Part 15

"_Bene vobis_ (your health,) my Glaucus," said he, quaffing a cup to each letter of the Greek's name, with the ease of the practised drinker. "Will you not be avenged on your ill-fortune of yesterday? See, the dice court us."

"As you will!" said Glaucus.

"The dice in August, and I an ædile," said Pansa, magisterially; "it is against all law."

"Not in your presence, grave Pansa," returned Clodius, rattling the dice in a long box; "your presence restrains all license; it is not the thing, but the excess of the thing, that hurts."

"What wisdom!" murmured the umbra.

"Well, I will look another way," said the ædile.

"Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped," said Glaucus.

Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a yawn.

"He gapes to devour the gold," whispered Lepidus to Sallust, in a quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus.

"Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they touch," answered Sallust, in the same tone, and out of the same play.

The second course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio nuts, sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionary tortured into a thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the table, and the ministri, or attendants, also set there the wine (which had hitherto been handed round to the guests) in large jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and quality.

"Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa," said Sallust; "it is excellent."

"It is not very old," said Glaucus, "but it has been made precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire; the wine to the flames of Vulcan, we to those of his wife, to whose honor I pour this cup."

"It is delicate," said Pansa, "but there is perhaps the least particle too much of rosin in its flavor."

"What a beautiful cup!" cried Clodius, taking up one of transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with gems, and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion at Pompeii.

"This ring," said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the first joint of his finger and hanging it on the handle, "gives it a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, my Clodius, whom may the gods give health and fortune long and oft to crown it to brim!"

"You are too generous, Glaucus," said the gamester, handing the cup to his slave, "but your love gives it a double value."

"This cup to the Graces!" said Pansa, and he thrice emptied his calix. The guests followed his example.

"We have appointed no director to the feast," cried Sallust.

"Let us throw for him, then," said Clodius, rattling the dice-box.

"Nay," cried Glaucus; "no cold and trite director for us; no dictator of the banquet; no _rex convivii_. Have not the Romans sworn never to obey a king? shall we be less free than your ancestors? Ho! musicians, let us have the song I composed the other night; it has a verse on this subject, 'The Bacchic Hymn of the Hours.'"

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionic air, while the youngest voices in the band chanted forth in Greek words, as numbers, the following strain:

THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS.

I.

Through the summer day, through the weary day, We have glided long; Ere we speed to the night through her portals gray, Hail us with song! With song, with song, With a bright and joyous song, Such as the Cretan maid, While the twilight made her bolder, Woke, high through the ivy shade, When the wine-god first consoled her. From the hush'd low-breathing skies, Half-shut, look'd their starry eyes, And all around, With a loving sound, The Ægean waves were creeping; On her lap lay the lynx's head; Wild thyme was her bridal bed; And aye through each tiny space, In the green vine's green embrace, The fauns were slyly peeping;-- The fauns, the prying fauns-- The arch, the laughing fauns-- The fauns were slyly peeping!

II.

Flagging and faint are we With our ceaseless flight, And dull shall our journey be Through the realm of night. Bathe us, O bathe our weary wings, In the purple wave, as it freshly springs To your cups from the fount of light-- From the fount of light--from the fount of light: For there, when the sun has gone down in night, There in the bowl we find him. The grape is the well of that summer sun, Or rather the stream that he gazed upon, Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth,[7] His soul, as he gazed, behind him.

III.

A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love, And a cup to the son of Maia, And honor with three, the band zone-free, The band of the bright Agiaia. But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure Ye owe to the sister Hours, No stinted cups, in a formal measure, The Bromian law make ours. He honors us most who gives us most, And boasts with a Bacchanal's honest boast He never will _count_ the treasure. Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings, And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs; And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume, We'll scatter the spray round the garland's bloom. We glow--we glow. Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave Bore once with a shout to their crystal cave The prize of the Mysian Hylas, Even so--even so, We have caught the young god in our warm embrace, We hurry him on in our laughing race; We hurry him on, with a whoop and song, The cloudy rivers of Night along-- Ho, ho!--we have caught thee, Pallas!

[Footnote 7: Narcissus.]

The guests applauded loudly: when the poet is your host, his verses are sure to charm.

"Thoroughly Greek," said Lepidus: "the wildness, force, and energy of that tongue it is impossible to imitate in the Roman poetry."

"It is indeed a great contrast," said Clodius, ironically at heart, though not in appearance, "to the old-fashioned and tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. The air is beautifully Ionic: the word puts me in mind of a toast--Companions, I give you the beautiful Ione."

"Ione--the name is Greek," said Glaucus, in a soft voice, "I drink the health with delight. But who is Ione?"

"Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would deserve ostracism for your ignorance," said Lepidus, conceitedly; "not to know Ione is not to know the chief charm of our city."

"She is of most rare beauty," said Pansa; "and what a voice!"

