99 to write an essay on the poetry of Thomson, to be prefixed to an embellished edition of the "Seasons about to be issued by a London publisher; but notwithstanding the pledge he had given and the progress he had made, he found himself conscientiously compelled to abandon the undertaking. What he had written he freely handed to the publisher, who afterwards thanked him for his kind assistance in preparing the work, which duly appeared. We have recorded the conversation on this subject somewhat at length, not for the purpose of counteracting the opinions of Montgomery on a particular point, much less to apologise for the exhibition of prurient ideas either in verse or stone, but chiefly to show how sensitive he was to the danger of uniting with the blandishments of poetry any sentiment even bordering on indelicacy. It is equally worthy of remark, that at no period of our revered poet's career, either when he was young, ardent, and thoughtless, or in the heyday of his unsanctified aspirations in after years, do we find the least trace of anything approaching to sensual impurity in any of his compositions, whether prose or rhyme. On the 5th of July, fifty individuals, chiefly boys, were drowned by the sudden upsetting of a small vessel, on which they, with many other persons, were standing at the moment of its being launched into the canal at Rotherham. A subscription having been set afoot for the erection of a monumental tablet to the memory of the sufferers, Montgomery, among others, was asked to write an inscription. Recollecting that there used to be over the sun-dial of Rotherham church the following sentence, he made it the foundation of his composition, EPITAPH. "In hoc momento pendet æternitas." 33 Mr. Holland and Miss Gales having arranged to pay a visit to Mr. Blackwell at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, were whirled thither at a much more rapid rate than was agreeable to the lady, who expressed to the poet in a letter her regret at being unable to see various objects by the way. "The disappointment," said he, writing to her, July 21., "of being hurried through York without seeing any of its lions, especially its dead ones, which are yet as much alive as ever they were, though the larger of them, St. Mary's Abbey, Clifford's Tower, and the Cathedral, are well towards a thousand years old each,- that disappointment in which I deeply sympathised with you, having an inveterate affection for those stone worthies, that disappointment (I write it the third and last time) may be repaired on your return; for if the railway train will not allow you a respite at York long enough to have a peep at the relics of past ages, which will surely last a fortnight or three weeks longer,-and, moreover, if you and Mr. Holland cannot find lodgings in Mr. Everett's snug parsonage, or in my old * The inscription adopted was written by a person resident at the place, of the name of Guest. The lines presented by Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, Mr. Holland, and Montgomery, were printed in a Sheffield newspaper from which we copy those by our poet: 66 "Time from the church-tower cries to you and me, 'Upon this moment hangs eternity: ' The dial's index and the belfry's chime eye and ear confirm the truth of time. Which the same shadow o'er thy sight shall bring : Take then thy Saviour's warning-'Watch and pray.' VOL. VI. Ꭰ quarters at the Castle, there are inns enough in all the city to accommodate you both, many and mighty as you two are! Now pray, for your own sake, if not for mine, do not miss the opportunity of seeing objects which millions, no doubt, of eyes have looked upon, and under whose shadows myriads of bodies of generations gone by have been buried, and will be dust beneath your feet,-ruins more awful and sacred than the piles themselves, that are at once their tombs and their monuments,-while you are pacing over the ground so honoured and so humbled by mortal hands and immortal spirits that left these dumb memorials of the grandeur and the fall of man." Accordingly, the two friends on their return stayed a night and part of two days at York, with Mr. Everett, who accompanied them to the leading objects of interest; particularly the Minster, the Museum, and the Castle. In the latter, that part of the buildings containing the rooms occupied by Montgomery during both the periods of his imprisonment, was, as might be expected, looked upon with a peculiar degree of curiosity and interest by Miss Gales, as connected with the remembrance of events in which she, and other members of her family, had been so nearly and painfully concerned forty years before. On his return to Sheffield, Mr. Holland found that Montgomery had been induced to sit for his bust, to a clever local artist of the name of Smith, who had previously modelled with success the head of his friend, Rowland Hodgson, Esq. The bust, when finished, was considered a good, and withal a pleasing likeness of the bard. Mr. Holland reminded him of the interview with the Doncaster modeller, described in "Prose by a Poet."* Montgomery laughed at the recollection of the escape alluded to, and said that he should probably * Vol. II. p. 19. CHANTREY'S FORGETFULNESS. 35 not have yielded in this instance, but for the importunity of his friend Mr. Roberts. Holland: "I had repeatedly been solicited by the sculptor to ask you to sit to him, but postponed the matter in the hope that some opportunity of placing your head in the hands of Chantrey might occur. I am glad, however, that Edwin Smith has done so much, at any rate, though I still think Chantrey would only require such a thing to be suggested to him, to have acknowledged in plaster the tributes of respect which you have paid him both in prose and verse." Montgomery: "I dare say Chantrey would readily have promised to do such a thing, if he had been asked, and then might never have thought anything more of the matter: he makes promises which he does not fulfil:"- and then, lest this might be misinterpreted, the poet suddenly added, "I do not mean that he breaks his promises, but he forgets them. Several years since, he promised to give me a sketch of Christ and the Disciples on their way to Emmaus, the last picture, I believe, which he attempted on canvass, and which I should have prized both for the sake of the artist and the subject: he also promised me a cast of the head of my friend Parken; but neither of these have I received, and probably never shall receive them." CHAP. LXXXVI. 1841. PUBLIC MONTGOMERY ACCOMPANIES REV. P. LATROBE TO SCOTLAND. HAVING, in the course of the preceding year, yielded a hesitating assent to accompany the Rev. Peter Latrobe on a tour to Scotland, in behalf of the Moravian Missions, and the visit having, as we have seen, been once postponed, Montgomery became so nervous as the time for starting approached,—indeed, so very unwell,— that, to all appearance, he was very unfit to go at all. However, he started from Sheffield on Friday, the 24th of September, intending to go to Glasgow by way of Newcastle and Carlisle, and resolutely determined not to call on any of his friends by the way. By a series of mischances connected with coaches and railways, he did not reach Glasgow until Sunday evening. As this visit of the bard to his native country was not only an event of considerable interest in his personal history, but was characterised by a number of circumstances equally honourable to all the parties concerned, no apology can be necessary for giving, at some |