"Ye have done it unto me."--_Matt._, xxv. 40.
"A poor wayfaring man of grief
Hath often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief,
That I could never answer, 'Nay:'
I had not power to ask his name,
Whither he went, or whence he came;
Yet there was something in his eye
That won my love, I knew not why.
"Once when my scanty meal was spread,
He entered;--not a word he spake;--
Just perishing for want of bread,
I gave him all; he blessed it, brake,
And ate,--but gave me part again:
Mine was an angel's portion then,
For while I fed with eager haste,
That crust was manna to my taste.
"I spied him where a fountain burst
Clear from the rock; his strength was gone;
The heedless waters mocked his thirst,
He heard it, saw it hurrying on.
I ran to raise the sufferer up;
Thrice from the stream he drained my cup,
Dipped, and returned it running o'er;
I drank, and never thirsted more.
"'Twas night; the floods were out; it blew
A winter hurricane aloof;
I heard his voice abroad, and flew
To bid him welcome to my roof;
I warmed, I clothed, I cheered my guest,
Laid him on my own couch to rest;
Then made the hearth my bed, and seemed
In Eden's garden while I dreamed.
"Stripped, wounded, beaten, nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side;
I raised his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied
Wine, oil, refreshment; he was healed:
I had myself a wound concealed;
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.
"In prison I saw him next, condemned
To meet a traitor's doom at morn;
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed,
And honored him 'mid shame and scorn:
My friendship's utmost zeal to try,
He asked if I for him would die;
The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill,
But the free spirit cried, 'I will.'
"Then in a moment to my view,
The stranger darted from disguise;
The tokens in his hands I knew,
My Savior stood before mine eyes:
He spake; and my poor name He named:
Of me thou hast not been ashamed:
Those deeds shall thy memorial be:
Fear not, thou didst them unto Me.'"
But it is not merely in the lyrical productions of his muse that
Montgomery has indicated the deep feeling of piety that lives as a
higher life in him; in every one of those larger and very beautiful
poems, in which we might have rather supposed him bent on indulging
his literary ambition, and sitting down to a long and systematic piece
of labor, which should remain a monument of the more continuous, if
not higher flights of his genius, we perceive the same still higher
object of a sacred duty toward God and man. In no instance has he been
content merely to develop his poetical powers, merely to aim at
amusing and delighting. Song has been to him a holy vocation, an art
practiced to make men wiser and better, a gift held like that of the
preacher and the prophet, for the purposes of heaven and eternity. In
every one of those productions are still recognized the zealous and
devoted spirit of one of that indefatigable and self-renouncing
people, who from the earliest ages of the Christian Church have trod
the path of persecution, and won the burning crown of martyrdom; and
in the present age continue to send out from their still retreats in
Europe an increasing and untiring succession of laborers, male and
female, to the frozen regions of the north, and to the southern wilds
of Africa, to civilize and Christianize those rude tribes, which
others, bearing the Christian name, have visited only to enslave or
extirpate. The Wanderer of Switzerland, the poem which first won him a
reputation, was a glowing lyric of liberty, and denunciation of the
diabolical war-spirit of the revolutionary French. It was animated by
the most sacred love of country, and of the hallowed ground and
hallowed feelings of the domestic hearth. The West Indies was a heroic
poem, on one of the most heroic acts which ever did honor to the
decrees of a great nation--the abolition of the slave-trade. But it
was a work not merely of triumph over what was done, but of incentive
to what yet remained to do--to the abolition of slavery itself. Time
has shown what a stupendous mustering of national powers that
achievement has demanded. What a combination of all the eloquence, and
wisdom, and exertions, of all the wisest, noblest, and best men of,
perhaps, the most glorious period of our history, was needed! Time has
shown that the very slave-trade was only abolished on paper. That like
a giant monster, that hideous traffic laughed at our enactments, and
laughs at them still, having nearly quadrupled the number of its
annual victims since the great contest against it was begun. But among
those whose voice and spirit have been in fixed and perpetual
operation against this vile cannibal commerce, none have more
effectually exercised their influence than James Montgomery. His poem,
arrayed in all the charms and graces of his noble art, has been read
by every genuine lover of genuine poetry. It has sunk into the
generous heart of youth; and who shall say in how many it has been in
after-years the unconscious yet actual spring of that manly demand for
the extinction of the wrongs of the African, which all good men in
England, and wherever the English language is read, still make, and
will make till it be finally accomplished. What fame of genius can be
put in competition with the profound satisfaction of a mind conscious
of the godlike privilege of aiding in the happiness of man in all ages
and regions of the earth, and feeling that it has done that by giving
to its thoughts the power and privileges of a spirit, able to enter
all houses at all hours, and stimulate brave souls to the bravest
deeds of the heroism of humanity?
There are great charms of verse displayed in the poem of The West
Indies. One would scarcely have believed the subject of the
slave-trade capable of them. But the genial, glowing descriptions of
the West-Indian islands, of the torrid magnificence of the interior of
Africa--
"Regions immense, unsearchable, unknown--
Amid the splendors of the solar zone;
A world of wonders,--where creation seems
No more the work of Nature, but her dreams,--
Great, wild, and wonderful."
The white villains of Europe, desecrating the name of
Christian--Spaniards, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Danes, and
Portuguese, all engaged in the brutal traffic, are all sketched with
the same vigorous pencil; but the portraiture of the Creole is a
master-piece, and I quote it because it still is not a mere picture,
but a dreadful reality in the shape of Brazilian and North American,
on which the humane can not too fully reflect. If any one would see
all that is here described, he has only now to make a ten days'
voyage, and he will see it on an enormous scale in the southern states
of the _Free_ Republic of North America, as well as on the plains
of the more torrid south.
"Lives there a reptile baser than the slave?
--Lothsome as death, corrupted as the grave;
See the dull Creole, at his pompous board,
Attendant vassals cringing round their lord;
Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close,
Voluptuous minions fan him to repose;
Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain,
Delirious slumbers mock his maudlin brain;
He starts in horror from bewildering dreams;
His bloodshot eye with fire and frenzy gleams;
He stalks abroad; through all his wonted rounds,
The negro trembles, and the lash resounds,
And cries of anguish, thrilling through the air,
To distant fields his dread approach declare.