"She can feed only on nightingales' tongues," said Clodius.

"Nightingales' tongues!--beautiful thought," sighed the umbra.

"Enlighten me, I beseech you," said Glaucus.

"Know then," began Lepidus--

"Let me speak," cried Clodius; "you drawl out your words as if you spoke tortoises."

"And you speak stones," muttered the coxcomb to himself, as he fell back disdainfully on his couch.

"Know then, my Glaucus," said Clodius, "that Ione is a stranger, who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like Sappho, and her songs are her own composing; and as for the tibia, and the cithara, and the lyre, I know not in which she most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most dazzling. Her house is perfect; such taste--such gems--such bronzes! She is rich, and generous as she is rich."

"Her lovers, of course," said Glaucus, "take care that she does not starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly spent."

"Her lovers--ah, there is the enigma! Ione has but one vice--she is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she has no lovers: she will not even marry."

"No lovers!" echoed Glaucus.

"No; she has the soul of Vesta, with the girdle of Venus."

"What refined expressions!" said the umbra.

"A miracle!" cried Glaucus. "Can we not see her?"

"I will take you there this evening," said Clodius; "meanwhile," added he, once more rattling the dice--

"I am yours!" said the complaisant Glaucus. "Pansa turn your face!"

Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra looked on, while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually absorbed in the chances of the dice.

"Per Jove!" cried Glaucus, "this is the second time I have thrown the caniculæ" (the lowest throw.)

"Now Venus befriend me!" said Clodius, rattling the box for several moments, "O Alma Venus--it is Venus herself!" as he threw the highest cast named from that goddess,--whom he who wins money indeed usually propitiates!

"Venus is ungrateful to me," said Glaucus, gayly; "I have always sacrificed on her altar."

"He who plays with Clodius," whispered Lepidus, "will soon, like Plautus's Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes."

"Poor Glaucus--he is as blind as Fortune herself," replied Sallust, in the same tone.

"I will play no more," said Glaucus. "I have lost thirty sestertia."

"I am sorry," began Clodius.

"Amiable man!" groaned the umbra.

"Not at all!" exclaimed Glaucus; "the pleasure of your gain compensates the pain of my loss."

The conversation now became general and animated; the wine circulated more freely; and Ione once more became the subject of eulogy to the guests of Glaucus.

"Instead of outwatching the star, let us visit one at whose beauty the stars grow pale," said Lepidus.

Clodius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded the proposal; and Glaucus, though he civilly pressed his guests to continue the banquet, could not but let them see that his curiosity had been excited by the praises of Ione; they therefore resolved to adjourn (all at least but Pansa and the umbra) to the house of the fair Greek. They drank, therefore, to the health of Glaucus and of Titus--they performed their last libation--they resumed their slippers--they descended the stairs--passed the illumined atrium--and walking unbitten over the fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves beneath the light of the moon just risen, in the lively and still crowded streets of Pompeii. They passed the jewellers' quarter, sparkling with lights, caught and reflected by the gems displayed in the shops, and arrived at last at the door of Ione. The vestibule blazed with rows of lamps; curtains of embroidered purple hung on either aperture of the tablinum, whose walls and mosaic pavement glowed with the richest colors of the artist; and under the portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium they found Ione already surrounded by adoring and applauding guests.

"Did you say she was Athenian?" whispered Glaucus, ere he passed into the peristyle.

"No, she is from Neapolis."

"Neapolis!" echoed Glaucus; and at that moment, the group dividing on either side of Ione gave to his view that bright, that nymph-like beauty which for months had shone down upon the waters of his memory.

* * * * *

Glaucus is a noble character throughout; educated of course a heathen, but endowed with some of those higher faculties of reason, which enabled him in the end to surrender the charms of a poetic mythology for a purer and brighter faith. Ione, "the beautiful Ione," is an almost perfect model of Grecian loveliness and accomplishment; and her brother Apæcides, furnishes an affecting illustration of great powers and virtues rendered prostrate by an overwrought sensibility and enthusiastic temperament. Arbaces, the dark, wily, revengeful Egyptian, is the demon of the tale. In profound earthly wisdom and diabolical depravity, "none but himself can be his parallel." The "Asiatic Journal," whose editors or reviewers we take to be much wiser than we are, asserts that the character of Nydia is not an original creation of Mr. Bulwer's; but that the dwarf _Mignon_ in the _Wilhelm Meister_ of Goethe, is the exact prototype not only of the blind flower girl, but of the fantastical Fenella in Scott's Peverill of the Peak. The "Journal" also maintains that the witch of Vesuvius, is of the true Meg Merrillie's family. In regard to the first supposed resemblances,--never having seen Goethe's work, we profess our entire incompetency to judge; but we do most fervently protest against any comparison between our old favorite Meg and that most execrable hag whom Bulwer has placed in the caverns of Vesuvius,--the perusal of whose accursed incantations deprived us of several hours of our accustomed and needful rest.

