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Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. I, No. 3, April 1836)
Author: Students of Yale
Release Date: December 12, 2021 [eBook #66936]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE (VOL.
I, NO. 3, APRIL 1836) ***
THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
CONDUCTED BY THE =STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE=.
[Illustration]
“Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses
Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”
NO. III.
APRIL, 1836.
NEW HAVEN:
HERRICK & NOYES.
MDCCCXXXVI.
CONTENTS.
Page.
Prejudice and Scepticism, 81
Sonnet, 85
Dramatic Fragment, 86
The Coffee Club, No. I. 89
The Fairies’ Bower, 97
The Influence of Moral Feeling upon the Pleasures
of the Imagination, Essay No. I. 98
Columbia’s Banner, 100
Story and Sentiment, No. III. 101
Sonnet, 111
Review--Drake’s Poems, 111
The Double Disappointment, 120
Greek Anthology, No. III. 125
THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
VOL. I. APRIL, 1836. NO. 3.
PREJUDICE AND SCEPTICISM.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing: Drink deep, or taste not the
Pierian spring.”
This hackneyed distich is most frequently used to convey an idea
of that arrogant confidence which attends the first superficial
acquisitions in knowledge, and the characteristic diffidence of the
profound mind. Whether this is the impression intended to be conveyed
by its excellent author, it is not necessary to inquire: it evidently
involves a principle, which is illustrated by the history of every
nation, and has an important application to our own.
In tracing society through the various stages of its progress from
barbarism to civilization, we observe, almost universally, a point
intermediate between the two, where the foundations of the social
system seem to be broken up, and anarchy and confusion prevail. Among
men in a state of the greatest rudeness and ignorance, customs and
manners are comparatively permanent. Ages on ages roll away, and the
same simple institutions are handed down from father to son with the
most scrupulous care, and with scarcely a perceptible change. In this
condition of man prejudice holds universal sway. The practice, or the
‘ipse dixit’ of a superior is the foundation upon which they rest
their belief, and the rule by which they govern their actions; and in
opinions resting upon such a basis, there is no doubt or wavering. No
intricate maze of reasoning leaves a dark corner to beget distrust, but
like the insect upon a flying fragment, the contracted vision of the
savage reaches not beyond the established creed of his predecessors;
and upon that, however far it may be from reason and truth, he rests
in secure repose. But when he has obtained one glance beyond that
rude fabric, he feels the trembling of his basis, and his inquisitive
mind becomes alive to all the realities of his situation. He begins
to reason--he begins to doubt--and confidence once shaken in former
belief, scepticism becomes universal. He is thrown upon the resources
of his own rude mind; prejudice wars with passion and impressions from
the world, and reason roams, and often roams in vain, in search of
those pure principles from which spring the happiness of enlightened
communities.
In this incipient stage of knowledge, the field from which individuals
derive their impressions and opinions is contracted; and influenced
as they are by different circumstances and associations, it is not
surprising that their ideas should rarely concur. Mind clashes
with mind, and from this collision necessarily arises a popular
effervescence. But as knowledge advances, the horizon of each
individual extends farther and farther, and consequently coincides
to a greater extent with that of those around him. Hence, after this
fiery ordeal of revolution, in proportion as intelligence prevails, the
sentiments of the community harmonize, civil institutions become more
permanent, and society settles down into a peaceful, happy condition.
This is, indeed, but the brief outline of a theory; and like all other
theories, it requires great modification in its application to the
world. Man in his progress to civilization is not always influenced by
the same principles operating in the same way. In one instance, as he
breaks through the spell of prejudice--grasps the sword of reason, and
enters upon his rude analysis of mind and matter, he is directed by
some apparently fortuitous agency, at once to the elements of peace and
happiness, and advances in rapid strides from barbarism to refinement.
In another instance, in the same rude contest--the same clashing of
mental and physical energy, a nation falls exhausted in the struggle,
and sinks, if possible, to a state even more hopeless than before.
Nor is this period of revolutions confined to the incipient stage of
science in all its branches. Nations, that have apparently past this
eventful period, and settled down into the uniformity of civilized
life, are sometimes shaken to their very foundations, by the agitation
of some subject that had before escaped the trying test of reason,
and from some peculiar cause, been suffered to remain upon the rotten
foundation of prejudice and superstition. Indeed, no nation is entirely
secure from revolution until all its institutions are established upon
the basis of truth--of truth that is seen and felt by the great body of
the community.
The French revolution is, perhaps, as good an illustration of this
subject, as can be found in the annals of history. There we behold
a people not utterly buried in ignorance, but even taking the lead
in the sciences and arts, and apparently approaching the peace and
security of an enlightened state. But presently we are startled at a
horrid revolution sweeping over her. Religion and politics had not yet
undergone a strict examination. It is true, religious controversies
had been carried on, and wars, bloody and protracted, had been waged
between the Huguenots and Catholics; but they were little more
than the collision of prejudices, and the quarrels of priests and
princes. But when that doubting, ridiculing philosophy had rent the
veil of superstition, and, united with a gleam of liberty from across
the waters, had opened to the gaze of the multitude those sinks of
corruption, the people were exasperated at the wrongs which they had
before piously endured; they swept the land with unprecedented fury,
and hurled to one promiscuous ruin every monument of royalty, nobility
and priestcraft. But--alas for France! in that eventful moment no kind
genius appeared to direct the awakened mind to the fountains of truth.
Disgusted and maddened by the absurdities and impositions of the church
and state, they were driven into the dreadful abyss of infidelity, and
at last, in the recklessness of despair, they relinquished the contest,
and were ready to kiss a yoke even more galling than the former. It is
not our intention to convey the idea, that the French revolution was
in no way beneficial. This is a question for a future age to decide.
But we do intend to assert, that a knowledge of literature and science
merely, however much they may contribute to it, is not sufficient for a
nation’s security; and that when man has been roused to investigation,
unless inexperienced reason is aided in its search after truth, he is
liable to fall into the most fatal errors. This height of civilization
has been attained only by the accumulated wisdom of ages, and it is
not, therefore, to be expected that unassisted reason will arrive at
it at once. Had not the French been left to be carried headlong by the
first transports of passion, or had the pure principles of religion and
freedom been presented in such a way as to be imbibed and felt, they
might have risen to a lofty elevation, and been able to look back upon
that horrid scene of anarchy and bloodshed only as the harbinger of
liberty and peace. As it is, she has only added another illustration to
the many that before existed, of the truth of our motto--of the danger
of rousing the inquisitive mind of man, without providing the means and
the opportunity of arriving at correct conclusions in his inquiries.
Man’s reason is not infallible; and thus to awaken the attention of the
ignorant or the inexperienced, destroy their confidence in established
institutions, and then leave them to grope their own way to the
fountains of truth, is like committing to the breeze a ship without a
helm, and expecting it to arrive safe at its distant destined port.
It may be supposed that this subject has little application to a
country so enlightened as ours, and so accustomed to submit every
thing to the scrutiny of unbiassed reason. When we consider that our
institutions derive their origin from the most profound minds our
country has ever produced, and that they have prospered, for more
than half a century, beyond the most sanguine expectations of their
founders, we are apt to forget that the prosperity of all institutions
depends upon the attachment of the people, and to imagine that ours
are inherently secure. It would be Natural also to suppose, that
the discrepancies between different portions of the country would
gradually wear away by continual contact and free intercourse, and that
the longer we existed in our present condition, the more consolidated
and unanimous we should become. But the crisis has not yet arrived. We
have received these institutions upon the faith of our fathers, and,
hitherto, been engaged, not in fairly discussing, but in eulogizing
and defending them, without ever allowing ourselves to doubt their
excellence and superiority over all others. These venerable fathers
have now gone down to their graves; our enemies have become our
friends; the distorting medium of prejudice through which we have
hitherto viewed the world is removed, and we are left to scrutinize
at our leisure the fair fabric which has been committed to us. Were
this investigation to be candid and serious, we should be safe. But he
who has the least acquaintance with human nature is aware, that when
our complacency proceeds from an influence prepossessing us in favor
of an object, there is a re-action in sentiment when that influence
is removed: complacency becomes disgust, and the more extravagant it
has been, the more powerful is the opposite bias. Upon this principle,
we may account for that complete change in the means by which power
and influence are sought from the people. Formerly, the only method
of finding favor with the multitude, was to enlist heart and hand
in supporting and extolling our glorious institutions; but he who
would succeed in pursuit of the same object, at the present day,
must find some real or imaginary imperfection, and by a torrent of
ranting eloquence, display, on every occasion, his superior sagacity
in detecting the errors of our fathers. Besides, the greater this
blind confidence we have acquired in our institutions, the more
negligent shall we be in support of them, and the more severe in
exposing and decrying their imperfections. Already we begin to hear,
on the one hand, the sneering taunt at the fickleness, inefficiency,
and illiberality of our proceedings, and the high encomium upon
aristocracy and its concomitant advantages, and on the other, the
expression of envy towards rising wealth and power, and utter contempt
towards law and all wholesome restraint. These floating insinuations
are the seeds of future public sentiment, and unless counteracted by
a salutary influence, the effect will be ruinous. It is true, we are
an intelligent people, and by no means blind to our own immediate
interests; but it is also indisputably certain, that the deliberate
judgment and profound thought of our predecessors have been, in
some measure, supplanted by a mere smattering of other men’s ideas.
Precocious demagogues and priests are taking the places of grave
statesmen and a sound, revered clergy. It is an idea instilled into us
in our childhood, and which we carry with us throughout our career,
that the present is an age far more effulgent than any that has before
dawned upon the world; and we therefore think ourselves warranted in
laying aside all past experience, and forming our conclusions upon
our own notions of expediency. The course of reasoning, which led to
the establishment of the noble institutions and customs which have
been handed down to us, is not at once comprehended, and we resolve
immediately to demolish, and substitute the frail creations of our own
fancy, which past experience and further reflection show to be ruinous.
In short, we have enjoyed the blessings of our government just long
enough to lose sight of the evils of others, and are just wise enough
to detect the imperfections of our own system, without being able, from
a deep sense of the injuries under which every other people groans,
to appreciate its excellence. It becomes, then, every lover of his
country, and, especially, him who, in the prime of youth, is looking
forward to it as the scene of a happy life, with high hopes of honor
and power, to beware how he lends his aid to alienate public sentiment
from this parent of his present joys and future hopes, and to enlist
heart and hand in support of a government which has certainly, for more
than half a century, secured to this community a greater amount of
happiness than was ever before enjoyed by any portion of the earth’s
population. The popular judgment will be sufficiently severe under the
most favorable circumstances. When that is passed, and the people are
satisfied from their own examination, that the regulations which govern
them are the most perfect in existence, then, or at least not till
then, may we esteem the crisis past, and our country safe.
L.
SONNET.
’Tis beautiful to-day. There’s not a cloud
To mar this sweet serenity of sky:
In Beauty’s arms all nature seems to lie:
Earth smiles, as though the Deity had bowed
To wrap her form in loveliness, and crowd
The air with spirits of the waking spring.
How meet that man his gift of homage bring,
With Nature praise, and be no longer proud!
Oh, lovely day of rest! how sweetly thou
With joys of Heaven canst fill the thirsting soul!
As out from rocks the gushing fountains roll,
So from the heart of flinty hardness, now
Does burst, unbidden, the pure, fervent prayer,
And, with the morning dew, ascend the viewless air.
K.
FRAGMENT OF AN UNFINISHED TRAGEDY.
Scene--_An Orange Grove._
_Enter_ Muza.
_Muza, solus._
Hark! heard I not her step, or was it nought
But Fancy’s wild creation? Ah! tis gone,
And still she’s absent. Ye odor-breathing groves,
Aslant whose dewy bloom the virgin moon
Pours her mild radiance, what though ye are fair,
And rich in all the fragrance nature yields?
Ye bring no balm to soothe my anxious mind--
But soft! she comes--my Isabel--
_Enter_ Isabel.
_Isabel._
Oh, Muza! Muza! pardon, I beseech you,
This rash, misguided step, that unbecomes
My virgin modesty and maiden pride.
Muza, I’ve erred. Oh let me now depart;
’Tis not a fitting time.
_Muza._
Say why not, dear maid? This is the hour
I’ve longed, I’ve prayed for; and thank Allah now
’Tis come at last. (_Kneeling._)
Sweet Isabel, my heart is wholly thine.
I love thee more than life. Nay, do not turn
Those lovely eyes away; still let them beam
With gentleness on me. List, dear one, list--
_Isabel._
Cease, Muza, cease. These glowing words of love
Savor too much of thine own sunny clime,
That makes the tenderest passions of the heart
Burn with a fiercer flame. But ’tis not meet
That we should hold such converse at this hour;
And death awaits thee, Muza, if thou’rt found
Within these groves.
_Muza._
Isabel,
Is then my safety of concern to thee?
And does the pang of fear thrill through thy breast
For Muza’s sake?
_Isabel._
Oh yes.
Thinkest thou that Isabel can look with coldness
Upon the brave preserver of her honor?
Thy welfare, trust me,
Shall ever be the object of my care;
And still the tender tie of gratitude
Shall bind my heart to thee.
_Muza._
Say, dear one, say the tender tie of love.
_Isabel._
Urge me not, Muza, urge me not too far.
But come, I claim a promise: wilt thou not
Fulfil it now? I long to hear thee tell
The wild, romantic history of thy life;--
For such it must be, if I can surmise
Aught from the hints which thou hast thrown around thee.