Mark, as he passes, every head reclined;
Then slowly raised--to curse him from behind.
This is the veriest wretch on nature's face,
Owned by no country, spurned by every race;
The tethered tyrant of one narrow span;
The bloated vampire of a living man:
His frame,--a fungus form of dunghill birth,
That taints the air, and rots above the earth;
His soul;--has _he_ a soul, whose sensual breast
Of selfish passions is a serpent's nest?
Who follows headlong, ignorant and blind,
The vague, brute instincts of an idiot mind;
Whose heart 'mid scenes of suffering senseless grown,
Even from his mother's lap was chilled to stone;
Whose torpid pulse no social feelings move;
A stranger to the tenderness of love;
His motley harem charms his gloating eye,
Where ebon, brown, and olive beauties vie:
His children, sprung alike from sloth and vice,
Are born his slaves, and loved at market price:
Has _he_ a soul?--With his departing breath
A form shall hail him at the gates of death,
The specter Conscience,--shrieking through the gloom,
'Man, we shall meet again beyond the tomb!'"
There are few more pathetic passages in the English language than
these, describing the labors and the extinctions of the Charib
tribes:--
"The conflict o'er, the valiant in their graves,
The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves:
--Condemned in pestilential cells to pine,
Delving for gold amid the gloomy mine.
The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath,
Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death;
--Condemned to fell the mountain palm on high,
That cast its shadow from the evening sky,
Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke,
The woodman languished, and his heart-strings broke;
--Condemned in torrid noon, with palsied hand,
To urge the slow plough o'er the obdurate land,
The laborer, smitten by the sun's fierce ray,
A corpse along the unfinished furrow lay.
O'erwhelmed at length with ignominious toil,
Mingling their barren ashes with the soil,
Down to the dust the Charib people passed,
Like autumn foliage, withering in the blast;
The whole race sunk beneath the oppressor's rod,
And left a blank among the works of GOD."
When we bear in mind that these beautiful passages of poetry are not
the mere ornamental descriptions of things gone by and done with;
but that, though races are extinguished, and millions of negroes,
kidnapped to supply their loss, have perished in their misery, the
horrors and outrages of slavery remain, spite of all we have done to
put an end to them,--we can not too highly estimate the productions of
the muse which are devoted to the cause of these children of misery
and sorrow, nor too often return to their perusal. According to the
calculations of the Anti-slavery Society, there were, half-a-century
ago, when the anti-slavery operations began, _from two to three
millions of slaves in the world_; there are now said to be FROM SIX
TO SEVEN MILLIONS! There were then calculated to be _one hundred
thousand slaves annually ravished from Africa_; there are now
calculated to be FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND ANNUALLY! With these awful
facts before us, I fear it will be long before the eloquent appeals of
such writers as Montgomery and Cowper will cease to possess a living
interest.
In the World before the Flood, and Greenland, the same great purpose
of serving the cause of virtue is equally conspicuous. The one relates
the contests and triumphs of the good over the vicious in the
antediluvian ages, and is full of the evidences of a fine imagination
and a lofty piety. Many think this the greatest of Mr. Montgomery's
productions. It abounds with beauties which we must not allow
ourselves to particularize here. In Greenland he celebrates the
missionary labors of the body to which his parents and his brother
belonged. In the Pelican Island he quitted his favorite versification,
the heroic, in which he displays so much force and harmony, and
employed blank verse. There is less human interest in this poem, but
it is, perhaps, the most philosophical of his writings, and gives
great scope to his imaginative and descriptive powers. He imagines
himself as a sort of spiritual existence, watching the progress of the
population of the world, from its inanimate state till it was thronged
with men, and the savage began to think, and to be prepared for the
visitation of the Gospel messengers of peace and knowledge. It may be
imagined that vast opportunity is given for the recital of the
wonders, awful and beautiful, of the various realms of nature--the
growth of coral islands and continents in the sea, and the varied
developments of life on the land. The last scene, with a noble savage
and his grandchild, in which the old man is smitten with a sense of
his immortality, and of the presence of God, and praying, is followed
in his act of devotion by the child, is very fine. But I must only
allow myself to quote, as a specimen of the style of this poem, so
different to all others by the same author, one of its opening
passages already referred to.
"I was a Spirit in the midst of these,
All eye, ear, thought; existence was enjoyment;
Light was an element of life, and air
The clothing of my incorporeal form,--
A form impalpable to mortal touch,
And volatile as fragrance from the flower,
Or music in the woodlands. What the soul
Can make itself at pleasure, that I was
A child in feeling and imagination;
Learning new lessons still, as Nature wrought
Her wonders in my presence. All I saw,
Like Adam, when he walked in Paradise,
I knew and named by surest intuition.
Actor, spectator, sufferer, each in turn,
I ranged, explored, reflected. Now I sailed,
And now I soared; anon, expanding, seemed
Diffused into immensity, yet bound
Within a space too narrow for desire.
The mind, the mind, perpetual themes must task,
Perpetual power impel, and hope allure.
I and the silent sun were here alone,
But not companions: high and bright he held
His course: I gazed with admiration on him--
There all communion ended; and I sighed
To feel myself a wanderer without aim,
An exile amid splendid desolation,
A prisoner with infinitude surrounded."
James Montgomery was born November 4th, 1771, in the little town of
Irvine, in Ayrshire; a place which has also had the honor of giving
birth to John Galt, and of being for about six months the abode of
Robert Burns, when a youth, who was sent there to learn the art and
mystery of flax-dressing, but his master's shop being burned, he
quitted Irvine and that profession at the same time. The house in
which Burns resided does not seem to be now very positively known, but
it was in the Glasgow Vennel. The house where Montgomery was born is
well known. It is in Halfway-street, and was pointed out to me by the
zealous admirer and chronicler of all that belongs to genius, Mr.
Maxwell Dick, of Irvine, in whose possession are some of the most
interesting of the autograph copies of Burns's Poems, especially the
Cotter's Saturday Night.
