Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

the more I lament my thoughtlessness in offering it; for I ought to have recollected (when Miss Dalby told me that you wished some verses of mine) that I am no longer a free agent in the disposal of my writings. at least of those connected with music. having given, by regular deed, the monopoly of all such productions of mine to the Powers, of London and Dublin. These legal trammels are so new to my muse, that she has more than once forgotten herself, and been near wandering into infidelity, very much, I assure you, from the habit of setting no price upon her favors; but I think you will agree with me that it is worth while keeping her within bonds, when I tell you that the reward of her constancy is no less than five hundred a year during the time stipulated in the deed. For not complying with your request I need offer no better apology; but for inconsiderately promising what I could not perform, I know not what I can say to excuse myself, except that (and believe me I speak sincerely) the strong wish I felt to show my sense of your merits made me consult my inclinations rather than my power; and it was not till I had actually begun words to one of your airs that I recollected the faux pas I was about to commit.

I thank you very much for the Sermons, which I am reading with great pleasure, and beg you to believe me,

Very sincerely yours,

THOMAS MOORE.

To Wm. Gardiner, Esq., Leicester.

The Sermons were those of Robert Hall; then resident at Leicester, and in the height of his fame as a preacher, and to whom, in turn, Mr. Gardiner lent Moore's Sacred Songs, when Mr. Hall read them with great delight, saying, "Sir, I discover that he is deeply read in the Fathers," &c., &c. (See Gardiner, vol. ii., p. 613.)

From Chambers' Journal.

THE COST OF INIQUITY.

Ir is a fact, in the history of Prussia, that Frederick II. would never have inflicted upon his country the evil of farming out his revenues, had it not been that, while he had them in his own hands, he was cheated so extensively by his subjects. For the same reason, about the same time, the government of the king of Great Britain in Hanover was obliged to adopt the same oppressive measure. If we call to mind the anecdote of a party of Frenchmen trying which could bring the blackest charge against human nature, when Voltaire, commencing with, "There was once a farmer-general," was admitted by common consent to have already carried the day we may form some idea of the severity of a punishment which consisted in farming out a nation's revenues. But the anecdote is merely a type of a class of troubles which men are

continually bringing upon themselves by false doings and appearances.

Why is it that merit has such difficulty in obtaining preferment? False pretension stands in the way. Why is it that a truth is so long in forcing its way amongst mankind? Because it is so difficult to obtain sound evidence in its favor, and distinguish it from the hundreds of falsehoods which are constantly We know it contending with it for notice. as a certain fact of society, that a man may come forward with the design of offering his fellow-creatures some great benefit, and yet he will be received with distrust, and checked at every turn, as if he were a knave aiming at some sordid advantage for himself. And the reason, we can all see, is that selfish aims are so often concealed under a philanthropic guise, that society is compelled to be upon its guard against even the fairest appearances of benevolence, until time has given a guarantee for their genuineness.

Coun

Fictitious literature has no more favorite point than that furnished by the claims of virtuous poverty treated with coldness, and left to neglect. Its heroes, manly but out-atelbows its heroines, amiable but outcast are always turned away from in an unaccountable manner, to the indignation of all readers of sensibility. People living in comfortable cottages are mysteriously addicted to mission to vagrants, just as the heavens are the unchristianlike practice of refusing adabout to break forth in a snow-storm. try justices are invariably harsh towards the respectable persons who come in equivocal circumstances before them. These descriptions, we can have no doubt, are a reflection of what passes in actual life only in actual life there is never any reason for wonder about the causes. Shabby vagrant people, and people who appear in equivocal circumstances and without good credentials, are there so commonly found to be bad, that no one stops to think of possible exceptions. The few good suffer because of the prevalence of iniquity in connection with those appearances. Were there no transgressors of any kind in the world, fiction would be entirely deprived of this important province of its domain; for the wretched, under no suspicion, would then be everywhere received with open arms, succored, and set on their feet again. Even the superintendents of Unions would in that case become genial, kindly men, quite different from the tyrants which they always are in novels; or, rather, there being no longer any human failings, there would be no longer any poverty calling for public aid, and Unions would go out of fashion.

