Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave

Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Shrine of the mighty! can it be

That this is all remains of thee?

Approach, thou craven crouching slave:

Say, is not this Thermopylae?

These waters blue that round you lave,--

Oh servile offspring of the free!--

Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?

The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

These scenes, their story not unknown,

Arise, and make again your own;

Snatch from the ashes of your sires

The embers of their former fires;

And he who in the strife expires

Will add to theirs a name of fear

That Tyranny shall quake to hear,

And leave his sons a hope, a fame,

They too will rather die than shame:

For Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,

Though baffled oft is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!

Attest it many a deathless age!

While kings, in dusty darkness hid,

Have left a nameless pyramid,

Thy heroes, though the general doom

Hath swept the column from their tomb,

A mightier monument command,

The mountains of their native land!

There points thy Muse to stranger's eye

The graves of those that cannot die!

'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,

Each step from splendour to disgrace,

Enough--no foreign foe could quell

Thy soul, till from itself it fell;

Yes! Self-abasement paved the way

To villain-bonds and despot sway.

BYRON.

[Notes: _Lord Byron_, born 1788, died 1824. The most powerful English

poet of the early part of this century.

_Thermapylae._ The pass at which Leonidas and his Spartans resisted the

approach of the Persians (B.C. 480).

_Salamis_. Where the Athenians fought the great naval battle which

destroyed the Persian fleet, and secured the liberties of Greece.]

* * * * *

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

The Temple shakes, the sounding gates unfold,

Wide vaults appear, and roofs of fretted gold,

Raised on a thousand pillars wreathed around

With laurel-foliage and with eagles crowned;

Of bright transparent beryl were the walls,

The friezes gold, and gold the capitals:

As heaven with stars, the roof with jewels glows,

And ever-living lamps depend in rows.

Full in the passage of each spacious gate

The sage historians in white garments wait:

Graved o'er their seats, the form of Time was found,

His scythe reversed, and both his pinions bound.

Within stood heroes, who through loud alarms

In bloody fields pursued renown in arms.

High on a throne, with trophies charged, I viewed

The youth that all things but himself subdued;

His feet on sceptres and tiaras trode,

And his horned head belied the Libyan god.

There Caesar, graced with both Minervas, shone;

Caesar, the world's great master, and his own;

Unmoved, superior still in every state,

And scarce detested in his country's fate.

But chief were those, who not for empire fought,

But with their toils their people's safety bought:

High o'er the rest Epaminondas stood:

Timoleon, glorious in his brother's blood:

Bold Scipio, saviour of the Roman state,

Great in his triumphs, in retirement great;

And wise Aurelius, in whose well-taught mind

With boundless power unbounded virtue joined,

His own strict judge, and patron of mankind.

Much-suffering heroes next their honours claim,

Those of less noisy and less guilty fame,

Fair Virtue's silent train: supreme of these

Here ever shines the godlike Socrates;

He whom ungrateful Athens could expel,

At all times just but when he signed the shell:

Here his abode the martyred Phocion claims,

With Agis, not the last of Spartan names:

Unconquered Cato shows the wound he tore,

And Brutus his ill Genius meets no more.

But in the centre of the hallowed choir,

Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire;

Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand,

Hold the chief honours, and the Fane command.

High on the first the mighty Homer shone;

Eternal adamant composed his throne;

Father of verse! in holy fillets drest,

His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast:

Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears;

In years he seemed, but not impaired by years.

The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen:

Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;

Here Hector glorious from Patroclus' fall,

Here dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.

Motion and life did every part inspire,

Bold was the work, and proved the master's fire.

A strong expression most he seemed t' affect,

And here and there disclosed a brave neglect.

A golden column next in rank appeared,

On which a shrine of purest gold was reared;

Finished the whole, and laboured every part,

With patient touches of unwearied art;

The Mantuan there in sober triumph sate,

Composed his posture, and his look sedate:

On Homer still he fixed a reverent eye,

Great without pride, in modest majesty,

In living sculpture on the sides were spread

The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead:

Eliza stretched upon the funeral pyre,

Aeneas bending with his aged sire:

Troy flamed in burning gold, and o'er the throne

_Arms and the Man_ in golden ciphers shone.

Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,

With heads advanced, and pinions stretched for flight,

Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,

And seemed to labour with the inspiring God.

Across the harp a careless hand he flings,

And boldly sinks into the sounding strings.

The figured games of Greece the column grace,

Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race.

The youths hang o'er their chariots as they run;

The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone:

The champions in distorted postures threat;

And all appeared irregularly great.

Here happy Horace tuned th' Ausonian lyre

To sweeter sounds, and tempered Pindar's fire;

Pleased with Alcaeus' manly rage t' infuse

The softer spirit of the Sapphic Muse.

The polished pillar different sculptures grace;

A work outlasting monumental brass.

Here smiling Loves and Bacchanals appear,

The Julian star, and great Augustus here:

The Doves, that round the infant Poet spread

Myrtles and bays, hang hov'ring o'er his head.

Here, in a shrine that cast a dazzling light,

Sate, fixed in thought, the mighty Stagyrite:

His sacred head a radiant zodiac crowned,

And various animals his sides surround:

His piercing eyes, erect, appear to view

Superior worlds, and look all Nature through.

With equal rays immortal Tully shone;

The Roman rostra decked the Consul's throne:

Gathering his flowing robe, he seemed to stand

In act to speak, and graceful stretched his hand.

Behind, Rome's Genius waits with civic crowns,

And the great Father of his country owns.

These massy columns in a circle rise,

O'er which a pompous dome invades the skies:

Scarce to the top I stretched my aching sight,

So large it spread, and swelled to such a height.

Full in the midst proud Fame's imperial seat

With jewels blazed magnificently great:

The vivid emeralds there revive the eye,

The flaming rubies show their sanguine dye,

Bright azure rays from lively sapphires stream,

And lucid amber casts a golden gleam,

With various coloured light the pavement shone,

And all on fire appeared the glowing throne;

The dome's high arch reflects the mingled blaze,

And forms a rainbow of alternate rays.

When on the Goddess first I cast my sight,

Scarce seemed her stature of a cubit's height;

But swelled to larger size the more I gazed,

Till to the roof her towering front she raised;

With her the Temple every moment grew,

And ampler vistas opened to my view:

Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,

And arches widen, and long aisles extend,

Such was her form, as ancient Bards have told,

Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold;

A thousand busy tongues the Goddess bears,

A thousand open eyes, a thousand listening ears.

Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful Nine

(Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine:

With eyes on Fame for ever fixed, they sing;

For Fame they raise the voice, and tune the string:

With Time's first birth began the heavenly lays,

And last eternal through the length of days.

Around these wonders, as I cast a look,

The trumpet sounded, and the temple shook,

And all the nations, summoned at the call,

From diff'rent quarters, fill the crowded hall:

Of various tongues the mingled sounds were heard;

In various garbs promiscuous throngs appeared;

Thick as the bees that with the spring renew

Their flow'ry toils, and sip the fragrant dew,

When the winged colonies first tempt the sky,

O'er dusky fields and shaded waters fly;

Or, settling, seize the sweets the blossoms yield,

And a low murmur runs along the field.

Millions of suppliant crowds the shrine attend,

And all degrees before the Goddess bend;

The poor, the rich, the valiant, and the sage,

And boasting youth, and narrative old age.

Their pleas were diff'rent, their request the same:

For good and bad alike are fond of Fame.

Some she disgraced, and some with honours crowned;

Unlike successes equal merits found.

Thus her blind sister, fickle Fortune, reigns,

And, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains.

First at the shrine the Learned world appear,

And to the Goddess thus prefer their pray'r:

"Long have we sought t' instruct and please mankind,

With studies pale, with midnight vigils blind;

But thanked by few, rewarded yet by none.

We here appeal to thy superior throne:

On wit and learning the just prize bestow,

For fame is all we must expect below."

The Goddess heard, and bade the Muses raise

The golden Trumpet of eternal Praise:

From pole to pole the winds diffuse the sound

That fills the circuit of the world around.

Not all at once, as thunder breaks the cloud:

The notes, at first, were rather sweet than loud.

By just degrees they ev'ry moment rise,

Fill the wide earth, and gain upon the skies.

At ev'ry breath were balmy odours shed,

Which still grew sweeter as they wider spread;

Less fragrant scents th' unfolding rose exhales,

Or spices breathing in Arabian gales.

Next these, the good and just, an awful train,

Thus, on their knees, address the sacred fane:

"Since living virtue is with envy cursed,

And the best men are treated like the worst,

Do thou, just Goddess, call our merits forth,

And give each deed th' exact intrinsic worth."

"Not with bare justice shall your act be crowned,"

(Said Fame,) "but high above desert renowned:

Let fuller notes th' applauding world amaze,

And the loud clarion labour in your praise."

This band dismissed, behold another crowd

Preferred the same request, and lowly bowed;

The constant tenour of whose well-spent days

No less deserved a just return of praise.

But straight the direful Trump of Slander sounds;

Through the big dome the doubling thunder bounds;

Loud as the burst of cannon rends the skies,

The dire report through ev'ry region flies;

In ev'ry ear incessant rumours rung,

And gath'ring scandals grew on ev'ry tongue.

From the black trumpet's rusty concave broke

Sulphureous flames, and clouds of rolling smoke;

The pois'nous vapour blots the purple skies,

And withers all before it as it flies.

A troop came next, who crowns and armour wore,

And proud defiance in their looks they bore:

"For thee" (they cried), "amidst alarms and strife,

We sailed in tempests down the stream of life;

For thee whole nations filled with flames and blood,

And swam to empire through the purple flood.

Those ills we dared, thy inspiration own;

What virtue seemed was done for thee alone."

"Ambitious fools!" (the Queen replied, and frowned):

"Be all your acts in dark oblivion drowned;

There sleep forgot, with mighty tyrants gone,

Your statues mouldered, and your names unknown!"

A sudden cloud straight snatched them from my sight,

And each majestic phantom sunk in night.

Then came the smallest tribe I yet had seen;

Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien.

"Great idol of mankind! we neither claim

The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!

But safe, in deserts, from the applause of men,

Would die unheard-of, as we lived unseen.

'Tis all we beg thee, to conceal from sight

Those acts of goodness, which themselves requite.

O let us still the secret joy partake,

To follow virtue ev'n for virtue's sake."

"And live there men who slight immortal fame?

Who, then, with incense shall adore our name?

But, mortals! know, 'tis still our greatest pride

To blaze those virtues which the good would hide.