The house of Montgomery, at the time of his birth and till his fifth
year, was a very humble one. His father was the Moravian minister
there, and probably had not a large congregation. We know how the
ministers of this pious people will labor on in the most physically or
morally desolate scene, if they can hope but to win one soul. The
cottage is now inhabited by a common weaver, and consists of two rooms
only, on the ground-floor, one of which is occupied by the loom. The
chapel, which used to stand opposite, is now pulled down. This cottage
stands in a narrow alley, back from the street. Mr. Dick said he
accompanied Mr. Montgomery, some years ago, to this lowly cottage of
his birth, and that no sooner had he entered the first room, which
used to be, as it is still, the sitting-room, than the memory of his
childhood came strongly back upon him, and he sat down and recounted
various things which he recollected of the apartment, and of what had
taken place in it.
Yet, as we have said, he was sent thence in his fifth year to Grace
hill, a settlement still of the Moravian Brethren, near Ballymony, in
the county of Antrim, in Ireland; and in which the poet, I believe,
has at present a niece residing. In the following year he was again
removed to the seminary of the Brethren at Fulneck, in Yorkshire. Soon
after this his parents were sent out as missionaries to the West
Indies, to preach to the poor slave the consoling doctrine of another
and a better world, "where the wretched hear not the voice of the
oppressor," and "where the servant is free from his master." There
they both died. One lies in the island of Barbadoes, the other in
Tobago.
"Beneath the lion-star they sleep,
Beyond the western deep,
And when the sun's noon-glory crests the waves,
He shines without a shadow on their graves."
In the Fulneck academy, among a people remarkable for their ardor in
religion, and their industry in the pursuit of useful learning, James
Montgomery received his education. He was intended for the ministry,
and his preceptors were every way competent to the task of preparing
him for the important office for which he was designed. His studies
were various: the French, German, Latin, and Greek languages; history,
geography, and music: but a desire to distinguish himself as a poet
among his school-fellows, soon interfered with the plan laid out for
him. When ten years old he began to write verses, and continued to do
it with unabated ardor till the period when he quitted Fulneck in
1787; they were chiefly on religious subjects.
This early devotion to poetry, irresistible as it was, he was wont
himself to regard as the source of many troubles. That it retarded his
improvement at school, and finally altered his destination in life,
seducing him to exchange an almost monastic seclusion from society,
for the hurry and bustle of a world, which, for a time, seemed
disposed to repay him but ill for the sacrifice. We can not think that
his opinions of this change remain the same now. In whatever character
James Montgomery had performed his allotted work in this world, I am
persuaded that he would have performed it with the same conscientious
steadfastness. In his heart, the spirit of his pious parents, and of
that society in which he was educated, would have made him a faithful
servant of that Master whom he has so sincerely served. Whether he had
occupied a pulpit here, or had gone out to preach Christianity in some
far-off and savage land, he would have been the same man, faithful and
devout. But it may well be questioned whether in any other vocation he
could have been a tenth part as successfully useful as he has been.
There was need of him in the world, and he was sent thither, spite of
parentage, education, and himself There was a talent committed to him
that is not committed to all. He was to be a minister of God, but it
was to be from the hallowed chair of poetry, and not from the pulpit.
There was a voice to be raised against slavery and vice, and that
voice was to perpetuate itself on the rhythmical page, and to kindle
thousands of hearts with the fire of religion and liberty long after
his own was cold. There was a niche reserved for him in the temple of
poetry, which no other could occupy. It was that of a bard who,
freeing his most religious lays from dogmas, should diffuse the love
of religion by the religion of love. He himself has shown how well he
knew his appointed business, and how sacredly he had resolved to
discharge it, when, in A Theme for a Poet, he asks,--
"What monument of mind
Shall I bequeath to deathless fame,
That after-times may love my name?"
And after detailing the characteristics of the principal poets of the
age, he adds:--
"Transcendent masters of the lyre!
Not to your honors I aspire;
Humbler, yet higher views
Have touched my spirit into flame;
The pomp of fiction I disclaim:
Fair Truth! be thou my muse:
Reveal in splendor deeds obscure--
Abase the proud, exalt the poor.
"I sing the men who left their home,
Amid barbarian tribes to roam,
Who land and ocean crossed,--
Led by a loadstar, marked on high
By Faith's unseen, all-seeing eye,--
To seek and save the lost;
Where'er the curse on Adam spread.
To call his offspring from the dead.
"Strong in the great Redeemer's name,
They bore the cross, despised the shame;
And, like their Master here,
Wrestled with danger, pain, distress,
Hunger, and cold, and nakedness,
And every form of fear;
To feel his love their only joy.
To tell that love their sole employ."
The highest ambition of James Montgomery was, then, to do that by his
pen which his brethren did by word of mouth. He had not abandoned that
great object to which he had as an orphan been, as it were, dedicated
by those good men in whose hands he had been left; he had only changed
the mode of attaining it. At the very time that he quitted their
tranquil asylum and broke forth into the world, he was, unknown to
himself and them, following the unseen hand of Heaven. His lot was
determined, and it was not to go forth into the wilderness of the
north or south, of Labrador or South Africa, but of the active world
of England. There wanted a bold voice, of earnest principle, to be
raised against great oppressions; a spirit of earnest duty, to be
infused into the heart of poetic literature; and a tone of heavenly
faith and confidence given to the popular harp, for which thousands of
hearts were listening in vain; and he was the man. That was the work
of life assigned to him. He was to be still of the UNITAS
FRATRUM--still a missionary;--and how well has he fulfilled his
mission!
