Is this picture overdrawn? We are ready to affirm again and again

that it is not; the annals of society scandals and the records of the

divorce courts show that it is not; for what difference is there but a

despicable and conventional one between the legalized re-marriage of a

guilty woman to her seducer, and the illegal union of so many unhappy

couples whose relations it is a breach of propriety even to mention?

This is womanhood outside the church. It is no more a fancy picture

than that other blessed one of the homes we have already praised, the

homes of honest work and perfect peace. The world, to secure a nation

of women bred in such homes, must turn to the church, and ask her to

teach it the secret of such womanhood. The secret is in the Gospels,

in the old hallowed traditions of the Hebrews, and in the fulfilled

evangelical counsels. Voluntary poverty is the safeguard of holy and

allowable wealth; voluntary obedience is the counterpart of lawful

freedom; voluntary chastity is the hidden grace that obtains for others

wedded love and a grave Christian home. The hostages of humanity are

praying in the cloisters for the commendable domestic happiness of

their numerous brethren, and, in proportion as the world scorns their

sacrifice, so does it lose the fruit of their prayers.

We have said that woman’s work should be decided, God willing, by her

capabilities. This is to say that more ways should be open to her

than are open now to improve the talents God may have given her. In a

great measure she can, and does, open these ways for herself, and an

energetic nature of course will, like water, sooner or later “find its

own level.” Still, many who have mental powers have little strength

in battling with life, and might be helped if their luckier sisters

would be a little less selfish in their easily acquired security.

Work means self-respect, and self-respect means success. There is no

one so proud as the woman who knows her own worth, and lifts herself

by this knowledge high above all sordid temptations. She will be

a good wife, for she will choose no man for a husband save on the

lofty principle of his own worthiness of her, while her estimate of

herself will unconsciously become his also. She will be a tribunal to

herself and to him, and the slightest wrong action or paltry motive

in either will take, in the eyes of the other, the proportions of a

blot on their self-esteem. She will be a good mother, for her standard

of superiority will be the first her children will know, and with

them it will be inseparably blent with their personal affection for

their mother. The home will thus be created on a footing that years

will strengthen as they pass, and the austere yet happy gravity of

a Christian household will become a hereditary tradition with the

children. But for all this, the basis of work is wanted—work of some

sort, voluntary occupation or necessary drudgery, it matters little.

It is the discipline, not the fact, of work which is essential, and in

this sense the rich and high-born may be as hard workers as the poor

seamstress or the factory-girl. Yet, since this labor question touches

the poor chiefly, it is for them we would chiefly speak. Woman’s work

is circumscribed by her physical powers, man’s is not. Therefore, in

all things that a woman can do as well as a man (and of course in all

those which she can do better), the preference should be given to her.

There are many trades in which men cut not only a very useless but a

most ridiculous figure, and which the fittingness of things would point

out as woman’s proper field. Everything relating to feminine clothing

comes under this head; and were this department wholly given over to

women, it would at once relieve the poverty and shield the virtue of

many homes, and also spare the public the absurd spectacle of strong

men engaged in handling delicate ribbons and filmy laces. Printing

and kindred trades have been found practicable for women, and we know

that watchmaking and jewellery work are also accessible to the “weaker

vessel.” Still, it has at present gone no further than this, that

women are associated with men in many employments. Now, we could wish

that there should be many trades of which they would have an exclusive

monopoly. In this we think there would be no inconvenience; at any

rate, no one could assert that there was until the system had been

given a fair trial.

Society, in its present state of godless disorganization, not only

affords very little help to women who are eager and willing to help

themselves, but positively, despite the loud boasting of the century

as having originated “woman-reform,” places barriers in their way.

For what else is it but a barrier to honest advancement that, when a

respectable and virtuous woman of pleasing appearance goes to apply for

some desirable situation offered by advertisement, she is often, very

often, insulted by disgusting propositions, and her very expressions

of indignant surprise put down as a part skilfully played by her

before the inevitable surrender? This has been repeatedly done, in

many cases successfully, for precautions had been taken beforehand

to cut off the victim’s retreat and drown her cries; in others, when

cowardice, the twin-sister of vice, has shrunk from the determined

attitude of a virtuous woman at bay, the effort has happily failed.

The public papers have sometimes—with their proverbial inefficiency

and spasmodic, theatrical manner of showing up an abuse they know it

will pay better to speak of than to act against—taken in hand this

outrage to civilization, and published letters from the aggrieved women

detailing the attempted insult, but how many more women, sensitive and

gentle, shrink with horror from putting into print an experience they

would gladly blot from their memory! It will be asked, what remedy can

be devised for this? Immediate remedy, perhaps none; but remotely,

the remedy of a newly formed habit of regarding women with at least

the same respect as men who earn their daily bread. Physical weakness

will always be an incentive to wicked men to insult unprotected

women—that is to say, the vices of fallen human nature will never be

wholly blotted out; and in this juncture, as in all others, the real

remedy is the influence and authority of the church. Nowhere more than

in Italy—that maligned country in which Protestants refuse to see

anything save the last stage of corruption brought on by an “effete

priesthood and a degraded religion”—is that touching charity known of

portioning poor girls and affording them temporary refuge while out of

employment. In Rome, this was one of the foremost Papal charities; the

Holy Father took an especial personal interest in it; the Roman ladies

vied with each other in enlarging the numbers of its recipients and

adding to the fund provided for its continuance. In Venice, it used

to be the affair of the Doge, who was conventionally father to all

the dowerless, and the sworn protector of impoverished and threatened

innocence. Many saints have made this their favorite charity, and many

Italian marriages in the higher grades of life are accompanied by

this crowning token of Christian brotherhood—the portioning and safe

marrying of a poor young girl who might have otherwise fallen a victim

to the licentiousness of some professional _roué_.

While it is to be deplored that the openings for female employment

should still be so restricted, it is still more to be lamented

that there are actually employments in which female labor is most

unwarrantably used. In mining districts, this is peculiarly the case.

There men and women work promiscuously, often with very little clothing

on, and with still less sense of decency and morality. Little girls are

brought up there with no knowledge of themselves as responsible moral

agents, and conscious only that their work is not quite so valuable

because their muscles are not quite so strong as those of their

companions. Ignorance of religion, of moral restraints, and of social

decencies, combine to make of these immortal beings only lithe savages,

less enduring than the negro, less clever than the Indian. For the

white race in some sense seems born to civilization, and when removed

from civilizing influences relapses into far more brutal savageness

than others. Again, we find the problem only solvable through the

influence of the church; for she who originally drew together the

nomad hordes of the North and East, and gathered from their ranks

the founders of empires, the lawgivers of her own system, and the

discoverers of the New World, is still the only mistress the dominant

race which she once civilized will ever again acknowledge. Christendom

has been rent in twain, and the Christian nations deprived of the bond

that once knit them in one vast confederation and unity of interests;

and until this whole has been restored, barbarism will struggle

periodically to the surface, and strive to regain that ascendency it

lost more than a thousand years ago. The abuses and horrors of female

labor in mining districts are a blot upon civilization which never

had any existence before the recent disruption of Christendom; for,

wherever an abuse reared its serpent head, the church was at least

there to protest, and exert her moral influence if not material force.

It is idle to object that she did not, as a matter of fact, quell all

abuses; this objection might be urged against the apparently frustrated

mission of our Lord himself, as far as immediate tangible reforms

were concerned, but the essential fact stands, that as long as the

church’s authority remained undisputed there was at least in the world

one tribunal which, being the acknowledged visible representative of

God, could brand beyond appeal all encroachments on the rights of the

defenceless, and wither the plans of cunning and cruelty against the

poor. To those defended, this was a consolation; to those upbraided, it

was at least a secret dread.

Having said so much upon the question of woman’s position as a

bread-winner, we can only end by acknowledging that whatever is to

be done will have to be done in fragments, and under the auspices

of private enterprise alone. We cannot expect that in the present

condition of the world any but individual efforts will be made for the

advancement of the weaker sex, nor can we anticipate any but partial

and isolated results. But, nevertheless, these efforts will not lack

their reward, and we, who in the eyes of the world are now working in

the dark, can be content with the knowledge that from these disjointed

earthly efforts God is silently building up a great spiritual temple

of rescued souls. It may be that we never shall succeed but in part,

but this is the fate of all workers at a perfect system, and need not

dismay us in the least. Theologians say that if the merits of our

Lord’s Incarnation and Passion had redeemed but the single soul of his

Blessed Mother, still such unheard-of merits would not therefore have

been in the least superfluously applied; and in the same way may we

humbly think of ourselves, that if each life spent in the effort of

bettering the condition and widening the intellectual horizon of woman

had no result save in the increased welfare of one individual, still

the labor of such a life would not have been in vain.

“ABRAHAM”—“ABRON”—“AUBURN.”

A SHAKESPEARIAN EXCURSUS.

_Merc._—“Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim.”—_Romeo and

Juliet_, act ii. sc. I.[83]

CERTAINLY, this very singular prefix to the ordinary appellation of

the god of love suggests difficulties of interpretation not easy of

solution. It would appear to be one of those cant phrases familiar

enough, we may presume, at a certain period, for, if not readily to

be understood, the poet was unlikely to make use of it in such a

connection. But the reason for its application has passed out of mind,

and all the commentators have been at a loss to discover its meaning.

Mr. Singer, editor of a well-known edition of the poet’s plays,

disposes of the embarrassment in a manner equally summary and, as it

seems to us, unsatisfactory. Accepting the suggestion of Mr. Upton,

another commentator, that the word “Abraham” should be “Adam,” these

critics agree in conferring upon Cupid a prænomen which it is clear

neither Shakespeare nor his early editors affixed to the name by which

he is usually known. It is equally certain that no other writer has

ever employed the term “Adam” in such a way. In this state of the case,

we seem still left to seek the meaning of the word “Abraham,” as thus

used. In order to exhibit the whole merits of the question, let us

subjoin the note of Mr. Singer in reference to it, and also that of Mr.

Richard Grant White, editor of an American edition of Shakespeare. Mr.

Singer remarks:

“All the old copies read _Abraham_ Cupid. The alteration was proposed

by Mr. Upton. It evidently alludes to the famous archer, Adam Bell. So

in Decker’s _Satiromastix_: ‘He shoots his bolt but seldom, but, when

Adam lets go, he hits.’ ‘He shoots at thee, too, Adam Bell; and his

arrows stick here.’ The ballad alluded to is ‘King Cophetua and the

Beggar Maid,’ or, as it is called in some copies, ‘The Song of a Beggar

and a King.’ It may be seen in the first volume of Percy’s _Reliques of

Ancient Poetry_. The following stanza Shakespeare had particularly in

view:

‘The _blinded_ boy, that _shoots so trim_,

From heaven down did hie;

He drew a dart, and shot at him,

In place where he did lie.’”

—_Singer’s Note._

Now, though it cannot be doubted that Shakespeare had in mind _the

blinded boy that shoots so trim_, as set forth in the ballad referred

to, nor that the expression “shot so trim” grew out of it, yet this

fact is far from affording good reason for the belief that he had

also Adam Bell in view, or that he had any thought of conferring the

Christian name of that noted outlaw upon Cupid himself. The presumption

would be that however _trim_ a bowman that “belted forestere” may have

been, yet the skill of Cupid in this respect is too preeminent and

well allowed, to admit of any compliment or illustration derived from

the name of the very best merely human archer who ever drew cloth-yard

shaft to ear. Mr. Singer appears to us, therefore, to have been misled

by a merely superficial analogy into too great confidence in an

improvident suggestion, when he ventured to substitute a conjectural

emendation of the text for a reading which was uniform in “all the old

copies.”