Rise! Muses, rise! add all your tuneful breath;

These must not sleep in darkness and in death,"

She said: in air the trembling music floats,

And on the winds triumphant swell the notes:

So soft, though high; so loud, and yet so clear;

Ev'n list'ning angels leaned from heaven to hear:

To farthest shores th' ambrosial spirit flies,

Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies.

Pope.

[Notes: _Alexander Pope_. (See previous note on Pope.) The hint of this

poem is taken from one by Chaucer, called 'The House of Fame.'

_Depend in rows. Depend_ in its proper and literal meaning, "hang down."

_The youth that all things but himself subdued_ = Alexander the Great

(356-323 B.C.).

_His feet on sceptres and tiaras trod. Tiaras_, in reference to his

conquests over the Asiatic monarchies.

_His horned head belied the Libyan god_. "The desire to be thought the

son of Jupiter Ammon caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to

represent the same upon his coins." _(Pope's note_.) Libyan = African.

_Caesar graced with both Minervas, i.e.,_ by warlike and literary

genius; as the conqueror of Gaul and the writer of the 'Commentaries.'

_Scarce detested in his country's fate_. Whom even the enslaving of his

country scarce makes us detest.

_Epaminondas_ (died 362 B.C.), the maintainer of Theban independence.

_Timoleon_, of Corinth, who slew his brother when he found him aspiring

to be tyrant in the state (died 337 B.C.).

_Scipio_. The conqueror of Carthage, which was long the rival of Rome.

_Aurelius, i.e.,_ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 A.D.), Emperor of

Rome; one of the brightest characters in Roman history.

_Socrates_. The great Greek philosopher, who, in maintaining truth,

incurred the charge of infecting the young men of Athens with impiety,

and was put to death by being made to drink hemlock. His life and

teaching are known to us through the writings of his disciple, Plato.

_He whom ungrateful Athens_, &c., i.e., Aristides (see page 171),

distinguished by the surname of _The Just_. He was unjust, Pope means,

only when he signed the shell for his own condemnation.

_Phocion_. An Athenian general and statesman (402-318 B.C.), put to

death by Polysperchon. He injured rather than helped the liberties of

Athens.

_Agis_, "King of Sparta, who endeavoured to restore his state to

greatness by a radical agrarian reform, was after a mock trial murdered

in prison, B.C. 241." _Ward_.

_Cato_, who, to escape disgrace amid the evils which befell his country,

stabbed himself in 46 B.C.

_Brutus his ill Genius meets no more_. See the account of the Eve of

Philippi in Book IV.

_The wars of Troy_. Described by Homer in his Iliad.

_Tydides (Diomede) wounds the Cyprian Queen (Venus)_. A scene described

in the Iliad.

_Hector_. Slew Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, and in revenge was

dragged by him round the walls of Troy.

_The Mantuan_, i.e., the Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, born

at Mantua (70-19 B.C.)

_Eliza_ = Elissa, or Dido, whose misfortunes are described in the

Aeneid.

_Aeneas bending with his aged sire_. Aeneas carried his father,

Anchises, from the flames of Troy on his shoulders.

_Arms and the Man_. The opening words of the Aeneid.

_Pindar_. Of Thebes, who holds the first place among the lyric poets of

Greece. The character and subjects of his poetry, of which the portions

remaining to us are the Triumphal Odes, celebrating victories gained in

the great games of Greece, are indicated by the lines that follow.

_Happy Horace_ (65-8 B.C.). The epithet is used to describe the

lightsome and genial tone of Horace's poetry. _Ausonian lyre_ = Italian

song. Ausonia is a poetical name for Italy.

_Alcoeus and Sappho_. Two of the early lyric poets of Greece.

_A work outlasting monumental brass_. This line is suggested by one of

Horace, when he describes his work as "a monument more lasting than

brass."

_The Julian star, and great Augustus here_. Referring to the Imperial

house and its representative, Augustus, Horace's chief patron.

_Stagyrite_. Aristotle, the great philosopher of Greece (384-322 B.C.),

born at Stagira. Pope here shortens the second syllable by a poetical

licence.

_Tully_. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great orator, statesman, and writer

of Rome. For saving the city from the conspiracy of Catiline, he was

honoured with the title of "Father of his country."

_Narrative old age_. Talkative old age.

_Unlike successes equal merits found_ = The same desert found now

success, now failure.]

* * * * *

LABRADOR.

The following narrative is from the periodical account of the Moravian

Missions. It contains some of the most impressive descriptions I ever

remember to have read.

Brother Samuel Liebiseh was at the time of this occurrence entrusted

with the general care of the brethren's missions on the coast of

Labrador. The duties of his office required a visit to Okkak, the most

northern of our settlements, and about one hundred and fifty English

miles distant from Nain, the place where he resided. Brother William

Turner being appointed to accompany him, they left Nain together on

March the 11th, 1782, early in the morning, with very clear weather,

the stars shining with uncommon lustre. The sledge was driven by the

baptised Esquimaux Mark, and another sledge with Esquimaux joined

company.

An Esquimaux sledge is drawn by a species of dogs, not unlike a wolf in

shape. Like them, they never bark, but howl disagreeably. They are kept

by the Esquimaux in greater or larger packs or teams, in proportion to

the affluence of the master. They quietly submit to be harnessed for

their work, and are treated with little mercy by the heathen Esquimaux,

who make them do hard duty for the small quantity of food they allow

them. This consists chiefly in offal, old skins, entrails, such parts of

whale-flesh as are unfit for other use, rotten whale-fins, &c.; and if

they are not provided with this kind of dog's meat, they leave them to

go and seek dead fish or muscles upon the beach.

When pinched with hunger they will swallow almost anything, and on a

journey it is necessary to secure the harness within the snow-house

over night, lest, by devouring it, they should render it impossible

to proceed in the morning. When the travellers arrive at their night

quarters, and the dogs are unharnessed, they are left to burrow on the

snow, where they please, and in the morning are sure to come at their

driver's call, when they receive some food. Their strength and speed;

even with a hungry stomach, is astonishing. In fastening them to the

sledge, care is taken not to let them go abreast. They are tied by

separate thongs, of unequal lengths, to a horizontal bar in the fore

part of the sledge; an old knowing one leads the way, running ten or

twenty paces ahead, directed by the driver's whip, which is of great

length, and can be well managed only by an Esquimaux. The other dogs

follow like a flock of sheep. If one of them receives a lash, he

generally bites his neighbour, and the bite goes round.

To return to our travellers. The sledge contained five men, one woman,

and a child. All were in good spirits, and appearances being much in

their favour, they hoped to reach Okkak in safety in two or three days.

The track over the frozen sea was in the best possible order, and they

went with ease at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. After they

had passed the islands in the bay of Nain, they kept at a considerable

distance from the coast, both to gain the smoothest part of the ice, and

to weather the high rocky promontory of Kiglapeit. About eight o'clock

they met a sledge with Esquimaux turning in from the sea. After the

usual salutation, the Esquimaux, alighting, held some conversation, as

is their general practice, the result of which was, that some hints were

thrown out by the strange Esquimaux that it might be better to return.

However, as the missionaries saw no reason whatever for it, and only

suspected that the Esquimaux wished to enjoy the company of their

friends a little longer, they proceeded. After some time, their own

Esquimaux hinted that there was a ground swell under the ice. It was

then hardly perceptible, except on lying down and applying the ear close

to the ice, when a hollow, disagreeably grating and roaring noise was

heard, as if ascending from the abyss. The weather remained clear,

except towards the east, where a bank of light clouds appeared,

interspersed with some dark streaks. But the wind being strong from the

north-west, nothing less than a sudden change of weather was expected.

The sun had now reached its height, and there was as yet little or no

alteration in the appearance of the sky. But the motion of the sea

under the ice had grown more perceptible, so as rather to alarm the

travellers, and they began to think it prudent to keep closer to the

shore. The ice had cracks and large fissures in many places, some

of which formed chasms of one or two feet wide; but as they are not

uncommon even in its best state, and the dogs easily leap over them, the

sledge following without danger, they are only terrible to new comers.

As soon as the sun declined towards the west, the wind increased and

rose to a storm, the bank of clouds from the east began to ascend, and

the dark streaks to put themselves in motion against the wind. The snow

was violently driven about by partial whirlwinds, both on the ice, and

from off the peaks of the high mountains, and filled the air. At the

same time the ground-swell had increased so much that its effect upon

the ice became very extraordinary and alarming. The sledges, instead of

gliding along smoothly upon an even surface, sometimes ran with violence

after the dogs, and shortly after seemed with difficulty to ascend

the rising hill; for the elasticity of so vast a body of ice, of many

leagues square, supported by a troubled sea, though in some places

three or four yards in thickness, would, in some degree, occasion an

undulatory motion not unlike that of a sheet of paper accommodating

itself to the surface of a rippling stream. Noises were now likewise

distinctly heard in many directions, like the report of cannon, owing to

the bursting of the ice at some distance.

The Esquimaux, therefore, drove with all haste towards the shore,

intending to take up their night-quarters on the south side of the

Nivak. But as it plainly appeared that the ice would break and disperse

in the open sea, Mark advised to push forward to the north of the Nivak,

from whence he hoped the track to Okkak might still remain entire. To

this proposal the company agreed; but when the sledges approached the

coast, the prospect before them was truly terrific. The ice having

broken loose from the rocks, was forced up and down, grinding and

breaking into a thousand pieces against the precipices, with a

tremendous noise, which, added to the raging of the wind, and the snow

driving about in the air, deprived the travellers almost of the power of

hearing and seeing anything distinctly.

To make the land at any risk was now the only hope left, but it was with

the utmost difficulty the frighted dogs could be forced forward, the

whole body of ice sinking frequently below the surface of the rocks,

then rising above it. As the only moment to land was when it gained

the level of the coast, the attempt was extremely nice and hazardous.

However, by God's mercy, it succeeded; both sledges gained the shore,

and were drawn up the beach with much difficulty.

The travellers had hardly time to reflect with gratitude to God on their

safety, when that part of the ice from which they had just now made good

their landing burst asunder, and the water, forcing itself from below,

covered and precipitated it into the sea. In an instant, as if by a

signal given, the whole mass of ice, extending for several miles from

the coast, and as far as the eye could reach, began to burst and be

overwhelmed by the immense waves. The sight was tremendous and awfully

grand: the large fields of ice, raising themselves out of the water,

striking against each other and plunging into the deep with a violence

not to be described, and a noise like the discharge of innumerable

batteries of heavy guns. The darkness of the night, the roaring of the

wind and sea, and the dashing of the waves and ice against the rocks,

filled the travellers with sensations of awe and horror, so as almost

to deprive them of the power of utterance. They stood overwhelmed with

astonishment at their miraculous escape, and even the heathen Esquimaux

expressed gratitude to God for their deliverance.