Every one acquainted with business must have occasion to observe how many transactions of hopeful appearance are prevented by the want of confidence. And even where

six lectures having begun, on Wednesday, with Horace and Juvenal. Point, brilliant fancy, and a thoroughly literary tone in both matter and manner, were the characteristics.

All sorts and conditions of men, from the

ning, now to the nettle or broom, to the war

transactions take place, we constantly see that something must be sacrificed, or some inconvenience incurred, in order to guard against possible default. Were there, on the contrary, unlimited confidence between man and man, no bargain or barter, great or small, king to the hangman, in turn exercise the satiric tending to mutual advantage and convenience, faculty; which assimilates now to the lightwould ever be prevented; and all such ar- rocket in which the wood is apt to preponderate, rangements would be conducted on a footing and even to the scintillations struck from flint of the utmost economy. We cannot doubt by the hoof of an ass. Mr. Hannay follows Cathat the general happiness of society would saubon in holding to an indigenous origin thus be greatly increased. Even those tran- among the Romans for satire- both the word scendental blessings which are dreamed of by and the thing; and we are founded in this rethe votaries of Socialism, what is to prevent spect on the Romans; whom we must not retheir being realized but the one little unfor- gard as merely a military nation with a peculiar tunate fact, that men are not yet prepared to conformation of nose. Horace, the first proact upon perfectly upright and unselfish prin- fessed Latin satirist of whom more than fragciples? They require to put all their indus-ments exist, was worldly, self-conscious, rather trial operations into the form of a conflict, too fond of good dinners, and the munditiæ of He was quite a conservative, rendering themselves at the best good-humored Pyrrha's hair. enemies to each other, and entailing frightful the virtuous cobbler is the supreme of men. Was and could laugh at a Stoic, with his notion that misexpenditure of means, simply because no he a poet intrinsically? It would appear that one can entirely trust his fellows. If men he did not write his Carmina from an impulse were disposed each to do his utmost for the of nature; they derive from the Greek. Not to commonwealth, not caring for special benefits speak disrespectfully, Horace was a miraculons to himself, it might quite well be that the Italian image-boy. Profundity of sentiment is enjoyments of all would be increased, and the true test of a poet. Horace was on rather earth rendered only a lower heaven. But how good terms with the society he satirizes, but was to bring them to this disposition and how perfectly free from cant. He would with the to keep them at it! utmost complacency have dined with the NasiAs all the losses, inconveniences, drawbacks, denus whom he ridicules. For all this, he may shortcomings of expected good, and miserable be conjectured to have been a homely little man failures and disappointments experienced in in the main. Juvenal lived in a monstrous life from these causes, are capable of being with a tropical glare and miasma, worthy of period; a period that looms through history viewed in a positive aspect, it does not seem qualities in its satirist much higher than wit. at all unreasonable to speak of them as form- Earnestness and heartiness of scorn belong to ing an Iniquity Tax. There is, it may be Juvenal; he was a brawny fighting-man, the said, an Excise from the happiness of us all, champion of old Rome. Horace was scarcely through the operation of our moral deficiencies ever angry; he saw the ludicrous side of things, and misdoings, although it is not possible to and made society his standard; Juvenal is alstate in any one instance its exact amount. ways looking for something or somebody to lash; It is very hard that the faithful here suffer for as he says of himself, he laughs and hates. He the unfaithful, the wise for the foolish, the is more pictorial; has flashes of fancy, gleams sober for the profligate; but that is only of poetic pathos, wit, manliness, and energy. accordant with the great law of society The qualities of Swift, Hogarth, and Gray, would that we are all more or less compromised for go towards making a Juvenal; those of Addison, each other. The Iniquity Tax may be viewed Chesterfield, Wortley Montague, Campbell, and very much as we view what are called War second was a man of the world, philosophy, and Washington Irving, towards a Horace. Taxes. As these are strong reasons for main-moderation; the first a fiery reformer, whose taining peace, so is the Iniquity Tax a power- words are the genuine utterance of emotion. ful motive for our doing whatever is in our Horace's "nil admirari" doctrine implied that power to improve the national integrity and he could look at the stars with no vulgar dread, advance truthfulness in all things. An im- at common life with no contempt; and was as proved civilization is an improved economy, lofty a principle, perhaps, as a man of the world with increased blessings for us all. can get out of nature. The tone of our existing society is more Horatian than consonant with that of our own Elizabethan ancestors. Juvenal had a deeper laugh than Horace - something of Sa- a prophetic wail, more touching than any polite smile; he possessed a moral superiority. When the time for a base system to fall has come, the handwriting of both these men is on the wall. Spectator, 18 June.