Fulneck, the chief settlement of the Moravian Brethren in England, at
which we have seen that Montgomery continued till his sixteenth year,
is about eight miles from Leeds. It was built about 1760, which was
near the time of the death of Count Zinzendorf. It was then in a fine
and little inhabited country. It is now in a country as populous as a
town, full of tall chimneys vomiting out enormous masses of soot,
rather than smoke, and covering the landscape as with an eternal veil
of black mist. The villages are like towns, for extent. Stone and
smoke are equally abundant. Stone houses, door-posts, window-frames,
stone floors, and stone stairs, nay, the very roofs are covered with
stone slabs, and when they are new, are the most complete drab
buildings. The factories are the same. Where windows are stopped up,
it is with stone slabs. The fences to the fields are stone walls, and
the gate-posts are stone, and the stiles are stones, reared so close
to one another, that it is tight work getting through them. Not a bit
of wood is to be seen, except the doors, water-spouts, and huge
water-butts, which are often hoisted in front of the house, on the
level of the second floor, on strong stone rests. The walls, as well
as wooden frames in the fields, are clothed with long pieces of cloth,
like horses, and women stand mending holes or smoothing off knots in
them, as they hang. Troops of boys and girls come out of the factories
at meal-times, as blue as so many little blue devils--hands, faces,
clothes, all blue, from weaving the fresh-dyed yarn. The older
mill-girls go cleaner and smarter, all with colored handkerchiefs tied
over their heads, chiefly bright red ones, and look very continental.
Dirty rows of children sit on dirty stone door-sills, and there are
strong scents of oat-cake and Genoa oil, and oily yarn. There is a
general smut of blackness over all, even in the very soil and dust.
And Methodist chapels--Salems and Ebenezers--are seen on all hands.
Who, that has ever been into a cloth-weaving district, does not see
the place and people?
Well, up to the very back of Fulneck, throng these crowds and
attributes of cloth manufacturing. Leaving the coach and the
high-road, I walked on three miles to the left, through this busy
smoke-land, and a large village, and then over some fields. Everywhere
were the features of a fine country, but like the features o the
people, full of soot, and with volumes of vapor rolling over it.
Coming, at length, to the back of a hill, I saw emerging, close under
my feet, a long row of stately roofs, with a belfry or cupola, crowned
with a vane in the center. These were the roofs of the Moravian
settlement of Fulneck, the back of which was toward me, and the front
toward a fine valley, on the opposite slope of which were fine woods,
and a fine old brick mansion. That is the house, and that the estate
of a Mr. Tempest, who will have no manufactory on his land. This is
the luckiest tempest that ever was heard of; for it keeps a good open
space in front of Fulneck clear, though it is elbowed up at each end,
and backed up behind with factories, and work-people's houses; and
even beyond Mr. Tempest's estate, you see other tall, soot-vomiting
chimneys rearing themselves on other ridges; and the eternal veil of
Cimmerian smoke-mist floats over the fair, ample, and beautifully
wooded valley, lying between the settlement and these swarthy
apparitions of the manufacturing system, which seem to long to step
forward and claim all--ay, and finally to turn Fulneck into a
weaving-mill, as they probably will, one day.
The situation, were it not for these circumstances, is fine. It has
something monastic about it. The establishment consists of one range
of buildings, though built at various times. There are the school,
chapel, master's house, etc., in the center, of stone, and a sister's
and brother's house, of brick, at each end, with various cottages
behind. A fine broad terrace-walk extends along the front, a furlong
in length, being the length of the buildings, from which you may form
a conception of the stately scale of the place, which is one-eighth of
a mile long. From this descend the gardens, playgrounds, etc., down
the hill for a great way, and private walks are thence continued as
far again, to the bottom of the valley, where they are further
continued along the brook-side, among the deep woodlands. The valley
is called the Tong Valley; the brook, the Tong; and Mr. Tempest's
house, on the opposite slope, Tonghall.
At the left hand, and as you stand in front of the building, looking
over the valley, lies the burial-ground, or, as they would call it in
Germany, the "Friedhof," or court of peace. It reminded me much of
that of Herrnhut, except that it descends from you, instead of
ascending. It is covered with a rich green turf, is planted round and
down the middle with sycamore-trees, and has a cross-walk, not two or
three, like Herrnhut. I asked Mr. Wilson, the director, who walked
with me, whether this arrangement had not, originally, a
meaning--these walks forming a cross. He said he believed it had, and
that the children were buried in a line, extending each way from the
center perpendicular walk, along the cross-walk, from a sentimental
feeling that they were thus laid peculiarly in the arms of Jesus, and
in the protection of his cross. The grave-stones are laid flat, just
as at Herrnhut, and of the same size and fashion. Here, however, we
miss that central row of venerable tombs, of the Zinzendorf family,
and those simple memorial stones lying around them, every one of which
bears a name of patriarchal renown in the annals of this society of
devoted Christians. Yet, even here, we can not avoid feeling that we
walk amid the ashes of the faithful descendants of one of the most
remarkable and most ancient branches of God's church, whose history
Montgomery has so impressively sketched in a few lines:--
"When Europe languished in barbarian gloom,
Beneath the ghostly tyranny of Rome,
Whose second empire, cowled and mitred, burst
A phoenix from the ashes of the first;
From persecution's piles, by bigots fired,
Among Bohemian mountains Truth retired.
There, mid rude rocks, in lonely glens obscure,
She found a people, scattered, scorned, and poor;
A little flock through quiet valleys led,
A Christian Israel in the desert fed;
While roaming wolves that scorned the shepherd's hand,
Laid waste God's heritage through every land.
With those the lonely exile sojourned long;
Soothed by her presence, solaced by her song,
They toiled through danger, trials, and distress,
A band of virgins in the wilderness,
With burning lamps amid their secret bowers,
Counting the watches of the weary hours,
In patient hope the Bridegroom's voice to hear,
And see his banner in the clouds appear.
But when the morn returning chased the night,
These stars that shone in darkness, sunk in light.
Luther, like Phosphor, led the conquering day,
His meek forerunners waned, and passed away.
"Ages rolled by; the turf perennial bloomed
O'er the lorn relics of those saints entombed:
No miracle proclaimed their power divine,
No kings adorned, no pilgrims kissed their shrine;
Cold, and forgotten, in their grave they slept:
But God remembered them:--their Father kept
A faithful remnant; o'er their native clime
His Spirit moved in his appointed time;
The race revived at his almighty breath,
A seed to serve him from the dust of death.
'Go forth, my sons, through heathen realms proclaim
Mercy to sinners in a Savior's name.'
Thus spoke the Lord; they heard and they obeyed.
--Greenland lay wrapped in nature's heaviest shade;
Thither the ensign of the cross they bore;
The gaunt barbarians met them on the shore
With joy and wonder, hailing from afar,
Through polar storms, the light of Jacob's star."