_Muza._
I will obey thee, Isabel,
Though I would rather pour into thine ear
The breathings of my soul, than now recount
A dull detail of cold and lifeless facts.
Know, then, I spring not from the Moorish race,
But Christian blood bounds freely through these veins.
No more I know; the secret of my birth
Is wrapt in mystery;
But yet within my mind faint traces live,
When the paternal hand upon this head
Rested with fondness, and a mother’s eye,
Radiant with love, beamed brightly on my heart;
But then, there comes a blank in memory’s page:
And next, dark visions flit before my mind
Of bloodshed, death and slaughter, while to view
The swarth and fiery visage of the Moor
Starts up, attended with appalling horrors.
A truce to memory. What I am I know;
Thou askest, and shalt know. A warrior bold
I dwell upon the banks of fair Xenil,
Where that bright river, with its winding stream,
Laves proud Granada’s walls. Ask Muza’s name
Within Alhambra’s towers. ’Tis he whose heart
Is boldest in the fight, whose daring valor
Oft sweeps the plains of fertile Andalusia.
_Isabel._
Oh, boast not of these actions, where the cross,
The sacred symbol of my holy faith,
Bows down before the crescent. Tell me, Muza,
Does not thy heart reproach thee when this sword
Is stained with Christian blood--perhaps the blood
Of friends and kindred, who would gladly lose
Their lives to rescue thee?
_Muza._
No, Isabel. The ties of blood are severed;
The tie of gratitude alone can bind
My heart to others. Shall I not live for those
Who’ve fostered in this breast the spark of honor,
And roused my soul to deeds of noble daring?
Aye, the Moor!
Though your proud chivalry may curl the lip
In haughty scorn, claims gratitude from me,
And shall this be uncancelled? No, by Allah!
His cause is mine, his holy faith is mine--
But did I say the ties of gratitude
Alone could bind my heart? Ah! there I erred.
There is another bond still closer, dearer,
Entwining with the very strings of life,
A bond I would not break to gain the world--
Canst thou not guess it, Isabel? Ah, yes;
That timid, down-cast eye, that tell-tale glance
Unfolds the mystery. Strange, indeed, ’twould be,
If the bright maid that twined the silken bonds,
Knew not her captive. Would to heaven I knew
What noble parents, happy in their love,
Possess so fair a daughter!
_Isabel._
Muza,
I know not what to say; my fearful heart
Is full of dread forebodings for the future.
I see thee now in arms against my country,--
A scoffer and despiser of my faith;
And with thy hand yet stained in Christian blood,
Thou com’st to woo me! Alas! what can I do?
I cannot hate thee; gratitude forbids it.
Heaven aid me in the conflict!
But seek not, Muza, I beseech thee, seek not
The knowledge of my rank. ’Twould only widen
The breach of separation. Will’t not suffice
To know that in the breast of Isabel
The cherished name of Muza ne’er shall die?
Farewell! (_Going._)
_Muza._
One moment stay; we ne’er may meet again.
(_Exit Isabel._)
She’s gone, and nought but solitude remains.
Angel of hope! come on thy downy wings,
Descend and be my comforter and guide!
(_Enter a Moorish guard._)
_Guard._ My lord!
The torches of a Spanish band are flashing
Upon the westward of the orange grove!
_Muza._ Away, then! follow me! (_Exeunt omnes._)
THE COFFEE CLUB.
No. 1.
“Of all the several ways of beginning a book which, are now in
practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of
doing it is the best;--I’m sure it is the most religious--for I begin
with writing the first sentence, and trust to Almighty God for the
second.”--_Tristram Shandy._
Reader,
Should you, on any one of these gloomy spring evenings, chance to
traverse the college yard, between the hours of nine and ten, among
the many glowing windows, with which the sombre buildings are then
radiant, you may notice two, shining with transcendent brilliancy. Of
the situation of these windows, and the occasion of so intense a glow,
as to distinguish them from the dull light diffused by the solitary
study-lamp, it suits not with our purpose to tell thee more than this:
1st, that they occupy a central position in that building, which, in
college mythos, holds the rank of the third heaven; (to south middle
we can assign no gentler appellative than _purgatory_;) 2nd, that,
in the day-time, they admit the light _to_, and in the night season
emit it _from_, one of the most literary, best furnished, and withall
best peopled rooms, which our well stocked University can boast; and
3d, that at the hour above specified, within this room are assembled
four as merry, yet thoughtful fellows, as your eye (especially if
you be a little cynical) would desire to look upon. But to speak of
them in the high terms which they deserve, would expose me to the
charge of base flattery in the case of three, and arrant egotism for
the fourth. Further than this, curious reader, except so far as may
serve to elucidate the characters of these Dii superi, we shall never
communicate.
But, stop--my better judgment whispers me, that ’twould be safer to
satiate thy curiosity, at once, than have thee continually peering
about and asking troublesome questions. Enter, then, this mysterious
room--erect thy crest--quicken thy memory, for it must serve thee in
good stead. Thou hast free permission,
‘Each corner to search, and each nook to scan.’
Well, you have made your bow with such a trigonometrical flourish,
as proves indisputably your claim to a rectilineal descent from the
_Angles_--if I intended a pun, may I eat a dinner of cabbage and
quicksilver, and then, with my heels higher than my head, take a
siesta beneath a Nubian sun on “Damien’s bed of steel;” (Dante would
have chuckled over so original a punishment, for the embellishment
of his Inferno.) Now you are in the room don’t open your mouth with
such a convulsive gape. Did you never see a classical studio before?
Drop your arms by your sides with perpendicular propriety, and, if
you wish to note the aspect of the room, and its occupants, do it
by quiet, occasional glances, and not by an Hibernian stare. Take a
seat--you have done it indeed, and with a most rheumatic grace; one
would think you had been studying the ‘Poetry of motion’ all your
days. If you wish to take an inventory of the novelties you see,
“_Accipe jam tabulas_”--pull out your memorandum book,--“_detur nobis
locus, hora, custodes_”--sit down, and take your time about it, but
be careful,--“_videamus, uter plus scribere possit_”--see how fast
you can write; that’s what my old _paedotribe_ used to call a _free
translation_.
But we must hasten to a description of the room, and its contents.
Item. Your infernal extremities are sublevated by a carpet, somewhat
homely, but thick and warm, while from an open stove a blazing pile of
‘divina Hickoria’ (as Virgil would call it) diffuses a salutary warmth.
Item. Abutting upon either window, stand two tall and open book-cases,
“filled to the brim of contentment.” Beside the dull and thumb-worn
volumes of the ‘college course,’ which constitute but a small portion
of their burden, you will find a choice selection from the infinity of
books, which the wit of man has perpetrated. The stolidity of wisdom,
and the levity of wit, equally find there a place.
Item. In the centre of the room rests a substantial table, around whose
broad circumference an astral lamp sheds its fluent splendors upon a
literary chaos, where taste and fancy have collected their aliment,
‘In embryon atoms
Light-armed, or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow’--
The meditations of Hervey, and the sparkling humor of Butler,--the
regal Virgil,
‘With the sounding line--
The long, majestic march, and energy divine,’--
the smart antithesis of Martial--the luscious flow of Ovid, and
the delicate indelicacy of Terence, and the ‘curiosa felicitas’
of Catullus--(the phrase was first applied to Horace.) But we are
exhausting our critical knowledge, and thy patience--suffice it to say,
that, strown in elegant confusion, lie a motley assemblage--Milton
and the Comic Almanac--Coleridge and the President’s Message--Kent’s
Commentaries between the two volumes of Rienzi--Shakspeare and John
Bunyan--the Yale Literary Magazine and Tristram Shandy, open at the
page whence we extracted our motto.
Item. Stretching along the back side of the room, is a sofa, of most
dyspeptic virtues--hard by, is an arm-chair, expansive enough for an
alderman--and next, beneath a mirror, stands a dressing table, which,
besides the appliances of adscititious beauty, _eau de cologne_, and
“thine incomparable oil, Macassar,” supports a load of cups and spoons,
and other paraphernalia for the fruition of that rich beverage,
‘Which Jove now drinks, since Hebe spilt his nectar,
And Juno swears most bravely does affect her.’
At the same time, on the coals, is sweating and snoring a huge pot,
(the _conica tridentata_ of naturalists,) like an uneasy slumberer,
‘_flagrantis atroce horâ caniculæ_’--that is, about fly-time. Pray,
reader, remark my classic taste, which I have thus thrice developed for
your amusement.
We have thus slightly touched upon some of the most striking phenomena
which meet your eye. The living appurtenances of the room demand a more
careful and individual notice.
Close to one side of the stove, with his feet on the fender, and
his body ‘squat like a toad,’ in the easy embrace of an arm chair,
sits a singular personage, known to thee, at least, reader, by the
fanciful cognomen of Apple-Dumpling. He bears upon his plump visage and
stout frame, the impress of sensuality, struggling with, and almost
triumphing over, a good natural portion of intellect and refinement.
As you see him now, with a cigar in his mouth, and a volume of Lamb’s
in his hand--equally relishing the beauties of both--gazing now
and then, with pleasant anticipation gleaming in his eye, upon the
bubbling, hissing fountain, at his feet--and again with intellectual
delight, joining in the keen raillery of his companions--from this
short sketch, we say, you may divine his character. His personal
appearance is no less queer than his mental organization. He is
beneath the middle height, but owing to an odd habit, which he has,
of bobbing his head up and down, like a startled bullfrog, his height
is incessantly vibrating, between five feet, and five feet six. His
hair seems constantly electrified, and points in all directions, like
glory in the primer. A low forehead, thick lips, and a dull face,
redeemed only by the brightness of his eye, are the only peculiarities,
which deserve our notice. The worst thing about Apple is, that he
is an inveterate punster, and plumes himself on his proficiency in
this execrable art. You can always tell when to expect his artillery
of wit. He gives utterance to a sudden, energetic whiff, and knocks
the ashes fiercely from his cigar, whilst from his kindling eye
there darts a quick premonitory flash. He is frequently placed under
our satirical dissecting knife, and is, certainly, at times very
ridiculous--yet, with all his oddities and failings, we love Apple,
‘even as the apple of our eye,’ and should as soon think of throwing
away our coffee-pot, as of excluding him from our Quartette. Note with
careful eye the individual next him. He is an exquisite in personal
appearance and mental conformation. What ‘Poor Yorick’ said of Dr.
Slop and his pony, ‘that he never saw a better fit in his life,’
might with equal propriety be predicated of this gentleman’s mind and
body. ‘Il Pulito’--for such is his appellative, drawn from his own
favorite Italian--possesses all the accomplishments of person and
intellect, which are essential to the perfection of a fine gentleman
in this most fastidious age. He has a _very general_ knowledge of
ancient literature, and can _talk_ fluently about French, Spanish,
Italian, and what not; but should one descend to _particulars_, he is
most wofully ignorant, or, as he calls it, _forgetful_. Dante, and
Tasso, and Schiller, and Richter, are names ever on his lips; but
of any just conception of their character, and their works, he is
totally innocent. In truth, his high pretensions will hardly bear a
strict examination, except in one particular. His knowledge of English
literature is thorough and extensive. He has drunk deep of those
well-springs of beauty and truth, the ‘Old English prose writers,’
lingered long about the haunts of our vernacular Castalia, and plunged
over head and ears in the muddy pool of ‘transient literature.’ He is
at no loss for an opinion--most commonly a correct one, too, upon Lord
Bolingbroke, or Captain Marryatt--gentle Philip Sydney, or Porcupine
Cobbett--the cacophonous Chaucer, or the sweetly sentimental ‘L. E. L.’
With such attainments, and a certain seductive grace in language and
manners, Il Pulito is a most agreeable _collaborateur_ in our nocturnal
toils. Were we to omit altogether a passing notice of his _external_
recommendations, and a sly hint at some of his ‘labors of love,’ he
would never forgive us! for on these he prides himself incontinently. I
would not hint that all his self-complacency is absorbed in dress--yet
he certainly _peacocks himself_, as the Italians say, when he throws
back the collar of his coat, displaying thereby a fair round chest,
from the middle of whose glossy, _dipectoral_ envelope glitters the
golden symbol of _craniossal_ love. Dancing, music, drawing, and all
the other _equivocal_ graces of ‘the gentleman,’ are as ‘familiar
things’ to him. He can give you a masterly criticism on a pretty foot,
or a well turned arm, and has caused alarming symptoms of a disease of
the heart in more than one of ‘Nature’s fair defects.’ I have often
known the fellow fling his dark locks around his brow in clustering
beauty, and saunter with _unstudied_ carelessness among some half dozen
of his fair acquaintance, while the graceful dignity of his carriage,
the significance of his tone, and the eloquence of his eye, sent to
the innocent young heart a disturbing thrill, and called to the cheek
a warm flush of unconscious pleasure. Then, too, how perfect he is at
turning a sonnet. Il Pulito is a fine tasteful fellow, with a slight
touch of the dandy. In our coterie, however, he keeps his coxcombry,
and his love affairs pretty much to himself; for we would be loth
to admit any feminine sentimentalism, to mar our hearty, masculine
hilarity.
