Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Ne'er moved in pity to the wandering poor;
With him I left the cup, to teach his mind
That Heaven can bless, if mortals will be kind.
Conscious of wanting worth, he views the bowl,
And feels compassion touch his grateful soul.
Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
With heaping coals of fire upon its head;

In the kind warmth the metal learns to glow,
And, loose from dross, the silver runs below.
Long had our pious friend in virtue trod,

But now the child half-weaned his heart from God;
Child of his age, for him he lived in pain,
And measured back his steps to earth again.
To what excesses had this dotage run!
But God to save the father took the son.
To all but thee, in fits he seemed to go,
And 'twas my ministry to deal the blow.
The poor fond parent, humbled in the dust,
Now owns in tears the punishment was just.
But how had all his fortunes felt a wrack
Had that false servant sped in safety back!
This night his treasured heaps he meant to steal,
And what a fund of charity would fail!
Thus Heaven instructs thy mind: this trial o'er,
Depart in peace, resign, and sin no more.'

On sounding pinions here the youth withdrew,
The sage stood wondering as the seraph flew ;
Thus looked Elisha when, to mount on high,
His master took the chariot of the sky;
The fiery pomp ascending left the view;
The prophet gazed, and wished to follow too.

The bending Hermit here a prayer begun :
'Lord, as in heaven, on earth thy will be done.'
Then gladly turning, sought his ancient place,
And passed a life of piety and peace.

[blocks in formation]

time with Pope. Addison and the Whigs were rumoured to have pronounced it the better version of the two, while the Tories ranged under the banner of Pope; and hence originally came about the famous quarrel between Pope and Addison. Gay told Pope that Steele said Addison had called Tickell's work the best translation that ever was in any language. Pope professed to believe Tickell's translation as really by Addison, designed to eclipse his, and wrote the satire on 'Atticus;' and so sputtered on the feud, which was never quenched. Addison continued his patronage of Tickell; when made Secretary of State in 1717, he appointed his friend Under-Secretary, and further left him the charge of publishing his works. Tickell seems to have held himself at liberty to make occasional alterations in Addison's words; and to his edition -long the standard one-of Addison's collected works he prefixed an elegy on his friendly patron, which was justly reckoned his best poem and one of the best things of the kind. He wrote a number of addresses, epistles, odes, and occasional poems. His ballad of Colin and Lucy was rendered into Latin by Vincent Bourne. Gray and Goldsmith pronounced Colin and Lucy one of the best ballads in the language; though Gray thought Tickell a poor, short-winded imitator of Addison,' with but three or four notes of his own, sweet but tiresomely repeated. In 1722 Tickell published a poem, chiefly allegorical, entitled Kensington Gardens; but having been in 1724 appointed secretary to the Lords - Justices of Ireland, he seems to have abandoned the Muses. He died at Bath in 1740, and was buried at Glasnevin near Dublin, where he had his home. The memorial tablet in Glasnevin Church records that his highest honour was that of having been the friend of Addison.' The elegy and Colin and Lucy would have served to perpetuate his name; even Pope admitted that he was an 'honest man.'

Both

From the Elegy on Addison. Can I forget the dismal night that gave My soul's best part for ever to the grave? How silent did his old companions tread, By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire; The pealing organ, and the pausing choir; The duties by the lawn-robed prelate paid : And the last words, that dust to dust conveyed! While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. Oh, gone for ever! take this long adieu; And sleep in peace next thy loved Montague. To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine, A frequent pilgrim at thy sacred shrine ; Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan, And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone. If e'er from me thy loved memorial part, May shame afflict this alienated heart; Of thee forgetful if I form a song,

My lyre be broken, and untuned my tongue, My griefs be doubled from thy image free, And mirth a torment, unchastised by thee!

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone,
Sad luxury to vulgar minds unknown,
Along the walls where speaking marbles shew
What worthies form the hallowed mould below;
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held;
In arms who triumphed, or in arts excelled ;
Chiefs graced with scars and prodigal of blood ;
Stern patriots who for sacred freedom stood;
Just men by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven;
Ne'er to these chambers, where the mighty rest,
Since their foundation came a nobler guest;
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.

In what new region to the just assigned,
What new employments please th' unbodied mind?
A winged virtue, through th' ethereal sky
From world to world unwearied does he fly?
Or curious trace the long laborious maze

Of heaven's decrees, where wondering angels gaze?
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell
How Michael battled, and the dragon fell;
Or, mixed with milder cherubim, to glow
In hymns of love, not ill essayed below?
Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind,
A task well suited to thy gentle mind?
Oh if sometimes thy spotless form descend,
To me thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend!
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms,
When pain distresses or when pleasure charms,
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart,
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart :
Led through the paths thy virtue trod before,
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.

