Charles Williams was one of those individuals who are "born to blush
unseen." It is probable, therefore, that his name is unknown, and that
his merits might have slept in obscurity but for us. We suspect that he
has never been heard of before, and it is very likely that he never will
be again. Charles had no long line of ancestors whose merits he could
impute to himself. His great-grandfather had, to be sure, been the most
noted wrestler in his day; and had annually won the belt at Bowness and
at Keswick, but his prowess was forgot by all but his immediate
descendants; and even his hard-earned belts had long since been cut up
for repairing cart gear. Though Charles was only the son of a small
farmer, yet there was one thing on which the family prided itself--there
was a W. W. over the kitchen door which
"Was a sartan sign," his mother argued, "et that hoos hed belengd to
them sometime lang sen."
There was one circumstance which we ought not to omit; particularly as
it excited no inconsiderable interest, at the time, through all the
neighbourhood of Kentmere. On the very day, and as far as we can
ascertain, at the very hour, when Charles was born, a huge stone,
self-moved, rolled down Wallow Crag into Hawes Water! The old women
could and would account for it no other way than that he was born to be
droond. Mr. Gough, who was then beginning to exhibit the first dawning
of that genius which has procured him the esteem and admiration of all
true lovers of rational philosophy, would gladly have convinced them
that it was nothing but the effects of a thaw which had taken place only
a few days before. But they argued that
"Thear hed been many a tha afoar, but niver a stane rolled doon Wallow
Crag afoar."
Charles however grew up to be a boy, just as if this ominous stone had
continued to sit secure on the mountain's ridge. But it might be said of
him that "a strange and wayward wight was he." While other boys were
ranging through the woods in pursuit of bird-nests, Charles would
stretch himself on a smooth-faced rock, and pore on the adjacent
landscape like one half crazed. To retire into a lonely wood behind his
father's house, and teach a little brook, which ran through it, to take
a thousand fantastic forms, was to Charles the sweetest recreation he
could enjoy. The perpetual wings of time had now spread fifteen or
sixteen winters over the vale of Kentmere, since the stone rolled into
Hawes Water, and Charles was grown a tall and graceful boy. The little
time which his father had spared him to school, had not been misemployed
by the active youth; and though he felt a diffidence about entering into
conversation, it was generally allowed that, when he did unloosen his
tongue, he could argue any man in the valley, except the parson, who
never stopt to hear anybody speak but himself, and the schoolmaster, who
never spoke at all.
One evening about this time, as Charles was returning from an accustomed
ramble, where he had been enjoying a view of the mist slowly gathering
among the mountain heads to the north, he was aroused from his reverie
by a shrill scream; a young female had been pursuing a footpath over the
adjoining field, and was at that instant closely followed by a
neighbour's bull. Charles, with the speed of lightning, was at the
girl's side; and, with a presence of mind oftener found in boys than
men, he snatched the umbrella out of her hand, and unfurled it in the
enraged animal's face. The astonished beast retreated a few paces, and,
according to a standing rule among mad bulls, having been foiled in its
first attempt, it did not make a second attack.
Charles, with that gallantry which is a concomitant of generous minds,
proposed to see the affrighted maid to her father's dwelling. Maria was
a girl whom Charles had known from her infancy; he had played with her
at school, but he never before observed that she possessed anything
superior to the other girls of the dale. But this evening, as she hung
on his arm and thanked him with such a pair of soft blue eyes so
kindly--as the colour varied so often on her cheek--and her bosom
throbbed so agitatedly, he discovered that Maria possessed more charms
than all the valley beside.
This evening's adventure formed an epoch in the life of Charles
Williams. All his actions were now influenced by one all-powerful
impulse. Ardent in his admiration of nature's charms, that ardour was
now transferred from the general beauties of creation to the particular
beauties of the lovely Maria. Indeed, Maria was peculiarly formed to
please the fancy, and captivate the heart, of a youth like Charles.
There was a symmetry in her limbs, an elegance in her person, and a
simple gracefulness in her motions, which rendered her an agreeable
object even to the most indifferent observer. But the charms of her mind
were the gems on which be placed the highest value. There was a sombre
shade of seriousness, perfectly distinct from melancholy, which none
could behold without feeling interested. This seriousness, however, had
nothing in it inimical to that lively joyance which gives so delicious a
zest to our youthful days.
She even possessed a vivacity that accompanied all her actions, and
threw her real character into the distance. Though endued with the
keenest sensibility, she appeared all life and gaiety. Wherever she was,
she was the soul of the little company--her lively wit and her smiling
beauty procured her attention wherever she showed herself. This
beautiful mixture of the gay and the grave assumed, on some occasions,
such strange contrasts, that she seemed to be composed of
inconsistencies. Often in her little evening rambles with her young
companions, after having put them all in good humour with themselves and
with one another, by her little flattering railleries and harmless
frolics, she would in an instant bound away from the group with the
elastic grace of a mountain nymph--abruptly enter the cottage of some
sick or suffering neighbour, with a smile on her countenance, like the
angel of comfort charged with blessings, kindly inquire after their
various wants and distresses, soothe them with consolatory hopes of
better days, offer all those little assistances which old and decaying
age accepts so gratefully at the hands of youth, and after mingling a
sigh or a tear with theirs, again join her gay companions as though
nothing had occurred.
In the innocent society of this amiable maiden, Charles passed the
sweetest hours of his existence. His former boyish pursuits were
renounced. The windmill, on a rock at a little distance, though nearly
matured, was never completed; the water-works in the wood were permitted
to run to ruin, even the perpetual motion in the room over the old
kitchen, which was in a state of great forwardness, was neglected for a
time, and eventually relinquished.
It is supposed, our intelligent correspondent says, that if Charles had
never been in love, it is probable that he had never been a poet. And in
confirmation of this idea, we observe that his first productions are of
the amatory kind--"odes to beauty," "lines to Maria," "acrostics," &c.
Among these fragments, we found a little airy piece without a head but
we suppose intended for Maria:
"If all the world was made of kisses,
And all those kisses were made for me,
And I was made for you, my love,
How happy we should be!
If all the graces were join'd in one,
And all the wit and beauty too,
They'd make a maid like you, my love,
They'd make a maid like you!"
Some of his lyric pieces exhibit a strange mixture of philosophy and
passion, learning and love. In the eleventh page of the manuscript
before us, we find as curious a specimen of this kind as we ever
recollect. It is much interlined and seems never to have been finished.