[Note: _But high above desert renowned_ = Let it be renowned high above

desert.]

* * * * *

A HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born or taught,

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his highest skill.

Whose passions not his masters are;

Whose soul is still prepared for death;

Not tied unto the world with care

Of prince's ear, or vulgar breath.

Who hath his life from rumours freed;

Whose conscience is his strong retreat:

Whose state can neither flatterers feed,

Nor ruin make oppressors great.

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,

Or vice: who never understood

How deepest wounds are given with praise;

Nor rules of state, but rules of good.

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is freed from servile bands

Of hope to rise or fear to fall;

Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing, yet hath all.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

[Notes: _Sir Henry Wotton_ (1568-1639). A poet, ambassador, and

miscellaneous writer, in the reign of James I.

_Born or taught_ = whether from natural character or by training.

_Nor ruin make oppressors great_ = nor _his_ ruin, &c.

_How deepest wounds are given with praise_. How praise may only cover

some concealed injury.]

* * * * *

MAN'S SERVANTS.

For us the winds do blow;

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow.

Nothing we see but means our good,

As our delight, or as our treasure:

The whole is either cupboard of our food,

Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed;

Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws;

Music and light attend our head;

All things unto our flesh are kind

In their descent and being; to our mind

In their ascent and cause.

More servants wait on Man

Than he'll take notice of. In every path

He treads down that which doth befriend him,

When sickness makes him pale and wan.

O mighty love! Man is one world, and hath

Another to attend him.

Since, then, My God, Thou hast

So brave a palace built, O dwell in it,

That it may dwell with Thee at last!

Till then afford us so much wit

That, as the world serves _us_, we may serve _Thee_,

And both thy servants be.

GEORGE HERBERT.

[Notes: _George Herbert_ (1593-1632). A clergyman of the Church of

England, the author of many religious works in prose and poetry. His

poetry is overfull of conceits, but in spite of these is eminently

graceful and rich with fancy.

_The stars have its to led, i.e.,_ conduct, or show us to bed.

_All things unto our flesh are kind, &c., i.e.,_ as they minister to the

needs of our body here below, so they minister to the mind by leading

us to think of the Higher Cause that brings them into being. The words

_descent_ and _accent_ are not to be pressed; they are rather balanced

one against the other, according to the fashion of the day.]

* * * * *

VIRTUE.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky,

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like seasoned timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

GEORGE HERBERT.

[Note:----_The bridal of the earth and sky, i.e.,_ in which all the

beauties of sky and earth are united.]

* * * * *

DEATH THE CONQUEROR.

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate:

Death lays his icy hand on kings:

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill;

But their strong nerves at last must yield,

They tame but one another still.

Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,

When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon death's purple altar now

See, where the victor-victim bleeds;

All heads must come

To the cold tomb,

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

[Notes: _James Shirley_ (1594-1666). A dramatic poet.

_And plant fresh laurels when they kill_ = even by the death they spread

around them in war, they may win new laurel-wreaths by victory.

_Purple_. As stained with blood.]

* * * * *

GROWTH OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

Various improvements in the system of jurisprudence, and administration

of justice, occasioned a change in manners, of great importance and of

extensive effect. They gave rise to a distinction of professions; they

obliged men to cultivate different talents, and to aim at different

accomplishments, in order to qualify themselves for the various

departments and functions which became necessary in society. Among

uncivilized nations there is but one profession honourable, that of

arms. All the ingenuity and vigour of the human mind are exerted in

acquiring military skill or address. The functions of peace are few and

simple, and require no particular course of education or of study as a

preparation for discharging them. This was the state of Europe during

several centuries. Every gentleman, born a soldier, scorned any other

occupation; he was taught no science but that of war; even his exercises

and pastimes were feats of martial prowess. Nor did the judicial

character, which persons of noble birth were alone entitled to assume,

demand any degree of knowledge beyond that which such untutored soldiers

possessed. To recollect a few traditionary customs which time had

confirmed, and rendered respectable; to mark out the lists of battle

with due formality; to observe the issue of the combat; and to pronounce

whether it had been conducted according to the laws of arms, included

everything that a baron, who acted as a judge, found it necessary to

understand.

But when the forms of legal proceedings were fixed, when the rules of

decision were committed to writing, and collected into a body, law

became a science, the knowledge of which required a regular course of

study, together with long attention to the practice of courts. Martial

and illiterate nobles had neither leisure nor inclination to undertake a

task so laborious, as well as so foreign from all the occupations which

they deemed entertaining, or suitable to their rank. They gradually

relinquished their places in courts of justice, where their ignorance

exposed them to contempt. They became, weary of attending to the

discussion of cases, which grew too intricate for them to comprehend.

Not only the judicial determination of points which were the subject of

controversy, but the conduct of all legal business and transactions, was

committed to persons trained by previous study and application to the

knowledge of law. An order of men, to whom their fellow-citizens had

daily recourse for advice, and to whom they looked up for decision in

their most important concerns, naturally acquired consideration and

influence in society. They were advanced to honours which had been

considered hitherto as the peculiar rewards of military virtue. They

were entrusted with offices of the highest dignity and most extensive

power. Thus, another profession than that of arms came to be introduced

among the laity, and was reputed honourable. The functions of civil

life were attended to. The talents requisite for discharging them were

cultivated. A new road was opened to wealth and eminence. The arts and

virtues of peace were placed in their proper rank, and received their

due recompense.

While improvements, so important with respect to the state of society

and the administration of justice, gradually made progress in Europe,

sentiments more liberal and generous had begun to animate the nobles.

These were inspired by the spirit of chivalry, which, though considered,

commonly, as a wild institution, the effect of caprice, and the source

of extravagance, arose naturally from the state of society at that

period, and had a very serious influence in refining the manners of the

European nations. The feudal state was a state of almost perpetual war,

rapine, and anarchy, during which the weak and unarmed were exposed

to insults or injuries. The power of the sovereign was too limited to

prevent these wrongs; and the administration of justice too feeble

to redress them. The most effectual protection against violence and

oppression was often found to be that which the valour and generosity

of private persons afforded. The same spirit of enterprise which had

prompted so many gentlemen to take arms in defence of the oppressed

pilgrims in Palestine, incited others to declare themselves the patrons

and avengers of injured innocence at home. When the final reduction of

the Holy Land under the dominion of infidels put an end to these foreign

expeditions, the latter was the only employment left for the activity

and courage of adventurers. To check the insolence of overgrown

oppressors; to rescue the helpless from captivity; to protect or to

avenge women, orphans, and ecclesiastics, who could not bear arms in

their own defence; to redress wrongs, and to remove grievances, were

deemed acts of the highest prowess and merit. Valour, humanity,

courtesy, justice, honour, were the characteristic qualities of

chivalry. To these was added religion, which mingled itself with every

passion and institution during the Middle Ages, and, by infusing a large

proportion of enthusiastic zeal, gave them such force as carried them

to romantic excess. Men were trained to knighthood by a long previous

discipline; they were admitted into the order by solemnities no less

devout than pompous; every person of noble birth courted that honour; it

was deemed a distinction superior to royalty; and monarchs were proud to

receive it from the hands of private gentlemen.

This singular institution, in which valour, gallantry, and religion,

were so strangely blended, was wonderfully adapted to the taste and

genius of martial nobles; and its effects were soon visible in their

manners. War was carried on with less ferocity, when humanity came to be

deemed the ornament of knighthood no less than courage. More gentle and

polished manners were introduced, when courtesy was recommended as the

most amiable of knightly virtues. Violence and oppression decreased,

when it was reckoned meritorious to check and to punish them. A

scrupulous adherence to truth, with the most religious attention to

fulfil every engagement, became the distinguishing characteristic of a

gentleman, because chivalry was regarded as the school of honour, and

inculcated the most delicate sensibility with respect to those points.

The admiration of these qualities, together with the high distinctions

and prerogatives conferred on knighthood in every part of Europe,

inspired persons of noble birth on some occasions with a species of

military fanaticism, and led them to extravagant enterprises. But they

deeply imprinted on their minds the principles of generosity and honour.

These were strengthened by everything that can affect the senses or

touch the heart. The wild exploits of those romantic knights who sallied

forth in quest of adventures are well known, and have been treated with

proper ridicule. The political and permanent effects of the spirit of

chivalry have been less observed. Perhaps the humanity which accompanies

all the operations of war, the refinements of gallantry, and the point

of honour, the three chief circumstances which distinguished modern from

ancient manners, may be ascribed in a great measure to this institution,

which has appeared whimsical to superficial observers, but by its

effects has proved of great benefit to mankind. The sentiments which

chivalry inspired had a wonderful influence on manners and conduct

during the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries.

They were so deeply rooted, that they continued to operate after the

vigour and reputation of the institution itself began to decline. Some

considerable transactions recorded in the following history resemble

the adventurous exploits of chivalry, rather than the well-regulated

operations of sound policy. Some of the most eminent personages, whose

characters will be delineated, were strongly tinctured with this

romantic spirit. Francis I. was ambitious to distinguish himself by all

the qualities of an accomplished knight, and endeavoured to imitate the

enterprising genius of chivalry in war, as well as its pomp and courtesy

during peace. The fame which the French monarch acquired by these

splendid actions, so far dazzled his more temperate rival, that he

departed on some occasions from his usual prudence and moderation, and

emulated Francis in deeds of prowess or of gallantry.

The progress of science and the cultivation of literature had

considerable effect in changing the manners of the European nations,

and introducing that civility and refinement by which they are now

distinguished. At the time when their empire was overturned, the

Romans, though they had lost that correct taste which has rendered the

productions of their ancestors standards of excellence, and models of

imitation for succeeding ages, still preserved their love of letters,

and cultivated the arts with great ardour. But rude barbarians were

so far from being struck with any admiration of these unknown

accomplishments, that they despised them. They were not arrived at that

state of society, when those faculties of the human mind which have

beauty and elegance for their objects begin to unfold themselves. They

were strangers to most of those wants and desires which are the parents

of ingenious invention; and as they did not comprehend either the merit

or utility of the Roman arts, they destroyed the monuments of them, with

an industry not inferior to that with which their posterity have since

studied to preserve or to recover them. The convulsions occasioned by

the settlement of so many unpolished tribes in the empire; the frequent

as well as violent revolutions in every kingdom which they established;

together with the interior defects in the form of government which they

introduced, banished security and leisure. They prevented the growth

of taste, or the culture of science, and kept Europe, during several

centuries, in that state of ignorance which has been already described.