That awful form which, so the heavens decree,
Must still be loved and still deplored by me,
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise,

Or, roused by fancy, meets my waking eyes.

If business calls or crowded courts invite,

Th' unblemished statesman seems to strike my sight;

If in the stage I seek to soothe my care,

I meet his soul which breathes in Cato there;

If pensive to the rural shades I rove,

His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove;
'Twas there of just and good he reasoned strong,
Cleared some great truth, or raised some serious song:
There patient shewed us the wise course to steer,
A candid censor, and a friend severe;
There taught us how to live, and (oh! too high
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die.
Thou hill whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,
Thy noontide shadow, and thy evening breeze!
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

...

(To the Earl of Warwick on the Death of Mr Addison.')

Colin and Lucy.

Of Leinster, famed for maidens fair,
Bright Lucy was the grace,
Nor e'er did Liffey's limpid stream
Reflect so sweet a face;

Till luckless love and pining care

Impaired her rosy hue,

Her coral lips and damask cheeks, And eyes of glossy blue.

Oh! have you seen a lily pale

When beating rains descend?
So drooped the slow-consuming maid,
Her life now near its end.
By Lucy warned, of flattering swains
Take heed, ye easy fair!

Of vengeance due to broken vows,
Ye perjured swains, beware.
Three times all in the dead of night
A bell was heard to ring,
And shrieking, at her window thrice
The raven flapped his wing.,
Too well the love-lorn maiden knew
The solemn boding sound,
And thus in dying words bespoke
The virgins weeping round :

'I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;

I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.

By a false heart and broken vows

In early youth I die.

Was I to blame because his bride

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

'Then bear my corpse, my comrades, bear, This bridegroom blithe to meet ;

He in his wedding trim so gay,

I in my winding-sheet.'

She spoke, she died, her corse was borne
The bridegroom blithe to meet ;

He in his wedding trim so gay,
She in her winding-sheet.

Then what were perjured Colin's thoughts?
How were these nuptials kept?
The bridesmen flocked round Lucy dead,
And all the village wept.
Confusion, shame, remorse, despair,

At once his bosom swell;

The damps of death bedewed his brow;
He shook, he groaned, he fell.

From the vain bride, ah, bride no more!
The varying crimson fled,
When stretched before her rival's corse
She saw her husband dead.

Then to his Lucy's new-made grave

Conveyed by trembling swains,

One mould with her, beneath one sod, For ever he remains.

Oft at this grave the constant hind

And plighted maid are seen; With garlands gay and true-love knots

They deck the sacred green.

But, swain fors worn, whoe'er thou art, This hallowed spot forbear; Remember Colin's dreadful fate,

And fear to meet him there.

Tickell's satire, 'imitated' from Horace (Odes iii. 25), on the Jacobite Earl of Mar and his rash enterprise in 1715, shows a stronger and freer hand than the bulk of his verses.

An Imitation of the Prophecy of Nereus.
As Mar his round one morning took
(Whom some call earl, and some call duke),
And his new brethren of the blade,
Shivering with fear and frost, surveyed,
On Perth's bleak hills he chanced to spy
An aged wizard six foot high,

With bristled hair and visage blighted,
Wall-eyed, bare haunched, and second-sighted.
The grisly sage in thought profound
Beheld the chief with back so round,
Then rolled his eyeballs to and fro
O'er his paternal hills of snow,
And into these tremendous speeches

Broke forth the prophet without breeches:
'Into what ills betrayed by thee
This ancient kingdom do I see!
Her realms unpeopled and forlorn-
Wae's me that ever thou wert born!
Proud English loons (our clans o'ercome)
On Scottish pads shall amble home;
I see them dressed in bonnet blue

(The spoils of thy rebellious crew),

I see the target cast away,

And checkered plaid become their prey-
The checkered plaid to make a gown
For many a lass in London town.

'In vain the hungry mountaineers
Come forth in all their warlike gears,
The shield, the pistol, dirk, and dagger,
In which they daily wont to swagger,
And oft have sallied out to pillage
The hon-roosts of some peaceful village;
Or while their neighbours were asleep,
Have carried off a Lowland sheep.

'What boots thy high-born host of beggars,
Mac-leans, Mac-kenzies, and Mac-gregors,
With popish cut-throats, perjured ruffians,
And Foster's troop of raggamuffins.

'In vain thy lads around thee bandy
Inflamed with bagpipe and with brandy;
Doth not bold Sutherland the trusty,
With heart so true, and voice so rusty,
(A loyal soul,) thy troops affright
While hoarsely he demands the fight?
Dost thou not generous Ilay dread,
The bravest hand, the wisest head;
Undaunted dost thou hear th' alarms
Of hoary Athol sheathed in arms?