The note of Mr. White is as follows:

“Upton gave us the _Adam_ which takes the place of ‘Abraham’ in all the

current editions, except Mr. Knight’s. But, as Mr. Dyce says, there is

not the slightest authority for the change. The last-named gentleman

conjectures that ‘Abraham’ in this line is a corruption of _Auburn_; as

it is unquestionably in the following passages which he quotes:

‘Where is the oldest sonne of Pryam,

That Abraham coloured Troian? Dead.’

—_Soliman and Perseda_, 1599, sig. H, 3.

‘A goodlie, long, thicke Abram colored beard.’

—_Middleton’s Blurt_, _Master-Constable_, 1602, sig. D.

And in _Coriolanus_, act ii. sc. iii.

‘Not that our heads are some browns, some

blacke, some Abram,’

as we read in the first three folios.

“The suggestion is more than plausible; and we at least owe to Mr. Dyce

the efficient protection which it must give to the original text. Cupid

is always represented by the old painters as auburn-haired.”[84]

But Mr. White, it will be observed, begs the question as to the

passages quoted from other authors. These passages simply prove that

“Abraham coloured” and “Abram colored,” as applied to the hair and

the beard, were common enough expressions at and before the time of

Shakespeare. Besides, only conceive whether it would be characteristic

of Shakespeare to write so tamely as “Young auburn Cupid”!

In fact, the term in question must have had a pertinent, significant,

and peculiar meaning, well understood by his contemporaries.

Mr. Knight conceives the term _Abraham_ to be thus appropriated from

the vagrants and beggars called “Abraham-men,” who were too often

cheats;[85] and it is to be feared that he thus means us to imply

the propriety of the appellation in this instance, upon the ungallant

hypothesis that Cupid is himself the prince and chief exemplar of

deceivers in general. But this specific characteristic we have always

understood to belong to Mercury. For however, popularly, Cupid is

estimated as a gay deceiver, Mercury was held by the Greeks the god of

fraud and falsehood. The sailors have a phrase of “shamming Abraham”

when one of the crew shirks his duty on pretence of sickness or for any

other pretended excuse. No one seems to have thought of the possible

origin of this proverbial expression, as used in reference to the

beggars from whose habits it is evidently derived. It has occurred to

us that, since Abraham was the father of the faithful, that is, the

person most eminent for faith, his name may have been thus taken up, in

a manner savoring more of wit than of reverence, in relation to persons

disposed to live rather by _faith_ than by _works_—in fact, who showed

the amplitude of their trust in whatever might turn up, oftentimes in

a somewhat questionable shape, by doing no work at all. This would

manifestly be a sort of _shamming Abraham_.

But however this may be, since all the old copies read _Abraham_ Cupid,

and since the alteration of the text commended by Mr. Singer and others

cannot be justified upon any grounds which they offer, or in any other

mode, we must find some means of explaining the phrase as it stands,

or remain in the dark as to its true interpretation. Certainly the

matter is not at all cleared up by unauthorized substitution. Against

Mr. Knight’s theory, on the other hand, militates the plain fact

that, in every example cited, unless the one in controversy be taken

as an exception, the word stands for a certain _color_, and not as

qualifying any moral characteristic, or implying any personal defect.

There is a difficulty, besides, in the _auburn_ hypothesis which it

must be admitted is hard to get over. Supposing the word had been found

written as it is, nowhere but in these two passages of Shakespeare,

it might, perhaps, so pass muster. He might not very unnaturally be

thought to have put such a corrupt form of the word _auburn_ purposely

into the mouth of the worthy citizen in _Coriolanus_; and the term

_auburn_, in such a connection, but misprinted in the course of time,

might possibly be considered not absolutely inconsistent with the

character of Mercutio and the strain of his speech. But when we find

the same word used by two other writers contemporary with Shakespeare,

both of whom would be likely to know the correct form and so to write

it, if “Abraham” or “Abram” were merely a corrupt form of it, and

especially as in one of the examples it occurs in a serious passage of

a tragedy—it seems much more probable that the term “Abraham” itself,

as so applied, had its own distinct and well-understood meaning,

so familiar as to excite, at that period, no necessarily ludicrous

association. And that this term _Abraham_ was a cant phrase which

had come into common use is actually implied by the correspondent

expression in the preceding line of this very speech of Mercutio:

“Speak to my gossip, Venus, one fair word,

One _nickname_ for her purblind son and heir;

Young _Abraham_ Cupid, he that shot so trim.”

Now, it is obvious that _auburn_, as being a common adjective, could

constitute no nickname; whereas Abraham, as a noun proper, and at the

same time signifying a certain color, serves that purpose completely,

as, for example, _Cicero_, or _Nasica_.

We must own that a passage in Bishop Hall’s _Satires_ at first a little

puzzled us, viz.:

“A lustie courtier whose curled head

With _abron_ locks was fairly furnished.”[86]

But upon reflection it will be found that, although _abron_, at first

sight, looks much more like auburn than does either _Abraham_ or

_Abram_, and it might appear, therefore, to be, in fact, a less corrupt

form of that word than either of the other terms, yet, on the other

hand, _abron_ is itself both in form and sound much nearer _Abram_ than

it is to _auburn_, and may, therefore, be only a misspelt variation of

the first rather than of the second expression.

In this philological dilemma, we believe we are able to throw a gleam

of light on the obscurity; and, though the explanation is derived

from a source apparently remote, there is, nevertheless, good ground

for thinking it may prove satisfactory. We happen to have in our

possession a copy of the quarto edition of the Latin Dictionary

published at Cambridge, England, in 1693, which is the foundation of

those dictionaries of the Latin language in common use which have

succeeded it. The word _vitex_ is thus translated in it: “A kind of

withy or willow, commonly called agnus castus, in English, park-leaves,

_Abraham’s balm_, chaste or _hemp_ tree.”

Now, it is no less certain than melancholy to reflect upon that our

respected ancestry, like their descendants, were compelled to supply

the loss of hair by some adventitious covering, and that their periwigs

were sometimes perhaps commonly manufactured out of either the coarser

or the finer filament of flax or hemp, since those made of hair were

very costly. We are confident we have read of a splendid and no doubt

full-bottomed article of the latter material costing as much as fifty

guineas, a couple of centuries ago.[87] We speak of flax and hemp

indiscriminately, however botanically different, as those predecessors

of ours were in the habit of doing, and as being, in fact, used for

similar purposes, _e.g._, “Except the flax or hemp plant, and a few

other plants, there is very little herbage of any sort.”[88]

To the coarser filament of both, after the article is heckled, is

still, we believe, applied the name of _tow_. In either case, the

substance, when thus subjected to the nicer process of manufacture,

presents that well-known whitish brown color so often and so

enthusiastically celebrated by the elder English poets in the aspect

of “flaxen locks.” We do not know, and, after considerable research,

have been unable to ascertain with accuracy, what was the peculiar

relation of the “hemp-tree” to those other vegetable productions; but

infer from the name that there was a certain resemblance in the fibre

of the one to the others, and that probably to some extent it was

formerly used for similar purposes. At any rate, it is only with the

name and the associations it calls up that we have particularly to do.

If the hemp-tree, otherwise called “Abraham’s balm,” furnished when

manufactured an article similar in color to that of the other vegetable

productions referred to, a sufficient foundation is laid for this

inquiry.

Bosworth’s _Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language_ affords a striking

illustration of the general subject. He says that “flax signified, in

earlier times, also _hair_ and all kinds of hairy thread. In Austria,

the flax is called haar, hair. The Danish hör signifies the same.” He

adds: “The Old English flix-_down_, soft hair, is another instance that

flax in earlier ages was used to designate hair.”

Of the metaphorical use of the word the poets are full of pregnant

examples, for instance:

“Her flaxen haire, insnaring all beholders,

She next permits to wave about her shoulders.”[89]

“All flaxen was his poll.”[90]

“Adown the shoulders of the heavenly fair

In easy ringlets flowed her flaxen hair;

And with a golden comb, in matchless grace,

She taught each lock its most becoming place.”[91]

If to these examples we add the following passage, we shall perceive

that the hue in question enjoyed a special distinction and favor:

“The four colors signify the four virtues; the _flaxey_, having a

whiteness, appertains to temperance, because it makes _candidam et

mundam animam_.”[92]

And as this is a hue which frequently distinguishes the heads of

youngsters, a large proportion of whom, at an early period of life, we

know as _white-headed_ urchins, and in England as well as in the United

States even as _tow-heads_, we are very strongly inclined to believe

the color and the term “Abraham” or “Abram” to be thus derived from

association, and to be so applied to the boy Cupid; the word _Abraham_,

in this connection, having come to express, to a certain extent, the

_tow_, or the color of the tow, of _hemp_, or flax, or equally of the

finer part which remains after the tow is combed out. So that, in all

probability, the cant term “Abraham,” as thus applied in Shakespeare’s

day, meant precisely the same as _flaxen_, with, perhaps, a slightly

humorous allusion. And in this view of the case, we must put in a

_caveat_ to the allegation of Mr. White, that, if “Cupid is always

represented by the old painters as auburn-haired,” then they have so

depictured him without sufficient authority; indeed, in contradiction

of the best authorities; for the classical evidence on this point

will show his hair to be described as of that color which is usually

known by the style of “flaxen”; since auburn is really a dun color, or

“reddish brown,” whereas Cupid’s hair was flaxen, or, as we now say,

blonde. For instance:

“The god of love was usually represented as a plump-cheeked boy, rosy

and naked, with _light_ hair floating on his shoulders.”[93]

“Eros is usually represented as a roguish boy, plump-cheeked and naked,

with _light_ hair floating on his shoulders.”[94]

We cannot but think, therefore, that this manifest distinction of

hue effectually disposes of the theory that “abron” stands for any

misspelling of _auburn_, as suggested by Mr. Dyce, and adopted by Mr.

White.

It appears, by the bye, that this same _agnus castus_, or hemp-tree,

which has given occasion for these remarks, was supposed from an early

period to possess some peculiar virtues, which prompted its other

appellation of “The Chaste Tree”; and to this circumstance was owing,

doubtless, its introduction by the poets in their descriptions of

various ceremonials. Thus, Chaucer has three several references to it

in his “Floure and Leafe,” and very noticeably, as follows:

“Some of laurer, and some full pleasantly

Had chaplets of woodbind; and, sadly,

Some of _agnus castus_ weren also

Chaplets fresh.”

So Dryden, also, modernizing this very passage of the older poet:

“Of laurel some, of woodbine many more,

And wreaths of _agnus castus_ many bore.”

It ought to be suggested that the statement herein made as to the

earlier practice of wearing wigs of flax and tow, in addition to some

direct evidence to the point, is partly a matter of inference, and

partly due to rather vague recollections of youthful studies (to which

we have not thought it worth while to recur) among the romance writers

of the last century. Their famous heroes undoubtedly were more or less

familiar with “Abraham-men” and personages of that description; and

it must be confessed that the impression of the “tow-wigs” worn, for

purposes of disguise or with whatever object, by the highwaymen, sturdy

beggars, and other worthies introduced into their novels, is amongst

the strongest left on our mind by those lucubrations of their genius.

The inference which we have ventured upon is that, since wigs were

articles of supposed necessity, and certainly have been used from

early times; and since those manufactured of hair must have been much

more costly in former days than at present, the probabilities are very

strong that this important description of head-gear was made, more or

less commonly, out of that material which still, we believe, affords

the foundation of those ingenious works of art, the color and beauty

of which furnished the poets with an ordinary and apt illustration of

bright and flowing locks.

We are not without testimony on this point, however, and that, too, of

no less authority than Walter Scott, which is literally to the point:

“The identical Peter wears a huge great-coat, threadbare and patched.