But the events and institutions which I have enumerated produced great

alterations in society. As soon as their operation, in restoring liberty

and independence to one part of the community, began to be felt; as soon

as they began to communicate to all the members of society some taste

of the advantages arising from commerce, from public order, and from

personal security, the human mind became conscious of powers which it

did not formerly perceive, and fond of occupations or pursuits of which

it was formerly incapable. Towards the beginning of the twelfth century,

we discern the first symptoms of its awakening from that lethargy in

which it had been long sunk, and observe it turning with curiosity and

attention towards new objects.

ROBERTSON.

[Notes: _Francis I_. (1494-1547). King of France; the contemporary of

Henry VIII. and of Charles V., Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The

constant rivalry and ever recurring wars between Francis and the latter,

occupy a great part of European history during the first half of the

16th century.

_His more temperate rival, i.e.,_ Charles V.

_At the time when their empire was overturned, the_ _Romans, &c._ In 410

A.D., by the incursions of the Goths.]

* * * * *

THE PASSIONS.

(AN ODE FOR MUSIC.)

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,

While yet in early Greece she sung,

The Passions oft, to hear her shell,

Thronged around her magic cell,

Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,

Possessed beyond the Muse's painting:

By turns they felt the glowing mind

Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined,--

Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,

Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,

From the supporting myrtles round

They snatched her instruments of sound;

And, as they oft had heard, apart,

Sweet lessons of her forceful art,

Each, for Madness ruled the hour,

Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,

Amid the chords bewildered laid,

And back recoiled, he knew not why,

E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed: his eyes on fire,

In lightnings owned his secret stings;

In one rude clash he struck the lyre,

And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures, wan Despair--

Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled:

A solemn, strange, and mingled air,

'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,

What was thy delighted measure?

Still it whispered promised pleasure,

And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail;

Still would her touch the scene prolong;

And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,

She called on Echo still through all the song;

And, where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;

And hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden

hair;--

And longer had she sung:--but, with a frown,

Revenge impatient rose:

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down,

And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,

And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!

And ever and anon he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat:

And though sometimes, each dreary pause between,

Dejected Pity at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from

his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state!

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;

And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.

With eyes upraised, as one inspired,

Pale Melancholy sat retired;

And from her wild sequestered seat,

In notes by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;

And dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound:

Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,

Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,

Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace and lonely musing,--

In hollow murmurs died away.

But oh, how altered was its sprightlier tone!

When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,

Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung,

The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known!

The oak-crowned Sisters and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and Sylvan boys, were seen

Peeping from forth their alleys green.

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial;

He, with viny crown advancing,

First to the lively pipe his hand addressed;

But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol

Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best:

They would have thought, who heard the strain,

They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids,

Amidst the festal-sounding shades,

To some unwearied minstrel dancing;

While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,

Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;

Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;

And he, amidst his frolic play,

As if he would the charming air repay,

Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

O Music! sphere-descended maid,

Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!

Why, goddess, why, to us denied,

Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?

As in that loved, Athenian bower

You learned an all-commanding power.

Thy mimic soul; O nymph endeared!

Can well recall what then it heard.

Where is thy native simple heart

Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?

Arise, as in that elder time,

Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!

Thy wonders in that god-like age,

Fill thy recording Sister's page;--

'Tis said, and I believe the tale,

Thy humblest reed could more prevail,

Had more of strength, diviner rage,

Than all which charms this laggard age,

E'en all at once together found

Cecilia's mingled world of sound;--

O bid our vain endeavours cease:

Revive the just designs of Greece:

Return in all thy simple state!

Confirm the tales her sons relate!

COLLINS.

[Notes: _William Collins_ (1720-1756). A poet, who throughout life

struggled with adversity, and who, though he produced little, refined

everything he wrote with a most fastidious taste and with elaborate

care.

_Shell_, according to a fashion common with the poets of the

first half of the 18th century, stands for lyre. The Latin word

_testudo_, a shell is often so used.

_Possessed beyond the Muse's painting_ = enthralled beyond what poetry

can describe.

_His own expressive power, i.e.,_ his power to express his own feelings.

_In lightnings owned his secret stings_ = in lightning-like touches

confessed the hidden fury which inspired him.

_Veering song_. The ever-changeful song.

_Her wild sequestered seat_. Sequestered properly is used of something

which, being in dispute, is deposited in a third person's hands: hence

of something set apart or in retirement.

_Round a holy calm diffusing_ = diffusing around a holy calm.

_Buskin_. A boot reaching above the ankle. _Gemmed_ = sparkling as with

gems.

Faun and Dryad_. Creatures with whom ancient mythology peopled the

woods.

_Their chaste-eyed Queen_ = Diana.

_Brown exercise_. Exercise is here personified and represented as brown

and sunburnt.

_Viol_. A stringed musical instrument.

_In Tempe's vale_. In Thessaly, especially connected with the worship of

Apollo, the god of poetry and music.

_Sphere-descended maid_. A metaphor common with the poets, and taken

from a Greek fancy most elaborately described in Plato's 'Republic,'

where the system of the universe is pictured as a series of whorls

linked in harmony.

_Thy mimic soul_. Thy soul apt to imitate.

_Devote_ = devoted. A form more close to that of the Latin participle,

from which it is derived.

_Thy recording Sister_ = the Muse of History.

_Cecilia's mingled world of sound_ = the organ. So St. Cecilia is called

in Dryden's Ode, "Inventress of the vocal frame."

_The just designs_ = the well-conceived, artistic designs.]

* * * * *

"A WHALE HUNT."

A tide of unusual height had carried the whale over a large bar of sand,

into the voe or creek in which he was now lying. So soon as he found the

water ebbing, he became sensible of his danger, and had made desperate

efforts to get over the shallow water, where the waves broke on the bar

but hitherto he had rather injured than mended his condition, having got

himself partly aground, and lying therefore particularly exposed to the

meditated attack. At this moment the enemy came down upon him. The front

ranks consisted of the young and hardy, armed in the miscellaneous

manner we have described; while, to witness and animate their efforts,

the young women, and the elderly persons of both sexes, took their place

among the rocks, which overhung the scene of action.

As the boats had to double a little headland, ere they opened the mouth

of the voe, those who came by land to the shores of the inlet had time

to make the necessary reconnaissances upon the force and situation of

the enemy, on whom they were about to commence a simultaneous attack by

land and sea.

This duty, the stout-hearted and experienced general--for so the Udaller

might be termed--would entrust to no eyes but his own; and, indeed, his

external appearance, and his sage conduct, rendered him alike qualified

for the command which he enjoyed. His gold-laced hat was exchanged for a

bearskin cap, his suit of blue broadcloth, with its scarlet lining, and

loops, and frogs of bullion, had given place to a red flannel jacket,

with buttons of black horn, over which he wore a seal-skin shirt

curiously seamed and plaited on the bosom, such as are used by the

Esquimaux, and sometimes by the Greenland whale-fishers. Sea-boots of

a formidable size completed his dress, and in his hand he held a large

whaling-knife, which he brandished, as if impatient to employ it in the

operation of _flinching_ the huge animal which lay before them,--that

is, the act of separating its flesh from its bones. Upon closer

examination, however, he was obliged to confess that the sport to which

he had conducted his friends, however much it corresponded with the

magnificent scale of his hospitality, was likely to be attended with its

own peculiar dangers and difficulties.

The animal, upwards of sixty feet in length, was lying perfectly still,

in a deep part of the voe into which it had weltered, and where it

seemed to await the return of tide, of which it was probably assured by

instinct. A council of experienced harpooners was instantly called, and

it was agreed that an effort should be made to noose the tail of this

torpid leviathan, by casting a cable around it, to be made fast by

anchors to the shore, and thus to secure against his escape, in case the

tide should make before they were able to dispatch him. Three boats were

destined to this delicate piece of service, one of which the Udaller

himself proposed to command, while Cleveland and Mertoun were to direct

the two others. This being decided, they sat down on the strand, waiting

with impatience until the naval part of the force should arrive in the

voe. It was during this interval, that Triptolemus Yellowley, after

measuring with his eyes the extraordinary size of the whale, observed,

that in his poor mind, "A wain[1] with six owsen,[2] or with sixty owsen

either, if they were the owsen of the country, could not drag siccan[3]

a huge creature from the water, where it was now lying, to the

sea-beach."

Trifling as this remark may seem to the reader, it was connected with a

subject which always fired the blood of the old Udaller, who, glancing

upon Triptolemus a quick and stern look, asked him what it signified,

supposing a hundred oxen could not drag the whale upon the beach? Mr.

Yellowley, though not much liking the tone with which the question was

put, felt that his dignity and his profit compelled him to answer as

follows:--"Nay, sir; you know yourself, Master Magnus Troil, and every

one knows that knows anything, that whales of siccan size as may not be

masterfully dragged on shore by the instrumentality of one wain with six

owsen, are the right and property of the Admiral, who is at this time

the same noble lord who is, moreover, Chamberlain of these isles."

"And I tell you, Mr. Triptolemus Yellowley," said the Udaller, "as I

would tell your master if he were here, that every man who risks his

life to bring that fish ashore, shall have an equal and partition,

according to our ancient and lovable Norse custom and wont; nay, if

there is so much as a woman looking on, that will but touch the cable,

she will be partner with us. All shall share that lend a hand, and never

a one else. So you, Master Factor, shall be busy as well as other folk,

and think yourself lucky to share like other folk. Jump into that boat"

(for the boats had by this time pulled round the headland), "and you, my

lads, make way for the factor in the stern-sheets--he shall be the first

man this day that shall strike the fish."

The three boats destined for this perilous service now approached the

dark mass, which lay like an islet in the deepest part of the voe,

and suffered them to approach without showing any sign of animation.

Silently, and with such precaution as the extreme delicacy of the

operation required, the intrepid adventurers, after the failure of their

first attempt, and the expenditure of considerable time, succeeded in

casting a cable around the body of the torpid monster, and in carrying

the ends of it ashore, when a hundred hands were instantly employed in

securing them. But ere this was accomplished, the tide began to make

fast, and the Udaller informed his assistants that either the fish must

be killed or at least greatly wounded ere the depth of water on the bar

was sufficient to float him; or that he was not unlikely to escape from

their joint prowess.

"Wherefore," said he, "we must set to work, and the factor shall have

the honour to make the first throw."