The internal arrangements of the establishment are just the same as at
all their settlements. The chapel, very much like a Friends' meeting,
only having an organ; and the bedrooms of the children as large,
ventilated from the roof, and furnished with the same rows of single,
curtainless beds, with white coverlets, reminding you of the
sleeping-rooms of a nunnery.
My reception, though I took no introduction, was most kind and
cordial. The brethren and sisters were well acquainted with the
writings of both Mrs. Howitt and myself, and, of course, with our
visit to Herrnhut. They have here about seventy boys and fifty girls,
as pupils, who had just returned from the midsummer holydays, and
were, many of them, very busy in their gardens. As I heard their merry
voices, and caught the glance of their bright, eager eyes among the
trees, I wondered how many would look back hereafter to this quiet,
sweet place, and exclaim, with the poet who first met the muse here--
"Days of my childhood, hail!
Whose gentle spirits wandering here,
Down in the visionary vale
Before mine eyes appear,
Benignly pensive, beautifully pale:
O days forever fled, forever dear,
Days of my childhood, hail!"
When Montgomery removed from Fulneck, says a memoir, to which the poet
has directed my attention as accurate in its facts, the views of his
friends were so far changed, that we find him placed by them in a
retail shop, at Mirfield, near Wakefield. Here, though he was treated
with great kindness, and had only too little business, and too much
leisure to attend to his favorite pursuit, he became exceedingly
disconsolate, and after remaining in his new situation about a year
and a half, he privately absconded, and with less than five shillings
in his pocket, and the wide world before him, began his career in
pursuit of fame and fortune. His ignorance of mankind, the result of
his retired and religious education; the consequent simplicity of his
manners, and his forlorn appearance, exposed him to the contempt of
some, and to the compassion of others to whom he applied. The
brilliant bubble of patronage, wealth, and celebrity, which floated
before his imagination, soon burst, and on the fifth day of his
travels, he found a situation similar to the one he had left, at the
village of Wath, near Rotherham. A residence in London was the object
of his ambition; but wanting the means to carry him thither, he
resolved to remain in the country till he could procure them.
Accordingly, he wrote to his friends among the Moravian Brethren, whom
he had forsaken, requesting them to recommend him to his new master,
conscious that they had nothing to allege against him, excepting the
imprudent step of separating himself from them; and not being under
articles at Mirfield, he besought them not to compel him to return. He
received from them the most generous propositions of forgiveness, and
an establishment more congenial to his wishes. This he declined,
frankly explaining the causes of his late melancholy, but concealing
the ambitious motives which had secretly prompted him to withdraw from
their benevolent protection. Finding him unwilling to yield, they
supplied his immediate necessities, and warmly recommended him to the
kindness of the master he had chosen. It was this master, with whom he
remained only twelve months, that, many years afterward, in the most
calamitous period of Montgomery's life, sought him out amid his
misfortunes, not for the purpose of offering consolation only, but of
serving him substantially by every means in his power. The interview
which took place between the old man and his former servant, the
evening previous to his trial at Doncaster, will ever live in the
remembrance of him who could forget an injury, but not a kindness. No
father could have evinced a greater affection for a darling son; the
tears he shed were honorable to his feelings, and were the best
testimony to the conduct and integrity of James Montgomery.
From Wath he removed to London, having prepared his way by sending a
volume of his manuscript poems to Mr. Harrison, then a bookseller in
Paternoster-row. Mr. Harrison, who was a man of correct taste and
liberal disposition, received him into his house, and gave him the
greatest encouragement to cultivate his talents, but none to publish
his poems; seeing, as he observed, no probability that the author
would acquire either fame or fortune by appearing at that time before
the public. The remark was just; but it conveyed the most unexpected
and afflicting information to our youthful poet, who yet knew little
of the world, except from books, and who had permitted his imagination
to be dazzled with the accounts which he had read of the splendid
success and magnificent patronage which poets had formerly
experienced. He was so disheartened by this circumstance, that, on
occasion of a misunderstanding with Mr. Harrison, he, at the end of
eight months, quitted the metropolis, and returned to Wath, where he
was received with a hearty welcome by his former employer. While in
London, having been advised to turn his attention to prose, as more
profitable than verse, he composed an Eastern story, which he took one
evening to a publisher in the east end of the town. Being directed
through the shop, to the private room of the great man, he presented
his manuscript in form. The prudent bookseller read the title, marked
the number of pages, counted the lines in a page, and made a
calculation of the whole; then, turning to the author, who stood in
astonishment at this summary mode of deciding on the merit of a work
of imagination, he very civilly returned the copy, saying, "Sir, your
manuscript is too small--it won't do for me--take it to K----, he
publishes those kind of things." Montgomery retreated with so much
confusion from the presence of the bookseller, that in passing through
the shop, he dashed his unfortunate head against a patent lamp, broke
the glass, spilled the oil, and making an awkward apology to the
shopmen, who stood tittering behind the counter, to the no small
mortification of the poor author, he rushed into the street, equally
unable to restrain his vexation or his laughter, and retired to his
home, filled with chagrin at this ludicrous and untoward misfortune.
From Wath, where Montgomery had sought only a temporary residence, he
removed in 1792, and engaged himself with Mr. Gales of Sheffield, who
then printed a newspaper, in which popular politics were advocated
with great zeal and ability. To this paper he contributed essays and
verses occasionally; but though politics sometimes engaged the service
of his hand, the muses had his whole heart, and he sedulously
cultivated their favor; though no longer with those false, yet
animating hopes, which formerly stimulated his exertions. In 1794,
when Mr. Gales left England, a gentleman, to whom Montgomery was an
almost entire stranger, enabled him to undertake the publication of
the paper on his own account: but it was a perilous situation on which
he entered; the vengeance which was ready to burst upon his
predecessor, soon fell upon him.