His hair, half gray half black, escaped in elf-locks around a huge wig

_made of tow_, as it seemed to me.”[95]

Addison also tells us, in a paper of the _Spectator_, as quoted by

Johnson:

“I bought a fine flaxen long wig.”

It is true, Dr. Johnson cites this example in his _Dictionary_ as only

meaning something “fair, long, and flowing, as if made of flax”; but we

are far from thinking the qualification of his definition inevitably

correct, any more than in some other well-known instances. The great

lexicographer imagines a wig of hair as presenting the appearance of

one made of flax; but we see no reason why the excellent _Spectator_

should not be taken literally according to his expression; nor why

he may not have appeared upon the occasion to which he refers in a

veritable wig of flax, especially since such an object of manufacture

was common, could be made to bear so close a resemblance to hair,

probably looked better, and was of much less cost. We find a still more

decisive example in the _Spectator_, which scarcely admits of any other

than the most literal interpretation:

“The greatest beau at our next county sessions was dressed in a most

monstrous flaxen periwig that was made in King William’s reign.”[96]

The following example is equally pertinent:

“A fair, flaxen, full-bottomed periwig.”[97]

In this instance, the word “fair” would seem clearly to apply to the

color, and “flaxen” to the material, for otherwise the use of both

expressions would be tautological.

Indeed, we have not left this matter to conjecture and inference

merely; for we took occasion to inquire upon this topic, several years

ago, of a late celebrated hair-dresser; and, in fact, these notes have

been kept on hand for a period considerably longer than the nine years

prescribed by Horace for the due refinement and perfection of immortal

verse. Our excellent friend, M. Charrier, of Boston, informed us that

he had been called upon to manufacture actual wigs of the filament of

flax; and he remembered one particular occasion, when an article of

special beauty was required for the use of a popular actress, who was

to perform in a play which he thought was called “The fair maid with

the golden locks.”[98] Thus we trace the article to the stage itself,

and there, in all probability, its construction of the material in

question is traditional, and is much more likely to have originated

at a period earlier than the time of Shakespeare than at a later

date. Of course, if M. Charrier had lived to our day, he would have

found plenty of business in constructing those mountainous piles of

various vegetable material with which ladies now see fit to load their

heads—“some browne, some blacke, some Abram.”[99]

In corroboration of these views, explanatory, we hope, of the strange

expression, Abraham Cupid, to modern eyes and ears, we have just met

with a singularly apt illustration. A very young lady of our family

received last Christmas, as a present, a doll with a remarkable head of

hair. It was long, fine, profuse, admirably curled, and exactly of that

brilliantly fair color, the lightest possible shade of brown, sometimes

but rarely seen in its perfection on the heads of young persons, and

of the hue which might well be imagined as a peculiar and suitable

attribute of the god of love. An examination of this attractive

ornament to the seat of whatever intellect a doll might be supposed to

possess showed at once, that it was skilfully manufactured, doubtless

by accomplished French artisans, of the filament of flax.[100]

From these premises the following propositions seem to be fairly

deducible:

1. That, in the time of Shakespeare, the word _Abraham_ was sometimes

employed as a cant term expressive of a certain color.

2. That, since the name “Abraham’s balm” was used for a certain shrub

or bush, otherwise called the hemp-tree, the color in question was

probably that of dressed hemp or flax, which nearly resembled each

other in hue; the word tow being still applied to the coarse filament

of both.

3. That the color attributed to “flaxen locks,” so celebrated through

the whole range of English poetry, is, in fact, that light and fair,

that is, blonde, color of the hair assigned to Cupid.

4. That “Young Abraham Cupid,” therefore, means nothing else than

_flaxen-haired_ or _fair-haired_ Cupid.

In regard to the term “Abraham’s balm,” as applied to the hemp-tree, we

beg leave to suggest that such an appellation may have been bestowed

on such a tree, as intimating a natural and appropriate cure for such

infirmities as resulted in mistakes about property, to which we may

suppose Abraham-men and their associates were only too subject. The

figure may be thought similar to that highly metaphorical expression

conveyed by the passage:

“Ye shall have a hempen caudle, then.”[101]

As to “Abraham-men,” a rope may, in fact, have been thought, in extreme

cases, a “_balm_ for hurt minds.”

FONTAINEBLEAU.

IT stands girdled with its forty thousand acres of forest, or gathering

of many palaces rather than a united single one, and presents perhaps a

wider and more varied retrospect than any of its historical compeers.

Poet, philosopher, and historian alike find inexhaustible food for

meditation before the grand, irregular pile that rises up before us

with its towers and gables massed against the sky—the most elaborate

epic ever written in stone. But prior to the stupendous poem that

we behold to-day, an idyl rose upon its site; a song, half sacred,

half sylvan, floats to us across the distant tide of time, the

record of an undying past. A vast virgin forest where the chant of

prayer and penitence mingles with the voicing of the primeval choir

of oaks, and sycamores, and elms, and spire-like poplars, ranged in

many-octaved lyres for the winds to strike with strong melodic finger;

and human souls set up in the high places, higher than forest trees

or earth-built towers; harps wooing the touch divine of the Master’s

hand, joining in the ecstatic song of seraph praise; souls these who

have cast aside crowns of gold, and trodden their purple garments under

foot, to choose the crown of thorns and the scant robe of poverty—love

driven to the strange madness, of the cross; others there are who sing

the deep plain-song of humility and forgiven sin; while some, whose

snow-white brow the dark shadow of sin has never crossed, carol forth

in innocent joy with the matins of the lark the hymn of deliverance,

the psalm of praise and worship, of intercession and thanksgiving—such

is the concert of celestial harmony that echoes to us from the long-ago

of the grand old forest. Many changes, will follow: we shall see a

busy stir of multitudinous life alternating with the chill silence of

the tomb; princes and prelates hurrying to and fro, noble matrons,

and frail women, and death in many forms, beautiful and terrible,

serene and tragic, passing and repassing the gates; and we shall hear

the woods reverberating to other sounds than those of prayer—to the

clanging of civil strife, to the voice of laughter and of tears.

Distinct amidst all the earlier memories of Fontainebleau stand out

the figures of S. Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castille. There

are many versions as to the origin of the place; the most popular one

records that S. Louis, being out hunting one day, lost a favorite

hound called Bleau, and, after scouring the forest in search of the

truant, found him at last quietly drinking at a fountain, and was so

enchanted with the beauty of the surrounding scene that he determined

to build a hunting-lodge on the spot; he did so, and, in memory of the

incident, it was named Fontaine de Bleau. But this pretty legend is

rejected by the most reliable historians, who have searched out traces

of a much earlier origin for Fontainebleau. There seems sufficient

evidence of its having been used as a royal residence by Hugh Capet,

and frequented as a favorite rendezvous for the hunt by all the earlier

kings of France. The existence of the famous monastery of S. Germain

l’Auxerre, at the western extremity of the forest, is advanced as a

proof, and a strong one, of its being in those remote times inhabited

by royal patrons, for monasteries sprang of necessity where kings

lived; and there is no doubt that the greater portion of the abbey

lands were grants from good King Robert. Blanche of Castille retired

to an old château of some sort at Fontainebleau during her husband’s

absence while at war with England or the Albigenses; she founded in the

neighborhood the Abbaye de Lys, which was later on munificently endowed

by her son, Louis IX., who even went the length of giving up to it some

acres of the forest that he loved so well. It was here that a great

portion of his childhood was passed. Under the shadow of the old woods,

or pacing the solemn cloisters of the abbey, his mother instilled into

his mind those first lessons of fear and love upon which his life was

so faithfully modelled. “My son, I love thee dearly, but, so help me

God, I would rather see thee dead at my feet than have thee live to

sully thy soul with one mortal sin.” Truly, a valiant mother of the

Machabean mould—a woman of strong faith, worthy to be the mother of a

Christian king.

When the child has grown to manhood, we see him still at Fontainebleau,

holding his court of justice under the broad shade of a giant oak, he

seated on the gnarled trunk, while his people gathered round him—a

young patriarch settling the disputes of his tribe, dealing out the

law; justice and mercy being counsel, and judge, and jury, and the

king’s word supreme. Sometimes we see him dashing through the glade,

followed by his courtiers, while the merry hunting-horn scares the wild

birds from their nests, and rouses the tusky boar in his lair; but

more frequently we see the king alone, meditating on the frail tenure

of earthly joys and pride, or surrounded by the wise and learned men,

too noble to be called courtiers, whose society he enjoyed better than

that of youths of his own age. Louis preserved through life a taste for

the monastic offices that he had joined in habitually with Blanche de

Castille in his childhood; and, when he could spare a few days from the

cares of his kingdom, he would spend them in the prayerful solitude of

the monastery of the Mathurins, assisting at all the offices with the

monks, and helping them in tending the sick and teaching the poor. His

young courtiers made merry over this strange pastime for a king, but

Louis only laughed, and said: “Let them laugh, these young ones! It

hurts no one, and God is not offended. If I spent my time in hunts, and

tournaments, and dancing, they would not blame me. Let them laugh; pray

God I may never give them cause to weep!” Once S. Louis fell ill at

Fontainebleau, and, being considered at the point of death, he called

his little son to him, and gave him some touching advice concerning his

conduct and private life; then suddenly changing his tone to one of

great impetuosity, he exclaimed: “I pray thee, fair son, make thyself

loved of my people! for verily I had rather a Scotchman came from

Scotland to govern the kingdom well and loyally than that it should be

unfairly or unkindly governed by thee!”

Joinville, who was the close companion of S. Louis through the

most active part of his career, finds no words wherewith to praise

adequately the character and virtues of the king. “What concerned

himself alone could never move him to joy or wrath,” says this

trustworthy chronicler; “but when it touched the honor of God, or the

happiness of his people, Louis knew no fear, and brooked no delay, nor

could any earthly consideration hinder him in the discharge of a duty.”

Yet Joinville censures his master severely for having undertaken the

second Crusade, which he condemns as a great military and political

mistake. Had it succeeded, however, Egypt would have become a Christian

colony, and the cross would have been planted on the pyramids; this was

what S. Louis looked to beyond the conquest of Jerusalem; and, if his

dream had been realized, Joinville would hardly have pronounced it a

“great mistake.”

A quaint anecdote is told of a trick played by S. Louis to ensnare

his nobles into enlisting in this fatal expedition. The court was at

Fontainebleau for the celebration of Christmas. It was customary for

the king to present the courtiers with furred cloaks called _liveries_

to wear at Midnight Mass on Christmas eve. S. Louis had a great number

of these made, and gave orders that a cross should be embroidered in

dark silk on the shoulder of each, and that they should be distributed

at the last moment in a dimly lighted apartment; this was done,

according to the king’s command; the courtiers hurriedly donned

their _liveries_, and it was only when they entered the brilliantly

illuminated church that the wearers beheld the symbol on each other’s

backs. They were at first astonished and displeased, says Joinville,

but when the king came forward with the cross on his own shoulder and

the crucifix in his hand, and asked if they would tear theirs off, and

send him forth alone to the Holy Land, a thrill of chivalrous ardor

ran through the assembly, and all answered as one voice: “No; we will

follow you! We will keep the cross!” And they did.