On the opposite side of the stove sits the immortal Ego. Shall I
describe him--i. e. myself? I will, and that, too, in a manner equally
free from vanity and familiarity; for I have a respect for myself not
much inferior to that of the polite Spaniard, who took off his hat
whenever he spoke _of_ or _to_ himself. But to spare my feelings, which
are like the _sensitive Mimosa_--oh! simile most original and sweet!--I
must recur to the third person. His name is Nescio Quod. His face when
alone is grave and thoughtful; in company, it is jolly and careless,
yet crossed here and there by lines of serious reflection, which, on
the whole, form the general expression of his countenance. He, as well
as Il Pulito, has dipped into almost every thing, and gone deeply into
some--he has read extensively and foolishly, and is, very naturally,
infected with the itch of quoting. He is apt to mistake strangeness of
expression for originality of thought, and when he has revived some
obsolete phrase, or brought forth some new-coined word, to which there
are already a dozen synonymes, he hugs himself as fondly as if he had
struck out a brilliant witticism. He is vague and anomalous--every
thing except wise--sometimes misanthrope, sometimes pedant, sometimes
a musing poetico-philosopher, but always his own miscellaneous self.
He is fond of books, as much from their generic nature, as from any
specific merits they may possess, and has always some conclusive
reason for thinking the last book presented to his notice, the best
he ever saw in his life. Is the book an old one? ’Tis the voice of
antiquity--a message from the past. Is the work fresh from the
literary mint? It breathes of novelty--its odor is refreshing. He is a
very fluent writer, and for this reason, though by no means the most
elegant of the four, he has been selected to commit to paper the annals
of our doings.
The last of our coterie is called by mortals--no matter what; among
the Gods his name is Il Tristo. His soft hair hangs about his face
“unkempt” and tangled. His eye is faded, his cheek colorless. Across
his uneasy forehead flits momently, from dark to light, each shade of
passion.
“And o’er that fair, broad brow are wrought
The intersected lines of thought--
Those furrows which the burning share
Of sorrow plows untimely there.”
Now his face is dark with some bitter remembrance--now softened by
some tender thought--now lightened by some glorious purpose. Tristo
is pure and passionate. But his thin, light frame is too weak for the
agitations of his burning spirit. So far as I can learn, he has been
from boyhood the child of the feelings--“chewing the cud of sweet
and bitter fancies.” He has lived in an artificial world--a world
of poetry and romance. In spite of his good taste, his excitable
feelings and craving wishes lead him to dwell upon fictions of wild
and outrageous extravagance. This is not a world for the gentle or
wayward in heart, and Tristo’s plans and fancies are daily crossed and
crushed. Indeed, I sometimes think that his heart-strings have been
jarred by a terrible concussion, and will never vibrate more, save in
tones of mournful music. When in society, he usually represses his
moodiness, and his thoughts come forth with a fluent brightness, which
is purified and enhanced by their melancholy tinge. In our company
he is more frank and cheerful than elsewhere, and will, at times,
by his eloquence of feeling, call forth our sympathies and excite
our admiration. He never speaks heartlessly--his literary opinions,
his views of society, are all colored by his feelings--and he will
condemn a worthless publication, or espouse the cause of a favorite
author, with as much earnestness as if he were a party in the case. His
vehemence adds greatly to the life of our discussions, and his caustic,
yet good-natured wit, to the merriment of our lighter moods.
Thou hast by this time a clear idea of the room, _its_ occupants and
_their_ occupation. Now do the amanuensis.----
“A fine essay that,” said Dumpling, as he threw down a volume of Elia,
accompanying the movement with a prolonged emission of breath and
smoke. “A masterly essay, that upon Shakspeare. (Puff.) Lamb is, or
_was_, by far the best critic of the nineteenth century, not excepting
Kit North himself. Wilson rants too much. He leads us all over creation
for treasures which he might as well have given us at first. But the
deep, quiet Lamb--(Puff, puff, puff.) By the way, how advances the
coffee, Nescio?” Nescio roared, Pulito stroked his chin and laughed,
while a quick, bright smile beamed over the face of Tristo, at the
characteristic transition.
“Why,” said Nescio, “I think it has reached its maximum of excellence.”
“An excellent maxim that remark of yours,” said Apple, complacently,
thinking he saw a handle for a pun.
_Nescio._ “Oh! Dumpling, don’t be witty, at least in that line. Addison
used to say that punning was the lowest species of wit.”
_Apple._ “Addison was an ass. (Puff.) Infund some coffee _instanter_.
How beautifully clear! ’Tis pure as Heaven.”
_Nescio._ “Yes! I’ll wager my Kent’s Commentaries against Nat. Willis’s
poems, that not the _ordinaires_ of London, the _restaurateurs_ of
Paris, or the _cafès_ of Madrid, can furnish better.”
_Pulito._ “Ha! ha! One would think from that long array of ‘instances,’
that you were really a ‘man of travel,’ and were perfectly at home in
St. James’ Square or the Rue de St. Honorie.”
_Nescio._ “I have heard of them, which is just as well.”
_Apple._ “Do you know, friend Quod, that we do wrong in drinking coffee
so transparent?”
_Nescio._ “No! how, I pray? Instruct us.”
_Apple._ “Why, we ought always to see the _grounds_ of what we imbibe.”
_Pulito._ “Oh! spare us, incorrigible wretch. ‘Wilt never cease?’”
_Nescio._ “How long were you loading that gun, Apple?”
_Apple._ “Rest you content, _fair_ sir. ’Twas an _improvisation_--a
direct inspiration from Mercury.”
_Nescio._ “The _mercury_ must have been some degrees below zero, I
should guess.”
_Apple._ “Oh! most miserable! (Puff.) Physician, heal thyself. You are
like the man that preached against dishonesty with a stolen shilling in
his pocket.”
_Pulito._ “Cease this ‘childish treble’--take another cup of coffee,
and then tell me what you think of ‘Tristram Shandy,’ which I have
found lying here on the sofa, ‘dejected and alone.’”
_Apple._ “Think of it? (Puff.) What should I think of it, but that it’s
the finest book in the world? I prefer it to both Swift and Smollett.”
_Nescio._ “Well, now, in candor, I do not like it very much, nor did I
ever. I have sometimes stared at his strange conceits, and laughed at
his queer conjunctions, and been, in a few instances, actually ravished
by his beauty and his _naturalness_. But, then, look at the astounding
proofs of his thievish propensities--at his plagiarisms from Rabelais,
which were traced out by his English bloodhound; and, whether original
or borrowed, look at his tedious and fruitless wanderings, enlivened,
it is true, by conceptions as beautiful as they are new, yet putting
one out of patience and out of breath.”
_Apple._ (Puff.)
“‘Cease: no more.
You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man’s nose.’
I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Quod. You and I must part if you say any
thing prejudicial to my beloved Laurence. Shakspeare, Fielding and
Sterne are my favorites _par eminence_, and ‘let my tongue cleave,’
(puff)--‘let my right hand forget,’ (puff)--if I do not defend them
till--my last cigar--that is, in a quiet way, by swearing to my belief,
which is as firm as the laws of the Medes, or the determination of
a pig. As for logic, hang your silly syllogisms--hem!--I would not
_argue_ the point, if Sterne were my grandfather.”
_Nescio._ “Well, if you will not defend him, perhaps Tristo will. What
say you?”
_Tristo._ “Oh! There are parts and passages of glorious beauty! The
episodes of the Monk, Maria, and the dead Ass--I confess it--draw tears
at the bare remembrance.”
_Nescio._ “Yes--but those are in the Sentimental Journey.”
_Tristo._ “Right. It is some years since I read it. I have of late been
absorbed in poetry, wild fiction, and idle thinkings. Friend Pulito,
however, if you can waken him from his trance, will, doubtless, be glad
to enter the list with you--lance in rest.”
_Nescio._ “He must speak for himself. Come, Pulito, what think you of
the proposal?”
_Pulito._ (Musing.) “Why, I have hardly thought, yet, of _proposing_,
though she’s a deucedly pretty girl--Phoebus! what a face, and what a
dewy lip!”
_Apple._ (Chuckling.) “You and she then might play a fine _dew-wet_
together.”
_Pulito._ (Still gazing in his coffee-cup.) “True--she does sing
well--and then, such glossy hair, and that eye of jet.”
_Apple._ “From that eye, then, we might expect to see a fine _jet
d’eau_.” [At this last discharge, Pulito was thoroughly awakened, while
the others wished they had been asleep.]
_Nescio._ “Now you’re awake, Pulito, you will, perhaps, answer my
challenge.”
_Pulito._ “Your challenge, my dear fellow? I heard none. But, if
it related, as Paley says, ‘either remotely or immediately’ to the
drinking of coffee, I’m ready for you ‘when and where thou wilt, lad.’”
_Tristo._ “Pulito is either strangely forgetful, or ridiculously
perverse to-night. Let us enlighten the fellow. While your eyes were
in ‘dim suffusion veiled,’ and you were _reverising_ upon ‘sweet
seventeen,’ Nescio has offered Apple and myself, pitched battle
over Sterne’s ‘Tristram Shandy.’ Apple refuses to fight, being like
Knickerbocker’s fumigating warriors, more valorous with the pipe, than
the sword, while I retire, inglorious, knowing nothing of this ‘bone
of contention.’ Quod, who is determined to have ‘war of words,’ next
offers you the challenge.”
_Pulito._ “Your pardon, Quod, for my inattention, and thanks to you,
Tristo, for your kind mediation. By the dark-eyed houries of Mahomet’s
heaven--by the beauty congregated in the harem of the Sultan, (Pooh,
interjected Dumpling,)--I never--what was I going to say?--Oh! I never
felt better disposed in my life to do literary battle--for I have
read the book through, within the last month, and, faith, I believe I
introduced the subject myself. I’ll uphold the _old_ novelists against
all gainsayers and Bulwerites.”
_Nescio._ “I do defy thee, stripling. As I myself once said, (rather
foolishly though,)
‘I wouldn’t give the peeling of an onion
For all they wrote, from Fielding back to Bunyan.’
The _old_ novelists against Bulwer! Why, man, Bulwer is a genius--the
_soul_ of Wit, Philosophy, and Poetry.”
“Bulwer a poet,” said Tristo--“have you read the Siamese Twins?”
“Bulwer a wit,” said Apple--“in all his novels, he has no more than
ten puns to a volume, on the average.” “Bulwer a philosopher,” said
Pulito--“Oh! shade of Locke!”
What further open maledictions or sly hits, the ‘favorite of the
periodical press’ and circulating libraries, might have received
is uncertain.--Just then a shout of _Fire_, which rung through the
reechoing halls of the building, roused our sympathies, and joining in
the cry, we rushed from the room.
Ego.
THE FAIRIES’ BOWER.
When the stars are watching high in Heaven,
And silence has thrown, with a magical power,
Her mystic spell o’er the face of even,
Thou may’st not come to the Fairies’ bower.
Though the star of thy fate shine lovely and bright,
And smile like a seraph just loosed from its sphere,
Yet visit not thou that bower by night,
For the spirits of evil are hovering there.
Though the seraph smile, and the voice of Love,
Should call thee forth to indulge its dream,--
Oh! go not there! though the moon from above,
Should beckon thee forth with her quivering beam.
For the flowers that grow in that silent spot,
With their lovely hues, are laden with tears,
And the birds that sing in that Fairy grot,
Will hasten away when the evening appears.
And the smile of Love will lose its light,
And the voice of the lover will lose its tone,--
And the stars that lumine the gloom of night,
Will cease to smile from their ruby throne.
And the star of thy fate will cease to shine,--
And the flowers will weep a dewy shower;
And the smile of joy will desert its shrine,
When thou strayest at eve in the Fairies’ bower.
Then, go not thou to the Fairies’ bower,
When evening is drawing her curtains round;
For the spirits that rule the midnight hour,
Are tripping at eve on that haunted ground.
H.
_April 1st, 1836._
THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL FEELING UPON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.
Essay No. I.
By moral feeling, we mean a recognition of those great principles of
right and wrong, which form the basis of our relation to each other as
social beings. When it is exhibited in our varied character of members
of a community, citizens of a commonwealth, and brethren of the human
family, we give it the specific names of benevolence, patriotism, and
philanthropy. Since then, these relations are so comprehensive, and so
necessarily blended and interwoven with all our habits of thought and
action, the influence of this feeling must extend to most, if not to
all the powers of the mind. It will be our object in this series of
essays, to demonstrate this influence as affecting the pleasures of the
imagination.
By the benignity of our Creator, we have been endowed with the powers
of taste and imagination, to throw a charm over the ruggedness of
human life, and bring in a thousand tributes of enjoyment to cheer
our hearts in our journeyings through this ‘vale of tears.’ These
pleasures, as long as the powers themselves are uncorrupted by vice,
and their purity free from the taint of unhallowed passions, are of a
kind the most pure and innocent. We believe it to be an immutable law,
in all the operations of the mind, that the exercise of our virtuous
affections, as far as it is carried, induces the highest possible
degree of happiness which we are capable of feeling. Our most exquisite
enjoyments in Literature and the Fine Arts, will be found to receive
their origin from something which most directly calls up virtuous
associations; and in the beauties of the natural world, those scenes
prove the most delightful, which elevate our contemplations to the
infinite perfections of the ‘great First Cause.’
We would remark, that the influence of moral feeling tends to heighten
the pleasure which we derive from Eloquence and Poetry. The pleasure
which flows from these sources belongs to the highest and purest
order of intellectual enjoyments. They bear with them a voice that
wakes the soul to intense interest, now throwing over its powers the
inspiration of sublimity, and now floating around it in tones as mellow
and gentle as the last whisper of a summer breeze. Who, as he has
listened to the voice of the living speaker, and been borne along on
the full tide of eloquence at the will of the moving spirit, has not
felt his heart swell within him to a loftier expansion, and his bosom
throb with the pulsations of a new and more glorious intelligence?
