The knight personates the highest ideal of philanthropy; the

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXVII. November, 1850. NO. 5.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Enchanted Beauty. A Myth.

The Vision of Mariotdale

Tamaque

The Sunflower

Minnie de la Croix

Pedro de Padilh

Nettles on the Grave

Familiar Quotations From Unfamiliar Sources

Two Crayon Sketches

Quail and Quail Shooting

Review of New Books

Editorial. To Rev. Rufus Wilmot Griswold

Poetry, Music, and Fashion

Hylas

Sorrow

Sonnet.—Moral Strength.

The Reconciliation

Unhappy Love

The Wife’s Last Gift

I Dreamed

Theodora

Charlotte Corday

Sonnet—To Arabella, Sleeping

The Spectre Knight and His Ladye-Bride

To L——. with Some Poems

Wordsworth

Le Follet

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

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[Illustration: THE ANGEL’S WHISPER.]

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GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

VOL. XXXVII. PHILADELPHIA, November, 1850. NO. 5.

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ENCHANTED BEAUTY. A MYTH.

The mythologies, in which the faiths, philosophies and fancies of the

world have taken form, have such truth and use in them that they endure,

under corresponding changes, through the reformations of creeds and

modifications of ceremony which mark the history of natural religion

throughout all ages and countries. The essential unity of the race, its

kindred constitution of mind and affections, its likeness of instincts,

passions and aspirations, naturally account for the under-lying

agreement in principles, and central similarity of beliefs, which are

traceable clean through, from the earliest to the most modern, and from

the most polished and elaborate eastern to the rudest northern opinions;

and the nice transitions of doctrine from the infancy to the maturity of

faith and philosophy, are marked by an answering variance in their

significant ceremonials. But, however mingled and marred, the inevitable

truth is imbedded in all the forms of fable, and, under an invariable

law of mind, the inspirations of fancy correspond in essentials to the

oracles of revelation, just because human nature is one, and its

relations to all truth are fixed and universal.

Creeds and formulæ, like the geological crusts of the earth, at once

retain and record the revolutions, disintegrations, intrusions and

submersions from which they result. In the long succession of epochs

whole continents have risen from the deep, and the vestiges of the most

ancient ocean are found upon the modern mountain tops; promontories have

been slowly washed away by the ceaseless waves, and new islands have

shot up from the ever-heaving sea. Through the more recent crusts the

primitive formations frequently crop out upon the surface of the

present, and the comparatively modern, in turn, is often found

fossilized beneath the most ancient; dislocated fragments are

encountered at every step, and icebergs, from the severer latitudes, are

found floating far into the tropical seas. Nevertheless, through all

changes of system, revolution has been ever in the same round of

celestial influences and relations, and the alterations of form and

structure have been only so many different mixtures of unchanging

elements, from the simple primitives to the rich composite moulds, into

which the waters, winds and sun-light have, in the lapse of ages,

modified them. The constancy of essential principles, through all

mutations of systematic dogmas, is strikingly analagous. The law of

adaptation links the material globe and the rational race which occupies

it in intimate relations, and the universal unity in the great scheme of

being establishes such correspondences of organisms and processes with

ideas and ends, that the symbolisms of poetry and mythology are really

well based in the truth of nature, and the essential harmonies of all

things are with equal truth, under various forms, embraced by fiction

and fact, fable and faith, superstition and enlightened reason.

“The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;”

“the grace that hath appeared unto all men;” and “the invisible things

of the Creator, clearly seen and understood by the things which are

made,” are propositions which have the formal warrant of our sacred

books to back the authority of logical demonstration. Moreover, it is

pleasant and profitable to believe that “He hath not left himself

without a witness” among any of the tribes of men. The human

_brotherhood_ is so involved in the divine fatherhood, that the

individual’s hold on the infinite and eternal must stand or fall with

the universality of His regards and providence. If Canaan had been

without a “Prophet of the Most High,” if Chaldea had been left without

soothsayer and seer, and classic Greece and Rome destitute of oracles

and Sibylline revelations, the Jewish theology and the Christian

apocalypse would stand unsupported by “the analogy of faith,” and our

highest hopes would be shifted from the broad basis of an impartial

benevolence, to a narrow caprice of the “Father of all Men.” But,

happily, the sympathies of nature, the deductions of reason, and the

teachings of the Book, are harmonious on this point, for we find

Melchisedec, who could claim no legal or lineal relation to the

Levitical priesthood, the chosen type of the perpetual “High Priest of

our profession;” and Balaam, notwithstanding his heathen birth, and

ministry among the Canaanites when their cup of iniquity was full; and

the eastern Magi, who brought their gifts from afar among the Gentiles,

to the new-born “King of the Jews,” all alike guided by the same light,

and partakers and fellow-laborers in the same faith, with the regular

hierarchy of Mount Zion. So, the Star of Jacob is the “desire of

nations,” and the heart and hope of the wide world turneth ever toward

the same essential truth, and strive after it by the same instinct

through a thousand forms, “if haply they may find it.”