Blanche de Castille, whose religious enthusiasm is rightly or wrongly

credited with the responsibility of this ill-fated enterprise, held

the regency during her son’s absence, and proved by her courage in

confronting the dangers and difficulties of the charge, and by her

wisdom and counsel, that even in those unprogressive days a wise and

virtuous woman made no bad substitute for a man in the mighty task of

government. She spent most of her time in the comparative retirement

of Fontainebleau; but when the news came of the disastrous issue of

Mansoorah, where the Christian army was cut to pieces, and the king

with his noblest captains taken prisoners, she left it, and hastened

to the capital, in order to work more actively for the ransom of her

son and his brave companions in arms. It was a terrible time for a

mother. The queen knew that those who had taken her son captive had

no power over his soul; she knew that Louis was more commanding in his

chains than he had even been at the head of his armies; that adversity

would teach him no language unbecoming a Christian prince; that neither

threats nor torture would wrench from him any compromise unworthy of

his honor; and that captivity, nay, death, in so august a cause was the

most enviable destiny she could have wished him; but she was a human

mother withal, and in this hour of trial her motherhood vindicated

itself relentlessly. Blanche labored day and night to raise a ransom

that might tempt the Turk to give up his prize. She heard that eight

thousand _besants_[102] would be accepted for the king himself, and

this sum was with great difficulty mustered and sent to Palestine.

But when Louis heard it, he sent word to the sultan that “the King of

France was not to be ransomed with gold or silver; that he would give

the town of Damietta for his own person, and eight thousand _besants_

for his army.” The offer was rejected with scorn, and Louis was

subjected to still greater cruelties and humiliations; but at last,

worn out by the indomitable heroism of his victim, the sultan gave

way; the regal fortitude in which suffering had clothed their captive

had subdued even his jailers into wondering admiration, and they set

him free, declaring that “this king was the proudest Christian that

the East had ever seen.” No sooner was he at liberty, than, instead of

hastening away from the scenes of his misery and misfortunes, Louis set

to work to spread the Gospel far and wide in Palestine; but Blanche

had earned a right to clasp him to her heart after those three years

of separation. She felt, too, that the days were growing short; so she

wrote, entreating him to come home. S. Louis was repairing the ramparts

of Sidon when the summons reached him; he immediately prepared to obey

it; but, before he had left Sidon, the mother who, next to God, had

been the supreme love of his life had taken her flight to a better

world. She died at Fontainebleau. “He made great mourning thereat,”

says Sire de Joinville, “that for two days no speech could be gotten of

him. After that he sent a chamber-man to fetch me. When I came before

him in his chamber, where he was alone, he stretched forth his arms,

and said to me, ‘O seneschal! I have lost my mother. My God, thou

knowest that I loved this mother better than all other creatures, but

thy will be done. Blessed be thy name!’” Philip le Bel (IV.) was born

at Fontainebleau. There are conflicting versions as to the place of

Philip’s death, but it is generally supposed to have taken place at

Fontainebleau, in the same room where he was born. There was a current

belief at the time, and it was preserved through many succeeding

generations, that his death was the result of a summons issued against

him by the grand master of the templars, Jacques de Molai. A hundred

and thirteen templars perished at the stake during Philip’s reign, and

these _autos-da-fe_ were crowned by that of the grand master, who was

burnt alive in the gardens of his own palace. As the flames rose round

his naked body, the templar lifted up his voice, and, in the hearing of

the vast multitude of spectators, solemnly summoned Philip “to meet him

at the judgment-seat in four months from that day.” The death of the

king precisely four months from the day of De Molai’s execution gave a

sanction to the credulity of the people, and the legend passed into

an historical occurrence. The fact of the summons is accepted; we can

have no difficulty in admitting its inevitable effect on the mind of

the individual against whom it was sent forth. There was a prevailing

belief that a dying man had the power to issue the formidable command,

and that obedience was compulsory. Philip, whose passion for gold

had led him to confiscate the treasures of the templars, and then to

calumniate and persecute them in order to justify his own spoliations,

was haunted by the words of De Molai. He grew sick, and his illness,

defying all the arts of medicine, soon brought him to the verge of

death. Feeling that his days were numbered, he begged to be taken to

Fontainebleau, that he might gaze once more upon the home of his happy

childhood. On arriving there, he sent for his children and his friends,

and took a sorrowful farewell of them. “They entered the chamber where

the king was,” says Godefroid de Paris, “and where there was very

little light. They asked him how he felt, and he answered: ‘Ill in body

and in soul. I have put on so many _tillages_ and laid hands on so much

riches that I shall never be absolved. Methinks I shall die to-night,

for I suffer grievous hurt from the curses which pursue me.’” And that

same night he died (1314).

The sons of Philip frequented Fontainebleau very faithfully. So

did Charles V.; but a veil of mist hangs over the history of the

castle during the greater part of the XIVth century. We only find

it mentioned now and then as a meeting-place for the hunt of royal

sportsmen. Isabeau de Bavière honored it often with her presence,

and enlarged a portion of the building. But the romantic history of

Fontainebleau dates from Francis I. He was to it what Louis XIV. was

to Versailles. It is customary amongst the admirers of those two

brilliant representatives of French monarchy to set them side by side,

and compare their characters and achievements. And no doubt there are

points of resemblance between them, but it is difficult to pursue the

comparison much below the surface. Louis XIV., as a king, certainly

has the best of it, and, as a man, Francis seems to have had all the

vices without many of his successor’s redeeming virtues. Louis was

dissipated, but he put a limit to his dissipation: Francis knew none;

he exhausted the treasury by his wanton prodigality and the army by his

senseless ambition; he burnt La Provence, he broke his plighted word to

Charles V., and yet we hear him spoken of as the rival of Bayard, “sans

peur et sans reproche.”[103]

History passes strange verdicts sometimes, but stranger still is the

blind credulity with which posterity endorses them, and clings to them

in spite of the light that by degrees pierces through the darkness,

showing up the idol or the monster, stripped of masks and drapery, and

exposed in its nakedness, or clothed with its own deeds, that make the

only garment it has a right to wear; we acknowledge that we have been

worshipping a false standard, or forswearing an honest one; but we go

on with a dogged tenacity worshipping and forswearing still, rather

than forsake an old love or renounce an old antipathy. There are few

personages in history who have usurped this kind of worship and held

it more successfully than Francis I. Fontainebleau is not, however,

the appropriate place for challenging his claims to the applause of

posterity; here he is on his vantage-ground; we see him at his best,

all his faults, if not obliterated, mellowed in the blaze of borrowed

glory that encircles him; here he is the graceful knight-errant, the

magnificent patron of art, and science, and learning, surrounded by

men of genius, whom he treats as equals and as friends; we forget his

profligate follies, his reckless waste of the kingdom’s money and the

kingdom’s blood, when we see him petting Leonardo da Vinci, doing the

behests and humoring the crotchets of the cantankerous old genius so

tenderly, and bearing his unreasonable jealousy and his reproaches like

a chidden child. It would go hard with us to be severe on so lovable

a scapegrace, even if he were not the King of France. Francis ought

never to come before us except in the midst of his beloved artists.

There he is perfect. To Leonardo his demeanor is especially touching.

When the proud old man, still in the zenith of his fame, but stung by

the coldness of Leo X. and frightened by the rising glory of Michael

Angelo’s sun, turned sulkily away from his native land, Francis

invited him to Fontainebleau, received him with open arms, and treated

him like a prince as he was of the true _right divine_ creation,

and laid himself out to console him and brighten the evening of his

days. The exile was querulous from ill-health, as well as soured by

disappointment and the ingratitude of the Medici; but Francis bore with

his temper and his lamentations with the sweetness of a woman; there

was no tender gracefulness that sympathy could devise to cheer the old

man’s spirit and heal his aching pride that the king had not recourse

to; he would have kept him at Fontainebleau, near his own person, but

Leonardo, who was so fond of solitude and meditation that he never

married, “because the clatter of a wife’s tongue would have disturbed

his thoughts,” could not bear the gay bustle of the court, and said he

must go somewhere to be quiet; so Francis gave him a splendid suite of

apartments in the Château de Clou at Amboise. He spent the remaining

four years of his life there, painting his celebrated Mona Lisa, the

most exquisitely finished perhaps of all his works, and in writing his

treatise _Della Pittura_, a book of great originality and learning,

written, like all Da Vinci’s books, after the manner of the Eastern

manuscripts, from right to left—a singularity which he adopted, it

is said, to foil the curiosity of those around him, and prevent his

brother artists from discovering his secrets. The king paid twelve

thousand livres for Mona Lisa—an unprecedented sum for a work of art

in those days. When Leonardo was thought to be near his end, Francis

had him conveyed to Fontainebleau that he might watch over him himself

and be with him at the close.

On the morning of his death, when the king came into the room, the

dying man tried to raise himself on his couch to welcome him, but the

effort was too much; he sank forward, and would have fallen but for the

timely arms that rescued him. Francis laid the venerable old head upon

his breast, and there it lay till Leonardo breathed his last.

The artist had been pursued for months before his death by a morbid

terror of being buried alive, and had implored Francis to let him be

kept three days before the coffin was closed. The king complied with

the wish, and caused his friend to be exposed with royal honors, and

the body laid in state for three days. He was buried in the Church of

S. Florentin, near his own abode at Amboise.

Benvenuto Cellini is another shining stone in the pedestal of Francis

I. Discontented with the recognition that his genius met with at home,

he too was enticed from the blue skies of Florence to the colder but

more genial atmosphere of Fontainebleau, and was petted by the graceful

king only in a less degree than Da Vinci. But Benvenuto, who knew so

many things, who excelled almost equally as a poet, a sculptor, and

a painter, was lamentably ignorant in the art of being a courtier.

The Duchesse d’Estampes was queen of the gay palace of Armida, and

all the great men that frequented it bowed before her; but this bold

Florentine, who had a dash of the brigand in his composition, thought

he might dispense with her patronage, and refused to do homage at

the common shrine; he knew that he had had the bad luck to displease

the haughty fair one by his untutored manners from the first, and,

instead of trying to conciliate, he determined to conquer her. The

duchess was a liberal and enlightened patroness of art, and seems

to have merited in some degree by her personal accomplishments the

flattering title bestowed on her by one of her protégés of “the most

beautiful of _savantes_ and the most learned of belles.” Her sway over

Francis rested, therefore, on something stronger than the ephemeral

tenure of mere beauty; but, had it been otherwise, what chance was

there for Benvenuto against the favorite of the king? He, foolish

mortal, braved her so far as to ask the king direct, without having

recourse to her intervention, for an order to cast a bronze statue

for the great gallery which was in process of completion, and Francis

gave him the order, with carte-blanche for the execution. The statue

was finished, and a day appointed for the king to see it. This was a

precious opportunity for a woman’s vengeance; the duchess knew that

the triumph of the artist depended altogether on the first impression

produced on the king, and that the triumph of the work depended mainly

on the light in which it was seen: Cellini had named an hour when the

sun would pour in soft, full floods of light down the gallery; and,

long before the appointed time, he was there, watching every changing

shadow that it cast upon his statue, counting the minutes impatiently,

while his friends and all the court flocked in to assist at the king’s

entrance, and witness the triumph or the humiliation of the sculptor.

But the hour passed, and another, and another, and there was no sign of

Francis; the sun was gathering up its light, and speeding away to the

west, and the brown twilight was creeping into the gallery. Benvenuto

grew nervous, then outrageous. He paced up and down before his Jupiter

like a man gone mad. Where was the king? Would no one take pity on him

to go and call the king? But Benvenuto knew full well that none in that

courtly crowd would be guilty of so rash an act. Not even he himself

would dare to do it. He knew whose fault it was that the king was not

forthcoming, and he gnashed his teeth in savage but impotent rage. But

genius, like prophecy, has a ready handmaid in inspiration. “Let fall

the curtains, and bring lights,” cried the sculptor, with a sudden

bound from despair to triumph. The partisans of the “_belle savante_”

groaned, and stood still; the friends of Cellini flew to obey his

orders. It mattered not that they did not understand: the master did.

In less time than it takes to tell, the gallery was illuminated from

end to end; lamps, torches, waxlights, every luminary that hands could

carry, was put in requisition, till Jupiter shone out magnificent,

terrible, and dazzling in the blaze of an impromptu illumination more

weirdly effective than the brightest daylight could have been.