At the present day it would scarcely be believed, were it not to be
found in the records of a court of justice, that in 1795, Montgomery
was convicted of a libel on the war then carrying on between Great
Britain and France, by publishing, at the request of a stranger whom
he had never seen before, a song written by a clergyman of Belfast,
_nine months before the war began_. This fact was admitted in the
court; and though the name of this country did not occur in the libel,
nor was there a single note or comment of any kind whatever affixed to
the original words, which were composed at the time and in censure of
the Duke of Brunswick's proclamation and march to Paris, he was
pronounced _guilty_, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment,
and a fine of £20. Mr. M. A. Taylor presided on this occasion. The
first verdict delivered by the jury, after an hour's deliberation, was
"_Guilty of publishing_." This verdict, tantamount to an
acquittal, they were directed to reconsider, and to deduce the
malicious intention, not from the circumstances attending the
publication, but from the words of the song. Another hour's
deliberation produced the general verdict of "_Guilty_." This
transaction requires no comment.
Scarcely had Montgomery returned to his home, when he was again called
upon to answer for another offense. A riot took place in the streets
of Sheffield, in which, unfortunately, two men were shot by the
military. In the warmth of his feelings he detailed the dreadful
occurrence in his paper. The details were deemed a libel, and he was
again sentenced to six months' imprisonment, and a fine of thirty
pounds. The magistrate who prosecuted him on this occasion is now
dead, and Montgomery would be the last man in the world who could
permit any thing to be said here, in justification of himself, which
might seem to cast a reflection on the memory of one, who afterward
treated him with the most friendly attention, and promoted his
interest by every means in his power.
The active imagination of Montgomery had induced him to suppose that
the deprivation of liberty was the loss of every earthly good; in
confinement he learned another lesson, and he bore it with fortitude
and cheerfulness. In York Castle he had opportunities of amusement, as
well as leisure for study; and he found kindness, consolation, and
friendship within the walls of a prison. During confinement he wrote,
and prepared for the press, a volume of poems, which he published, in
1797, under the title of Prison Amusements; but his spirits and hopes
were now so broken that he made no exertion to recommend this work to
the public.
I went in August, 1845, to visit York Castle, with the particular
object of seeing the room which Montgomery occupied during his last
imprisonment, and where he wrote the Prison Amusements, and by his own
description of it corrected a curious mistake which the keepers had
made. "The room which I occupied," said Mr. Montgomery to me, "is up
stairs, and is distinguished by a round window between two Ionic
pillars, at the end of the building nearest to the city and Clifford's
Tower, and facing the courthouse." On requesting the turnkey to show
me that as the room where Montgomery had been confined, he assured me
that it was not the room, but the true place was the corresponding
room at the opposite end of the building. It was not easy to persuade
him. He went to the gatekeeper, who supported his view of the case,
assuring me that his father was turnkey at the time, and that it was
well known, and had been always shown as Montgomery's room. There
could be no mistake. I asked them if they thought it possible that a
man could be shut up six months in a prison, and after fifty years
could give so exact a description of the spot as Montgomery had given
me--showing the above identification in my note-book, as written down
from Montgomery's statement at the moment--and be mistaken? But men in
authority are not readily convinced. What! could all the clever
turnkeys of York Castle, for fifty years almost to a day, have been
showing a wrong room to thousands of visitors? Impossible! I was
therefore obliged to bring another impossibility to render their
impossibility more impossible, and that was the impossibility of
seeing through, not merely a stone wall, but a stone house. I told
them that Montgomery said that he could see the meadows along the Ouse
from his window; and that such intense longings for liberty did the
sight of people taking their walks there daily give him, that the
moment he was liberated he hurried out of the court, descended to the
Ouse, and perambulated its banks just where he had seen the people so
often walking. This was a poser. It was only from the window described
by Montgomery that any such view could be obtained. Facing it, was
merely the court wall, over which the river could be seen; but facing
the other window stood the court-house--that was a terribly stout
impossibility; and so the lords of locks and bolts gave up the point,
and said, "Well, it was very odd that every body should have been
wrong for fifty years, and that the room should be wrong--how
_could_ it have got wrong?" That is an interesting question,
which, perhaps, in the course of the next half-century their united
wisdom may contrive to set right.
The castle is a spacious affair. It consists of buildings of different
dates and styles, and an ample court. No part of it is old, except a
large round tower, called Clifford's Tower, which stands on a mount
just within the walls. The rest consists of four buildings. One is the
court-house, in which the county assizes are held, parallel with the
river Ouse, from which it is but a few hundred yards distant. Opposite
to this is what was once the felons' and crown-prisoners' prison; a
building with several Ionic columns in the center, and two at each
end. This is now chiefly occupied by a turnkey's family, and the
female prisoners. The large area between these buildings is closed at
one end by the debtors' prison, and at the other by Clifford's Tower.
Between the tower and the turnkey's house just mentioned, stands the
new felons' prison. This, as well as the outer court walls and
entrance-gate, is built of solid stone in castellated style. The room
occupied by Montgomery is now in the turnkey's house, and is the
bedroom of the servant.
The felons' prison is much in the shape of a fan, forming alternate
ranges of cells and court-yards, where the prisoners walk in the
daytime. The assizes being just over, there were scarcely any
prisoners in the jail except those convicted and awaiting their
punishments, of which none were capital, but most of them
transportation. These men were all clothed in the convict's dress, a
jacket and trowsers of coarse cloth, of broad green and yellow check.
They were mostly basking in the sun in groups, on the pavement of
their respective court-yards, and appeared any thing but sad. The
whole prison seemed as if hewed out of solid stone; and everywhere
were gates of iron, closing with a clang and a twank of the lock
behind you, which must sound any thing but cheering to a prisoner just
conducted in. The openings into the different court-yards were filled
with massy iron railing; and the pavements, walls, every thing else,
was one mass of solid stone. Many of the stones in the wall were nine
feet long, and of proportionate quadrature. The chapel presented a
range of partitions with strong bars, as for a wild beast's den, in
front, and doors behind, so that the prisoners from separate cells are
let in there, and can not get sight of each other. The partition for
the women is boarded up in front, so that they are quite unseen,
except to the preacher. The windows were everywhere, as it were, a
complete network of knotted iron bars; and the dining-rooms of the
prisoners were those long winding passages of massy stone, along which
we went to their cells. In these, with the iron gates locked behind
them, they stand at a long, narrow board fixed to the wall, about the
width of a plate, and take their meals. No place surely was at once so
clean, and so hopelessly ponderous and strong. The very idea of it
seemed to weigh on one like a nightmare, and make one stretch ourself,
as for a sense of freedom.