MR. HANNAY ON SATIRIC LITERATURE. tirical literature, from the time of the Romans to our own days, is the theme on which Mr. Hannay addresses his audience at the Institution in Edwards street, Portman Square; the course of

The

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

9. Russia and Turkey — England's Interest in their Dispute, Examiner and Spectator, 558 10. Bayle St. John's Turks in Europe,

Spectator and Examiner, 571

POETRY: The Infant Kiss - To the Author of "The Plaint of Freedom," 513.

SHORT ARTICLES: The Etymology of Stonehenge, 513; Literary Piracy, 514; The Naturalist Squallanzani, 532; Cowper, 536; Meaning of Worth, 541; Adjustment of our System - President Taylor, 549.

NEW BOOKS: Infidelity: its Cause and Cure, 576.

From Eliza Cook's Journal.

THE INFANT KISS.
"SWEET is thy infant kiss, my child !”
I said; my little darling smiled:
"Sweet! sweet!" I said, and kissed again
His cherub cheek: it gave me pain.
Was it the small soft lip I pressed,
Wet with the milk-drop from my breast?
Or was it thy young breath, my boy,
That checked the rising tide of joy?
It could not be thy sinless smile,
So free from care, so free from guile;
Ah, no! I only see it there;
It stands so beautifully fair,
Mocking the fleeting joys we share.
It is thy brother's shade! and he
Too, budded on the self-same tree;
And, opening sweetly into bloom,
Became a flower to deck the tomb.

He was my joy, as thou art now;
And I have kissed his fair, bright brow,
His cheek, his lip, and felt no pain ;-
So shall I never do again!

And he was dear, as thou art dear;
My love for him was void of fear.
And he was mine, now mine no more;
And thou art on that slipp'ry shore,
Whence I have seen him glide before.

[ocr errors][merged small]

In looser tendrils than stern Husbandry

May well approve, on thee shall none descend? At Milton's hallowed name thy hymn august Sounds as the largest bell from minster-tower Above the tinkling of Comasco boy.

I ponder; and in time may dare to praise ;
Milton had done it; Milton would have graspt
Thy hand amid his darkness, and with more
Impatient pertinacity because

He heard the voice and could not see the face.
July 14.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

From the Gentleman's Magazine.

THE ETYMOLOGY OF STONEHENGE.

Ar a meeting of the Philological Society held on the 25th of February the following remarks were read on the Etymology of the word Stonehenge, communicated by Edwin Guest, Esq., the master of Caius College, Cambridge.

Mr. Herbert, the author of "Cyclops Christianus," adopts a legend which makes Stonehenge the scene where the Welsh nobles fell beneath the daggers of Hengist's followers. He thinks this is corroborated by the name of the locality-which, in the more ancient authorities is often called Stonehenges, and in one place Simon of Abingdon (a monkish writer of the fifteenth century) writes it Stunehengest. The word Stonehenge, or Stonehenges, or Stonehengest, therefore means, according to Mr. Herbert, the Stone of Hengist. He maintains, and truly, that it is a law of our language that, in compound words of which one element bears to the other the same relation as an adjective to its sub

stantive, then the adjectival or qualifying | element takes the first place; he would, therefore, have us believe that Stonehenge cannot mean the hanging stone, the pierres pendues of Wace. Further, he says that the rule above stated admits of one exception, and this is, that when the qualifying element is a proper name it may take the last place, as Port-Patrick, Fort-William, &c. But here we must remind Mr. Herbert that such compound terms as Port-Patrick, &c., are instances of a Norman idiom which affected our language only from the fourteenth century, while Stonehenge is clearly an English compound. Its elements are English; it may be traced to the twelfth century; we cannot, therefore, give to Stonehenge the meaning Mr. Herbert assigns to it.