Cellini’s spirit rose to frenzy. He ran hither and thither, arranging

the lights with a view to more striking effect; clustering many flames

in a group at one point, leaving another in partial shade; clapping his

hands in wild delight one minute, impatiently knocking down one of his

helpmates the next. It was finished. The king was heard approaching.

Cellini, with an imperious gesture, commanded silence; the doors of

the gallery were thrown open, and the colossal bronze god flashed out

in all his dark effulgence on the astonished and enchanted gaze of the

monarch. The triumph of the hour was complete; but it cost the sculptor

dear. The duchess gave Francis no peace till he quarrelled with her

enemy, and dismissed him from the court.

Many Italian artists had followed Leonardo da Vinci to France, some out

of love for the great master himself, others tempted by the generosity

which the King of France showed universally to their class. The most

distinguished of these disciples of Leonardo was Andrea del Sarto. But

he was of too restless a disposition to settle anywhere permanently;

camp, court, and studio alike wearied him after a time; his wings

were too buoyant to remain long folded even in the enchanted clime of

Fontainebleau; he was not more than a year there, when he declared it

was a necessity of life for him to return to Florence, the ostensible

motive being to see his wife. Francis proposed to send for her,

promising that she should be made welcome to his court as an honored

guest; but Andrea said this would not do: he must go himself and fetch

her. All the king could obtain was a promise that he would return to

France in a year; and, to make the promise more binding, he entrusted

him with a considerable sum of money, to be expended, according to

Andrea’s taste and judgment, on objects of art for the decoration of

the palace. But when Andrea found himself once more in Florence, in

the company of his wife and his former boon companions, he forgot all

about his mission, and spent the king’s money in merry-making; he did

not dare show himself at Fontainebleau after this, but frittered away

the rest of his life in his native city, where he eventually died in

poverty and contempt. It would take too long to enumerate the various

European celebrities who fill up the brilliant picture presented by

Francis’ court at this period; but we cannot refuse a passing mention

to Serlio, the accomplished Bolognese architect, whom the king lured

away from Italy by his gold and his honeyed flattery. Serlio rebuilt

the palace almost entirely; his genius was allowed full scope, and the

result justified the confidence of his patron.

The area of the old building being much too small for the magnificent

new plan, Francis bought in the Mathurin Convent and the noble grounds

with which Louis IX. had endowed it, and added them to the original

site. The design of the library had been sketched by S. Louis, and

this Serlio adhered to strictly, making no change of his own. When the

edifice was finished, Francis swept Italy and Spain for artists to

adorn and beautify it. Rosso came to paint the walls in fresco, and his

design for the grand gallery, which was to be called the Gallery of

Francis I., carried the prize over all his competitors; he embellished

it with paintings, friezes of great beauty, and rich stucco-work.

So delighted was the king with the result of Rosso’s labors that,

in addition to other favors, he created him a canon of the Sainte

Chapelle. This wonderful gallery had sixteen frescoes representing the

most remarkable incidents in the life of Francis; the famous _porte

dorée_[104] was decorated by the same gifted hand. It is lamentable to

think that these glorious works of art, which formed Rosso’s principal

claim on the admiration of the world, were sacrificed to the vindictive

jealousy of a rival. Francesco Pellegrini had been the early friend

of Rosso; but, when they met as fellow-laborers at Fontainebleau, the

friendship turned to a rivalry which soon developed into bitter enmity,

and ended in the tragic death of Rosso. Primaticcio, as Pellegrini

is usually called, was accused by his rival of having stolen a large

sum of money from him; he was put to the torture, but acquitted

triumphantly. Rosso was then seized with shame and remorse; haunted

in imagination by the shrieks of the innocent man, the friend of his

youth, whom he had given up to the torture, his mind gave way, and in a

fit of insanity he took poison, which killed him in a few hours. Some

say that Rosso knew that the accusation was false, and that he brought

it designedly against Primaticcio, hoping to get rid of him; but his

frantic grief on discovering his mistake, and the fatal consequences of

his remorse, may be taken as contradictory evidence of this opinion.

Primaticcio, moreover, by his subsequent conduct, vindicates his

unhappy rival from having done him so very great a wrong in suspecting

him capable of the theft, for he unblushingly stole from Rosso what was

incomparably more precious to him than gold—his fame. No sooner was he

master of the field, than he set about to destroy all traces of Rosso’s

beautiful compositions, pulling down the walls which they adorned,

under pretence of enlarging the space. Some few that were spared by the

relentless destroyer have been obliterated by damp and the effects of

time. There is one fine painting of his to be seen in the Louvre—“Mary

receiving the homage of S. Elizabeth.”

The fêtes given at Fontainebleau by Francis I., though perhaps inferior

in splendor to those of Louis XIV. at Versailles, surpassed them

in picturesque elegance; they were rather the ideal festivities of

an artist than the gorgeous pageants of an Arabian caliph. But the

leisures of Francis were not all wasted in frivolous amusements. In

his sane moments, when he was not flying after that will-o’-the-wisp

that cost France and him so dear, the conquest of the Milanese, he was

something more than the mere fascinating madcap that his enemies make

him out; for it is his lot, like that of all charming but unprincipled

sovereigns, to inspire panegyrics and denunciations equally

exaggerated. He was not only a patron of those artists who contributed

to the adornment of his dwellings: Francis courted the society of

learned men for learning’s sake. The luxurious repasts of Fontainebleau

were enlivened and refined by the presence of such men as Clement

Marot, whose style, full of terseness and incisive grace, the king was

fond of emulating in verses of his own composition, not altogether

devoid of poetic merit. He delighted in the chivalrous lays of the

middle ages, and in the harmonious cadence and florid imagery of the

ballads of the troubadours. The witty Curé of Mendon was a frequent

guest at the royal table, Francis provoking his lively sallies, and

heartily enjoying them, though the sarcasm was often boldly pointed

at himself. Learned men of every class—doctors, bookworms, and even

printers—were admitted to the same honor. Erasmus was one of the

few who withstood the wiles of the charmer; he steadfastly refused

all invitations to reside permanently at Fontainebleau; but he kept

up a brisk correspondence with Francis, the honest freedom of whose

tone throughout does equal honor to the scholar and the king. The

French court was, in fact, the most polished and the gayest in Europe

at this period. The sprightly Queen of Navarre—that sister whom

Francis so tenderly loved, his “Marguerite des Marguerites”—was its

presiding genius and brightest ornament. She was passionately fond of

Fontainebleau, and made it her home during the greater part of her

first husband’s life, and after her marriage with Henri de Navarre,

who was so frequently absent, either in her brother’s service or

in the pursuit of war on his own account. Her image is everywhere

associated in our memory with that of Francis in his favorite palace.

In her boudoir, a spacious and magnificently decorated room, leading

out of Rosso’s noble gallery, the royal brother and sister passed

many delightful hours, either in affectionate converse together, or

surrounded by the artists and learned men whom they both loved to

honor. Here Francis placed the library of rare books and manuscripts

for which he had scoured Italy, Spain, and Greece. The erudite Erasmus

would sometimes deliver one of his learned discourses on deep and

elevating themes in the privacy of this enchanting retreat, while

Marguerite de Navarre worked out, in rainbow-tinted silks and golden

threads, the poem of one of her artist friends, or some chivalrous

exploit of her idolized Francis. Happy had it been for Francis and for

France had he dwelt content amidst the peaceful and refined delights

of this Eldorado. But there was the Milanese—that unlucky Milanese,

the bane of his life, and of his people’s while his lasted. Again

and again he flew at it like a moth at the flame, or a madman at his

_idée fixe_—failure and humiliation, instead of disgusting him with

his hobby, only goaded him to its pursuit with greater zest. And what

odd, shifting relations grew out of this standing duel between him and

Charles V.! Alternately, they were rivals, friends, deadly foes, and

“dear brothers.” Beside the gloomy, vindictive Spanish warrior, subtle

in his policy, swift and ruthless in his vengeance, the brilliant

figure of Francis shone at its best; he had all the qualities that his

rival lacked; his uncalculating generosity, his rash impulses that

led him into so many grievous straits, all stand out in bright relief

against the dark background of the contest. The story of the broken

Treaty of Madrid is one of the many vexed questions over which the

apologists of both princes have broken innumerable lances, but they

leave it pretty much where it stood in the year of grace 1527, after

the Notables decided that the conditions of the treaty were monstrous,

and had been unjustifiably imposed by a jailer on his prisoner, and

that Francis was right in maintaining _que prisonnier gardé n’est tenu

a nulle foye, n’y se peut obliger à rien_.[105]

Charles had no right to exact the abdication of his conquered foe,

and the latter had no power to effect it without the consent of his

Notables, which he knew full well would never be granted. Still, the

solemn oath sworn on the crucifix by Francis in presence of the emperor

is not to be disposed of so easily. It would have been more consistent

with the character for Bayard-like chivalry, which the French prince

arrogated, to have withheld the pledge which he knew he could not

redeem, than to purchase his liberty by a subterfuge that has left

an equivocal mark upon his memory. He was only a lifetenant of the

crown of France; he might resign it, but he had no power to alienate

its most insignificant fief; in swearing, therefore, to hand over the

duchy of Burgundy and the counties of Flanders and Artois to Charles

V., he was performing a vain sham; for, had he been willing to carry

out the promise of renunciation himself, he was well aware that the

states-general and the parliament of the realm would never ratify the

act, and that without their ratification it remained null and void. The

strong epithets used by Charles in denouncing the disloyalty of his

quondam captive in violating this preposterous treaty are, however,

somewhat misplaced, considering the duplicity and cruelty which he

himself had displayed in extracting impossible concessions from a brave

and conquered foe.

It was not long before Francis had an opportunity of vindicating his

much-prized character for chivalrous magnanimity by heaping coals of

fire on the head of Charles. The emperor was on his way to Ghent, and

applied to the king for a safe-conduct through his dominions. It was

granted at once, but on condition that the emperor should remain for a

few days the guest of Francis. Charles was in such a hurry to castigate

the rebels that he would have promised more than this in order to

arrive swiftly on the scene of vengeance; he consented to halt at

Fontainebleau; but no sooner had he set foot on the soil of his “good

brother of France,” than he was seized with tremors and suspicions

that made his life miserable; he accused himself of madness in having

so rashly rushed into the arms of a prince whom he had persecuted

meanly when he was in his power, and whose state he had grievously

injured; nor did the magnificence of the reception which greeted him

on his arrival calm his fears. Francis, who was utterly incapable of a

base breach of hospitality, could not forego the pleasure of playing

a little on the agonies of Charles; he occasionally repeated to him

the murmurings of the Queen of Navarre and the Dauphin, who would fain

have improved the rare opportunity by compelling their guest to undo

some of the mischief he had done their brother and father. Francis even

recounted to the emperor with great merriment an epigrammatic little

passage between himself and his favorite dwarf, Triboulet: while the

latter was diverting the king with his usual antics on the night of

the Spaniard’s arrival, he suddenly pulled out his tablets, and began

to write with an air of great gravity. “What are you writing there,

Triboulet?” inquired his master. “The name of a bigger fool than

myself,” replied the dwarf. “Who is that?” said Francis. “Charles,”

replied Triboulet. “But suppose I keep my word, and let him go?”

queried the king. “Then,” answered Triboulet, “I would rub out Charles,

and write Francis instead.”

The question of the Milanese was discussed between the two sovereigns

during this period with great earnestness on one side and consummate

skill on the other. Charles promised solemnly to bestow the investiture

on the Dauphin; but, when Francis urged him to confirm his pledge by a

written guarantee, he cunningly retaliated his host’s answer concerning

the Treaty of Madrid: “_Prisonnier gardé n’est tenu à nulle foye,

n’y se peut obliger à rien._” He declared, however, that on reaching

Flanders he would give the promise in writing. We know how he kept his

word.