'Douglas, who draws his lineage down
From thanes and peers of high renown,
Fiery and young, and uncontrouled,
With knights and squires and barons bold
(His noble household band), advances,
And on his milk-white courser prances.
Thee Forfar to the combat dares,
Grown swarthy in Iberian wars;
And Monro kindled into rage,
Sourly defies thee to engage;

He'll rout thy foot, though ne'er so many,
And horse to boot-if thou hadst any.

'But see, Argyll, with watchful eyes,
Lodged in his deep intrenchments lies;
Couched like a lion in thy way,

He waits to spring upon his prey;
While like a herd of timorous deer,
Thy army shakes and pants with fear,
Led by their doughty general's skill
From frith to frith, from hill to hill.

'Is this thy haughty promise paid
That to the Chevalier was made,
When thou didst oaths and duty barter
For dukedom, generalship and garter?
Three moons thy Jemmy shall command,
With Highland sceptre in his hand,
Too good for his pretended birth,
-Then down shall fall the King of Perth!
"Tis so decreed, for George shall reign,
And traitors be forsworn in vain.
Heaven shall for ever on him smile,
And bless him still with an Argyll;
While thou pursued by vengeful foes,
Condemned to barren rocks and snows,
And hindered passing Inverlocky,

Shall burn the clan, and curse poor Jocky!'

John, Earl of Mar-here 'Jocky,' with which Inverlochy is forced into rhyme-was nicknamed 'Bobbing Joan.' The estimates of the loyal leaders have not all been confirmed by history.

The Countess of Winchilsea, who died in 1720 aged about sixty, was regarded by Wordsworth as eminently meritorious in at least one respect. 'It is remarkable,' he 'that exceptsays, ing the Nocturnal Reverie, and a passage or two in the Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of Paradise Lost and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external nature.' Even if we do not accept this all but universal (and uncomplimentary) negative, a poem so honoured by contrast has a special interest in the history of criticism. The Nocturnal Reverie was written by Anne, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill of Kidminton near Southampton, and wife of the second Earl of Winchilsea. She was a friend of Pope and Rowe, and wrote, somewhat in Cowley's manner, one longish poem, The Spleen, which she called 'a Pindarique Ode' (1701; Matthew Green's Hudibrastic verses under that name are better known), and a volume of Miscellany Poems (1713). A line in The Spleen, 'We faint beneath the aromatic pain,' was borrowed by Pope for a familiar passage in his Essay on Man.

A Nocturnal Reverie.

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined,
And only gentle zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel still waking sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, holloaing clear, directs the wanderer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face;
When in some river overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbine, and the bramble rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes;
When scattered glowworms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties, watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisbury stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms and perfect virtue bright:
When odours which declined repelling day,
Through temperate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;

When through the gloom more venerable shews
Some ancient fabrick, awful in repose;
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale :
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through the adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear;
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their short-lived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in the inferiour world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,

Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamours are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

A Song.

Love, thou art best of human joys,
Our chiefest happiness below;

All other pleasures are but toys,
Music without thee is but noise,

And beauty but an empty show.

Heaven, who knew best what man would move
And raise his thoughts above the brute,
Said, Let him be, and let him love;
That must alone his soul improve,

Howe'er philosophers dispute.

A collected edition of the Countess's works, including an unacted tragedy, Aristomenes, was published in 1713.

the

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), united as few men or women have done solid sense and learning to wit, fancy, and lively powers of description; in letter-writing she has very few equals, and scarcely a superior. Horace Walpole may be more witty and sarcastic, and Cowper more unaffectedly natural, tender, and delightful; yet if we consider the variety and novelty of the matters described in Lady Mary's letters, the fund of anecdote and observation they display, and the idiomatic clearness of her style, we shall hesitate to place her below any letter-writer that England has yet produced. She was the eldest daughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, who became next year fifth Earl, and in 1715 Duke, of Kingston, and was brought up at Thoresby, Notts. Even in childhood she showed exceptional gifts, was very carefully educated, and from her youth up was a close student and indefatigable reader. Bishop Burnet encouraged her in her unusually wide course of study, which included Greek philosophy in Latin translations. In 1712 she married against her father's wishes - Edward Wortley (later Wortley Montagu), and on his being appointed in 1714 a commissioner of the Treasury, she was introduced to the courtly and polished circles. Her personal beauty and the charms of her conversation secured the friendship of Addison, Congreve, Pope, and literati. In 1716 her husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte, and Lady Mary accompanied him to Constantinople (1717-18), going by way of Vienna, and returning by Tunis, Genoa, and Paris. During her journey and her residence in the Levant, she corresponded with her sister the Countess of Mar, Lady Rich, Pope, and others, brilliantly describing and contrasting European and Turkish scenery and manners. Having noted among the villagers in Turkey the results of inoculating for the smallpox, she confidently submitted her own son, at that time four years old, to this protective method, then practically unknown to European medical art; and by her zealous effort afterwards established the practice of inoculation in England and in Europe. In 1718, her husband being recalled from his embassy, she returned to England, and, by Pope's advice, settled at Twickenham. The rival wits did not long continue friends. Pope wrote high-flown panegyrics and half-concealed love-letters to Lady Mary, and she treated them with silence or ridicule. On one occasion he is said to have made a tender and formal declaration, which threw the lady into an immoderate fit of laughter; henceforth the sensitive poet became her implacable enemy. Lady Mary also wrote verses, town eclogues, and epigrams, and Pope confessed that she had too much wit for him. The cool self-possession of the lady of rank and fashion, joined to her sarcastic powers, proved an overmatch for the jealous retired author, tremblingly alive to the shafts of ridicule. In 1739, for reasons unknown, Lady