The few women who were in prison, were, of course, convicts. They all
rose at our entrance into their room, where they were all together,
and courtesied very respectfully, and if one were to judge from their
countenances, we could not think them very criminal. The men seemed
hardy, reckless, and inclined to be insolent, for every word uttered
in passing along these courts of solid stone was flung back from wall
to wall, and was heard in the remotest corners; and more than once, we
heard the convicts take up our words, imitate them in a burlesque
style, and then join in laughter at their own audacity. There were
numbers of them that we should not be glad to meet in a solitary wood.
But the women, had I not known that they were convicts, I should have
regarded as a set of as decent, modest, and honest women of the
working class as one usually sees. There was no expression of hardened
guilt or gross depravity about them. A thoroughly debased woman is one
of the most revolting objects in creation; but how rarely is woman's
nature so thoroughly degraded! How long do the feminine qualities of
gentleness and amiability outlive in them the temptations and
incentives to crime! How often are they the tools and victims of men,
and how often and readily might they be called back from error to the
purest and most devoted virtue!
The beds of all the prisoners were laid on iron frames, supported on
solid stones, so that they could cut no wood from them for any
purposes of escape. Everywhere, above and below, all was stone, stone,
solid stone, and bars of massy iron; and yet out of even this place
there have been escapes.
But the most extraordinary scene in the whole place is an iron cage in
the lobby of the keeper's house, containing the irons of the most
signal malefactors, and the weapons with which they committed their
murders. There are Dick Turpin's shackles, with a massy bar of iron,
about two feet long, and more than twenty-eight pounds' weight, which
were put on his legs when he had twice escaped out of the castle; and
a girdle of iron to put round his waist, with chains and iron
handcuffs for his hands. There is the most horrid collection of
hedge-stakes, huge and knotted pieces of rails, of pokers, and
hammers, of guns, and knives, and razors, with which murders have been
perpetrated, each of which the jailer relates. There is a huge piece
of a spar and a heavy stone with which one murderer destroyed his
victim. The stakes with which three men knocked out the brains of
another in a wood. There is a stone, I suppose ten pounds' weight, at
least, hanging by the cord which a mother put round the neck of her
infant, and sunk it to the bottom of a pond. There is a piece of the
skull of Daniel Clarke, murdered, as it is said, by Eugene Aram; and
hats battered in, or shot through by the assassin. There are iron
bludgeons terminated with knobs of lead, to conceal under coats; and
crowbars bent at the end, to force open doors. These, with the casts
of the heads of some of the most noted murderers, form a sufficiently
horrible spectacle. It is a history of human ferocity and guilt,
actually written in iron and in blood, which still dyes the dreadful
instruments of its perpetration with its dismal rust of death.
Escaping from this exhibition, I did not do as one of the visitors
said he must go and do--get a stout glass of brandy to rid him of his
queerness,--but I did as Montgomery did on escaping from the
prison,--went and walked along the footpath by the Ouse, under the
noble elms which he had so often seen waving in their greenness from
his cell.
From the period of his imprisonment in this place, Mr. Montgomery has
continued to reside in Sheffield. For the long period of
half-a-century he has been essentially bound up with the literary and
social progress of the place. Editing, for the greater part of that
period, the Iris newspaper, on which his name and writings conferred a
popular celebrity; and from time to time sending forth one of his
volumes of poetry, there is no question that the influence of his
taste and liberal opinions has been greatly instrumental in the growth
of that spirit of intelligence and moral culture which highly
distinguish Sheffield. With the religious world, as was to be
expected, James Montgomery has always stood in high esteem, and in the
most friendly relation. The names of Montgomery and Sheffield will
always mutually present each other to the mind of the man of taste.
Through his own exertions, the proceeds of his pen, and a small
pension of £150 a-year, in testimony of his poetic merit, the poor
orphan who set out from the little shop at Mirfield to seek fame and
fortune with less than five shillings in his pocket, has now for some
years retired to an enjoyment of both; and no man ever reached the
calm sunshine of life's evening with a purer reputation, or a larger
share of the grateful affection of his townsmen, or of the honor of
his countrymen in general. One of his oldest friends, from whose
written statements I have been enabled to draw some of the facts here
given, has sketched the following well merited character of James
Montgomery: "It may be said, that nature never infused into a human
composition a greater portion of kindness and general philanthropy. A
heart more sensibly alive to every better, as well as every finer
feeling, never beat in a human breast. Perhaps no two individuals, in
manners, pursuits, character, and composition, ever more exactly
corresponded with each other, than Montgomery and Cowper. The same
benevolence of heart, the same modesty of deportment, the same purity
of life, the same attachment to literary pursuits, the same fondness
for solitude and retirement from the public haunts of men; and to
complete the picture, the same ardent feeling in the cause of
religion, and the same disposition to gloom and melancholy. His
person, which is rather below the middle stature, is neatly formed;
his features have the general expression of simplicity and
benevolence, rendered more interesting by a hue of melancholy that
pervades them. When animated by conversation, his eye is uncommonly
brilliant, and his whole countenance is full of intelligence. He
possesses great command of language; his observations are those of an
acute and penetrating mind, and his expressions are frequently
strikingly metaphorical and eloquent. By all who see and converse with
him he is esteemed; by all who know him, he is beloved."
Strangers visiting Sheffield will have a natural curiosity to see
where Montgomery so many years resided, and whence he sent forth his
poems and his politics. That spot is in the Hartshead; one of the most
singular situations for such a man and purpose often to be met with.