TO BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT NUMBER.

BRITTANY: ITS PEOPLE AND ITS POEMS.[106]

THIRD ARTICLE.

IN a former notice, we expressed an intention to present our readers

with the translation of certain curious fragments relating to Merlin;

to be followed by some of the historical poems which succeeded the

Druidic compositions of earlier times. We proceed to fulfil our promise.

The name of Merlin (Myrrdhin, or Marzin) is so closely associated with

the early mystic and mythological poetry of Cambria and Armorica that

it will be desirable to give some account of this personage, as far as

the uncertainty of his history renders it possible to do so, before

reproducing any of the poems of which he is the subject.

It has long been supposed that there existed two Merlins, one of whom,

a magician, was the offspring of a Christian virgin and a Roman consul

who lived in the Vth century, in the reign of Ambrose Aurelian; or,

according to the popular tradition, whose father was no mortal, but a

malignant _Duz_, whom, under the form of a bird, she unwittingly let in

at her window: and the other, a warrior and bard, who after the battle

of Arderiz, in which he had unintentionally killed his nephew, lost his

reason, and retired from the world.

But critics of the present day agree in considering that it is one

person who is the subject of a triple tradition, and that it is the

same Merlin who appears in the light of a mythological, historical, and

legendary hero.

The fragments which still remain in Wales of the poems of this bard

are either very much modernized or almost wholly transformed. Of the

ballads relating to him which exist in Brittany, there seem to be four

principal ones. First, a cradle-song, intensely pagan in spirit, in

which his mother plaintively relates to him his mysterious origin while

rocking him to sleep, and when, to her amazement, the infant derides

her regrets, and defends his father, declaring himself to be born to

be the good genius of the Breton nation. This poem it is needless to

reproduce. We give translations of the remaining three, beginning with

MERLIN THE WIZARD.

(MARZIN DIVINOUR.)

VTH CENTURY.

“Merlin, sage Merlin, say, whither away,

With your Black Dog, at the dawn of the day?”

“Seeking am I, in each wave-hollowed cleft,

Egg red as blood, by the sea-adder left.

“Cress I would seek in the meadowland low,

Magical gold-herb, and weird mistletoe;

Deep in the forest to find must I go,

Where by the fay-haunted fount it doth grow.”

“Merlin, sage Merlin, your steps, ah, retrace!

Mistletoe leave, the old oak-tree to grace;

Leave the green cress and the gold-herb to grow,

Hid in the well-watered meadowland low.

“Leave the red egg of the snake of the sea

Mid the wild foam of the breakers to be.

Merlin! turn back from the path you have trod,

One and the only Diviner is God!”

The latter half of the poem appears to be the voice of S. Kado, the

Christian bishop to whom tradition attributes the conversion of Merlin.

The gold-herb figures as one of the most approved charms of Druidic

days. It is said to sparkle at a distance like gold—whence its

name—and is greatly esteemed by the Bretons for its medicinal

qualities. It must be gathered at dawn, by a person who is in a state

of grace, fasting, barefoot, and clad in white linen which has not

been previously worn. A circle is traced round it, and no steel must

approach it, but it must be carefully plucked by the hand. Should any

one chance to tread upon the plant, he sleeps forthwith, and can hear

and understand the language of animals and birds.

In the next poem, Merlin no longer appears as a magician. He is himself

overcome by a sorceress, who, after depriving him of his harp and his

gold ring, the symbols of his dignity as bard, takes advantage of a

particular taste he seems to have had for apples (if we may judge

by the praises lavished upon that fruit in poems of his composition

still extant in Wales[107]) to ensnare him, and to make even his will

powerless by their means.

The tradition of his disappearance is common to Wales and Brittany.

“The tomb of Merlin is known to none,” says the bard Myvyrian, who

lived before the Xth century. And in the Welsh Triads[108] it is

written that “he embarked with nine other bards, and whither he went

cannot be known.” He himself says that he fled from the court to dwell

in the woods.[109]

The king mentioned in the ballad appears to be Budik, chief of the

Bretons of Armorica, a British prince who emigrated from Cornwall, and

who was a valiant defender of the independence of Brittany against the

Franks. He was assassinated by order of Clovis, who had been unable to

overcome him in battle, about the year 506. He married his daughter

Alienor to a prince whose name is unknown, and gave her Léon for dowry.

MERLIN THE BARD.

(MARZIN BARZ.)

I.

“Good grandmother, pray list to me:

Fain would I go the feast to see—

The feast commanded by the king,

And join the races in the ring.”

“To see the feast you will not go,

To this, nor other one I trow;

Go you shall not to see the sight:

I see that you have wept this night.

Go you will not while I can let,

If dreamings fond your cheeks make wet.”

“Sweet little mother, love you me?

Can _you_ forbid me there to be?”

“In flying thither, you will sing:

Returning, you will droop the wing.”

II.

Bridled has he his chestnut colt,

His chestnut colt so red:

Its hoofs, well shod with glittering steel,

Strike fire at every tread.

Gleams on its neck a ring, and on

Its tail a ribbon gay;

Fair trappings o’er its back he throws,

Then mounts and speeds away.

E’en as he gains the glittering course,

The horns all loudly sound;

While, in the ever-thickening crowd,

The eager horses bound.

“Who the great barrier of the field

Shall leap at one clear spring,

Perfect and free, the same shall wed

The daughter of the king!”

Wildly thereat the young colt neighs,

Prances, and bounds amain;

His gleaming eyes flash eager fire,

He paws the ground with keen desire,

Then flies across the plain.

Far, far behind, the others all

Were long ago pass’d by:

He flies alone. With one great bound,

He clears the barrier high.

“My lord the king, your royal word

Is pledged that so it be:

The fair Linor I therefore crave,

For surely mine is she.”

“The princess Linor think not thou

In any wise to win.

No sorcerer my daughter weds,

Nor any of his kin.”

An aged man, whose snowy beard

Upon his breast flowed down,

White as the wool by furze-brake torn

Upon the moorland brown—

An aged man, with robe of wool,

Bordered by silver band

Throughout its length, sat by the king,

Upon the king’s right hand.

Unto the royal ear he bent—

He bent, and whispered low;

Then did the king his sceptre raise,

And struck a sounding blow—

A blow upon the table thrice,

That all the field might hear:

It hushed the crowd to silence, while,

With voice both loud and clear,

Thus spake the king: “So bring thou me

The harp of Merlin old,

Which by four chains hangs by his bed—

Four chains of finest gold:

If Merlin’s harp thou bring to me,

My child, perchance, shall marry thee.”

III.

“Good grandmother, I pray give heed,

And counsel me in this my need:

My heart is broken!” “Oh, indeed!

Hadst thou not set at naught my rede,

Thy hap had met with better speed.

Poor grandson mine! Yet weep not so:

The harp shall be unbound, I trow.

A golden hammer here behold,

No sound rings from its stroke of gold.”

IV.

“Now fair befall this palace high,

And joy to all therein!

Behold, with Merlin’s harp I come,

Which scarce I hoped to win.”

When the king’s son these tidings heard,

Low to his sire spake he:

And thereupon thus said the king,

To that bold youth and free:

“If thou from Merlin’s own right hand

Safe unto me shalt bring

The ring he wears, Linor is thine

When I receive the ring.”

V.

He went his way, and, weeping, sought

His grandame, with new care distraught:

“Behold, the king his word hath spoken!

Behold, the king his word hath broken!”

“Nay, fret thee not: there is small need;

Only, to that I bid, give heed:

My little coffer open thou,

And take thereout a slender bough,

Whereon twelve glittering leaflets grow:

Like fiery gold they gleam and glow.

‘Tis now full seven years agone

Since seven woods I searched, alone,

On seven nights, at darkest hour,

Ere I could win that plant of power.

When you the midnight cock-crow hear,

Your red horse waits: speed forth, nor fear:

In slumber deep will Merlin be;

So fear thee not: good speed to thee!”

When loud the cock at midnight crowed,

The red steed bounded on the road;

And ere his notes he ceased to sing,

The youth had borne away the ring.

VI.

Ere dawn had brightened into day,

He stood the king beside,

Whereat the king in wonder gazed,

Silent and stupefied.

And all with him: “His wife, behold,

He verily has won!”

The king retires a moment, with

The old man and his son.

Anon the king returns, and still

The two are at his side:

And thus he spake; “‘Tis true, my son,

That thou hast gained thy bride;

“Yet is there one adventure more

Which thou must undertake;

When that is sped, my son-in-law

Forthwith I thee will make.

“The princess Linor shall be thine,

And all the country fair

Of Léon I bestow for dower;

This, by my race, I swear.

“Do but the thing which I demand,

(And this the last shall be:)

To celebrate the marriage, bring

Bard Merlin unto me.”

VII.

“O Merlin, Bard, alone, forlorn,

With all thy garments soiled and torn:

O Merlin, Bard, whence comest thou,

With weary step, with clouded brow,

Bareheaded and barefooted? Say;

And whither wouldst thou wend thy way?

Thy holly staff can barely stay

Thy bending form, thou Druid gray.”

“Alas! To seek my harp I go:

Best solace that my heart can know

In this world. I am wandering

To seek my harp, to seek my ring:

Both have I lost: no more I sing,

But wearily am wandering.”

“Nay, then, O Merlin, grieve not so;

Yet shalt thou find thy harp, I trow:

Thy harp and eke thy golden ring;

So cease awhile thy wandering.

Enter, O Bard, and rest thee here,

And taste a morsel of my cheer.”

“Nay, pray me not: I will not stay,

Nor pause upon my weary way;

I will not cease my painful quest,

I will not eat, I will not rest,

Until I seek no more in vain:

Until my harp I find again.”

“Hear me, O Merlin, and obey:

In sooth, thou wilt not long delay

Thy harp to find. Come in, I pray,

A little space, nor say me nay.”

She so besought, so urged him, till

Her wily wit had worked her will.

With night approaching, home there came

The grandson of that ancient dame;

And when he drew the hearth anear,

Back started he with sudden fear;

For there Bard Merlin sat at rest,

His head low bowed upon his breast:

Yes, there forsooth sate Merlin gray;

And he?—how should he flee away?

“Hush, grandson mine! fear naught; in deeps

Of slumber most profound he sleeps.

Eaten has he red apples three,

On the hot ashes cooked by me.

Whither we list we now may fare,

And he will follow everywhere.”

VIII.

In early morning, ere the queen

Had risen from her bed,

Her waiting-lady to her side

She called, to whom she said:

“What in the city has befall’n?

And what the noise, I pray,

That shakes the columns of my bed,

Ere yet ‘tis dawn of day?

“And what has happened in the court?

And wherefore do the crowd

With eager tumult thus press on

With joyous shouts and loud?”

“It is that all the town is glad,

And keeping holiday,

Because unto this palace high

Bard Merlin comes to-day;

“And by his side an aged dame

In robe of white wool fair:

The royal son-in-law, behind,

Follows the ancient pair.”

This heard the king, and ran to see:

“Haste thee, good crier arise!

Rise from thy bed: make speed: proclaim

The feast in gallant wise.

“Make proclamation through the land,

And summon great and small

Alike, to keep the marriage feast,

And make high festival.

“Come all who will, come high and low:

The daughter of the king

Affianced eight days hence will be

With the betrothal ring.

“Bid to the nuptials nobles, lords

Of ancient Brittany,

Dukes, marquises, and judges grave,

And all of high degree.

“Bid churchmen, warriors, and knights;

But summon first of all

The great crown-vassals of the land:

The rich, the poorest, call.