Who, as his imagination has drank in the sweet and thrilling strains
of the poet’s lyre, and his own spirit has caught the glow of his
burning aspirations, has not felt a yearning to soar above and beyond
the cold, sluggish atmosphere of sense, and mingle in the fancied
existence portrayed so winningly before him? There is something in the
ideal but splendid creations of poetry, embodying in its images all
that is sublime, and all that is beautiful in the world of thought and
of nature, that must ever strike within us a kindred chord. It bids
the dim and far off past roll back its tide of vanished years, and
centuries of almost forgotten ages pass again, with their memorials,
across the theatre of existence. Palmyra rises before us from her ruin
of ages, and her long deserted streets are thronged once more by the
congregated strangers from a thousand lands. Rome, too, shakes off the
yoke of Goth and Vandal, and resumes her proud title of ‘mistress of
the world.’ Again the lofty Capitol is reared on the Tarpeian rock, the
long and splendid triumphal procession enters the gates of the temple
of Jupiter, and Rome is once more the ‘eternal city.’ Then we turn
toward the classic shores of Greece, and Athens, the ‘mother of the
arts,’ opens her splendors before us. The stately Parthenon, sublime
in its proportions and chastely beautiful in its Doric simplicity,
still surmounts the summit of the Acropolis. We roam with Plato through
the shades of Academia; we stray with Socrates along the banks of the
Ilissus; we enter the crowded forum, and listen to the soul-thrilling
eloquence of the ‘prince of orators.’ We need not waste words to prove,
that to the man of sensibility, there is a rich repast of intellectual
luxuries in such exercises of the imagination. But rich as it is, there
is one thing which can bestow a still higher flavor. It is only when
the orator rises in the kindling majesty of virtue, when the soul of a
patriot lightens in the flashing eye, when the wrongs of the oppressed
pour the flush of noble indignation over his brow, and a nation’s voice
is heard in the thunders of his eloquence, that we can know the full
power of his appeals, and receive our most exquisite gratification. For
by the very constitution of our mind, our deepest sympathies can be
excited only when the holier and lovelier sensibilities of our being
are awakened by the exhibition of moral beauty. There is something
so commanding, so godlike, in this subservience of great talents to
high and noble ends, that while the graces and the fire of the orator
delight the fancy and the taste, all our better feelings are enlisted
in the purity and exaltation of his purpose. Thus also with the
poet--it is only when a spirit from above has breathed the inspiration
over him, and his harp is tuned to the minstrelsy of Holiness,--when
in the glories of antiquity, the ravages of time, and the mighty
revolutions of empires, he leads us, with tender sublimity of feeling,
to trace the wonder workings of that wisdom which ‘sees the end from
the beginning’--that the imagination revels in the fullness of its
enjoyment.
C.
COLUMBIA’S BANNER.
Bright banner of Columbia,
A fragment of the sky,
Torn down with all thy glitt’ring stars--
Angelic blazonry!
Stream onward, like the fiery cloud
That hung o’er Egypt’s sea,
Terror and darkness to the proud,
A light to guide the free.
Bright banner of Columbia!
Thou glory’st not in blood;
Yet, if the foe invade our land,
The foe shall be withstood;
A death-grasp shall his welcome be,
A bloody turf his pillow,
And on the battle-wave he’ll find
A tomb in every billow.
Dark banner of oppression,
Droop o’er thy millions slain!
All stained with floods of human gore,
Thou ne’er shalt wave again;
Save when the wail of misery,
The orphan’s plaintive cry,
And the widow’s moan amid thy folds,
Shall breathe in agony.
But thou, my country’s banner,
Unstained by guilt or crime,
Shalt wave o’er every tyrant-flag,
Until the end of time:
For Peace lies nestling in thy wings,
And each emblazoned star
Sheds down its sweetest influence
To heal the wounds of war.
Then wave thou on for ages,
O’er mountain, lake and sea,
For God has stamped upon thy folds
His word--ETERNITY.
Yet when the earth’s by thee forsaken,
No mortal shall weep o’er thee,
For the dread Archangel’s trump shall be
The requiem of thy glory.
Then, banner of my country,
Shalt thou be upward borne,
To gild again thy native skies,
From which thou once wert torn;
For thy earthly mission’s over,
To the dust oppression’s hurled;
Thou’st struck to none but a deathless power,
’Mid the wrecks of a falling world.
Avena.
STORY AND SENTIMENT, OR, CONVERSATIONS WITH A MAN OF TASTE AND
IMAGINATION.
No. 3.
A NIGHT AT THE FARM HOUSE.[1]
[1] This tale is in the hand writing of my friend.
In one of my journeys through the western part of New Hampshire, I
chanced to put up for the night at a small farm-house about five miles
from the little village of W----, and meeting with a somewhat curious
adventure there, I have resolved to record it. My host was a little,
fat faced, bustling, bandy-legged fellow, running here and there,
studious for my comforts, my humble servant, &.c. &c.; and succeeding
with his wife, a long, lank, sidling, vinegar-looking creature, he
made out to obtain for me the only spare room in his house. Into this
I was ushered with due importance, and having taken a survey of the
apartment, its nice new bed, newly dusted candle-stand, oak bottomed
chairs, and a high huge wardrobe, which from its antiquated appearance
I judged to have been an heir-loom in the family for three centuries
at least, I tossed my saddle-bags into one corner, kicked off my heavy
boots into the other, and slipping my released feet into a pair of soft
squirrel-skin slippers, returned again to the kitchen. There I found
my host and his wife cosily seated over a sparkling fire, and from the
abrupt breaking off of their conversation and half guilty countenances,
I concluded they had been talking over the character of their new
comer. I was never difficult to please, especially when I had fallen
in with any of the peasantry, so to speak, of dear New England, and
admitted to the calm content which reigns around their fire sides--so
planting myself upon a settle, perhaps a dye-tub, a thing indispensible
to a New England farm-house, I entered into conversation with them.
I found my host a well bred, sensible fellow, somewhat free in the use
of provincialisms, and not wanting in love to a good broad-faced joke;
somewhat witty withal, and a memory in which he had stored many an odd
story, some good and some bad, which stories he told (when solicited)
with a tolerably good grace.
I pause here to record my observations on one of the peculiarities
in the New England character--I mean its modesty. Foreigners, and
residents of other parts of this widely extended territory may talk of
Yankee impudence, but for the life of me, in all my wanderings, I could
never find the genuine modesty of a native New Englander. They may
cheat you--that is, some of them may, some of their outlawed, who with
trunk and tin wagon travel into other States to prey on the unwary; but
where turn you and find not some, who do and ever will disgrace the
soil that nursed them? For New England I claim no entire exemption;
perfection is not beneath the sun: but there is more of it here than
elsewhere--and in proof of it I adduce, their superior sagacity, their
nobler intelligence. Where intelligence is found, will you find least
of the weaknesses of human nature.
But to return: having bid Bessy, a short, flaxen-haired, chubby-cheeked
damsel, of about fourteen, the very image of her father, bring him a
cup of cider; and poking our chairs close into the fire--so close that
the wind which came down chimney, would now and then puff out the smoke
and curl it up about mine host’s neck and shoulders, making him look
for all the world like Vulcan peeping through the clouds of his own
smithy--he began as follows.
‘Late last March and on one of the coldest nights in my memory, my wife
and me were startled by a loud knock at the door, about nine o’ the
clock; and more so by the abrupt entrance of a stranger, who had been
as it seems just ceremonious enough to knock, but not sufficiently so
to wait until bidden a welcome. Marching directly up to the fire he
doffed his cap, and then in a bland, gentle voice, and the language
of a gentleman, prayed our pardons for his boldness, and craved our
hospitality.
‘Now Biddy here is not the most hospitable in her feelings, but even
she was softened by the coldness of the weather, and the soft accents
of the stranger. So, bidding him welcome and placing before him such
entertainment as we best could, he ate his meal and then sat himself
down--right where you are, sir, at this moment--as if for conversation.
‘His age, I should think, was about forty five. In person he was
strikingly handsome, yet care-worn; his hair was black--his eyes
likewise, and a somewhat cynical curl about his small mouth made you
hesitate to address him, thinking he was perhaps a person of strong
prejudices. His skin was as fair as a girl’s; a fine set of teeth were
displayed when he smiled; in short, his appearance was such that I
should have taken him, perhaps, for a scholar; for, though his dress
was rich it was careless, and there was a sort of method in what he
said though the subjects were simple, as I am told is ever found in men
of education. At first, he was very taciturn.
“You find it a cold air, sir,” said I, breaking the silence.
“Yes--yes, sir.”
“You’ve ridden far?”
“Yes--yes, sir.”
“You’re come from the south, eh?”
“Yes--yes, sir.”
“You’re not from York, I guess?”
“Yes--yes, sir.”
‘Well, thinks I, you may be a scholar for aught I know, but hang me! if
I think there’s much variety in your talk.
‘I took him on another tack.
“You have, at least, sir, come where hearts are warm, and hospitality
is proffered cheerfully.”
‘He started at this; a gentle flush tinged his cheek; and he seemed
struck with an ingenuous consciousness of his want of courtesy. Turning
to me he took my hand in his, and pressing it, replied--
“An honest heart, sir, is its own reward. Small boots it then, that I
add _my_ sense of your hospitality to that of your own consciousness.
Yet such as I have, I give, and that is but small; for I am one, sir,
who cares but for a few, and one who is as little cared for by others.
Once I had a heart that--that--yes! that _felt_--in every pulsation
_felt_ the beauty that is in morals and in virtue. Nothing lived, but
it gave me happiness; nothing died, but it gave me pain--_That time is
past_.”
‘There was something so earnest, yet unstudied; so easy, yet solemn,
and ‘heart-twinging,’ to use a phrase of Biddy’s, in this, that both
she and me began to water about the eyes like two babies.
‘Returning the kind pressure of his hand, I said--
“But you are young, sir--too young to feel that life has no claims
upon--”
“Too old--too old, sir,” interrupted he with emphasis, “too old for
earth, and too wise to do any good in it. Some of the world, sir, live
faster than others. Grief can crowd twenty years into ten, and care
make the vigor of manhood, the tottering imbecility of four score.
Believe it not--believe it not; they err, sir, who measure life by
years. Events, events notch it right--these notch the chronicle of
human life.”
“And yet, sir, ’tis man’s right to be always happy.”
“Aye! and ’tis the right of the singing bird to skim the blue ether,
and pour its music in concert with the harmony of the stars--but
how many things invade that right! The bird that sings sweetly of a
morning, may be jammed into the wallet of the clown, by evening--its
music hushed, and its mottled plumes dabbled with dirt and gore. Man’s
prerogative to be happy! aye--_but ’tis his necessity to be miserable_.”
‘This, sir,’ said my host, ‘may give you some idea of his character.
The evening passed off--though not very happily; for there was that
about him which took hold of my feelings, and when I shook hands with
him for the night there was an ache in my bosom, I could’nt well get
rid of.
‘In the morning, he was up betimes--breakfasted--and rose to depart.
Before he went however, he took from his bosom a paper; and handing
it to me, bade me keep it till his return. ‘It is a short sketch of
some of the events of my life,’ rejoined he, as he mounted his horse,
‘and though it benefit you not, it will perform at least one good
office--make you remember me.’ He bowed, and rode away.
‘That paper I have now somewhere, and if you wish, sir, I will read it
to you.’ My host rose, and going to a huge cat-hole, or cupboard in the
corner of the room, he succeeded in finding it--not forgetting by the
way, to tumble out sundry articles of house-wife memory, such as balls
of yarn, woollen stockings, flannels, and night-caps, and strewing them
over the floor. Seated again by the comfortable fire, he now put on a
huge pair of brass spectacles, blew his nose thrice, and proceeded to
decipher--
THE STRANGER’S MANUSCRIPT.
‘I pass over my boyhood.
‘I had now entered upon my sixteenth spring, and with less
unhappiness, perchance, than ordinarily meets us in this world.
Sadness I had known, but unkindness I had never felt; nor had a
suspicion of how very opposed the heart is to rectitude, found a
lodgment in my mind. I was on the point of visiting the metropolis;
and I know I felt as boys mostly do on their entering into the great
world--elated with the thoughts of what I was to see and meet with,
in a scene I had heard so much about. I talked of little else; and
when the day came heralded by a morning of unusual loveliness, my
happiness almost sickened me. I remember I went out into the fields,
and every thing looked gayer and brighter than I had ever seen it.
The flowers looked prettier--the dew was brighter--the birds chirped
to me as I passed them--and a subtle spirit of life seemed to pervade
all things and participate in my happiness. I returned home happy, and
strove to while off the hours preceding my departure (for I was not
to leave till the afternoon)--but ere that afternoon came, a dingy,
dusky atmosphere, spread itself all about the earth, and the very sky
looked, as I thought, fiendish--threatening. I shall not soon forget
how soon it was communicated to my feelings. My spirits sunk down. A
fearful change seemed working itself through my disposition, which
amazed and maddened me. I answered those sharply, who interrogated
me as to the cause of it. I gave my orders harshly. I ran from
room to room, absent and thoughtful. In fine, all my characteristic
amiableness had gone from me, and I seemed transformed into something
devilish. I was changed as I suppose those spirits will be at the last
day, when they turn half hoping to the judgment seat, and, reading
their condemnation there, instantly become fiends.