Some reviewer in the "Quarterly" of last September "conceives that henge is a mere termination of the genitive or adjectival kind, such as Mr. Kemble has given a list of in one of his papers for the Philological Society,"the absurdity of which " conception" is too glaring to need exposure.

Or to behold a stonage, taste a spaw,
Or with some subtle artist to conferre.
G. Tooke's "Belides," p. 11.

Hence we may understand how our older authorities generally write the name Stonehenges. Each of the trilithons was, strictly speaking, a stonage; and the entire monument might either be called the Stonages, or, if the word were used in its collective sense, the Stonage. Stonehengest can only be a clerical blunder for Stonehenges. Besides the word hang-e, there seems to have been another word which did not take the final vowel, and from which the Germans got their vor-hang, a curtain, and we the word Ston-heng in Robert of Gloucester. (154.)

Arst was the kyng y heryed, er he myghte come

there

Withinne the place of the Stonheng, that he lette

rere.

This word hang is used in Norfolk for, first, a crop of fruit, i. e., that which is pendant' The true etymology is the one which tradi- from the boughs; secondly, a declivity-see tion has handed down to us. In many of the Forby. It enters into the west of England, stake-hang; the east (Sussex), herring-hang Gothic languages words are found closely re-the place in which herrings are hung on sembling henge, and signifying something| suspended, as a shelf, a curtain, an ear-ring, sticks to dry. Hardyng calls the trilithons &c., as brot-hänge, G. shelves to hang bread at Stonehenge, or, perhaps we might more on; quirke hänge, a frame to dry curds and correctly say their imposts, Stonehengles, in cheese upon; thal-hänge, the steep side of a which hengle or hengel is nothing but a derivvalley; òr-hùnge, Sw., an ear-ring. In the ative of hang; and, like its primitive, means south or west of England you may hear in something that is suspended. In some parts any butcher's shop of the "head and hinge" of the north of England the iron bar over the of certain animals fire on which the caldron is hung is, with its the head with some portions of the animal thence dependent. In appurtenances, called the Hangles. Another the Glossary of the "Exmoor Scolding" we word, scallenge, may be noticed. It is used find "Hange or hanje, the purtenance of any in the west of England for the lych-gate, creature, joined by the gullet to the head, often found at the entrance of our churchand hanging together, viz., the lights, heart, yards. The Dutch call a slate, schalie; in and liver." These are only other applica- our old English dialect we find it called tions of the word which appears in the final skalye; a construction which supported a roof clement of Stonehenge, where henge signifies formed of slates may have been called a scallthe impost, which is suspended on the two uprights. And in this signification it is used in our literature. Stukeley tells us he has been informed that in a certain locality in Yorkshire certain natural rocks were called Stonehenge. Again, "Herein they imitated, or rather emulated, the Israelites, who being delivered from the Egyptians, and having trampled the Red Sea and Jordan (opposing them) under their feet, did, by God's command, erect a stonage of twelve stones," &c. (Gibbons. A fool's bolt soon shot at Stonehenge.) Nares gives- -"Would not everybody say to him, we know the stonage at Gilgal." (Leslie.)

As who with skill
And knowingly his journey manage will,
Doth often from the beaten road withdraw,

henge.

Messrs.

LITERARY piracy is extending from American publishers to American authors, as Ingram and Cooke have learned to their cost. Money; Reprinting an American work entitled " how to get, how to keep, and how to use it,' they found themselves pounced upon by the English publisher of Mr. Henry Taylor's works, from which the American writer (?) of the book had filched a quantity of matter, and quietly incorporated it with his own lucubrations. English publishers must be careful how they reprint American books, or they may be becoming receivers of stolen goods. Messrs. Ingram and Cooke have had to cancel the leaves containing the matter stolen from Mr. Taylor, and to make public acknowledgment of the whole transaction. Critic.

From Chambers' Repository.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, FOUNDER OF THE

COLONY OF VIRGINIA.

To see bright honor sparkled all in gore,
Would steel a spirit that ne'er fought before;

And that's the height of Fame, when our best blood
Is nobly spilt in actions great and good :
So thou hast taught the world to purchase Fame,
Rearing thy story on a glorious frame;
And such foundation doth thy merits make it,
As all detraction's rage shall never shake it.