The religious system of the Jews and Chaldeans agreed, with wonderful

exactness, in the doctrine of angelic beings and their interposition in

the affairs of men. The superintendence of the destinies of nations and

individuals, and the allotment of provinces, kingdoms and families among

these ministering spirits, are as distinctly taught in the book of

Daniel of the old testament, and in the gospel of St. Matthew of the

new, as in the popular beliefs of the Arabians and Persians; indeed, the

Bible sanction is general, particular, and ample, for the doctrine of

angelic ministry as it has been held in all ages and throughout the

world.

The order and organization of these celestial beings, among whom the

infinite multiplicity of providential offices is thus distributed,

falling within the domain of marvelousness and ideality, of course, took

the thousand hues and shapes which these prismatic faculties would

bestow; and in the various accommodations and special applications of

the doctrine, it naturally grew complicated, obscure, and sometimes even

incoherent; but in all the confusion of a hundred tongues, kindreds and

climates, a substantial conformity to a common standard is apparent

enough to prove the identity of origin and the fundamental truth common

to them all.

It is to introduce one of these remarkable correspondences that these

reflections are employed.

Fairy tales, it is said by encyclopedists, were brought from Arabia into

France in the twelfth century, but this can only mean that that was the

epoch of the exotic legends. In England, if they were not indigenous,

they certainly were naturalized centuries before Chaucer flourished; and

they were as familiar as the catechism, and almost as orthodox, when

Spencer, wrote his Fairy Queen, and Shakspeare employed their agency in

his most exquisite dramas. But their date is, in fact, coeval with

tradition, and earlier than all written records, and their origin is

without any necessary locality, for they spring spontaneously from faith

in the supernatural. They are inseparable from poetry. The priesthood of

nature, which enters for us the presence of the invisible and converses

familiarly with the omnipresent life of the creation, recognizes the

administration of an ethereal hierarchy in all the phenomena of

existence; they serve to impersonate the spiritual forces, which are

felt in all heroic action, and they graduate the responsive sympathies

of Heaven to all the supernatural necessities of humanity. The live soul

can make nothing dead; it can take no relation to insensate matter; it

invests the universe with a conscious life, answering to its own; and an

infinite multitude of intermediate spirits stand to its conceptions for

the springs of the universal movement. Rank upon rank, in spiral ascent,

the varied ministry towers from earth to heaven, answering to every

need, supporting every hope, and environing the whole life of the

individual and the race with an adjusted providence, complete and

adequate. In the great scale, place and office are assigned for spirits

celestial, ethereal and terrestrial, in almost infinite gradation. The

highest religious sentiments, the noblest styles of intellect and

imagination, and the lower and coarser apprehensions of the invisible

orders of being, are all met and indulged by the accommodating facility

of the system.

The race of Peris of Persia, and Fairies of western Europe, hold a very

near and familiar relation to the every day life of humanity, by their

large intermixture of human characteristics and the close resemblance

and alliance of their probationary existence and ultimate destiny to the

life and fortunes of men. A commonplace connection with ordinary affairs

and household interests constitutes the largest part of the popular

notion of them; and their interferences among the vulgar are almost

absurd and ludicrous enough to impeach the earnestness of the

superstition; but our best poets have shown them capable of very noble

and beneficent functions in heroic story. Like our own various nature,

they are a marvellous mixture of the mighty and the mean, the

magnanimous, the malignant and the mirthful; they stand, in a word, as

our own correspondents in a subtler sphere, and serve to illustrate, by

exaggerating, all that is true and possible in us, but more probable of

them—our own shadows lengthened, and our own light brightened into a

higher life. In some countries the legends are obscure, in others clear;

but they all agree well enough in ascribing their origin to the

intermarriage of angels with “the daughters of men,” and that they are

put under penance and probation for the recovery of their paradise. So,

like our own race, they have fallen from a higher estate; their natures

are half human, and their general fortunes are freighted on the same

tide.