‘A gentle tap was heard at the door, and my mother glided silently
into the room; and seating herself beside me, she laid my head upon
her bosom. She parted the dark curls from my forehead, and I felt her
lips pressed feverishly upon it, and a tear fell upon my face--one
of her tears! I opened my eyes at this and looked her full in the
face--O! how she looked--pale--wan--beautiful.
“My son--my son--speak to me”--Staring her full in the face, I drew
my hand half unconsciously over my eyes--then, recollection suddenly
returning, I knelt wildly at her feet--
“Your blessing--Mother!” I gasped.
“Bless thee--bless thee--my boy!” I started up--screamed--and fled
from the room. It seemed as if I was mad at her--mad even in my
idolatry; and I verily believe I struck her, for I heard her groan and
fall heavily upon the floor.
* * * * *
‘Before I slept I was upon the ocean--and I have a dim recollection
that there was a storm--that the green and crested billows hissed
angrily as the thunder growled over them--that the ship went forward
like a mad horse plowing through whole mountains of water, and shaking
off the white surf from her bows in sheets of silver--and I remember
that the violence of the tempest seemed to harmonize awfully with the
loud passions within me.
* * * * *
‘Years had passed. The bright enthusiasm of youth had gone off with
them. The glowing thoughts, passions, sympathies, consuming themselves
in their own fire--my whole character had saddened down into the
melancholy, homeless wanderer. I was no longer the sunny featured boy
that had spent so many pleasant hours on the hill side--by the sandy
margin of the lake that washed its base and sent up there with every
wind that fanned it, a gentle lullaby--by the rivulet that in early
days had caught my laughing features as I bent over it to gather water
flowers--no! I was that boy no longer. The peace which had once lived
in my heart, had become a worthless and withered flower, scentless
as a shadow; the innocency which once gave a zest to every thing
had gone from me; the gray hairs of premature age were intermingled
with the dark ones of my youth--no! I was that boy no longer. I had
traveled--but what was travel to me? I had been in the north and
south, in the east and west; I had wandered over the solemn grounds
of Corcyra, and amid the classic ruins of Italy; I had stood beneath
the sky of Africa and sat me down like Marius amid the relics of
her better days, and tried to wake in my heart some of that dormant
enthusiasm belonging to young minds; but it was like seeking to
resuscitate the dead dust in the earth beneath, or to call life into
the mouldering mausoleums and temples around me--no! I was that boy no
longer.
‘The time of the grain gathering had gone by, and later Autumn had
fully set in; for the trees were more than half stripped of that
gorgeous covering peculiar to this season; and no music came out
from the forest save the whistle of a single quail, and this too in
that pensive cadence which is heard only at the close of the year. I
was revisiting the scenes of my childhood--a spot I had not seen for
twenty years, and during which period I had been a wanderer where no
tidings of the weal or wo of my family reached me. It is not necessary
to recount the circumstances which had made me thus long a voluntary
exile. It need only be said, I parted from home and all I held dear,
in anger--angry with self--angry with man--angry with that pure and
exemplary being who had borne me on her heart, and by whom I had
been so often taught to kneel and pray even before I could myself
frame a benediction--‘with her who taught me that God loved obedient
children.’ O! that one offence! Any thing else--had it been any thing
else, I had suppressed the groans over my nightly pillow, and borne
it like a man while it grieved me. But she, she in whose character
unkindness had no part--a blow, a damning blow--God! God! this was
unmitigated misery. And yet I had suffered--God knows it, year after
year, and seen it preying on my health, and felt it withering up all
my finer sensibilities--and yet I would not return. I could not. I
felt as if a power was upon me, against which my united energies
were nothing. I felt as if it was my destiny, and strange as it may
appear, I thought it right. I felt it certain that home was not for
me, and though I would wake from an unrefreshing sleep, and recount
for hours as a miser his gold every early association, it brought the
wish but not the purpose to return. Sickness came--O! what a leveler
is sickness of all the petty passions and enmities which creep into
the dispositions of men! How it tears up the character, wrings out
from the hardened heart the bitter gall of contrition, and forces into
amendment! Sickness accomplished in me what reason and conscience
could not do, and broke down that indomitable barrier which had so
long interposed betwixt me and duty. I rose from my bed, a habitant
rather of another world than the denizen of this, and my first thought
was home. This cherished for a few weeks grew into a passion, and the
fear that the grave had closed over all I loved magnified the wish a
thousand fold, while every obstacle which now interposed betwixt me
and a return sent a chill through me, like that which we may suppose
lies on the heart of the dead. The swiftest speed seemed but delay,
and it was only on the last day of my journey and I neared home
that my impatience subsided, and my anxiety began to assume another
form--something terrible and strange, foreboding and oppressive.
‘The tread of the post horses down the gravelly slope which led
directly to the village, roused me from a lethargy I had fallen into,
and I sprang to the coach window like a madman. We were opposite the
village inn. The same old antiquated elm creaked before the door, and
the same old sign board flapped in the blast, and upon the high step
stones that led to the main body of the building, sat a human form.
A staff lay on the ground beside him--his ragged scrip was at his
feet--and his form was doubled up with age. I looked closely--God of
Heaven!--_it was my brother_.
‘But my cup was not yet full. We drew up at the inn door, and I heard
the guard rudely order the beggar from the spot, and curse him for
an idle mendicant. This was too much for my swollen heart to bear,
and leaping from the opposite side of the carriage, I took my way
forward alone. I came to the small hill which ran along by the side
of the village, from the top of which the immediate valley where lay
my father’s dwelling appeared in view; and as I paused there for a
moment, and memory ran over the thousand senseless objects that lay
around me with each of which I could associate a forgotten happiness,
I thought death a boon I could have prayed for. At that moment the
village school poured forth its groups of noisy and innocent children.
This was as it was wont to be--this seemed natural. But looking
nearer, I knew them not--they were strangers. Here and there I thought
I recognized a face I had once known, but it was transient and soon
passed--all was strange. A celebrated ‘Retreat for the Insane’ was
in our village, and reaching the summit of the hill I stood by its
walls. The door was closed but not fastened; and I know not why, but
an indefinable feeling led me to enter there. I know not but it was
the unbreathed wish of my heart to witness some spectacle of human
suffering--hoping thereby to lessen my own; perhaps I thought I might
soon make it my own dwelling, and I wanted to familiarize the objects
I should meet with;--but I entered. Seated upon the ground with
scarce a mat to cover them, was a lot of wretched beings busied as
their several dispositions prompted them. One was blowing bubbles--he
said he was maturing a system of astronomy, whereby Galileo should
be forgotten and the world profited. Another was heaping up sand,
and hoarding it in his bosom--he called it gold. A third it seemed
had been a lay preacher, and now and then he howled forth a torrent
of truth and error, interlarded with imprecations and blasphemies
the most horrid. And there was one there, a tall and handsome youth,
with eyes as black as midnight, and his brow drawn down into the
scowl of a demon--He said he was ANALYZING A HUMAN HEART. Sudden my
ears were saluted with loud and piercing shrieks that made my whole
frame shiver, and betwixt each scream I thought I recognized the
shrill echo of a lash as applied to the naked skin. Another--and an
old man came tottering round an angle of the building; and seeing me,
he ran to my feet and cowered down like a whipped hound seeking for
protection.
“Curse them for inhuman wretches”--groaned, or rather screamed the
old man--“They chain me up like a vile beast--a dog to murder me.
They drag me into that black den and shut me there, and say I’m
crazed--mad. What is mad? Who?--O! yes,--my children, they broke my
heart--one went from me, and the other--Ah! save me--save me”--His
keepers came in sight, and in their hands were the scourges they had
been using, the sounds of which had rung in my ears so appalling. “O!
don’t--don’t--I’ll follow--you won’t whip me, will you master--I’m
good--good”--and the old man actually knelt down, and like a beast
licked the feet of his tormentors. I fell to the earth senseless.
‘A long and doleful night followed--a blank--a vacancy; so long,
it seemed ten thousand eternities; so gloomy, it seemed as if the
darkness was consolidated. O! what a night is that, when the helm
of reason breaks--the unshackled faculties wander forth--and the
maddened powers invoke images of horror, only to madden themselves the
more by gazing at them! All that is grand--all that is terrible--all
horrible, loathsome, fearful images, that the mind had ever while
healthy repulsed, then come back on the heart like vultures that have
been scared awhile from their prey, whose fasts have only whetted
their ungorged appetites. At one moment, I seemed borne through the
Eternal void chained to the lightnings; at another, I was dashing
downward towards a tremendous barrier of cavernous rocks, and their
serrated pinnacles seemed waiting to embrace me. Now I was tossed on
billows of fire, and a tremendous surge would hurl me on a jagged
precipice; then with its reflux suck me down through unimaginable
depths, and the hot fires scorched me as they shot into my brain.
Again I heard peals of laughter, and howlings of formless, shapeless
beings that hovered around me; they had snakes and basilisks twisted
round their foreheads, and the flames that issued from their forked
mouths seemed to burn into my very soul. Then came the sense of a
release--the gasping, choking, horrible consciousness, that you are
struggling on the confines of two worlds, and not knowing which is to
be yours--whether earth or death shall have you. Suddenly a fountain
seemed tossing its cool spray over me--the fires that withered up
my brain went out--the fiends that howled about me passed away--the
subtlest life began to dance through my veins--and I awoke!
My first thoughts were true to their mark, and my first words,
“Mother, lives she? The rest--father, brother--God of Heaven! why was
I reserved for it?”
‘A form stood by me--a little maid. O! how the innocent words and kind
attentions of infancy, soothe the pillow of an irritable sickness!
We can’t bear the cold studied kindness of such as we are, we are
jealous of them; we fear they will condole with us, curse us with
their stinted pity; and that too in the measured phraseology which
speaks of the head and not of the heart. But a child, a gentle
child--to see its little form gliding about your couch--to feel its
little arms about your pillow--to catch its warm breath on your
cheek as winds breathed from flowers--and see the kind and touching
solicitude of the eye unused to sights of sorrow, yet enduring it
like a martyr, and for ourselves too,--these make irritable diseases
tolerable--may I not say happy? for the evidence of a pure and devoted
affection in a human being, makes a misanthrope (and such I then was)
contented with misery. And my disease was of this nature: it was a
nervousness induced by excess of suffering, and my faculties had
become so exquisite, that the least thing sent a dart through me that
seemed tearing flesh and soul asunder.
“Mother! is she--?” excessive weakness forbade me finish the sentence.
“Your mother lives”--but she placed her finger upon her lips in token
of silence. I attempted to answer--she laid her hand upon my mouth
with a sweet smile, then turned and left the room.
‘Weeks passed, and still was I the denizen of a sick room; and but
slowly regaining my pristine energies. My form had shrunk away--my
eyes were sunk--my voice was almost entirely gone; and as I slowly
paced my apartment and from the window threw my eyes on the dreariness
without, (for the year had gone far into later fall, and the loud
winds whistled bitterly through the naked poplars) I felt as if I
had but little to do in the world, and would as lief go from it. But
yet, one thing held me back, one thirst, one burning desire--the wish
to see my mother. She I had not seen, and for reasons I could not
unravel, her name was never mentioned. And though I was told she was
in the house, I was not suffered to visit her. She was sick, but not
dangerous--received my messages of love daily--returned them--this was
all.
‘One dark night (I shall not forget that night) I was sitting up in
bed, and counting off the weary hours as they limped laggingly by
me. A weight had been on my heart all day, and racking fires had
seemed scorching my brain; and so acute was the suffering, as if
a band of hot iron were riveted closely round my forehead. I sat
thinking--thinking of self--of my sorrows--of my strange destiny; and
then there came back to me the remembrance of other days, and with
them my mother--her care, love, and early tenderness, until my eyes
were suffused with tears. Sudden I was startled by a low sigh breathed
as it were close in my ears. I thought it delusion, but was soon
undeceived--for it was repeated, and that too so audibly I could not
mistake. I turned my eyes in the direction from whence it came. Again
I caught it, and a strain of music rose soft and sweetly as if an
angel sang it, and I saw indistinctly a shadow gliding past me. Then
my name was distinctly sounded, and in a voice I knew too well. Terror
had chained the powers of utterance, and I only gazed at vacancy with
all the horrors of some dark, indefinite foreboding. The same sigh was
repeated and the name, and then as a cloud passed over the moon, a
figure stood in the apartment clad in the habiliments of the grave. It
smiled sweetly upon me--it was my mother! I knew she must have passed
from this to a better world, and the truth came over me with a cold
sweat while the palsy of my limbs made the very bed tremble. I spread
out my arms in agony, and wildly clasped the air. There was another
sigh, the repetition of my name--and the figure vanished.
‘I rose and threw my night garments round me, and grasping my own
flesh to be sure I dreamed not, I took the light from my table and
commenced a search to find--what? my mother’s corse! for such I felt I
must find her, if at all--the warning was not for nothing. I traversed
room after room--met no one--and came to the wing of the building
where I had ever deemed she lodged; and leaving the light at the door,
I slowly lifted the latch and entered the apartment. _On a bed in the
centre of the chamber, she lay lifeless._ There was no light there,
but the moon broke forth at the moment, and I saw she was shrouded for
the grave.
‘O! death!--death!--how solemn thou art! How awful, when thou comest
on those we love! How thought at such moments crowds on the living!
How the words that once issued from the lips that lie there, come up
to recollection! How the eye that looks so chill and glassy, gleams
again--and the face marble-cold and as expressionless, radiates with
love, hope, happiness! There she lay dead, dead--and I not forgiven.