BRIAN O'ROURKE.

ONE of the most agreeable duties of literature is that of doing justice to neglected merit. We seem, when thus engaged, to be imitating one of the functions of Providence. History, however, is often unjust; because, while taking care of the reputation of a few favorite characters, and blazoning forth the pomp and pageantry of the world, it refuses to bestow adequate notice on men who deserved perhaps to act a prominent part on the stage of public business, but were condemned by circumstances to consume their energies in an obscure course of action, and among individuals altogether incapable of appreciating their great qualities.

The career and fate of John Smith very strikingly illustrate the truth of this observation. Few men in any age or country were ever engaged in more surprising adventures, or exhibited greater fertility of resources, or hore up against evil fortune with a braver spirit. Truth in his story is so extraordinary and startling, that the boldest fiction would scarcely dare to imitate it. What happened to him would suffice to impart interest to the lives of a hundred romantic adventurers. Fortune seemed to lavish all her choicest caprices in her dealings with him. By land and sea, in war and peace, in freedom and captivity, in the decaying civilization of the Old World, in the fresh and fierce savagery of the New, in the depths of poverty, in the elevation of honor and power- he gave proof of being equal to all conditions. He was an Englishman in the finest sense of the word. Nothing could subdue his intrepid courage; nothing could corrupt his principles. In every situation, he seems to have had the glory of his country at heart; and contrived at length, through many dangers and difficulties, to connect his name with the history of the United States - a history which, in proportion as it is studied and understood, will be found, in some of its earliest pages, to derive lustre from this humble plebeian name. John Smith was born at Willoughby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1579. He is careful, in his autobiography, to inform us, that his father was descended from the ancient Smiths of Crudley, in Lancashire, and his mother from the Rickards of Great Heck, in Yorkshire. To this circumstance, Bob Brathwait, one of the minor poets of those times,

alludes in a copy of verses addressed to the great adventurer:

Two greatest shires of England did thee bear Renowned Yorkshire, Gaunt styled Lancashire.

His parents died when he was about thirteen years of age, leaving him in comparatively affluent circumstances, but under the care of guardians, who would appear to have neglected his education, made away with his property, and inspired him with disgust for the tranquillity of a domestic life. The love of roaming, however, and a thirst for the excitement of war, seemed to have pervaded the whole British population. Swarms of restless spirits constantly quitted their homes in search of fortune or glory, and too frequently found obscure graves in distant lands. Recent discoveries appeared to have enlarged the limits of the universe- golden visions of power and fortune dazzled the imagination of the whole civilized world men thought of nothing but the planting of colonies and the founding of empires-everything seemed possible to a strong hand and a sharp sword

and it was not until age and experience had taught their saddening lessons, that the intrepid visionaries relinquished their hopes, and returned, perhaps to end their days in dreary obscurity by their paternal firesides.

Defoe had, in all likelihood, carefully studied the history of John Smith before he planned his romance of Robinson Crusoe. At all events, the descendant of the Smiths and the Rickards bore a strong resemblance to that renowned personage, and at a very early age forined the design of running away from home, and going, as the phrase is, to sea. In order to check this disposition, he was, at the age of fifteen, apprenticed to a merchant of Lynn; but not finding a tall stool and a desk at all suited to his taste, John took French leave of his master, and accompanied Mr. Peregrine Berty to the continent. His youth, probably, stood somewhat in his way on this occasion. His patrons soon found out, it seems, that they could make no use of him, and, therefore, in the course of a month or six weeks, dismissed him, very much chop-fallen; but the indefatigable John was not to be discouraged. He had evidently made his guardians uncomfortable; and in order to rid themselves of what, no doubt, they considered a nuisance, they had given him at parting, out of his own estate, the magnificent sum of ten shillings, with which he resolved to carve his fortunes in the world. He repaired, accordingly, to the Low Countries, where, during the space of four years, he hacked and hewed, and performed numerous deeds of gallantry, which history has perversely passed over in silence

Before entering upon this service, Smith

« AnteriorContinuar »