“Run, messenger, the country through,

With diligence and speed;

To hasten quickly thy return

See that thou give good heed.”

IX.

“Good people all two ears who own,

Wide open let them be,

And silence keep—keep silence all,

And hearken unto me.

“Hearken to that which is ordained:

The daughter of the king

In eight days hence betroth’d will be,

And wear the ‘spousal ring.

“Come to the nuptials all who list,

Rich, poor, or great, or small;

Churchmen and judges, counts and knights,

The king inviteth all.

“Nothing to you shall lacking be,

Nor silver bright, nor gold,

Nor meat, nor bread, nor hydromel,

Nor wine, for young and old,

“Nor seats for you to sit upon,

Nor valets quick to wait.

Two hundred bulls, two hundred swine,

Will be served up in state.

“Two hundred heifers, and of roes

One hundred from each wood

Throughout the country, oxen white

And black, two hundred, good;

“Whereof the hides shall equally

Be shared among the guests;

And there will be a hundred robes

Of white wool for the priests.

“A hundred chains of burnished gold

For warriors brave and true;

And for young girls a roomful gay

Of festal mantles blue.

“Eight hundred nether garments good

For folk of poor estate,

And seemly gifts for every guest

Or be he small or great.

“A hundred skilled musicians there,

Each seated in his place,

Music will make, by day and night,

The festival to grace.

“And in the midst of all the court,

With fitting pomp and state,

Merlin the Bard that marriage high

Will duly celebrate.

“In short, the feast will all surpass

That e’er have been before;

Nor will there be in time to come

Its equal evermore.”

X.

“Chief of the royal kitchens, say,

The marriage, is it done?”

“Finished, and paid for; and the guests

Departed every one.

“For fifteen days the feast was kept

With gaiety and glee,

Then, laden with rich gifts, the guests

To go their ways were free,

“All with protection from the king;

And thus, with joyful heart,

To Léon with his royal bride

Did the king’s son depart.

“All are gone hence, well satisfied;

Not so the king alone:

Merlin the Bard is lost again,

And whither is he gone?”

It is believed that Merlin was assassinated, but popular tradition has

not suffered the mysterious bard to die.

The story of the conversion of Merlin in his old age comes down to us

from very early times, and has been sung by the Christian bards of

Wales, Armorica, and the Gaelic clans. The following ballad, as well

the foregoing fragments relating to Merlin, is still sung in Treguier,

and other parts of Brittany.

CONVERSION OF MERLIN.

S. Kado walked the forest maze,

Through many a darkling dell:

S. Kado walked thro’ the forest green

Ringing his clear-toned bell;

When out from the shade of the ancient trees

A phantom bounding sprang;

But still S. Kado went his way,

And still his clear bell rang.

The phantom’s beard was like lichen gray

Spread o’er an ancient stone,

And its restless eyes, like boiling water,

Glitter and danced and shone.

‘Twas Merlin the Bard that Kado met,

That S. Kado met this day,

With fiery eyes that wildly glared,

And beard so long and gray.

“In Heaven’s name, I bid thee, phantom,

Tell me who art thou?”

“A bard was I when in the world,

To whom did all men bow.

If I into the palace came,

A joyous crowd pressed round,

And gleaming gold fell from the trees

When my harp began to sound.

“My country’s kings all loved me well;

And strange kings held in fear

The mighty bard with harp of gold,

To Brittany so dear.

Now in the woods I dwell alone:

Men honor me no more.

Grinding their teeth, there pass me by

The wolf and fierce wild boar.

“My harp is lost; the trees are felled

From whence dropped glittering gold;

The kings of Brittany are not;

The land to strangers sold.

‘Merlin the fool!’ now shout the folk,

And pelt, with scoffings bold.”

“Poor innocent, return to God,

Who pity has on thee,

And rest thy weariness on him

Who died on Calvary.”

“Ah, then in him I will confide,

Will he but pardon me.”

“Pardon from him do I pronounce:

The Blessed One in Three.”

“A cry of joy my heart sends forth,

To honor heaven’s high King;

And through eternal ages I

His praise will ever sing.”

“Go, Christian soul, and may his angels

O’er thee spread their wing.”

“FOR BETTER—FOR WORSE.”

THE mother of a family of three children sits musing while she mends

their clothing which lies heaped upon a table beside her. The pile

has lowered slowly under her patient and busy fingers during the long

afternoon. The slanting sun now shines across her bowed head while she

still continues her work. It touches up the homely furniture of the

room with a glow richer than the gilding of art, and lends to the place

a cheerful aspect which does not accord with the mood of its occupant.

She is a woman of about twenty-four years, with considerable claim to

beauty in her regular features and dark, intelligent eyes. But there is

a look of discontent on her face, and a querulousness in her voice, as

she occasionally reproves the noisy children playing about her. Yet the

eyes wear a patient look, in spite of the discontent expressed, and a

sort of hushed resolve seems stamped upon her features, as if, whatever

is the trouble with which she battles, no acknowledged recognition of

it shall find vent. Nature, however, has her way, and that which the

voice refuses to utter the eye often betrays, and there will be found

lines written upon the human face which those who study physiognomy may

translate. It is the chirography of the soul. She writes upon the face

as upon a tablet, often also extending the characters to the whole of

the frail temple she occupies, leaving her traces in motions of the

hands, carriage of the head, the very posture of the body, and in the

gait, so that all are eloquent of her subtle influence. How often a

pure pious soul, dwelling on heavenly things, recoiling from grossness,

and courting all that is divine, praying fervently always not to be

led into temptation, but delivered from evil, glorifies a plain face

into a seraphic beauty which makes the beholder wonder whence comes

this loveliness! We see plain features. We wonder that this face should

please as much as it does, forgetting the soul’s high mission. We see

not the lamp behind the screen of flesh: we only see the effect of

the rays. Again, we see faces where nature has done much to beautify,

and where a soul not delivered from evil has written such ugly marks

that the fair tablet is disfigured with blots and stains of sinful ink

flowing from the pen held in the grasp of passion.

Whence comes the writing on the face of this mother sitting in the

golden sunshine, doing the work which mothers are usually content to

perform? She is striving as best she may with a lot in life distasteful

to her, but from which she sees no means of escaping, and, indeed,

as yet does not dream of trying to escape. This lot is that of being

married to a man of coarser nature than her own, who seldom sympathizes

with her in anything at all above the most grovelling interests.

Why she married him seems to her now an ever-unsolved puzzle, a

never-ceasing source of regret. If she had read the lines, she might

conclude with the poet that it was “accident—blind contact and the

strong necessity of loving.” Not being acquainted with that answer

to her riddle, she blames fate and her own inexperienced youth, and

the need of a home and protection at a time when her own heart had

not yet asserted its rights. Now, she knows she does not love her

husband, and she thinks she hates him at times. Not that he is cruel,

not that he is unfaithful—he is neither of these; but he is narrow,

jealous, exacting, unintellectual, and coarse; while she is aspiring,

even poetic, in her nature. Fond of the beautiful, seeking it in every

way, cultivating her intellect as best she can against the odds of a

deficient education, limited means and time, and overtaxed strength of

body, she longs for a better position in life. Care has fretted, if

not furrowed, her fair white forehead already; yet still she reaches

out and clings to every refining influence. All books that have

fallen in her way she has read, stealing the time from toiling hours

already filled to overflowing with household work. On this particular

afternoon, there lies among the stockings she is mending a poem of

Whittier’s, which has taken such a hold upon her fancy and morbid

feeling that the discontent deepens and the hunger of her starving

heart gnaws more sharply than usual. This poem, _Maud Muller_, read so

gaily by the happy many, with pleasure at its pretty conceits, allies

itself so to this woman’s experience that it finds an echo she cannot

silence, in the lines—

“She wedded a man unlearned and poor,

And many children played round her door;

But care and sorrow and childbirth pain

Left their traces on heart and brain.”

Although she has never had any other lover, or even a passing fancy for

any other man, save some vague ideal of some one different from her

husband John Thorndyke, as she reads:

“And for him who sat by the chimney lug,

Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,

A manly form by her side she saw,

And joy was duty, and love was law,”

she seems to herself the heroine of the poem, and John Thorndyke the

very unpleasant companion portrayed. And yet no thought of escaping

from what she considers her “shackles” obtrudes upon her musings.

She is a severe Puritan in her education and faith, and thus far has

escaped the base free-thinking and “free-love” tendencies of the day.

Marriage, disagreeable as it has proved to her, seems still, if not

a sacrament, a binding, honorable state, to be borne with according

to her promise, “for better or for worse.” She has been married by

an Episcopal clergyman, because it had been most convenient, and her

husband had preferred that form; and thus her spoken promise has always

seemed to her yet more definite. “For better for worse, for richer for

poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till

death us do part.” That sounds always to her like a doom. Joy is not

duty, and love is not law, in her case; but she patiently takes “up her

burden of life again, saying only, ‘It might have been.’”

But in her lonely heart, she has one pure God-given instinct to glorify

her otherwise gloomy religion, and ennoble her dull, hard lot. This

is charity in its loveliest form—a disposition for nursing the sick

and attending to the needy—a positive vocation for the work, which

she does from enthusiasm, not from cold duty. Ever her willing hands

minister to the suffering, and often is she called to watch through

lonely nights at their bedsides. In this way, her acquaintance has

extended far beyond her husband’s sphere of life. Often in the houses

of her neighbors, both rich and poor, are her skill and kindness called

into requisition. Tact and cleverness, and, above all, a willingness

to help in time of need, soon make a woman appreciated and respected

among those by whom she is surrounded, and so it happens that her own

life presents itself to her in sharper contrast with the lives of other

women.

That unsatisfied hunger at her heart gnaws more and more, and her

husband grows to her more and more repulsive; but while he repels her

thus, and every tendril of her nature reaches out vainly for supporting

strength, she fails not in any duty as wife and mother. While her heart

calls vainly, her conscience is answered and obeyed in every exaction.

Courting no admiration from others, even where willing tribute is paid

to her beauty and refinement; dressing in Quaker-like simplicity, not

only in accordance with her limited means, but her own severe taste;

leading a quiet, industrious life, Agnes Thorndyke is irreproachable,

and esteemed by all who know her. The serpent coiled down in the

shadows of her soul is waiting to rear its head—waiting for an evil

hand, an evil breath, to warm it into strength, that its venom may

poison this pure life.

That evil hand, that evil breath, are coming, as they are always sure

to come—

“When such thoughts do not come of themselves

To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves

That seek lonely places—there rarely is wanting

Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting

To conjure them to her.”

“Deliver us from evil.” How well our Lord knew the need of that

petition for us! How wise the church to require its frequent use! It

is the cry of the direst human need, in its last extremity, to its

last refuge. How will the evil come to Agnes Thorndyke? and how will

she be led into temptation? The gate is opened apparently by her very

virtues. While she sits brooding over the thoughts which Whittier’s

pretty poem has suggested, her attention is aroused by a loud cry, and

noise of clattering hoofs and wheels. Running to the window, she sees

a crowd around a gentleman who lies bruised and senseless before her

door, while a horse and shattered carriage are fast disappearing down

the street. Standing on her porch, elevated above the heads of the

little crowd, she perceives that the stranger is not killed, but that

he must be cared for instantly. She calls to the men to bear him within

her open door, that she may assist to dress his wounds, while a surgeon

is summoned. This she does so deftly and so gently that the sufferer

thanks her warmly, and the surgeon compliments her on her skill.