She was gone. I had not heard her say, ‘I forgive thee, boy.’ Not a
word--not a look--not a blessing--God! God!--what next! O, what next!
‘I crept up to the bier and laid my cold face down to hers, and
moaned in all my heart brokenness of sorrow. I kissed her--I shrieked
her name--I stamped--I threw myself upon her corse. There was no
Promethean heat that could reanimate it--and I _felt_ I was alone.
‘Had I heard her say, ‘I forgive--I bless thee, child’--life were
tolerable, and I would have breasted the forceful waves of misery as
they came tumbling in upon me, like a man. This was denied me, and in
its place is blazed in shapes of fire--That one offence.’
* * * * *
The evening wore away, what with the reading of the manuscript and my
many inquiries concerning the stranger, and my host now showing me to
my room, where with many expressions of his happiness to wait upon me,
&c. &c. he bade me good night, I jumped into bed. In the morning I met
him again and tried my hand with him at a good, honest, hearty, New
Hampshire breakfast; afterwards I shook hands with his family, mounted
my horse, and continued my journey--and such was my ‘Night at the Farm
House.’
SONNET.
ADDRESSED TO A LADY SINGING, AND WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF HER MUSIC BOOK.
It hath been said that music is a dream,
A soft creation and a witchery
Made for earth’s happier climes, where peacefully
Men’s thoughts go by as goes a pleasant stream:--
It hath been said too, that the favored
And bright ones who so sing us into bliss,
And witch out from our souls unquietness,
And place a Sabbath softness in its stead--
It hath been said that these not mortal be,
But are of the same nature with the sky--
Ethereal, volatile, as clouds that play
About the sinking sun at shut of day:--
_But sure they lie--for this soft hand in mine_,
_And this soft strain I hear--why, both are thine!_
*
REVIEW.
_The Culprit Fay, and other Poems_; by Joseph Rodman Drake. New York:
George Dearborn, Publisher. 1835.
Over the grave of a highly-gifted and a youthful poet, gathers many a
delightful and yet saddened reminiscence. It should ever be regarded
as a consecrated spot--crowded with associations of no ordinary
character--hallowed by the deepest and the tenderest of feelings. It is
_holy_ ground,--better fitted, it may be, than any other to allure us
to reflection,--to summon into active exercise each deep emotion of the
heart,--to draw out into living forms of beauty each hidden power, each
finer sensibility,--and to leave us, better, purer, nobler, for its
warnings and instructions. And yet, why should it be so? The grave even
of the young, the gifted, and the beautiful, differs not in outward
fashion or adornment, from the many which surround it. It is hollowed
out from the same earth with them--closes over the same lifeless and
decaying bodies--furnishes the same victim for the worm, the same
banquet for corruption. The sculptured stone that marks it, is as soon
to sink or crumble as another--the grass grows over it no greener--the
steps of the idle and the thoughtless fall not round it with a lighter
tread--and the flower that blooms upon it, is as soon to fade or wither.
The grave of a youthful poet is indeed a holy spot, but it is so not
alone in reference to the moldering body it enshrouds, or to the
impressive comment that it reads on death. That grave is sacred, rather
as a remembrancer of intellect. That body was the outward vesture of a
mind. It was the drapery that imprisoned in its folds a restless and
a struggling spirit, burning with the fires of heaven, yet amid the
gloom of earth, and was thrown aside when tarnished, as unfitted for
its purpose. In the departure of that spirit, who can tell our loss.
How brilliant, yet how rapid, has been its career. Meteor-like, it has
vanished from our sight, while the hopes that we had cherished have
gone down for ever.
The volume, whose title we have placed at the commencement of this
article, and whose merits we propose to examine with our readers, is
a beautiful memorial of departed genius. The perusal of its pages has
naturally led us to indulge in those reflections we have hitherto
pursued. The memory of Drake--his early and untimely grave--has tended
to associate with his, the same sad fate of others. We have thought of
Sands, of Wilcox, and of Brainerd. Of the former, it is true, we know
but little--nothing more than a few casual examinations of their works
afford us. Of the latter, we know more. We delight to speak of him,
not only as a poet--and as such he had few equals--but still farther,
as a friend. In the first of these characters he has now been long
before the public, and has gained from their decisions a conspicuous
distinction--a rank higher we believe than his own expectations,
although one of strictest justice and commensurate with merit. To us it
is a matter of no slight regret, that a mind so richly-gifted, should
have garnered up its beauties, and have been so very sparing of its
splendid treasures. Brainerd was distrustful of his own abilities.
The hope of approbation, was with him no motive to exertion. He
cared not to lay bare the workings of a heart, perhaps too warm and
sensitive, or to send abroad those finer feelings which might meet
no kindred sympathies, and return to him companionless from contact
with the world. It was only in those moments given up to the full flow
of friendship--to the interchange of sentiments with more intimate
associates--that the noblest of his qualities became developed. As a
poet, he reminds us forcibly of Burns. His was the same appreciation of
the charms of nature--the same exquisitely tempered sensibility--a like
generosity of disposition, and as much of poignant wit and versatility.
The tribute paid to the memory of Burns, may with equal justice be
applied to Brainerd.
“His is that language of the heart,
In which the answering heart would speak--
Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start,
Or the smile light the cheek.
And his that music to whose tone
The common pulse of man keeps time,
In cot or castle’s mirth or moan,
In cold or sunny clime.”
When an edition of Drake’s poems, containing many pages hitherto
unpublished, was announced as nearly ready for the press, we received
the information with great pleasure. We expected much, and we are glad
to say our expectations have been realized. The first thing which
arrested our attention was the dedication, and it struck us at the time
as unusually appropriate. It is a happy testimonial of respect, from a
daughter to her father’s friend--to one who, perhaps, above all others,
best deserved the appellation. To whom should it have been dedicated,
if not to Halleck? To the community at large the loss of such a man
as Drake may be regarded as a great calamity,--but to the cause of
literature it is still more. It is taking from the latter one of its
highest ornaments, and leaving a wide vacancy, which time may never
fill. Of his general merits, as a writer, there can be but one opinion.
The precise rank to which he is entitled we propose not to examine, or
to venture on comparisons with critical minuteness. The exact extent of
his abilities, or the results to which his genius might have led him,
we would leave as questions to be settled by the taste of his admirers,
and proceed to mention some of those peculiar features which stand
out in his productions. In our view, his poems are distinguished for
uncommon ease of diction, and the richness of their imagery. Over the
wide realm of imagination our author seems to hold unlimited control,
and to gather from it beauties, which he scatters with profusion. In
whatever spot his fancy may detain him he is found at home, lingering
around each scene with the familiarity of long acquaintance, and a
perfect knowledge of each object and allurement. He is ever changing,
too, in the visions he presents us. Now, he is hovering over an ideal
land, sweeping forward with a wing, which, like that of the untiring
Huma, is not folded upon earth. Now, he leads us forth to gaze upon
the witcheries of nature,--to view the gorgeous colorings of her
varied landscapes,--to break the silence of her forest solitudes,--to
tread the mountain height, or to repose beside the streamlet that runs
whimpering at its base. Again, he summons up our energies for a still
bolder flight--carries us away to the bright fields of upper regions,
onward and still onward, till our world is lost in distance, and we
walk upon the star-lit plains of heaven. Anon,
“Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
Or sea-roc rides the blast,”
he plunges with us far within the bosom of the heaving deep, where
the wrath of the storm spirit is unheard--down to the coral towers of
“snail-plated” warriors, or around the amber beds of ocean sylphs and
mermaids.
But exuberance of fancy, though perhaps the most prominent, is not the
only quality inherent in these poems. We have before alluded to the
beauty of their rhythm. This we regard as almost faultless. There is a
fitness in the choice of each word, and a care in its location, which
imparts to every sentence a high finish and proportion. Each line seems
flowing onward, with a light and rapid motion, as it were to blend in
union with a graceful whole. There are no rough corners that can meet
us at the turn of each expression. The eye reposes upon nothing but a
surface of unbroken symmetry, and the ear drinks in a music grateful
as the murmurs of some meadow stream. We may deny it, if we choose,
but there is a “charm in numbers,” and the one who holds it lightly
is deficient in his judgment. The profoundest argument that man can
frame, or the proudest monument of pure mind that he can offer, derives
much of its impressive force from the garb in which it is presented.
Unadorned it is the naked statue, modelled thus far by the youthful
pupil, and that needs a master’s polish to display it in perfection.
The materials for this statue, abstract intellect may, indeed must
furnish, but it yet demands the touches of a cultivated taste. That
education which has taught us how to reason has done well, but a
different knowledge should be added ere we reap its full advantage. He
who has cast loose from the firm rock of thought, that his bark may
toss on summer seas to fancied shores of pleasure, has exposed himself
to shipwreck--but as sad may be the fate of him, who, relying solely on
the native strength of his entrenchment, has erected there no battery
to render it impregnable. It would be a source of satisfaction, did our
time allow the privilege, to trace still farther the idea which we have
started, and to make its application to a multitude of cases, but we
leave it, with reluctance, to complete our undertaking.
As specimens of graceful diction, and an almost boundless play of
fancy, there are many of Drake’s pieces which remind us of the
brilliant compositions of another poet--one whose harp has breathed
forth strains than which there are none sweeter, and whose life has
been one revel around sentiment and song. Who of us can say, whether
the young poet of America might not have been to her what Moore is now
to Ireland--that he would have loved her with less fervor of devotion,
or have sounded forth her praises with a feebler lyre. His would have
been a soul to dwell upon her charms with rapture, who when pleading
for his parent soil exclaims,
“Shame! that while every mountain, stream and plain
Hath theme for truth’s proud voice or fancy’s wand,
No _native_ bard the patriot harp hath ta’en,
But left to minstrels of a foreign strand,
To sing the beauteous scenes of nature’s loveliest land.”
From the numerous pieces which compose the volume, we select the
CULPRIT FAY, as best adapted to exhibit the true merits of our
author. It is, to say the least, an elegant production--the purest
specimen of ideality that we have ever met with, sustaining in each
incident a most bewitching interest. Its very title is enough to
kindle the imagination, and to send us wandering amid the bowers of
elfin land, reviewing the traditions of our boyhood years. We recall
to recollection many of those “old world stories,”--tales of brownies
and the bogle burns of Scotland,--of the elves and sprites of merry
England, or the mystic Wasser Nixen of the German fable. We trust
ourselves with pleasure to that guidance which once more will introduce
us to this region of enchantment.
The poem opens with an elegant description of the spot our author has
selected for his “spell-bound realm.” It lies beside the waters of the
lordly Hudson--a river whose whole shore is rich in scenes of beauty,
and many of whose deep receding bays and jutting headlands have derived
a lasting interest from the pen of Irving. The time is midnight--we
stand upon the summit of Cronest, gazing upon a cloudless sky--every
thing around us is now lulled to sweet repose--
“The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And naught is heard on the lonely hill,
But the cricket’s chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katy-did.”
Suddenly the voice of the sentry-elf, awakened from his slumbers, (how
he came to be asleep our author does not tell us,) breaks in upon the
stillness, as he hastens to announce the dawning of the fairy day--and
crowds of tiny Fays fly answering to his summons.
“They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,
And rocked about in the evening breeze;
Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest--
They had driven him out by elfin power,
And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,
With glittering ising-stars inlaid;
And some had opened the four-o’-clock,
And stole within its purple shade.
And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above--below--on every side,
Their little minim forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!”
It is not, however, to the dance or revel that we are invited. No wild
gambol is to rivet our attention. We are summoned to the trial of an
erring ouphe. Before us stands the throne of judgment, supported on
its pillars of the “mottled tortoise shell,” and covered by a curtain
of the “tulip’s crimson drapery.” Upon it sits the fairy monarch,
surrounded by the nobles of his realm--before him is the culprit Fay.
Weighty is the crime alledged against the prisoner. Unmindful of his
vestal vow, he has dared to love an earthly maiden. He has
--“left for her his woodland shade;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played with the ringlets of her hair,
And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king’s behest.”
His condemnation follows. The loveliness and purity of her for whom
he had thus sinned, go far to mitigate the punishment to which he
is obnoxious--a punishment than which none could be severer or more
terrible. His sentence is pronounced.
“Thou shalt seek the beach of sand,
Where the water bounds the elfin-land,
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms,
And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits’ charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might,
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.”
With this explanation of the nature of his penance, we leave the
sentenced Fay to enter on his toilsome journey and meet us in its
progress at a different quarter.
We have heard often of the circumstances which led to the production
of this poem, and of the astonishing rapidity with which it was
composed. How this may be we know not. Judging from the beauty of its
several parts, and still more from its finish as a whole, it strikes
us as the result of long continued labor, polished and perfected with
a scrupulous attention. The subject which our author has selected,
is one admirably fitted to display his genius. It is one, however,
that demands unceasing effort, and requires the constant workings of
his brilliant fancy. From the ordinary range of illustration he is
certainly excluded, while the path to the attainment of his object is
both difficult and devious. He has drawn around himself a magic circle,
into which no human form can enter. Nothing earthly is to mingle in the
scenes to which he calls us. Each action, in its origin, continuance,
and termination, must be fitted to the beings he has chosen for his
actors. With this view of his undertaking, we may fear for the result,
and watch with much anxiety its full accomplishment. It is not long,
however, that we feel this apprehension. We soon discover that our
author is prepared for each adventure--that he gains a ready conquest
over every opposition, while his flight continues onward with an
undiminished ardor.