Mr

Mary left England and her husband to travel and live abroad. She visited Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples, and settled first at Avignon and then at Lovere, on the Lago d'Iseo. Montagu having died in 1761, Lady Mary was prevailed upon by her daughter, the Countess of Bute, to return to England, but died in the following year.

Her letters, printed surreptitiously in 1763, were edited by her great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, in 1837. The wit and varied talents of Lady Mary are visible throughout the whole of her correspondence. Her desire to communicate piquant personal stories or to paint graphically leads her into details which modern taste hardly approves. She described what she saw and heard without mincing matters; and her strong masculine understanding and absolute frankness render her sometimes apparently unamiable and unfeeling, and frequently defective in what we account feminine delicacy. But otherwise, as models of epistolary style, easy, familiar, and elegant, no less than as pictures of foreign scenery and manners and fashionable gossip, the letters of Lady Mary must always hold their place in literature. They are truly letters, not critical or didactic essays enlivened by formal compliment and elaborate wit; though some of them are perhaps rather like a brightly-written chapter of a book of travel, or one section ('to be continued in our next') of a systematic description of life and manners abroad --such, for example, as Lady Mary's long letter to her sister describing in great and vivid detail her reception by the Grand Vizier's chief wife, and in the harem of the Vizier's chief deputy. Some rather objectionable letters, published even in Lord Wharncliffe's and, with corrective notes, in Mr Moy Thomas's editions, were assuredly not written by Lady Mary, but are forgeries presumably by John Cleland, son of Pope's friend Major Cleland, a clever but notoriously unprincipled littérateur.

On Matrimonial Happiness.

If we marry, our happiness must consist in loving one another: 'tis principally my concern to think of the most probable method of making that love eternal. You object against living in London; I am not fond of it myself, and readily give it up to you, though I am assured there needs more art to keep a fondness alive in solitude, where it generally preys upon itself. There is one article absolutely necessary-to be ever beloved, one must be ever agreeable. There is no such thing as being agreeable without a thorough good-humour, a natural sweetness of temper, enlivened by cheerfulness. Whatever natural fund of gaiety one is born with, tis necessary to be entertained with agreeable objects. Anybody capable of tasting pleasure, when they confine themselves to one place, should take care 'tis the place in the world the most pleasing. Whatever you may now think (now, perhaps, you have some fondness for me), though your love should continue in its full force, there are hours when the most beloved mistress would be troublesome. People are not for ever (nor is it in

human nature that they should be) disposed to be fond; you would be glad to find in me the friend and the companion. To be agreeably this last, it is necessary to be gay and entertaining. A perpetual solitude, in a place where you see nothing to raise your spirits, at length wears them out, and conversation insensibly falls into dull and insipid. When I have no more to say to you, you will like me no longer. How dreadful is that view! You will reflect, for my sake you have abandoned the conversation of a friend that you liked, and your situation in a country where all things would have contributed to make your life pass in (the true volupté) a smooth tranquillity. I shall lose the vivacity which should entertain you, and you will have nothing to recompense you for what you have lost. Very few people that have settled entirely in the country but have grown at length weary of one another. The lady's

[graphic][merged small]

conversation generally falls into a thousand impertinent effects of idleness; and the gentleman falls in love with his dogs and his horses, and out of love with everything else. I am now arguing in favour of the town; you have answered me as to that point. In respect of your health, 'tis the first thing to be considered, and I shall never ask you to do anything injurious to that. But 'tis my opinion, 'tis necessary to be happy that we neither of us think any place more agreeable than that where we are. I have nothing to do in London; and 'tis indifferentto me if I never see it more. . . .

(From a letter to Mr Wortley Montagu in 1712.)

Eastern Manners and Language.

I no longer look upon Theocritus as a romantic writer; he has only given a plain image of the way of life amongst the peasants of his country, who, before oppression had reduced them to want, were, I suppose,

« AnteriorContinuar »