The valiant Triptolemus caught the word; and it is necessary to say that

the patience of the whale, in suffering himself to be noosed without

resistance, had abated his terrors, and very much lowered the creature

in his opinion. He protested the fish had no more wit, and scarcely more

activity, than a black snail; and, influenced by this undue contempt

of the adversary, he waited neither for a farther signal, nor a better

weapon, nor a more suitable position, but, rising in his energy, hurled

his graip with all his force against the unfortunate monster. The boats

had not yet retreated from him to the distance necessary to ensure

safety, when this injudicious commencement of the war took place.

Magnus Troil, who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the

launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful

hand, had just time to exclaim, "Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all

stamped!" when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow

of the factor's missile, blew, with a noise resembling the explosion of

a steam-engine, a huge shower of water into the air, and at the same

time began to lash the waves with its tail in every direction. The boat

in which Magnus presided received the shower of brine which the animal

spouted aloft; and the adventurous Triptolemus, who had a full share of

the immersion, was so much astonished and terrified by the consequences

of his own valorous deed, that he tumbled backwards amongst the feet of

the people, who, too busy to attend to him, were actively engaged in

getting the boat into shoal water, out of the whale's reach. Here he lay

for some minutes, trampled on by the feet of the boatmen, until they lay

on their oars to bale, when the Udaller ordered them to pull to

shore, and land this spare hand, who had commenced the fishing so

inauspiciously.

While this was doing, the other boats had also pulled off to safer

distance, and now, from these as well as from the shore, the unfortunate

native of the deep was overwhelmed by all kinds of missiles--harpoons

and spears flew against him on all sides--guns were fired, and each

various means of annoyance plied which could excite him to exhaust his

strength in useless rage. When the animal found that he was locked in

by shallows on all sides, and became sensible, at the same time, of the

strain of the cable on his body, the convulsive efforts which he made to

escape, accompanied with sounds resembling deep and loud groans, would

have moved the compassion of all but a practised whale-fisher. The

repeated showers which he spouted into the air began now to be mingled

with blood, and the waves which surrounded him assumed the same crimson

appearance. Meantime the attempts of the assailants were redoubled; but

Mordaunt Mertoun and Cleveland, in particular, exerted themselves to the

uttermost, contending who should display most courage in approaching the

monster, so tremendous in its agonies, and should inflict the most deep

and deadly wounds upon its huge bulk.

The contest seemed at last pretty well over; for although the animal

continued from time to time to make frantic exertions for liberty, yet

its strength appeared so much exhausted, that, even with the assistance

of the tide, which had now risen considerably, it was thought it could

scarcely extricate itself.

Magnus gave the signal to venture nearer to the whale, calling out at

the same time, "Close in, lads, she is not half so mad now--the Factor

may look for a winter's oil for the two lamps at Harfra--pull close in,

lads."

Ere his orders could be obeyed, the other two boats had anticipated

his purpose; and Mordaunt Mertoun, eager to distinguish himself above

Cleveland, had with the whole strength he possessed, plunged a half-pike

into the body of the animal. But the leviathan, like a nation whose

resources appear totally exhausted by previous losses and calamities,

collected his whole remaining force for an effort, which proved at once

desperate and successful. The wound, last received had probably reached

through his external defences of blubber, and attained some very

sensitive part of the system; for he roared loud, as he sent to the sky

a mingled sheet of brine and blood, and snapping the strong cable like a

twig, overset Mertoun's boat with a blow of his tail, shot himself, by

a mighty effort, over the bar, upon which the tide had now risen

considerably, and made out to sea, carrying with him a whole grove of

the implements which had been planted in his body, and leaving behind

him, on the waters, a dark red trace of his course.

SCOTT.

[Notes: [1] Waggon.

[2] Oxen.

[3] Such.]

* * * * *

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

The King was on his throne.

The Satraps throng'd the hall:

A thousand bright lamps shone

O'er that high festival.

A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine--

Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,

The fingers of a hand

Came forth against the wall.

And wrote as if on sand:

The fingers of a man;--

A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,

And bade no more rejoice;

All bloodless wax'd his look,

And tremulous his voice.

"Let the men of lore appear,

The wisest of the earth,

And expound the words of fear,

Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;

And the unknown letters stood

Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,

They saw--but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,

He heard the king's command,

He saw that writing's truth.

The lamps around were bright,

The prophecy in view;

He read it on that night,--

The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,

His kingdom pass'd away,

He, in the balance weigh'd,

Is light and worthless clay;

The shroud his robe of state,

His canopy the stone;

The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

BYRON.

[Notes: _Belshazzar_, the last king of Babylon, lived probably in the

6th century B.C. He was defeated by the Medes and Persians combined.

_Satraps_. The governors or magistrates of provinces.

_A thousand cups of gold_, &c. Taken in the captivity of Judah.

_A captive in the land_ = the Prophet Daniel.]

* * * * *

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

Ye mariners of England,

That guard our native seas,

Whose flag has braved a thousand years

The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again,

To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow;

And the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirit of your fathers

Shall start from every wave!--

For the deck it was their field of fame,

And ocean was their grave;

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,

Your manly hearts shall glow,

As ye sweep through the deep

While the stormy winds do blow;

While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak,

She quells the floods below,

As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow.

While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor flag of England

Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,

And the star of peace return.

Then, then, ye ocean warriors!

Your song and feast shall flow

To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;

When the fiery fight is heard no more,

And the storm has ceased to blow.

CAMPBELL.

[Notes: _Blake_. Robert Blake (1598-1657), an English admiral under

Cromwell, chiefly distinguished for his victories over the Dutch.]

* * * * *

A SHIPWRECK.

One morning I can remember well, how we watched from the Hartland Cliffs

a great barque, which came drifting and rolling in before the western

gale, while we followed her up the coast, parsons and sportsmen, farmers

and Preventive men, with the Manby's mortar lumbering behind us in a

cart, through stone gaps and track-ways, from headland to headland. The

maddening excitement of expectation as she ran wildly towards the cliffs

at our feet, and then sheered off again inexplicably;--her foremast and

bowsprit, I recollect, were gone short off by the deck; a few rags of

sail fluttered from her main and mizen. But with all straining of eyes

and glasses, we could discern no sign of man on board. Well I recollect

the mingled disappointment and admiration of the Preventive men, as a

fresh set of salvors appeared in view, in the form of a boat's crew of

Clovelly fishermen; how we watched breathlessly the little black speck

crawling and struggling up in the teeth of the gale, under the shelter

of the land, till, when the ship had rounded a point into smoother

water, she seized on her like some tiny spider on a huge unwieldy

fly; and then how one still smaller black speck showed aloft on the

main-yard, and another--and then the desperate efforts to get the

topsail set--and how we saw it tear out of their hands again, and again,

and again, and almost fancied we could hear the thunder of its flappings

above the roar of the gale, and the mountains of surf which made the

rocks ring beneath our feet;--and how we stood silent, shuddering,

expecting every moment to see whirled into the sea from the plunging

yards one of those same tiny black specks, in each one of which was a

living human soul, with sad women praying for him at home! And then how

they tried to get her head round to the wind, and disappeared instantly

in a cloud of white spray--and let her head fall back again--and jammed

it round again, and disappeared again--and at last let her drive

helplessly up the bay, while we kept pace with her along the cliffs; and

how at last, when she had been mastered and fairly taken in tow, and was

within two miles of the pier, and all hearts were merry with the

hopes of a prize which would make them rich, perhaps, for years to

come--one-third, I suppose, of the whole value of her cargo--how she

broke loose from them at the last moment, and rushed frantically in upon

those huge rocks below us, leaping great banks of slate at the blow of

each breaker, tearing off masses of ironstone which lie there to this

day to tell the tale, till she drove up high and dry against the cliff,

and lay, like an enormous stranded whale, grinding and crashing herself

to pieces against the walls of her adamantine cage. And well I recollect

the sad records of the log-book which was left on board the deserted

ship; how she had been waterlogged for weeks and weeks, buoyed up by her

timber cargo, the crew clinging in the tops, and crawling down, when

they dared, for putrid biscuit-dust and drops of water, till the water

was washed overboard and gone; and then notice after notice, "On this

day such an one died," "On this day such an one was washed away"--the

log kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the

stern business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at last,

when there was neither food nor water, the strong man's heart seemed

to have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down in the

log--"The Lord have mercy on us!"--and then a blank of several pages,

and, scribbled with a famine-shaken hand, "Remember thy Creator in the

days of thy youth;"--and so the log and the ship were left to the rats,

which covered the deck when our men boarded her. And well I remember

the last act of that tragedy; for a ship has really, as sailors feel,

a personality, almost a life and soul of her own; and as long as her

timbers hold together, all is not over. You can hardly call her a

corpse, though the human beings who inhabited her, and were her soul,

may have fled into the far eternities; and so we felt that night, as we

came down along the woodland road, with the north-west wind hurling dead

branches and showers of crisp oak-leaves about our heads; till suddenly,

as we staggered out of the wood, we came upon such a picture as it would

have baffled Correggio, or Rembrandt himself, to imitate. Under a

wall was a long tent of sails and spars, filled with Preventive men,

fishermen, Lloyd's underwriters, lying about in every variety of strange

attitude and costume; while candles, stuck in bayonet-handles in the

wall, poured out a wild glare over shaggy faces and glittering weapons,

and piles of timber, and rusty iron cable, that glowed red-hot in the

light, and then streamed up the glen towards us through the salt misty

air in long fans of light, sending fiery bars over the brown transparent

oak foliage and the sad beds of withered autumn flowers, and glorifying

the wild flakes of foam, as they rushed across the light-stream, into

troops of tiny silver angels, that vanished into the night and hid

themselves among the woods from the fierce spirit of the storm. And

then, just where the glare of the lights and watch-fires was most

brilliant, there too the black shadows of the cliff had placed the point

of intensest darkness, lightening gradually upwards right and left,

between the two great jaws of the glen, into a chaos of grey mist, where

the eye could discern no form of sea or cloud, but a perpetual shifting

and quivering as if the whole atmosphere was writhing with agony in the

clutches of the wind.

The ship was breaking up; and we sat by her like hopeless physicians by

a deathbed-side, to watch the last struggle,--and "the effects of the

deceased." I recollect our literally warping ourselves down to the

beach, holding on by rocks and posts. There was a saddened awe-struck

silence, even upon the gentleman from Lloyd's with the pen behind his

ear. A sudden turn of the clouds let in a wild gleam of moonshine upon

the white leaping heads of the breakers, and on the pyramid of the

Black-church Rock, which stands in summer in such calm grandeur gazing

down on the smiling bay, with the white sand of Braunton and the red

cliffs of Portledge shining through its two vast arches; and against a

slab of rock on the right, for years afterwards discoloured with her

paint, lay the ship, rising slowly on every surge, to drop again with

a piteous crash as the wave fell back from the cliff, and dragged the

roaring pebbles back with it under the coming wall of foam. You have

heard of ships at the last moment crying aloud like living things in

agony? I heard it then, as the stumps of her masts rocked and reeled in

her, and every plank and joint strained and screamed with the dreadful

tension.