Here again we are to greet our pilgrim fairy. Long and wearisome have
been his wanderings. Hour after hour has he toiled amid the passes of
the mountain, and fearful are the perils he has been compelled to meet.
He has followed out a dangerous track,
“Through dreary beds of tangled fern,
Through groves of nightshade dark and dern,
Over the grass and through the brake,
Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake,”
till he has reached the spot appointed for the trial of his courage. He
has found the treasure that he sought, protected by the warriors of the
deep, and been baffled by their forces in the efforts he has made.
It is in this crisis of affairs that we meet with a deliverance as
ingenious as it is successful. It is necessary, for our author’s
purpose, that his hero, though thus far defeated, should yet gain his
object, and with that intention he has brought him to his present
situation. The events which we have compressed into the narrow space of
a few lines, have been presented in detail up to the period in which
the Fay, driven from his purpose, stood despairing on the river’s
brink. It is thus the history continues,--
“He cast a saddened look around,
But he felt new joy his bosom swell,
When, glittering on the shadowed ground,
He saw a purple muscle shell;
Thither he ran, and he bent him low,
He heaved at the stern, and he heaved at the bow,
And he pushed her over the yielding sand,
Till he came to the verge of the haunted land.
She was as lovely a pleasure boat
As ever fairy had paddled in,
For she glowed with purple paint without,
And shone with silvery pearl within;
A sculler’s notch in the stem he made,
An oar he shaped of the bootle blade;
Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap,
And launched afar on the calm blue deep.”
Guarded in this manner from the machinations of his enemies, whose
power was bounded by the wave, our adventurer holds on his course
uninjured, and effects his purpose. His return, surrounded by a crowd
of ocean nymphs, is beautifully represented. We refer our readers to
the volume for the passage.
Here the scene of this poem changes, and we find our Fay is still
destined to another duty--one far more difficult than any he has yet
accomplished. The remainder of his sentence now demands attention.
“Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illume its spark.
Mount thy steed and spur him high
To the heaven’s blue canopy;
And when thou seest a shooting star,
Follow it fast, and follow it far--
The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.
Thou hast heard our sentence, Fay;
Hence! to the water-side, away!”
To the execution of this last injunction all his powers are now
directed, and we find him thus equipped for this most daring enterprise.
“He put his acorn helmet on;
It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down:
The corslet plate that guarded his breast
Was once the wild bee’s golden vest;
His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes,
Was formed of the wings of butterflies;
His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,
Studs of gold on a ground of green;
And the quivering lance which he brandished bright,
Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.
Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed;
He bared his blade of the bent grass blue;
He drove his spurs of the cockle seed,
And away like a glance of thought he flew,
To skim the heavens and follow far
The fiery trail of the rocket-star.”
From the passage above quoted to the close of the poem, is extended a
long series of most exquisite description. Each instant of our flight,
unfolds to our enraptured vision scenes ever changing, and increasing
in their splendor. Already have we hurried by the misty region of the
cloud.
“The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
The sphered moon is past,
The earth but seems a tiny blot
On a sheet of azure cast.”
We rest not till we stand beside
--“the flood which rolls its milky hue,
A river of light on the welkin blue,”
surrounded by the brightness of celestial realms.
As specimens of fanciful illustration, we give a description of the
palace chosen for the empress sylph of heaven, which our author
introduces by way of episode before proceeding to fulfill his purpose.
“Its spiral columns gleaming bright
Were streamers of the northern light;
Its curtain’s light and lovely flush
Was of the morning’s rosy blush,
And the ceiling fair that rose aboon
The while and feathery fleece of noon.”
Again, we have a notice of the queen’s apparel.
“Her mantle was the purple rolled
At twilight in the west afar;
’Twas tied with threads of dawning gold,
And buttoned with a sparkling star.”
In looking back upon the numerous quotations we have made, we fear
that we have trespassed, it may be too long, upon the patience of
our readers. To analyze the poem fully--and such was our first
intention--would conduct farther than our limits will allow. We shall
therefore hasten to a close, and from several passages which still
remain unnoticed, select one most distinguished for the richness of
its coloring. It contains the greater part of the address of the queen
sylph to our wandering Fay, when endeavoring to detain him in her
presence, she draws a glowing picture of prospective bliss.
“Within the fleecy drift we’ll lie,
We’ll hang upon the rainbow’s rim;
And all the jewels of the sky
Around thy brow shall brightly beam!
And thou shaft bathe thee in the stream
That rolls its whitening foam aboon,
And ride upon the lightning’s gleam,
And dance upon the orbed moon!
We’ll sit within the Pleiad ring,
We’ll rest on Orion’s starry belt,
And I will bid my sylphs to sing
The song that makes the dew-mist melt;
Their harps are of the umber shade,
That hides the blush of waking day,
And every gleamy string is made
Of silvery moonshine’s lengthened ray;
And thou shalt pillow on my breast,
While heavenly breathings float around,
And, with sylphs of ether blest,
Forget the joys of fairy ground.”
The emotions which this burst of burning passion excited in the
doubting Fay, are well described. The remembrance of his earthly love,
joined to the recollection of a sentence unperformed, enables him at
last to utter a reply declining even such enjoyment. The impassioned
queen, too generous to enforce her wishes, surrounds him with a
spell that guards from every evil, and then bids him a reluctant and
heart-felt adieu. Rapid is his progress to the termination of his
labors. The conflict is soon over, and the prize is won. Already is he
on the confines of his native land, and we listen to the music that
proclaims his welcome. Gladly would we follow him still farther.
“But hark! from tower on tree-top high,
The sentry elf his call has made,
A streak is in the eastern sky,
Shapes of moonlight! flit and fade!
The hill-tops gleam in morning’s spring,
The sky-lark shakes his dappled wing,
The day-glimpse glimmers on the lawn,
The cock has crowed and the Fays are gone.”
THE DOUBLE DISAPPOINTMENT.
A TALE FROM SPANISH HISTORY.
No one, save he who has witnessed with a heart all susceptible to the
beauties of nature, can even picture to himself the delightful scene of
a summer’s evening in the fair region of Granada. The mellowed tints
of the declining sun gilding every object with a fairy brightness; the
gushing fountains sending forth their drops of ruby light; the thick
groves of citron and pomegranate, casting their deep shadows in the
distance, seemingly inviting to repose, almost transport with rapture
an inhabitant of our northern clime.
It was on such an evening, that a betrothed pair sat beneath the marble
arcade at the dwelling of the Alcalde of the district. Their hearts
seemed in unison with the delightful scene around them; their words
were music to each other’s ears; their thoughts were of bright joys of
the future,--and no one could have looked upon their innocent embrace,
or listened to their words of love, without deeming their happiness
complete. The youth rose to depart.
‘Nay, Muza, do not leave me yet,’ exclaimed the happy girl, as she
turned her bright, half-smiling, half-imploring eyes, upon her lover;
‘but a short hour have we been together, and wilt thou leave me so
soon?’
‘Leave thee, Zareda? nay, I would never leave thee.’
‘Why then dost thou look thus anxiously towards Hafiz, as if waiting
but for thy steed to depart?’
‘Love, art not thou ever with me, as well in the raging of the conflict
and in the exultation of victory, as when, side by side, we sit beneath
the overhanging bower and by the cooling fountain? Am not I still with
thee; and do not the thoughts of thee lead me on to glory? Allah be
praised, that he has given me such a presiding angel.’
‘Thy praise is far too high, Muza, else, why shouldst thou not be
willing to pass some longer portion of thy time in the immediate
presence of such an angel?’
‘Love, think of our race, and lament not these too short moments
of bliss; our race, scorned and trampled upon by the Christian,
fast falling into the chains of slavery, and compelled to toil for
him;--shall we endure it? No! rather let the desert be our home,--the
home of our ancestors,--barren and desolate though it be, still may
we breathe the air of freedom.--Yes, my country needs my sword, my
country and my love. Do not then grieve for this short interview; am
not I wholly thine,--and will not to-morrow join us never more to part?
Farewell then, for a few short hours, made doubly brief by thoughts
of thee.’ So saying, Muza sprang lightly upon his horse, which his
faithful attendant had already led forward, and soon disappeared behind
the trees that o’erhung the path. Zareda stood gazing in the direction,
so long as the sound of trampling hoofs was audible, as he flew over
the plain, and then, full of bright anticipations of the morrow,
retired to her chamber.
That what follows may be readily understood, it is necessary to state,
that the incidents of the present sketch occurred about the year 1450,
when Mohammed X. ruled over the kingdom of Granada, but who, together
with his people, was in turn experiencing the ill fortunes of war from
the increasing power of the Christians, as had, nearly eight centuries
before, the Goths from his predecessors. Though, at the time of which
we write, the army of the Christians was not in force against them,
still, a kind of partizan warfare continued,--sometimes, indeed, to
the temporary triumph of the Moors, but always, eventually, to the
permanent advantage of their enemy. The Christian leaders, attended by
a few hundred followers, were continually ravaging the country; and one
of them, Fernando Narvaez, with less than two hundred men, had more
than once spread alarm to the very gates of Granada.
It was on the eve of an expedition of one of these partisan bands,
as some twenty cavalry were scouring the country, seizing upon such
travelers as were so unwary, or rather unfortunate, as to fall into
their hands, that upon turning an acclivity rising abruptly from the
road, and skirted by a grove of citrons, they came full upon a young
Moorish horseman, riding leisurely forward, as though unconscious of
danger. He appeared to be just in the prime of manhood; in stature
rather above middling, yet finely proportioned. His noble bearing,
together with the richness of his dress, proclaimed him a person of
distinction and a warrior; his turban and scarf were wrought of the
most costly materials, and spangled with jewels, whilst a sword and
buckler of exquisite workmanship hung by his side;--his horse was in
every respect worthy of his rider. No sooner did he perceive the band
of the enemy, than he turned in flight with the speed of the wind;
winding rapidly round the edge of the hill, until, for a moment, he
was obscured from sight, he dashed headlong into the grove, trusting
to art and his knowledge of the country to elude their pursuit. But
escape was vain. They hurried eagerly forward, piercing the grove in
every direction, following each winding path, and seized upon him as
he was emerging from the opposite side. Resistance he saw would be
useless; but he deigned not a word to his captors, and there was nought
betrayed emotion, save a slight curl of contempt upon his lip as he
delivered his arms into their hands, and quietly took his station, as
he was bid, between two of their number. They continued about an hour
reconnoitering the country, but no enemy appearing, returned to their
quarters, bringing with them their prisoner.
During this interval, the young Moor had had leisure to reflect upon
his situation. He was a brave warrior; and like every one who is truly
brave, he possessed not only a spirit of boldness and daring during
the raging of the battle, and in the hour of triumph, but could yield
to disappointment and defeat, and meet the reverses of fortune with
equal fortitude. So now, though he knew from the first that slavery
would be the mildest lot for which he could even hope, nevertheless,
he willingly yielded to necessity, and seemed to the observer, as
if regardless of his situation. But this appearance was not long
maintained;--a tinge of melancholy stole over his countenance; the
stern and fearless look of the warrior was changed to the appearance of
thoughtful anxiety and inward grief;--some more powerful emotion, and
apparently unconnected with the feelings of a soldier, was working at
his heart. Such was his situation as they arrived at their quarters,
and conducted him immediately to the presence of their leader.
All the decision and sternness of a Spanish general was depicted in
the countenance of Narvaez. His authority was usually severe, and his
will not to be questioned; but, at times, he would exhibit a natural
disposition of kindness and benevolence, which endeared him to his
followers, and rendered him none the less fitted to command.
‘Who art thou?’ said he, as the prisoner was led before him, ‘and
whither wert thou going, thus unattended, through a hostile country?’
‘Christian,’ said the Moor, as he endeavored to assume an appearance
becoming his rank, but which, it was evident at the time, cost him no
slight exertion,--‘know that I am the son of the Alcalde of Ronda; and
I was going, this very night, to claim--’ but the effort was too much
for him; he burst into tears.
‘Thou astonishest me!’ cried Narvaez,--‘thy father I knew well, and,
though an enemy, yet will I acknowledge him as brave a warrior as ever
crossed a lance; but thou weepest like a woman! Seest thou not that
this is but one of the chances of war; one, which thy noble father
would have met, had fortune so ordered, with as calm a brow as if
greeted with the tribute of success? Is the son so far degenerated from
the sire!’
‘Nay, Christian,’ answered Muza, for it was he, ‘I hope in all things
to be worthy of the fame of my father; and among my own people, the
name of Muza ben Hassan is not spoken with contempt. ’Tis not for the
loss of liberty that I grieve, but for something a thousand times
dearer than that, of which I must be deprived;’--and as he concluded
the sentence, his spirit, which for a moment had been aroused by the
taunting allusion to his degeneracy, sank again. But Narvaez saw the
marks of a noble mind within, as he drew up his manly figure to its
height, displaying to the best advantage his finely proportioned
limbs, whilst his brow contracted with a look almost of defiance. He
saw that there was something more than his present misfortune which so
powerfully affected him,--and at once he became deeply interested in
the youth.
‘And what is that,’ said he, as he saw him a little more composed,
‘which thou valuest at a price so much dearer than liberty?’
‘Know then, since thou wishest it, that I have long been in love with
the daughter of a neighboring Alcalde; that love was crowned with
success, and this very night was to have made her mine, but thy arms
have detained me. She is even now waiting in suspense, or perhaps
accusing me of inconstancy,--wretched, wretched fate! would that I
might see her yet once more.’