The man is not very dangerously hurt, but the doctor advises that he be

kept very quiet for a time. At this the stranger looks perplexed, and,

casting first a searching glance about the room and over the person of

Mrs. Thorndyke, he says:

“If I could be allowed to remain here for any remuneration which this

lady would consent to receive, I would pay it willingly, and also

consider it a great favor. I am a stranger in the place. I had finished

the business for which I came, and I was hurrying to the railway

station, when this unlucky accident befell me, and threw me upon your

kindness.”

He looks now at Mrs. Thorndyke. She does not speak immediately, but

seems to be considering the expediency of yielding to his request. Her

quick sympathy shows her at once that it will be best for him not to be

disturbed.

“If you cannot consent, Mrs. Thorndyke,” says the doctor, “he had

better be removed to the hotel above here.”

“Pray, no!” interposes the patient. “I came from there, and glad enough

I was to leave it. It is a noisy, dirty, wretched place. Can’t you

think of some better refuge than that?—if I may not stay here.”

There is peevishness in his tones while speaking to the doctor which

soften to a gentle pleading as he turns at the last words again to his

hostess. It is not lost upon her. She is touched by his evident desire

to stay, and equally evident need of quiet and rest.

“If my husband does not object when he returns,” she says, “I will

undertake to be your nurse; but I am afraid our plain house and ways

will hardly satisfy you when you are stronger.”

“Oh! thanks—a thousand thanks,” he replies; “no danger of any

fastidiousness of mine standing in the way of my gratitude and content.”

And so it is arranged; for the pecuniary help which the stranger offers

is not unwelcome to John Thorndyke in the growing needs of his family.

This stranger, Martin Vanderlyn, is a handsome man of thirty-five

years, with the kind of beauty and manner which takes captive the

fancy of many women, yet which is really satanic; hard and cruel gray

eyes, but capable of a soft, imploring expression; dark hair; pale,

clear skin; and tall, well-knit figure; a voice agreeable in most of

its cadences, but with a treacherous note occasionally grating on the

ear, though corrected quickly, as if he himself had felt it; inherent

strength, but not purity of purpose; persistent patience in executing

his own selfish and sensual will; apparent gentleness, and refinement,

and culture, made subservient to his own desires; poetry, and flattery,

and irreligion, and sophistry always on his lips and in his eyes—such

is the patient which it becomes Agnes Thorndyke’s loving task to nurse

day after day. In this dangerous companionship, this hungry heart finds

solace. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” should

be her constant prayer now. How can she help seeing his admiring eyes

follow her, and look into her own? How can she prevent the dangerous

familiarity sanctioned by their relative positions of nurse and

patient? Well he knows how to increase the ever-ready sympathy for his

sufferings. Soon and easily he reads the disappointment in her life,

and detects the cause. Is there no scruple of conscience, no emotion

of gratitude, to stay him in his bad designs, framed and nursed on

his sick-bed during the very time she so tenderly cares for him? Not

one. Day by day he weaves the net and casts the toils about her so

surely that her whole manner towards her husband has changed to a

querulousness and impatience which speedily provoke a response of the

same nature; and discord and hatred sit in the place where once reigned

duty and peace.

John Thorndyke, although of a heavy, is also of a spiteful and jealous,

temperament. He has been, in his dull way, proud of his wife, and

selfishly pleased at the comfort she has brought him. It has not

occurred to him to try to brighten her life. Indeed, he has not known

that her life needed any cheer. He thinks that she is his, and all her

duty is to him, and so long as he knows himself faithful to her, and

gives her all the pecuniary support he can command as a mechanic, it

does not occur to him that he fails in any respect. He has never even

questioned himself on that point. No misgivings apparently disturb his

sluggish conscience. In this, he differs widely from his wife. She has

sharply questioned her conscience, being perhaps dimly aware of the

weak spot in the citadel, of the serpent coiled in the shadow. But as

she has never before given the slightest cause for his jealousy, she

has not been even suspicious of how terrible a sway it can have over

him. Even now she does not read the signs aright, being blinded by her

own new infatuation.

In the meantime, Martin Vanderlyn is convalescent, and making himself

more and more interesting to her. He addresses her always with so much

respect and courtesy that it is a continual flattery to her; for this

woman has her vanity under all her severe simplicity of garb and mien,

and to be recognized as being superior to her position in life is the

strongest—or _weakest_—desire of her heart. To so regard her is to

flatter her more surely and insidiously than to praise her beauty or

her grace.

Sitting one day over her sewing, she is suddenly surprised by the

remark from Vanderlyn, who has been silently studying her: “Mrs.

Thorndyke, you are not happy.”

She looks up with a sort of frightened expression, as if detected in

some crime. After a moment of deprecating, silent supplication in her

eyes, she responds with the commonplace question, quite at variance

with her look and manner:

“Why do you think so?”

“Because,” he says, “I am a physiognomist, and I have been studying

your face until I can read it as I would a book; and a more eloquent

book could not be found.”

The last words are spoken in a softened voice which makes her blush and

keep her eyes steadily averted. She has not been used to compliments

before his advent, and cannot toss them off or return them lightly.

She feels guilty now at liking this so well. Looking steadily at her

meanwhile, and pleased at her embarrassment, he says, “I have read in

this book that your life is not a happy one, and I am not surprised

at reading it. Perhaps my own past experience has made me quicker at

translating the language of your book; for, Mrs. Thorndyke, I have not

been happy myself, and I think your discontent springs from a similar

source.”

Again that deprecating look, as if battling with her conscience, which

whispers to her that the cause of her trouble should not be avowed or

even tacitly admitted. Complaint against her husband should not be

made to Martin Vanderlyn, above all. There is already too dangerous a

sympathy between them. A subtle intuition tells her that she is being

led into temptation, and that she ought to end this now and for ever.

Yet she does not do so. The serpent in the shadow has even now warmed

and stirred. Curiosity, also, concerning Mr. Vanderlyn’s former history

leads her to encourage him to proceed; so she says, “I am sorry to hear

that your life has not been, a happy one. I had thought of your leaving

us to go to brighter scenes and kinder friends.”

She has pondered over the absence of any communication with friends

or relatives during his illness, and so this last remark is not quite

truthful. She has often wondered if he has ever had wife or lady-love.

He answers all this by his reply to her last words:

“I am glad that I cannot return to the unhappy time I speak of. That is

closed for ever. It was when I had a wife, Mrs. Thorndyke; I have none

now.”

“She is dead, then,” says Agnes, looking up, and speaking in a low

voice which she instinctively feels should not seem sympathetic with

a grief he evidently disavows, for it is rather a relief which he

confesses.

“I know not,” he says, with a careless tone; “she may be, for aught I

know or care. She is dead to me, and I know I feel quite dead to her.

We are divorced, and I am a free man again. To that unhappy time of

my life I cannot return. The chains are broken. It was a woeful time.

I can imagine no surer blight on a human being’s happiness than an

unsuitable marriage. I know how it poisons a life, because mine, for a

time, was so poisoned. I think if there is any hell, my marriage was

arranged there by the prince himself, who is particularly interested

in the marriage question. I think divorces are made in heaven, not

matches, for my relief on getting my divorce was heavenly. The

sacrament of divorce for me! The feeling it gave me was that which old

John Bunyan ascribes to Christian when the pack of sins fell off his

back.”

He speaks with an audacity which frightens her Puritan prejudices,

while it lures her feminine admiration for his courage in daring to

speak out and assert himself. There is some romance here also, and a

subtle flattery in being made his confidante. For to her more delicate

sense, this, which he would brazenly declare to any one who might

listen, seems a sacred confidence. Her face looks her sympathy. The

answering chord is struck, and he sees it. The serpent has stirred to

the evil breath.

“Do you not think, Mrs. Thorndyke, that we have the inborn right to

seek our own happiness? Has not nature implanted that feeling within

us? Are not our lives a continual protest against being made miserable

or uncomfortable for the sake of sustaining a law of church or state?

The law of love is above these, and it can glorify a life, or the

absence of it can debase one.”

“And joy was duty, and love was law,” echoes in Mrs. Thorndyke’s

memory; and here is the “manly form by her side.”

He continues without pause: “If it is our right to pursue happiness, it

is equally our right to seek our love freely, casting off fetters which

love disdains; they chafe his delicate wings—love cannot live bound.”

“But he must be, to some extent,” she almost gasps, frightened at this

new and dangerous doctrine. “Society, respectability, require that

there should be a marriage bond by which the law can hold either party

to the contract. Else what would become of us? So many would escape who

have no right to do so.”

“I doubt that they have no right to escape. The very desire for escape

constitutes the right. If the law of love is there, no escape will be

desired.”

“Yes; but, Mr. Vanderlyn, in many instances, the possibility of escape

causes a desire for it; and where there is no way of escape, the

inevitable is accepted. ‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ you

know.” And there is a mournful cadence in her voice, a drooping of her

head and eyes.

“That is just the cruel part of it,” he says—“that freezing endurance

sitting like a vampire on our hearts.”

She puts her hand up suddenly to her heart, and clutches at her dress

nervously, as if to hide the vampire hidden there. Is it not rather a

tightening of the serpent’s coil? The next moment she is composed, and

ashamed of the momentary effect his words have caused in her outward

manner. He has seen the motion, however, but gives no evidence of it.

As if absorbed only in his own remembrances, not desiring to stir up

hers, he continues:

“I speak as one who knows and has felt, not as one who deals with

the cold abstractions of theologians and political economists. We who

know through bitter tasting of the cup are the true philosophers. Our

eyes have been opened, and we see the light. We no longer grope in the

darkness of the middle ages. We cast off the chains forged for us ages

ago. We will be free in our love, and in our beliefs or disbeliefs,

for creeds are chains. Do not let me shock you, my gentle Puritan. I

beg your pardon. Do not look at me so reprovingly, I cannot bear it.

Remember I am a sick man still, and you are my good, sweet nurse. You

must not grieve me with your displeasure. It is bad for me, you know.

Your frown makes me unhappy—come, smile on me.”

Ah! such idle, easy, words for him to speak—such dangerous ones for

her to hear! None such ever fall on her ear from John Thorndyke’s lips,

and, if they should, they would not please her so from him. She knows

this only too well, and that this man ought not to have the power to

please her so easily. But she allows herself this pleasure, arguing

that her life is bare enough.

“Do you forgive me enough to care to hear my story?” he says, after a

pause.

“Oh! yes,” she answers; “I am interested in that which has so colored

your feelings on this subject, and has given you such strange views of

law and religion.” She tries to speak it lightly, but he detects the

interest in himself. It is what he wishes.

“It is not much of a story,” he says. “I was married very

young—attracted and deceived by a pretty, saintly face, such as one

sees in pictures, and which always pleases youth. I found my saint to

be a stubborn bigot, who put her confessor above me, and set me and my

happiness entirely at naught in computing her debit and credit with

her church. Such selfish looking after one’s own interest in the next

life is to me disgusting. Every generous impulse must be stifled for

that end. The certain present is offered up a victim to the uncertain

future. I and my happiness had to be forgotten in prayers, penances,

fastings and foolishness. Bah! it sickens me to remember it. Enough

that, after bearing every discomfort, I sought a divorce, and _took_

it.”

He says the last in a strange tone, which long afterwards she recalls.

“Had you no children?” she asks.

“Yes, one; but it died, happily for it. I should not have liked to see

a daughter of mine trained in that church, as of course she was doomed

to be had she lived. That alone would have goaded me to madness—to see

the fastings and prayings duplicated. Two at it, against one.”

Here the conversations ends, and Agnes Thorndyke takes “up her burden

of life again,” with an added protest against it. How she wishes that

she could cut the cords, and let it fall like Christian’s pack! Poor

John Bunyan! “to what base uses has he come at last!” Christian’s pack

of sins made to represent the sacrament of marriage! But if “the devil

can quote Scripture for his purpose,” he will not scruple to use John

Bunyan’s quaint fancies.