Whilst Mr. Bulwer has rendered to the Egyptian and a few others the just reward of their transgressions, we think that poor Nydia has been hardly dealt by. What a fine opportunity it was to illustrate the power of christian faith in soothing even the sorrows of unrequited love. We do not say this reproachfully however, because we think that Mr. Bulwer has endeavored at least, to do justice to the christian character and principles, in his work. Olynthus is a fine specimen of that heroic courage which, especially in the early ages of the church, was content with ignominy, chains and poverty in this life, and courted even martyrdom itself, in the bright anticipation of eternal bliss.

Having thus candidly stated our impressions of Mr. Bulwer's work, justice requires that we should spread before our readers the well sustained vindication of one of our own countrymen, who complains that his literary rights have been grossly violated by this eminent transatlantic author. Mr. Fairfield, the editor of the _North American Magazine_, a man of unquestionable genius, and a poet of no ordinary strength, has fearlessly thrown the gauntlet, and charged the proud Briton to his teeth with literary piracy; an offence in the republic of letters, which ought at least to be rebuked by stern denunciation, as no corporal or pecuniary punishment can be inflicted. This piracy it seems, has been committed by Mr. Bulwer upon the lawful goods and chattels, the genuine offspring of Mr. Fairfield's own intellectual labors. We confess that we are struck with the plausible and curious coincidence, to speak technically, between Mr. Fairfield's _allegata_ and his undeniable _probata_. If the English novelist has decked himself in borrowed plumage, he ought to be forthwith stripped of it, and the stolen feather should adorn the brow of its real owner. The sin of plagiarism however, though never so distinctly proved, ought not in strictness to detract from the genuine and acknowledged merits of an author. Mr. Bulwer may have done great injustice to our countryman, and yet have some redeeming beauties to atone for his transgression. In compliance with Mr. Fairfield's request, we insert with pleasure the whole of his interesting article.

From the North American Magazine.

THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII;[8] _versus_ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.[9]

[Footnote 8: The Last Night of Pompeii: A Poem, and Lays and Legends. By Sumner Lincoln Fairfield. New York: 1829.]

[Footnote 9: The Last Days of Pompeii: By the Author of Pelham, Eugene Aram, England, and the English, &c. 2 vols. 12mo. New York: 1834. Harper and Brothers.]

While we have never failed to acknowledge and applaud the brilliant imagination and the eloquent and fascinating style of Mr. E. L. Bulwer, we have never feared to assert that he was a sophist in ethics and a libertine in love, and that _effect_ was apparently the only law which influenced his mind or guided his pen. Better disguised, but not less pernicious in principle and evil in action than the Tom Jones and Count Fathom and Zeluco of Fielding, Smollett and Moore, his characters not only exist in, but actually create an atmosphere of impurity which infects the very hearts of his admirers. He invests the seducer with irresistible attractions, and paints the highwayman and the murderer as examples for imitation. But even in the execution of his execrable purposes, he is not original either in his plots or his sentiments. The old Portuguese Jew Spinoza and his disciples Hobbes, Toland, Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke have abundantly supplied him with infidel arguments; and the profligate courtiers of Charles the Second have contributed their licentious stratagems and impure dialogues to augment the claims and heighten the charms of his coxcombs, libertines and menslayers. Mr. Bulwer has read much and skillfully appropriated, without acknowledgment, all that has suited his designs. He has artfully clothed the lofty thoughts of others in his own brilliant garb, and enjoyed the renown of a powerful writer and profound thinker, when he was little more than an adroit and manoeuvering plagiary. This we long since perceived, and therefore denied his claims to a high order of genius, though we readily accorded to him the possession of much curious knowledge and a felicitous use of language. We never imagined that the labors of an unrewarded and little regarded American could be deemed by the proud, _soi-disant_ highborn, and affluent Mr. Bulwer as worthy of his unquestioning appropriation. We fancied that so deep a scholar would continue to dig for treasures in ancient and recondite literature, and pass triumphantly over the obscure productions of a poor cisatlantic. But we erred. As a member of the British Parliament, Mr. Bulwer is accustomed to the creation of laws; and he seems to have made one expressly for his own profit and pleasure--namely, the law of literary lawlessness. We knew that he was well content to demand high prices for his immoral novels from his American publishers; but, until this time, we were not aware that he considered any thing but gold worth receiving or plundering from Yankeeland. With his usual tact, he has managed to secure, in no slight degree, from our labors, that which those labors failed utterly to receive from our unlettered countrymen; and it is our present purpose to demand back our own thoughts, which are our property and the heritage of our children.