‘Noble cavalier! if thy wish is granted thee, wilt thou promise to
return before to-morrow’s sun?’
‘Allah bless thee, generous Christian!’ exclaimed Muza, overjoyed at
the proposal, ‘upon the word of a Moor, whose word, when sincerely
given, has never been broken, I promise faithfully to return.
Generosity, I see, belongs not to one race alone.’
‘Go then,--and remember thy promise,’ said Narvaez, as he gave orders
to permit him instantly to depart.
Let us change the scene, and introduce once more the fair lady of our
tale, whom we have already too long neglected. Throughout the day all
had been bustle and preparation in the house of her father. The halls
had been richly hung with tapestry, and put in readiness for the giddy
dance; the tables were loaded with the choicest productions of that
fruitful clime for the marriage banquet. Zareda had been all gayety and
happiness; but towards evening she appeared more thoughtful, and her
accustomed laugh and words of mirth were no longer heard. She expected
to have seen him ere this, and to have met that embrace, which would
crown all her love. An hour passed away, yet still he came not:--her
watchfulness was fast verging to anxiety. Another long half hour is
gone--in gloomy sadness she sat herself down ’neath the arcade, where
they had so often met together. ‘Why comes he not?--has any mischief
befallen him?--has he fallen into the hands of any marauding company
of the enemy? has he--can it be, that he has deserted me?--away,
ungrateful thought! it cannot be; some accident surely has overtaken
him.’ As these, and various like reflections, were passing in her mind,
a song of plaintive melancholy fell softly on her ear.
The rainbow’s brightest tint
Soonest fades away;
The tenderest floweret’s bloom
Quickest meets decay.
The first bright rose of spring,
That exhales its morning breath,
Returning dews of even
Strike with the chill of death.
So I, my love, must soon
Ne’er meet with thee again,--
Our marriage tie is changed
To slavery’s cruel chain.
Thy ruby cheek will fade,
Tears dim thine eye of blue,
For I, my love, must bid
A long, a last adieu.
So deeply melancholy was the strain--so much in unison with her own
increasing fears, that Zareda recognized not the cheerful voice of her
Muza, till the song was finished, and he himself stood before her.
‘Muza, is it thou?--thanks to Allah! now will we indeed be happy. But
why so late? Is this the eagerness with which to meet thy bride?--or
why didst thou fright me with that gloomy song?’
‘Zareda, I am a prisoner; perhaps a slave--two hours ago I fell into
the hands of the enemy, and I am now to behold thee for the last time.’
‘A prisoner! how so, even if thou hast been with the enemy, since thou
now standest here free before me? Thy bonds are loose for a Christian’s
hands to inflict. Oh Allah! hast thou too proved faithless to thy
country! art thou a--’
‘Traitor! and from thee! Zareda, hear me: accuse me not of
faithlessness either to thee or to my country. Though I am now before
thee, still am I no less a prisoner; I must return before to-morrow’s
sun--my word is pledged. Then doubt me not, but take my last farewell.
Would that I might see _thee_ happy; then would I be content.’
‘I will not doubt thee, Muza. Oft hast thou given me proofs of thy
love, but this surpasses all.--Nay, thou shalt not say farewell; I will
go with thee, perhaps they may listen to my prayers. I have wealth and
jewels,--they shall purchase thy freedom, or together we will share thy
fate.’ Muza saw that to oppose her wishes would only increase her zeal;
and, though he had no hopes for his own freedom, he knew that to her at
least no injury would be suffered by his enemies. Zareda was soon in
readiness to depart, and long before morning they had arrived at the
station of their enemy. Narvaez was ready to receive them.
‘Ha,’ exclaimed he, as Muza again appeared before him, supporting on
his arm the trembling Zareda, ‘thou hast brought thy mistress with
thee, to cheer thy spirits, and soften the ills of confinement?’
‘Christian,’ said Zareda in a faltering voice, falling at the feet of
Narvaez, ‘if thou hast an eye to pity, a heart to feel, do not separate
us. Here is money: here are jewels--take them all, but let _him_ go
free.’
‘Generous maiden, fear not;’ and he raised her gently as he
spoke;--‘thy devotedness is worthy the fidelity of thy lover. Cruel
should I indeed be, had I the heart to mar such happiness as is in
store for thee. Go, and may ye both live long to enjoy your happiness.’
But the goodness of Narvaez was not alone manifested in words. He
loaded them with presents, and furnished an escort to conduct them in
safety to Ronda. And long was the name of Narvaez celebrated in song
and romance, as the _generous-hearted Christian_.
J.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY.--No. III.
Bless thee, reader--Let us live and love, since brief is our time for
either. _Of course_, I wish to please thee. I might make a huge boast
of independence: but the boast would be as false as foolish. I might
feign contempt of thee, and of the public: but it would be a wicked
lie. So far as I am an author, _thy_ smiles, and _their_ favor, are my
life. I may read, think, act, to please myself; but it is clear that
_I write_ to please thee. This blows sky-high all scornful prefaces,
such as some modern authors paste on the foreheads of their little
bantlings, which they send forth to angle for favor in the muddy and
shifting stream of popular applause. How mortified are these scribbling
autocrats, when their very _cartels_ of defiance are unanswered, and
unread! Yet, on the other hand, is there something of courtesy,--nay,
of indulgence, due to him, who neither assumes, nor dictates, but
offers, in the words, and with the spirit of humility, what he hopes
may please, and possibly instruct. I steal not--I borrow not. Scanty
though be my cloak in breadth, and coarse in texture, yet I wove it in
mine own loom, and with mine own hands. Whatever I give is mine, or
rather, _was_--for it is _thine_ now. It is all I have--the widow’s
mite--and, as such, receive it. I would not bring a “vain oblation”
to the literary altar--that blood-stained shrine, on which so many a
helpless victim is dissected by unfeeling butchers. I have not time to
give thee much, (I fear me thou art not sorry,) nor can I ‘lick into
shape’ what I _do_ give.
I have thought of essaying a few remarks on the principles of
translation, and the practice of translators, that thou be not
inordinately surprised, if on comparing my version with the original,
thou dost not find in both _all_ the same words, and in the same
order--meeting, tooth to tooth. I do so to satisfy the scruples of the
well-disposed, and not to blunt the arrows of small-beer wit, or to
elude the aim of pop-gun ammunition. “Out! out! brief candle!” says the
immortal Shakspeare. “Get out! get out! you short candle!” says the
spruce Frenchman. The Frenchman was _literal_; but he had better have
understood the _spirit_ of his author, and given that, though it were
with a periphrasis. The truth is, you cannot render any passage in a
Greek or Latin poem _religiously_ into English--preserving the precise
form, attitude, expression and size--if you attempt the absurdity, you
present to the eyes of your readers, not a living body, but a lifeless
corpse. All, that can be done with works written among nations at so
wide a remove from our own in age, character, customs, and religion,
is to breathe the spirit and manner of the original into English as
elegant, yet close and strong as possible. Their works are full of
phrases and allusions, which, with us, are dry and barren, while to
them they were instinct with poetry, and eloquent with meaning. To the
heart of the Grecian the history of his country was sanctified, and
made dear by a long line of traditionary glories. Familiar to them,
though lost to us, were a thousand memories of mystic interest, and
patriotic pride--tales of the gods and heroes, who had lived and moved
in their land, amid the days of its splendor--histories woven from
facts, but tinged in the multitudinous colorings of fancy--fables, that
stretched far back through the haze of ages, from wonder to doubt,
and from doubt to darkness. Here had Jupiter been cradled in the
mountains--there gushed a fountain from the foot-print of Neptune’s
charger--here, from the sown teeth of the slaughtered dragon, sprang
to life and fell in battle a field of steel-clad warriors--and there
had Orpheus charmed the stones to life, and made the forests dance in
chorus to his lyre. These were so many chords of interest, which the
poet had but to touch, and the souls of his readers responded with a
thrill. Now all these springs of passion are sealed to us--for, in the
first place, the history of another and a buried nation excites but a
feeble sympathy, compared with that which ponders and glows above our
own--and, secondly, we rarely feel deeply what we do not thoroughly
believe, or fully comprehend. Deprived, then, of these advantages,
unaided by fancy, and unadorned by language, a translation would be
about as _touching_ as a table of _tangents_. And this is what has
made English translations so insipid compared with English originals,
and has induced in some the belief that even the master-pieces of
antiquity are poor and pointless--the fondled god-children of pedantic
book-worms. This deficiency the translator must labor to supply. It is
to be supplied--not by stripping the original of its _nationality_, and
making it apply as well to New England as to Greece--but by preserving
it bold, free, and spirited, as it is in its native language--by
clothing it in words sufficiently glowing and graceful to arouse
sympathy, yet exhibiting, through all, the body of the original, like
a lamp flame, shining through its glassy vase--in short, by having it
still Greek, but English-Greek.
This accords with the practice of all the best translators. No
translator ever gave, or intended to give every word, or even shade
of idea, that he found in the original. I appeal with confidence to
any page in Dryden, or Cowley, in Addison, or Pope. They have, I
acknowledge, generally carried their _liberality_ to a fault--still,
if _they_ do not translate correctly, who does? Open at any page of
Pope--say the last four lines of the Iliad. Read the simple original.
“And after having heaped up the (sepulchral) mound, they went back. And
then, happily assembled, they banqueted upon a very splendid banquet in
the dwelling of Priam, Jove-nourished king. Thus did they attend to the
burial of Hector, tamer-of-horses.”
“All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train.
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honors Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.”
Too wide, I grant--yet it is Pope, the king of translators.
Addison, dear reader, was not a bad translator. Yet take his rendering
of that grand Horatian--the third of the third book. “Not the heat of
the citizens, commanding crooked things, not the countenance of an
urgent tyrant, shakes in his solid mind the man just and firm to his
purpose.”
“The _man_, resolved, and steady to his trust,
Inflexible to all and obstinately _just_,
May the rude _rabble’s_ insolence despise,
Their senseless clamors, and tumultuous cries:
The _tyrant’s_ fierceness he beguiles,
And the stern brow, and the harsh voice defies,
And with superior greatness smiles.”
He has rendered literally but four words, and them I have italicised.
Is it, therefore, a bad translation? No. It is good--though, with all
due deference to thy shade, Oh! Joseph, I must think it a _little_
diffuse--still, it is good, because it expresses the spirit and manner
of the original in fine, forcible English. I give thee a literal
translation--not that one better and as close might not be made--but
to exemplify the difference between transfusing the _spirit_ and the
_words_ of an author from one language into another.
The upright man, _who_ to his purpose clings,
No rabble’s heat, commanding crooked things,
Nor urgent tyrant’s countenance can shake
In his firm mind----
Almost perfectly literal, and--sweet reader--how spirited! I might
_multiply_ my remarks, were I not loth to _divide_ thine attention.
I give thee two or three things--such as an aching head and sleepy eyes
made them.
_By Lucillius, to Nicylla._
Those, who affirm that thou dost dye
The ringlets of thy jetty hair,
Can easily be proved to lie--
Thou _bought’st_ them black as now they are.
_By the same, to a Miser._
Thou hast, indeed, the rich man’s pelf,
But dost possess the beggar’s soul,
Oh, thou, who starvest for thyself,
And for thine heirs in wealth dost roll.
_By the same. Envy._
When Flaccus on the gallows swung,
And chanced to see a brother-thief
Upon a loftier gibbet hung,
He grinned, and died in envious grief.
_A quodam, mihi ignoto._
A man, that once before has married,
And longs again the _noose to splice_,
Is one, that has at sea miscarried,
And wishes to be shipwrecked twice.
Be this a _caveat_ to all amorous widowers.
Hermeneutes.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
“Charles K.” is a well written tale, and, as it is apparently founded
upon facts, would undoubtedly interest those personally acquainted with
the scenes which it describes; but, unless we misjudge, it would strike
others differently.
“Evening Thoughts,” an article on William Wirt, and a “Sonnet,” are
declined.
“The Seminole,” with some metrical alterations, may appear in our next.
“A Rhyming Mood,” is accepted.
The author of “Niobe,” and “Spring,” (we suppose them both from the
same pen,) would do well to use the ‘_file_’ a little more freely,
and also, read, at his leisure, a chapter or two of some treatise on
_Perspicuity_.
“My Village Home,” “The Pleasures of Innocence,” and “The Future,”
(which, from the _paper_ and chirography, we judge to be the
productions of one and the same intellect,) might, perhaps, be
creditable to the powers of an Infant School poet; but, _Dii
Immortales!_ can it be possible they have been perpetrated by any one
of riper years? Take a specimen or two.
“But ah! where’s now their boyish pranks
Since last I saw those sloping banks;
_Time’s_ stern mandate, bid to hardy toil,
Some with Fame--the rest on Nature’s soil.”
“Oh! ’tis that off distant hill
By the shady grove, all leafless--still
Where I’d seek an humble place
To lay low my care-worn face.”
PROSPECTUS
OF THE
YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.
TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.
An _apology_ for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution
like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened
public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed in this
Periodical, may not be out of place.
To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise;
to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s
leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves
for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after
life;--such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.
So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do not
forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently
hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well to this
institution.
* * * * *
The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three numbers to
be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages, 8vo.
_Conditions_--$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents at the
commencement of each term.
Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To the
Editors of the Yale Literary Magazine.”
* * * * *
This No. contains 3 sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 4½ cents; over
100 miles, 7½ cents.
Transcriber’s Notes
A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.
Cover image is in the public domain.
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