI, and as probably was from the north country. He may indeed have been a minstrel in the Percy family; but this is mere conjecture. In reference to some of the characteristics of this ballad, it strikes me that Sir Philip Sidney's remark, in his "Apology for Poetry," is in very bad taste. After regretting that so fine and stirring an old song should be "apparelled in the dust and cobwebb of that uncivill age," he asks, "what would it not work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" Dr. Percy speaks of the song as one "recommended to the most refined, and endeared to the most simple reader, by genuine strokes of nature and artless passion." Are gorgeous eloquence and nature fit comates? Would the natural and manly simplicity, for which the greatest works of man are so renowned, be well exchanged for the diffuse and ornate style of a Grecian lyric poet? I think not. As for this old ballad's roughness, I think _that_ rather a merit. Bating some uncouthness, I think the language really better, much better adapted to the subject than our own more polished diction might be possibly. Dr. Johnson, in a paper of the Rambler, treats of the adaptation of sound to meaning; and quotes many examples illustrating his ground, from Greek, Latin and English poetry. He certainly is correct to a certain extent, if not wholly, and I will apply his rules to the present case.

"Through the hunt and battle, the author's style is fiery and severe, with the exception of a stanza or more, in which Percy and Douglass rest upon their swords, and after the manner of Homer's heroes, applaud each the other's gallantry. The poet in this place, seems to pause in the same graceful rest which he has given his heroes. But the battle renews; and his metre _personates_ its stormy vigor. At last the minstrel sinks from his high place into the hollows of grief; for the 'weeping widows' are before us, with 'birch and hazel biers,' carrying the dead men to their burial. And then with what skill does he shake off individual tenderness, and proclaim the 'national regret!'"

All in all--beauty on beauty-- Chevy Chase has never been matched, and does much better "unapparelled in the gorgeous eloquence of a Pindar." Truly, the obscure author of this one ballad stands alone--the father of English heroic poetry.

"Res gestæ, regumque, ducumque, et tristia bella, Quo scribi possent numero monstravit Homerus."

But he has attained excellence, without following the path which Homer "has shown;" and without using Homer's "numbers," has sung a great song.

III. Next on the list of those poets to whom the English language and English literature are indebted, stand Wyatt and Surrey. With regard to the first, I will hardly say more than that he was an Anacreon compared with his contemporaries. Rather gentle in his genius, he wrote love verses intuitively, and added in no slight degree to the melody of the language.

But Surrey added more. His love for the fair haired Lady Geraldine sent him "knight-erranting" among the romances and romantic grounds of Italy; and he is said to have been so well acquainted with the Tuscan tongue, and so well read in Italian authors, as to be a marvel, even in the days when Venice was the Paris of young English noblemen, and the Appenines their Switzerland. It may be as well to quote a few lines from Surrey's poems, as he has the reputation of having introduced much of the southern softness into English verse.

"_Lines writ by Henry Howard Lord Surrey--being a complaynt that hys Ladie, after she knew of hys love, kept her face always hydden from hym._

"I never sawe my ladie laye apart Her cornet blacke, in colde, nor yet in heate, Sith first she knew my griefe was growen so greate, (Whyche other fansies dryveth from my harte, That to myself, I do the thought reserve,-- The which, unwares, did wound my woful brest;) But on her face, mine eies mote never rest: Yet synce I knew I dyd her love and serve, Her golden tresses--cladd allway with blacke, Her smyling lookes, that had thus evermore, And that restraynes which I desire so sore: So doth this cornet governe me alacke! In sommer sunne, in winter's breathe, a frost Wherebye the lyghte of her fayre lookes I lost."

The reader will recognize this as a paraphrase, or indeed almost literal version of one of Petrarch's _canzoni_. He may, if curious enough, amuse himself by studying it with the original, not for the purpose of detecting the very visible theft, but for comparing a specimen of English verse, while not nearly escaped from its rudeness, with the Tuscan of perhaps the most musical of all bards.