Luckily, it is in the center of the town, and not far to seek. Going
up the High-street, various passages under the houses lead to one
common center--the Hartshead, a sort of _cul de sac_, having no
carriage-road through, but only one into it, and that not from the
main street. The shop, which used to be the Iris office, is of an odd
ogee shape, at the end of a row of buildings. It has huge ogee-shaped
windows, with great, dark-green shutters. The door is at the corner,
making it a three-cornered shop. It is now a pawnbroker's shop, the
door and all round hung with old garments. The shelves are piled with
bundles of pawned clothes, ticketed. The houses round this strange,
hidden court, in which it stands, are nearly all public houses, as the
Dove, and Rainbow, and the like, with low eating-houses, and dens of
pettifogging lawyers. From what funny corners do poetic lucubrations,
to say nothing of political ones, sometimes issue! The Hartshead seems
just one of that sort of places in which the singular orgies of the
working children of Sheffield, traced out by the Commissioners of
Inquiry into the condition of children and young persons in the
manufacturing districts, are held. "There are beer-houses," says the
Rev. Mr. Farish, "attended by youths exclusively, for the men will not
have them in the same houses with themselves. In those beer-houses the
youths of both sexes are encouraged to meet, and scenes destructive of
every vestige of virtue or morality ensue."
The sub-commissioner visited several of these places, attended by a
policeman. He says: "We commenced our visits at about half-past nine
at night. In the first place we entered, there were two rows of
visitors along each side of the room, amounting to forty or fifty.
They were almost entirely boys and girls under seventeen years old.
They were sitting together, every boy having apparently his companion
by his side. A tall woman, with one or two attendants, was serving
them with drink, and three or four men were playing on wind
instruments in a corner. Several boys were questioned as to their ages
and occupations. Some were grinders, some hafters, and a few had no
calling which it was convenient to name to the police. Some were as
young as fourteen, but mostly about fifteen or sixteen years old. The
younger children do not usually remain so late at these places. We
visited several others. In some they were singing, in others dancing,
in all drinking. In three successively they were playing at cards,
which the police seized. On one occasion we went into a long and
brilliantly lighted room, of which the ceiling was painted like a
bower. Benches and tables were ranged along the side of each wall.
This place was up a dark and narrow lane, and was crowded with young
people and men and women of notorious character. There must have been
a hundred persons there."
But from a glance at the orgies, which, spite of all that education
and the philanthropist have so long been doing, still are to be found
in the dark purlieus of the manufacturing town, we must hasten to bid
adieu to the poet of religion and refinement. James Montgomery resides
at the Mount, on the Glossop road, the WEST END of Sheffield.
It is, I suppose, at least a mile and a half from the old Iris office,
and is one regular ascent all the way. The situation is lovely, lying
high; and there are many pleasant villas built on the sides of the
hill in their ample pleasure-grounds, the abodes of the wealthy
manufacturers. The Mount, _par excellence_, is the house, or
rather terrace, where Montgomery lives. It is a large building, with a
noble portico of six fine Ionic columns, so that it looks a residence
fit for a prince. It stands in ample pleasure grounds, and looks over
a splendid scene of hills and valleys. The rooms enjoy this fine
prospect over the valleys of the Sheaf and Porter, which, however, was
obscured while I was there with the smoke blowing from the town.
In the drawing-room hangs the portrait of the Incognita, on whom the
beautiful lyric under that title was written, and which may be found
in the same volume as Greenland. As is there stated, he saw the
picture at Leamington; it hung, in fact, in his lodgings, and
completely fascinated his fancy--and no wonder. One may imagine the
poet, continually met on returning from his walks by that "vision of
delight," addressing it in the words of that charming poem.
It is evidently a family portrait, and is no doubt by Lely or Kneller,
probably by the latter; at all events by a master. It is of the size
of life, three-quarters figure; a slender young lady in a pale silk
dress. She is very beautiful, and the expression of her countenance is
extremely amiable. All that Mr. Montgomery could learn from his
landlady was, that it had belonged to Sir Charles Knightly of
Warwickshire; and there can, therefore, be little doubt that this
fascinating creature, fit to inspire any poet, was one of his family.
The landlady, no great judge of either beauty or art, said she was
willing to sell it for _two guineas_, and Montgomery, in a joyful
astonishment, at once paid her the money, and secured the prize.
Below Mr. Montgomery's house, on the other side of the road, lie the
botanic gardens. These stretching down the hillside, lie charmingly.
They are extensive and delightful. The kind and active poet, though in
his seventy-fifth year, would accompany me to see them. You enter by a
sort of Grecian portico, and to the right hand along the top of the
gardens, see a fine long conservatory, in which the palms,
parasitical, and other tropical plants are in the most healthy state.
The curator, a very sensible Scotchman, seemed to have a particular
pleasure in pointing out his plants to us. What struck me most was,
however, not so much the tropical plants, as the size to which he has
cultivated certain plants which we commonly see small. The common,
sweet-scented heliotrope, in a pot, was at least five feet high, and
had a stem quite woody, and at least an inch in diameter. It formed,
in fact, a tree, and being in full bloom, filled all the conservatory
with its odor. The fuchsias were the same, though this is not so
unusual. They were tied up to rods, and reaching to the very roof,
formed archways hung with their crimson blossoms. The scarlet
geraniums were the same; had stems nearly as thick as one's wrist, and
were not, I suppose, less than twelve feet high. How much superior to
the dwarf state in which we usually keep this magnificent plant! The
curator said that they cut all the side branches from these plants
quite close, in the autumn or early spring, and that they shoot out
afresh and flower.
The gardens themselves are extensive, beautifully varied, richly
stocked, and sloped with fine turf. In one place you come to secluded
waters and thickets; in another to an open wide lawn, all filled with
beds of every imaginable kind of roses in glowing masses; in another,
to the remains of the original forest, with its old trees and heathery
sward; and with fine views over the neighboring valleys in different
directions. It is a most delightful place for walking in, and is
naturally a great resort and luxury of the poet. We traversed it, I
suppose, for a couple of hours in all directions, and talked over a
multitude of poets and poetry. I was glad to find Montgomery as ardent
an admirer of Tennyson and of Moile's State Trials as myself, my
review of the latter poet in the Eclectic having first brought them
under his notice. At the gate of these pleasant gardens I take my
present adieu of James Montgomery, the most genuinely religious poet
of the age. With a wisdom, founded not on calculation, but on a sacred
sense of duty, he had made even his ambition subservient to his
aspirations as a Christian, and he has thus reared for himself a
pedestal in the poetic Walhalla of England peculiarly his own. The
longer his fame endures, and the wider it spreads, the better it will
be for virtue and for man.
[Illustration: Residence near Fiesole]