The nursery tale of the Sleeping Beauty will serve capitally to

illustrate our theme. Handed down from age to age, and passed from

nation to nation, through the agency of oral tradition chiefly, it has

of course taken as many shapes as the popular fancy could impart to it;

but the essential points, seen through all the existing forms, are

substantially these:

A grand coronation festival of a young queen abruptly opens the story.

The state room of the palace is furnished with Oriental magnificence.

The representatives of every order, interest and class in the

kingdom—constructively the whole community—are present to witness and

grace the scene. The fairies who preside over the various departments of

nature, and the functions and interests of society, are assembled by

special invitation to invoke the blessings and pledge the favors of

their several jurisdictions to the opening reign. The ceremony proceeds;

the young queen is crowned; the priest pronounces the benediction, and

the generous sprites bestow beauty and goodness, and every means of life

and luxury, until nothing is left for imagination to conceive or heart

to wish. But an unexpected and unwelcome guest arrives—an old Elf, of

jealous and malignant character, whose intrusion cannot be prevented,

and whose power, unhappily, is so great, that the whole tribe of

amicable spirits cannot unbind her spells. Neither can she directly

revoke their beneficences; for such is the constitution of fairy-land

that the good and evil can neither annihilate each other’s powers nor

check each other’s actions, and their active antagonism can have place

and play only in issues and effects. The good commanded and dispensed

cannot be utterly annulled, the profusion of blessings prepared and

pledged cannot be hindered in their source or interrupted in their flow,

but the recipients are the debatable ground; they are, within certain

limits, subject to the control of the demon, and the _end_ is as well

attained by striking them incapable of the intended good. The queen and

her household are cast into a magic slumber until (for the Evil will be

ultimately destroyed by the Good) an age shall elapse and bring a

Deliverer, who, through virtue and courage, shall dissolve the infernal

charm. The blight fell upon the paradise in its full bloom, and it

remained only for the youngest fairy present, who had withheld her

benefactions to the last, to mitigate the doom she could not avert, by

bestowing pleasant dreams upon the long and heavy sleepers. A century

rolls round. The Knight of the Lion undertakes the enterprise;

encounters the horrible troops of monsters and foul fiends which guard

the palace; overcomes them; enters the enchanted hall, and wakens the

whole company to life, liberty and joy again. The knight is, of course,

rewarded with the love he so well deserves and the hand he has so richly

earned.

This is obviously the story of the apostacy and redemption of the human

family, in the form of a fairy legend. It conforms closely to the

necessary incidents of such a catastrophe, and answers well and truly to

the intuitive prophecy of man’s final recovery. In substance and method

the correspondence is obvious. Every notion of “the fall,” whether

revealed or fictitious, assumes the agency of “the wicked one;” and the

final recovery, universally expected, involves the sympathies and

employs the services of the “ministering spirits,” as important

instruments in the happy consummation.

This tale was presented as a dramatic spectacle last winter at the

Boston Museum. The play is a minutely faithful expositor of the legend;

and it is by the aid of this fine scenic exhibition that I am able to

adjust the details, of which the primitive story is so legitimately

capable, to the answering points in the great epic of human history “as

it is most surely believed among us.” The parallel presented does not

seem to me fanciful, but the circumstantial exactness of resemblance

may, I think, be accounted for without supposing a designed imitation.

Before tracing the specialties and their allusions, let us notice the

general parallelism found between the pivotal points of the fabulous and

authentic representations.

The Bible Eden is introduced at the same stage of the story’s action and

in the same attitude to the principal characters of the narrative; it

stands on the coronation day of its monarch, perfect in all its

appointments; the realms of air, earth and ocean in auspicious relation,

every element harmoniously obedient, and the garden still glows with the

smile which accompanied the approving declaration, “it is very good.”

Dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and

over every living thing that moveth upon the face of the earth, is

conferred, and the heavens add their felicities to the inaugural

rejoicings—“the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God

shouted for joy.” The gifts are without measure or stint, and the Divine

beneficence cannot be tainted in its source nor impeded in its efflux,

but the intended recipients, by “the wiles of the enemy,” are rendered

incapable of the enjoyment. The sin-blunted sense and passion blinded

soul of the fallen race, are plunged into a spiritual stupor, which

sleep—the sister and semblance of death—strikingly illustrates; and

through the long age of moral incapacity which follows, the highest mode

of life is but dimly recognized and feebly felt in the dreams of a

paradise lost and the visions of a millenium to come; till, “in the

fullness of time,” when a complete psychical age shall be past. The

Deliverer, having first overcome the wicked one, shall lead captivity

captive, and by the “marriage of the Lamb” with “the bride which is the

Church,” perfect the redemption and bring in the new heavens and new

earth.