A horrible image--a human being shrieking on the rack; rose up before

me at those strange semi-human cries, and would not be put away--and I

tried to turn, and yet my eyes were riveted on the black mass, which

seemed vainly to implore the help of man against the stern ministers of

the Omnipotent.

Still she seemed to linger in the death-struggle, and we turned at last

away; when, lo! a wave, huger than all before it, rushed up the boulders

towards us. We had just time to save ourselves. A dull, thunderous

groan, as if a mountain had collapsed, rose above the roar of the

tempest; and we all turned with an instinctive knowledge of what had

happened, just in time to see the huge mass melt away into the boiling

white, and vanish for evermore. And then the very raving of the wind

seemed hushed with awe; the very breakers plunged more silently towards

the shore, with something of a sullen compunction; and as we stood and

strained our eyes into the gloom, one black plank after another crawled

up out of the darkness upon the head of the coming surge, and threw

itself at our feet like the corpse of a drowning man, too spent to

struggle more.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

* * * * *

A SHIPWRECK.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,--

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,--

Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawned around her like a hell,

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rushed,

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash

Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed,

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash

Of billows; but at intervals there gushed,

Accompanied with a convulsive splash,

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry

Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

BYRON.

* * * * *

THE HAPPY WARRIOR.

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?

--It is the generous Spirit, who when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavours are an inward light

That makes the path before him always bright:

Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn:

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,

But makes his moral being his prime care;

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature's highest dower;

Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves

Of their bad influence, and their good receives:

By objects, which might force the soul to abate

Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;

Is placable--because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self knowledge, even more pure,

As tempted more; more able to endure,

As more exposed to suffering and distress;

Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

--Tis he whose law is reason; who depends

Upon that law as on the best of friends;

Whence, in a state where men are tempted still

To evil for a guard against worse ill,

And what in quality or act is best

Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,

He labours good on good to fix, and owes

To virtue every triumph that he knows:

--Who, if he rise to station of command,

Rises by open means; and there will stand

On honourable terms, or else retire,

And in himself possess his own desire;

Who comprehends his trust, and to the same

Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;

And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait

For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:

Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,

Like showers of manna, if they come at all;

Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,

Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined

Great issues, good or bad for human kind,

Is happy as a Lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law

In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw:

Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need:

--He who, though thus endued as with a sense

And faculty for storm and turbulence,

Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans

To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;

Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,

Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love:--

'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted, high,

Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,

Or left unthought of in obscurity,--

Who, with a toward or untoward lot,

Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not--

Plays, in the many games of life, that one

Where what he most doth value must be won:

Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,

Nor thought of tender happiness betray;

Who not content that former worth stand fast,

Looks forward, persevering to the last,

From well to better, daily self-surpassed:

Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth

For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,

Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,

And leave a dead unprofitable name--

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;

And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws

His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:

This is the happy Warrior; this is he

That every Man in arms should wish to be.

Wordsworth.

[Notes: _Turns his necessity to glorious gain_. Turns the necessity

which lies on him of fellowship with pain, and fear, and bloodshed, into

glorious gain.

_More skilful in self knowledge, even more pure, as tempted more_.

"His self-knowledge and his purity are all the greater because of the

temptations he has had to withstand."

_Whose law is reason_ = whose every action is obedient to reason.

_In himself possess his own desire_. According to Aristotle, virtuous

activity is the highest reward the good man can attain; virtue has no

end beyond action; according to the modern proverb, "Virtue is its own

reward."

_More brave for this, that he hath much to love_. Here also Wordsworth

follows Aristotle in his description of the virtue of manliness. The

good man, according to Aristotle, is most brave of all in encountering

"the awful moment of great issues," in that he has the most to lose by

death.

_Not content that former worth stand fast_. Not content to rest on the

foundation of accomplished good and worthy deeds, solid though it be.

_Finds comfort in himself_. Compare: "In himself possess his own

desire."]

* * * * *

THE BLACK PRINCE.

He was the first great English captain, who showed what English soldiers

were, and what they could do against Frenchmen, and against all the

world. He was the first English Prince who showed what it was to be a

true gentleman. He was the first, but he was not the last. We have seen

how, when he died, Englishmen thought that all their hopes had died with

him. But we know that it was not so; we know that the life of a great

nation is not bound up in the life of a single man; we know that the

valour and the courtesy and the chivalry of England are not buried in

the grave of the Plantagenet Prince. It needs only a glance round the

country, to see that the high character of an English gentleman, of

which the Black Prince was the noble pattern, is still to be found

everywhere; and has since his time been spreading itself more and more

through classes, which in his time seemed incapable of reaching it. It

needs only a glance down the names of our own Cathedral (of Canterbury);

and the tablets on the walls, with their tattered flags, will tell you

in a moment that he, as he lies up there aloft, with his head resting on

his helmet, and his spurs on his feet, is but the first of a long

line of English heroes--that the brave men who fought at Sobraon and

Feroozeshah are the true descendants of those who fought at Cressy and

Poitiers.

And not to soldiers only, but to all who are engaged in the long warfare

of life, is his conduct an example. To unite in our lives the two

qualities expressed in his motto, "High spirit" and "reverent service,"

is to be, indeed, not only a true gentleman and a true soldier, but a

true Christian also. To show to all who differ from us, not only in war

but in peace, that delicate forbearance, that fear of hurting another's

feelings, that happy art of saying the right thing to the right person,

which he showed to the captive king, would indeed add a grace and a

charm to the whole course of this troublesome world, such as none can

afford to lose, whether high or low. Happy are they, who having this

gift by birth and station, use it for its highest purposes; still more

happy are they, who having it not by birth and station, have acquired

it, as it may be acquired, by Christian gentleness and Christian

charity.

And, lastly, to act in all the various difficulties of our every-day

life, with that coolness, and calmness, and faith in a higher power than

his own, which he showed when the appalling danger of his situation

burst upon him at Poitiers, would smooth a hundred difficulties, and

ensure a hundred victories. We often think that we have no power in

ourselves, no advantages of position, to help us against our many

temptations, to overcome the many obstacles we encounter. Let us take

our stand by the Black Prince's tomb, and go back once more in thought

to the distant fields of France. A slight rise in the wild upland plain,

a steep lane through vineyards and underwood, this was all that he had,

humanly speaking, on his side; but he turned it to the utmost use of

which it could be made, and won the most glorious of battles. So, in

like manner, our advantages may be slight--hardly perceptible to any

but ourselves--let us turn them to account, and the results will be a

hundredfold; we have only to adopt the Black Prince's bold and cheering

words, when first he saw his enemies, "God is my help. I must fight them

as best I can;" adding that lofty, yet resigned and humble prayer, which

he uttered when the battle was announced to be inevitable, and which has

since become a proverb, "God defend the right."

DEAN STANLEY'S _Memorials of Canterbury_.

[Notes: _The Black Prince_. Edward, the son of Edward III, and father of

Richard II. He not only won for the English the renown of conquest, but

befriended the early efforts after liberty. His untimely death plunged

England into the evils of a long minority under his son. The one stain

on his name is his massacre of the townsfolk of Limoges.

"_Reverent service_," or "I serve" (Ich dien), the motto adopted by the

Black Prince from the King of Bohemia, his defeated foe.

_Poitiers_. His victory won over the French king, John, whom he took

prisoner (1356).]

* * * * *

THE ASSEMBLY OF URI.

Let me ask you to follow me in spirit to the very home and birth-place

of freedom, to the land where we need not myth or fable to add aught to

the fresh and gladdening feeling with which we for the first time tread

the soil and drink the air of the immemorial democracy of Uri. It is one

of the opening days of May: it is the morning of Sunday; for men then

deem that the better the day the better the deed; they deem that the

Creator cannot be more truly honoured than in using, in His fear and in

His presence, the highest of the gifts which He has bestowed on man. But

deem not that, because the day of Christian worship is chosen for the

great yearly assembly of a Christian commonwealth, the more direct

sacred duties of the day are forgotten. Before we, in our luxurious

island, have lifted ourselves from our beds, the men of the mountains,

Catholic and Protestant alike, have already paid the morning's worship

in God's temple. They have heard the mass of the priest, or they have

listened to the sermon of the pastor, before some of us have awakened

to the fact that the morn of the holy day has come. And when I saw men

thronging the crowded church, or kneeling, for want of space within,

on the bare ground beside the open door, and when I saw them marching

thence to do the highest duties of men and citizens, I could hardly

forbear thinking of the saying of Holy Writ, that "Where the Spirit of

the Lord is, there is liberty." From the market-place of Altdorf, the

little capital of the Canton, the procession makes its way to the place

of meeting at Bozlingen. First marches the little army of the Canton, an

army whose weapons can never be used save to drive back an invader from

their land. Over their heads floats the banner, the bull's head of

Uri, the ensign which led men to victory on the fields of Sempach and

Morgarten. And before them all, on the shoulders of men clad in a garb

of ages past, are borne the famous horns, the spoils of the wild bull

of ancient days, the very horns whose blast struck such dread into the

fearless heart of Charles of Burgundy. Then, with their lictors before

them, come the magistrates of the commonwealth on horseback, the chief

magistrate, the Landammann, with his sword by his side. The people

follow the chiefs whom they have chosen to the place of meeting, a

circle in a green meadow with a pine forest rising above their heads and

a mighty spur of the mountain range facing them on the other side of the

valley. The multitude of the freemen take their seats around the chief

ruler of the commonwealth, whose term of office comes that day to an

end. The Assembly opens; a short space is first given to prayer, silent

prayer offered up by each man in the temple of God's own rearing. Then

comes the business of the day. If changes in the law are demanded, they

are then laid before the vote of the Assembly, in which each citizen

of full age has an equal vote and an equal right of speech. The yearly

magistrates have now discharged all their duties; their term of office

is at an end, the trust which has been placed in their hands falls back

into the hands of those by whom it was given, into the hands of the

sovereign people. The chief of the commonwealth, now such no longer,

leaves his seat of office, and takes his place as a simple citizen in

the ranks of his fellows. It rests with the freewill of the Assembly to

call him back to his chair of office, or to set another there in his

stead. Men who have neither looked into the history of the past, nor yet

troubled themselves to learn what happens year by year in their own

age, are fond of declaiming against the caprice and ingratitude of the

people, and of telling us that under a democratic government neither men

nor measures can remain for an hour unchanged. The witness alike of the

present and of the past is an answer to baseless theories like these.