It is now three years since 'The Last Night of Pompeii' was written and published; and, among other English men of letters, a copy of that poem with a letter, which was never answered, was sent to Mr. Bulwer, who was, at that time, the editor of the London New Monthly Magazine. Affliction fell heavily on our heart during the spring of 1832, and, becoming indifferent to poetic fame and every thing not involved in our bereavement, we bestowed no thought upon the poem or its reception. Time has passed on; we have been intensely occupied with other concerns, and have not been anxious about it since. The apathy, if not contempt, with which American poets have ever been treated, has driven Percival into solitude, Bryant and Prentice into politics, Whittier into abolition schemes, Pierpoint into phrenological experiments, and all others far away from the barren realm of Parnassus. But lo! the poem, which was printed by hardwon subscription and left unwelcomed but by a few cheerful voices, when transmuted into a novel by Bulwer, becomes a brilliant gem, and illumines the patriotic hearts and clear understandings of the whole Western World! Who is a Yankee poet that he should be honoured? but to whom is the English Bulwer unknown? We live, however--thanks be to Providence! to claim our own and expose all smugglers, though the redrover Saxon seems to think that the Atlantic is a very broad ocean, and that the democrats of the West are very little capable of appreciating any compositions but his own.

Had Mr. Bulwer confined himself to the almost literal adoption of our title, or had certain passages in his novel betrayed even great resemblances to others in our poem, we should have said that the coincidences were somewhat remarkable, and then dismissed the matter from our thoughts. Many examples in literary history might be presented to prove that men may think and describe alike without plagiarism, but, when the incidents and descriptions are as nearly identical as prose and poetry can well be, we cannot deduce the charitable conclusion that the very strong likeness is accidental. Our readers shall judge whether, in this case, it is so.

The characters in the poem are few--in the novel many--but, in both, the whole interest depends on the adventures of two lovers. In the poem these lovers are Pansa and Mariamne, a Roman decurion and a captive Jewish maiden, both Christians; in the novel they are Glaucus and Ione, Greeks and pagans. With us, Diomede was the prætor and Pansa the victim; with Bulwer, the former is a rich merchant, and the latter, ædile of Pompeii. Here, then, there is no similarity, nor is there but one deserving a remark, until Arbaces--an Eugene Aram antiquated--one of Bulwer's learned, wise and soliloquizing villains--seduces Ione to his mansion of iniquity. The first coincidence, to which we refer, is the scene of the sacrifice,[10] and the oracular response. The description in the novel reads thus:

"The aruspices inspected the entrails."--"It was then that a dead silence fell over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering around the cella, another priest, naked save by a cincture round the middle, rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures, implored an answer from the goddess."--"A low murmuring noise was heard within the body of the statue; thrice the head moved, and the lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic words:

"There are waves like chargers that meet and glow, There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below, On the brow of the Future the dangers lower, But blessed are your barks in the fearful hour."

[Footnote 10: Vol. i. p. 42.]

That in the poem is as follows--the oracle preceding the description of its effect upon the superstitious multitude.

"The aruspices proclaimed the prodigies. 'The entrails palpitate--the liver's lobes Are withered, and the heart hath shrivelled up!' Groans rose from living surges round; yet loud The High Priest uttered--'Lay them on the fire!' 'Twas done; and wine and oil poured amply o'er, And still the sacrificer wildly cried-- 'Woe unto all! the wandering fires hiss up Through the black vapors--lapping o'er the flesh They burn not, but abandon! ashes fill The temple, whirled upon the wind that waves'" etc.

_The Oracle_.

"'Ye shall pass o'er the Tyrrhene sea in ships Laden with virgins, gems and gods, and spoils Of a dismembered empire, and a cloud Of light shall radiate your ocean path!' Breathes not the soul of mystery in this?"

"And the prostrated multitudes, like woods Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell A silence when the heart was heard--a pause-- When ardent hope became an agony; And parted lips and panting pulses--eyes Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews Of expectation chilled and fevered--all The shaken and half lifted frame--declared The moment of the oracle had come! A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd Along the columned aisles and vestibule."

Both oracles partake the same mystic character and allude obscurely to the same fearful and overwhelming event.

The character of Arbaces, the Egyptian Magus, is peculiarly after Bulwer's own heart--for he is an entire, thorough, irredeemable demon, who weeps over venomous reptiles and kills innocent men: but a very large portion of his mystic discourse, which appears on pages 81-2-3-4 of volume first, is borrowed, as customary, without even an apologetic allusion, from Moore's Epicurean. We leave that poet to reclaim his property, and proceed to assert the identity of our own. In the novel, Arbaces beguiles Ione into his house, with the resolution to possess her by fraud or violence. In the poem, the priest of Isis inveigles the virgin of Pompeii into his lascivious temple with the same intent. Both the priest and Arbaces, having conquered every obstacle, are rapidly advancing to the accomplishment of their evil designs, when they are interrupted, and their victims rescued by the very same awful occurrence;