The spirit which made democratic Athens year by year bestow her highest

offices on the patrician Periklês and the reactionary Phôkiôn, still

lives in the democracies of Switzerland. The ministers of kings, whether

despotic or constitutional, may vainly envy the sure tenure of office

which falls to the lot of those who are chosen to rule by the voice of

the people. Alike in the whole Confederation and in the single Canton,

re-election is the rule; the rejection of the outgoing magistrate is the

rare exception. The Landammann of Uri, whom his countrymen have

raised to the seat of honour, and who has done nothing to lose their

confidence, need not fear that when he has gone to the place of

meeting in the pomp of office, his place in the march homeward will be

transferred to another against his will.

E. A. FREEMAN.

[Notes: _Uri._ A Swiss canton which, early in the 14th century, united

with Unterwalden and Schwytz to form the Swiss Confederation.

_Sempach_ (1386) _and Morgarten_ (1315), both great victories won by the

Swiss over the Austrians.

----_Charles the Bold of Burgundy_ was defeated by the Swiss in 1476 at

Morat.

_ Periklês_. A great orator and statesman, who, in the middle of the 5th

century, B.C., guided the policy of Athens, and made her the centre of

literature, philosophy, and art.

_ Phôkiôn _. An Athenian statesman of the 4th century B.C., who opposed

Demosthenes in his efforts to resist Philip of Macedon. His reactionary

policy was atoned for by the uprightness of his character.]

* * * * *

LIBERTY.

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;

And we are weeds without it. All constraint,

Except what wisdom lays on evil men,

Is evil: hurts the faculties, impedes

Their progress in the road of science: blinds

The eyesight of Discovery; and begets,

In those that suffer it, a sordid mind

Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit

To be the tenant of man's noble form.

Thee therefore still, blameworthy as thou art,

With all thy loss of empire, and though squeez'd

By public exigence, till annual food

Fails for the craving hunger of the state,

Thee I account still happy, and the chief

Among the nations, seeing thou art free,

My native nook of earth! Thy clime is rude,

Replete with vapours, and disposes much

All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine:

Thine unadult'rate manners are less soft

And plausible than social life requires,

And thou hast need of discipline and art,

To give thee what politer France receives

From nature's bounty--that humane address

And sweetness, without which no pleasure is

In converse, either starv'd by cold reserve,

Or flush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl--

Yet being free, I love thee; for the sake

Of that one feature can be well content,

Disgrac'd as thou hast been, poor as thou art,

To seek no sublunary rest beside.

But, once enslav'd, farewell! I could endure

Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,

Where I am free by birthright, not at all.

Then what were left of roughness in the grain

Of British natures, wanting its excuse

That it belongs to freemen, would disgust

And shock me. I should then with double pain

Feel all the rigour of thy fickle clime;

And, if I must bewail the blessing lost,

For which our Hampdens and our Sydneys bled,

I would at least bewail it under skies

Milder, among a people less austere;

In scenes, which, having never known me free,

Would not reproach me with the loss I felt.

Do I forebode impossible events,

And tremble at vain dreams? Heaven grant I may!

But the age of virtuous politics is past,

And we are deep in that of cold pretence.

Patriots are grown too shrewd to be sincere,

And we too wise to trust them. He that takes

Deep in his soft credulity the stamp

Design'd by loud declaimers on the part

Of liberty, themselves the slaves of lust,

Incurs derision for his easy faith,

And lack of knowledge, and with cause enough:

For when was public virtue to be found,

Where private was not? Can he love the whole,

Who loves no part? He be a nation's friend,

Who is in truth the friend of no man there?

Can he be strenuous in his country's cause,

Who slights the charities, for whose dear sake

That country, if at all, must be beloved?

Cowper.

[Notes: _Hampden_--_Sydney_. (See previous note on them)

_He that takes deep in his soft credulity, &c., i.e.,_ he that

credulously takes in the impression which demagogues, who claim to speak

on behalf of liberty, intend that he should take.

_Delude_. A violent torrent, displacing earth in its course.

_Strid_. A yawning chasm between rocks.

_The Battle of Culloden_ (1746) closed the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 by

the defeat of the Highlanders, and with it the last hopes of the Stuart

cause. The Duke of Cumberland was the leader of the Hanoverian army.]

* * * * *

MY WINTER GARDEN.

No one is less inclined to depreciate that magnificent winter-garden

at the Crystal Palace: yet let me, if I choose, prefer my own; I argue

that, in the first place, it is far larger. You may drive, I hear,

through the grand one at Chatsworth for a quarter of a mile. You may

ride through mine for fifteen miles on end. I prefer, too, to any glass

roof which Sir Joseph Paxton ever planned, that dome above my head some

three miles high, of soft dappled grey and yellow cloud, through the

vast lattice-work whereof the blue sky peeps, and sheds down tender

gleams on yellow bogs, and softly rounded heather knolls, and pale chalk

ranges gleaming far away. But, above all, I glory in my evergreens. What

winter-garden can compare for them with mine? True, I have but four

kinds--Scotch fir, holly, furze, and the heath; and by way of relief to

them, only brows of brown fern, sheets of yellow bog-grass, and here and

there a leafless birch, whose purple tresses are even more lovely to my

eye than those fragrant green ones which she puts on in spring. Well: in

painting as in music, what effects are more grand than those produced

by the scientific combination, in endless new variety, of a few simple

elements? Enough for me is the one purple birch; the bright hollies

round its stem sparkling with scarlet beads; the furze-patch, rich with

its lacework of interwoven light and shade, tipped here and there with a

golden bud; the deep soft heather carpet, which invites you to lie down

and dream for hours; and behind all, the wall of red fir-stems, and the

dark fir-roof with its jagged edges a mile long, against the soft grey

sky.

An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir-plantation? Well, I like it,

outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of mountain peaks to stir up

my imagination with the sense of the sublime, while I can watch the

saw-edge of those fir peaks against the red sunset. They are my Alps;

little ones, it may be: but after all, as I asked before, what is size?

A phantom of our brain; an optical delusion. Grandeur, if you will

consider wisely, consists in form, and not in size: and to the eye of

the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper two inches long, is just as

magnificent, just as symbolic of divine mysteries and melodies, as when

embodied in the span of some cathedral roof. Have you eyes to see? Then

lie down on the grass, and look near enough to see something more of

what is to be seen; and you will find tropic jungles in every square

foot of turf; mountain cliffs and debacles at the mouth of every rabbit

burrow: dark strids, tremendous cataracts, "deep glooms and sudden

glories," in every foot-broad rill which wanders through the turf. All

is there for you to see, if you will but rid yourself of "that idol of

space;" and Nature, as everyone will tell you who has seen dissected an

insect under the microscope, is as grand and graceful in her smallest as

in her hugest forms.

The March breeze is chilly: but I can be always warm if I like in my

winter-garden. I turn my horse's head to the red wall of fir-stems, and

leap over the furze-grown bank into my cathedral, wherein if there be

no saints, there are likewise no priestcraft and no idols; but endless

vistas of smooth red green-veined shafts holding up the warm dark roof,

lessening away into endless gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle--a

carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. Red shafts,

green roof, and here and there a pane of blue sky--neither Owen Jones

nor Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical ornamentation,--while

for incense I have the fresh healthy turpentine fragrance, far sweeter

to my nostrils than the stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman

Catholic cathedral. There is not a breath of air within: but the breeze

sighs over the roof above in a soft whisper. I shut my eyes and listen.

Surely that is the murmur of the summer sea upon the summer sands in

Devon far away. I hear the innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently

upon the shore, and die away to rise again. And with the innumerable

wave-sighs come innumerable memories, and faces which I shall never see

again upon this earth. I will not tell even you of that, old friend. It

has two notes, two keys rather, that Eolian-harp of fir-needles above

my head; according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry or wet.

This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, warmer in sound,

though the day itself be colder: but grander still, as well as softer,

is the sad soughing key in which the south-west wind roars on,

rain-laden, over the forest, and calls me forth--being a minute

philosopher--to catch trout in the nearest chalk-stream.

The breeze is gone a while; and I am in perfect silence--a silence which

may be heard. Not a sound; and not a moving object; absolutely none. The

absence of animal life is solemn, startling. That ring-dove, who was

cooing half a mile away, has hushed his moan; that flock of long-tailed

titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few

minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in

the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost

fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft

step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a

dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to

see! Above my head every fir-needle is breathing--breathing for

ever; currents unnumbered circulate in every bough, quickened by some

undiscovered miracle; around me every fir-stem is distilling strange

juices, which no laboratory of man can make; and where my dull eye sees

only death, the eye of God sees boundless life and motion, health and

use.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

* * * * *

ASPECTS OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN COUNTRIES.

The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have

thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge,

but I have never yet seen any pictorial enough to enable the spectator

to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists

between northern and southern countries. We know the differences in

detail, but we have not that broad glance or grasp which would enable us

to feel them in their fulness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps,

and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves

that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its

migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of

the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon

the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even

above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying

beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories

sleeping in the sun; here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey

stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a

fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes;

but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece,

Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the

sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of

mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers

heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel and orange, and

plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the

marble rocks, and of the ledges of the porphyry sloping under lucent

sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the

orient colours change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where

the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark

forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the

Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of

rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low

along the pasture lands; and then, farther north still, to see the earth

heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering

with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and

splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas

beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious

pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from

among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their

peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron,

sets, death-like, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.

And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris

of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it,

and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes

of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or

tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted

leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet.

Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of colour, and swiftness

of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and

dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with

the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the

antelope with the elk, the bird of Paradise with the osprey; and then,

submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all

that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but

rejoice in the expression by man of his own rest in the statues of the

lands that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets

side by side the burning gems, and smooths with soft sculpture the

jasper pillars that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into

a cloudless sky; but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when,

with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation

out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moor-land,

and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged

wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the

northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of

wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds

that shade them.

JOHN RUSKIN.

* * * * *

THE TROSACHS.

The western waves of ebbing day

Rolled o'er the glen their level way;

Each purple peak, each flinty spire,

Was bathed in floods of living fire.

But not a setting beam could glow

Within the dark ravines below,

Where twined the path, in shadow hid,

Bound many a rocky pyramid,

Shooting abruptly from the dell

Its thunder-splintered pinnacle;

Bound many an insulated mass,

The native bulwarks of the pass,

Huge as the tower which builders vain

Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain.

The rocky summits, split and rent,

Formed turret, dome, or battlement.

Or seemed fantastically set

With cupola or minaret,

Wild crests as pagod ever decked,

Or mosque of eastern architect.

Nor were these earth-born castles bare,

Nor lacked they many a banner fair;

For, from their shivered brows displayed,

Far o'er the unfathomable glade,

All twinkling with the dew-drop's sheen,

The briar-rose fell in streamers green,

And creeping shrubs, of thousand dyes,

Waved in the west wind's summer sighs.

Boon nature scattered, free and wild,

Each plant or flower, the mountain's child.

Here eglantine embalmed the air,

Hawthorn and hazel mingled there;

The primrose pale and violet flower,

Found in each cliff a narrow bower;

Foxglove and nightshade, side by side,

Emblems of punishment and pride,

Grouped their dark hues with every stain,

The weather-beaten crags retain.

With boughs that quaked at every breath,

Grey birch and aspen wept beneath;

Aloft the ash and warrior oak

Cast anchor in the rifted rock;

And higher yet the pine tree hung

His shatter'd trunk, and frequent flung,

Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high,

His boughs athwart the narrowed sky

Highest of all, where white peaks glanced,

Where glistening streamers waved and danced,

The wanderer's eye could barely view

The summer heaven's delicious blue;

So wondrous wild, the whole might seem

The scenery of a fairy dream.

Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep

A narrow inlet still and deep,

Affording scarce such breadth of brim,

As served the wild duck's brood to swim;

Lost for a space, through thickets veering,

But broader when again appearing,

Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face

Could on the dark blue mirror trace;

And farther as the hunter stray'd,

Still broader sweep its channels made.

The shaggy mounds no longer stood,

Emerging from entangled wood,

But, wave-encircled, seemed to float,

Like castle girdled with its moat;

Yet broader floods extending still,

Divide them from their parent hill,

Till each, retiring, claims to be

An islet in an inland sea.

And now, to issue from the glen,

No pathway meets the wanderer's ken,

Unless he climb, with footing nice,

A far projecting precipice.

The broom's tough roots his ladder made,

The hazel saplings lent their aid;

And thus an airy point he won.

Where, gleaming with the setting sun,

One burnish'd sheet of living gold,

Loch-Katrine lay beneath him rolled;

In all her length far winding lay,

With promontory, creek, and bay,

And islands that, empurpled bright,

Floated amid the livelier light;

And mountains, that like giants stand,

To sentinel enchanted land.

High on the south, huge Benvenue

Down to the lake in masses threw

Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled,

The fragments of an earlier world;

A wildering forest feathered o'er

His ruined sides and summit hoar.

While on the north, through middle air,

Ben-an heaved high his forehead bare.

SCOTT.

* * * * *

LOCHIEL'S WARNING.

_Seer_. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day

When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!

For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,

And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight;

They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown;

Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down!

Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,

And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.

But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,

What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?

'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,

Like a love-lighted watchfire, all night at the gate.

A steed comes at morning; no rider is there;

But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.

Weep, Albyn, to death and captivity led!

O weep, but thy tears cannot number the dead;

For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave,

Culloden! that reeks with the blood of the brave.

_Lochiel_. Go preach to the coward, thou death-

telling seer!

Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

_Seer_. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to

scorn?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn!

Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth

From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?

Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode

Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!

Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh.

Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast

Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?

'Tis the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven

From his eyrie that beacons the darkness of heaven.

Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,

Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,

Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn:

Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,

And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

_Lochiel_. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my

clan--

Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one!

They are true to the last of their blood and their

breath,

And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.

Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!

Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!

But we to his kindred, and we to his cause,

When Albyn her claymore indignantly draws;

When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,

Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud;

All plaided and plumed in their tartan array----

_Seer_.----Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day!

For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,

But man cannot cover what God would reveal.

'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before.

I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring,

With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king.

Lo! anointed by heaven with the vials of wrath,

Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!

Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight;

Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!--

'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors;

Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,

Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?

Ah, no! for a darker departure is near,--

The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier;

His death bell is tolling! Oh, mercy! dispel

Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell!

Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs,

And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims;

Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet,

Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,

With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale----

_Lochiel_. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the

tale:

For never shall Albyn a destiny meet

So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their

gore,

Like ocean weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.

CAMPBELL.

[Note: _Life flutters convulsed &c._ Describes the barbarous death which

awaited the traitor according to the statute book of England, as it then

stood. This was the penalty dealt to the rebels of 1745.]

* * * * *

COLUMBUS IN SIGHT OF LAND.

For three days they stood in this direction, and the further they went

the more frequent and encouraging were the signs of land. Flights of

small birds of various colours, some of them such as sing in the fields,

came flying about the ships, and then continued towards the south-west,

and others were heard also flying by in the night. Tunny fish played

about the smooth sea, and a heron, a pelican, and a duck, were seen, all

bound in the same direction. The herbage which floated by was fresh and

green, as if recently from land, and the air, Columbus observes, was

sweet and fragrant as April breezes in Seville.

All these, however, were regarded by the crews as so many delusions

beguiling them on to destruction; and when, on the evening of the third

day, they beheld the sun go down upon a shoreless horizon, they broke

forth into turbulent clamour. They exclaimed against this obstinacy in

tempting fate by continuing on into a boundless sea. They insisted

upon turning home, and abandoning the voyage as hopeless. Columbus

endeavoured to pacify them by gentle words and promises of large

rewards; but finding that they only increased in clamour, he assumed a

decided tone. He told them it was useless to murmur; the expedition had

been sent by the sovereigns to seek the Indies, and, happen what might,

he was determined to persevere, until, by the blessing of God, he should

accomplish the enterprise.

Columbus was now at open defiance with his crew, and his situation

became desperate. Fortunately the manifestations of the vicinity of land

were such on the following day as no longer to admit a doubt. Beside a

quantity of fresh weeds, such as grow in rivers, they saw a green fish

of a kind which keeps about rocks; then a branch of thorn with berries

on it, and recently separated from the tree, floated by them; then they

picked up a reed, a small board, and, above all, a staff artificially

carved. All gloom and mutiny now gave way to sanguine expectation; and

throughout the day each one was eagerly on the watch, in hopes of being

the first to discover the long-sought-for land.

In the evening, when, according to invariable custom on board of the

admiral's ship, the mariners had sung the vesper hymn to the Virgin, he

made an impressive address to his crew. He pointed out the goodness

of God in thus conducting them by soft and favouring breezes across

a tranquil ocean, cheering their hopes continually with fresh signs,

increasing as their fears augmented, and thus leading and guiding them

to a promised land. He now reminded them of the orders he had given

on leaving the Canaries, that, after sailing westward seven hundred

leagues, they should not make sail after midnight. Present appearances

authorized such a precaution. He thought it probable they would make

land that very night; he ordered, therefore, a vigilant look-out to

be kept from the forecastle, promising to whomsoever should make the

discovery a doublet of velvet, in addition to the pension to be given by

the sovereigns.

The breeze had been fresh all day, with more sea than usual, and they

had made great progress. At sunset they had stood again to the west, and

were ploughing the waves at a rapid rate, the Pinta keeping the lead

from her superior sailing. The greatest animation prevailed throughout

the ships; not an eye was closed that night. As the evening darkened,

Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the

high poop of his vessel, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, and

maintaining an intense and unremitting watch. About ten o'clock he

thought he beheld a light glimmering at a great distance. Fearing his

eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman

of the king's bedchamber, and inquired whether he saw such a light: the

latter replied in the affirmative. Doubtful whether it might not be some

delusion of the fancy, Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia,

and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the

round-house, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice

afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the

bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand

of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to

house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached

any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain

signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.

They continued their course until two in the morning, when a gun from

the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land. It was first descried by a

mariner named Rodrigo de Triana; but the reward was afterwards adjudged

to the admiral, for having previously perceived the light. The land was

now clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took in sail,

and laid to, waiting impatiently for the dawn.

The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of time

must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in spite of every

difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery

of the ocean was revealed; his theory, which had been the scoff of

sages, was triumphantly established; he had secured to himself a glory

durable as the world itself.

It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man, at such a

moment, or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his mind, as

to the land before him, covered with darkness. That it was fruitful was

evident from the vegetables which floated from its shores. He thought,

too, that he perceived the fragrance of aromatic groves. The moving

light he had beheld proved it the residence of man. But what were its

inhabitants? Were they like those of the other parts of the globe, or

were they some strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination was

prone in those times to give to all remote and unknown regions? Had he

come upon some wild island far in the Indian Sea, or was this the

famed Cipango itself, the object of his golden fancies? A thousand

speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, as, with his

anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away; wondering whether

the morning light would reveal a savage wilderness, or dawn upon spicy

groves, and glittering fanes, and gilded cities, and all the splendour

of oriental civilization.

It was on Friday morning, the 12th of October, that Columbus first

beheld the New World. As the day dawned he saw before him a level

island, several leagues in extent, and covered with trees like a

continual orchard. Though apparently uncultivated, it was populous,

for the inhabitants were seen issuing from all parts of the woods and

running to the shore. They were perfectly naked, and, as they stood

gazing at the ships, appeared by their attitudes and gestures to be lost

in astonishment. Columbus made signal for the ships to cast anchor,

and the boats to be manned and armed. He entered his own boat, richly

attired in scarlet, and holding the royal standard; whilst Martin Alonzo

Pinzon, and Vincent Yañez his brother, put off in company in their

boats, each with a banner of the enterprize emblazoned with a green

cross, having on either side the letters F. and Y., the initials of the

Castilian monarchs Fernando and Ysabel, surmounted by crowns.

As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was disposed for all kinds of

agreeable impressions, was delighted with the purity and suavity of the

atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the sea, and the extraordinary

beauty of the vegetation. He beheld, also, fruits of an unknown kind

upon the trees which overhung the shores. On landing he threw himself on

his knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God with tears

of joy. His example was followed by the rest, whose hearts indeed

overflowed with the same feelings of gratitude, Columbus then rising,

drew his sword, displayed the royal standard, and assembling round him

the two captains, with Rodrigo de Escobedo, notary of the armament,

Rodrigo Sanchez, and the rest who had landed, he took solemn possession

in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of

San Salvador. Having complied with the requisite forms and ceremonies,

he called upon all present to take the oath of obedience to him, as

admiral and viceroy, representing the persons of the sovereigns.