But to the fable, the dramatic representation and the interpretation

thereof.

The scene opens upon a rustic society, a hamlet, in the infancy of

civilization, such as, upon ballad authority, was “merrie England”

before the age of her conquests in arts, sciences and arms, and before

the crimes and cares of her age of glory replaced the days of her

innocence and contentment. Simplicity of manners, modest abundance,

moderate labor, aspirations limited to the range of things easy of

attainment, and opinions comfortably at rest on questions of policy and

religion, describe the rural life upon Monsieur Bonvive’s domain. The

master, in bachelor ease, superintends the simple affairs of his

village; Madam Babillard, the house-keeper, has the necessary excitement

without the anxiety of her post—just the amount of trouble that is

interesting with the pigs, poultry and pets of the homestead. The girls,

indeed, are too hasty in ripening into womanhood, and the beaux are

over-bold in their gallantries; but then, these are things of great

consequence to her, and she is, through them, a matter of great

consequence to the community, and the exercise of authority amply repays

all its troubles and responsibilities. The affairs of the commonwealth

take good enough care of themselves generally; the people are happy in

the enjoyment of what they have, and equally happy in the

unconsciousness of what they have not; the holydays come at least once

a-week, and there is space and place for work and play every hour of

every day. Good consciences, light hearts, and natural living, carry

them along very happily, and they have enough of the little risks and

changes of fortune to keep the life within them well alive. The

wilderness upon which their village borders is known to be infested with

hobgoblins and demons, and there is a current belief that in the centre

of the forest there is a princely family bound in a spell for a hundred

years, but they have never penetrated the mystery nor clearly

ascertained the facts.

Among these simple people there is an ancient dame, who was old when the

oldest villager first knew her, and she has lived through all the known

generations of men. Her whole life has been a continual exercise of the

best offices among the people; she has been nurse and doctress, friend

and counselor, by turns, to the whole community, and they repay her with

the love and veneration which her goodness and wisdom command. She is

now apparently in the decrepitude of extreme age, but the frame only

assumes the marks of age—the mind is as young and the affections as

fresh as they were “a hundred years ago.” She is the “Fairy of the

Oak,”—the youngest at the coronation scene, and the tutelary spirit of

the enchanted family. Ever since the hour of their evil fortunes she has

inhabited a human form, performing the charitable offices of ordinary

life and mitigating its incident evils; but, especially she has been

cultivating whatever of virtuous enterprise and aspiration appeared

among the youth from generation to generation, directing it into the

best service and endeavoring by it the deliverance of the imprisoned

spirits under her charge. Patiently and lovingly she has striven,

earnestly and anxiously she has watched, every promise of a deliverance

that the race from age to age produced. Patriarch, prophet, apostle and

philanthropist, has each in his degree done his own good work, and the

world has been the better that they lived; each has added another

assurance of the ultimate success, but themselves “have died without the

sight.” Her own powers, and those of her auxiliaries, are vast and

supernatural, indeed, but the champion age of human redemption must be

human, and she can but inspire, direct, sustain and guard the mighty

effort.

Now, a young Christian Knight “the Knight of the Lion,” famous for deeds

of valor in Holy Land, gives promise of the great achievement to the

quick perception of the Guardian Spirit. She has aroused his enthusiasm

and sustained his zeal, disciplining him by trial after trial, and

training him from triumph to triumph, for still greater deeds, which

take continually more definite shape and more attractive forms in the

dreams and reveries which she inspires, until he has grown familiar with

the vision and conscious of its supernatural suggestion, and she is able

at last to intimate the duty and the trial which invite him by songs in

the air addressed to his waking ear.

“The enchanted maiden sleeps——in vain

To hope redress from other arm,

Foul magic forged the mighty chain,

Honor and love will brake the charm.

* * * * *

Dread perils shall thy path surround,

Wild horrors ranged in full array,

Courage shall take the vantage ground,

Bright virtue turn dark night to day.”

Drawn westward by her art toward the scene of the great enterprise, he

reaches the village on the border of the wilderness, and from the legend

current among the rustics inferring more definitely the character of his

mission, he accepts it in the true chivalric spirit of faith, love and

hope. His squire, or man-at-arms, who has followed him heretofore with

an unquestioning fidelity, consents to incur the risks, though he has a

very imperfect apprehension of the heroic undertaking; but the devotion

of a faithful follower answers instead of knowledge in his rank of

service. He would rather encounter a dozen flesh and blood swordsmen

than one ghostly foe; nevertheless, where his master leads he will

follow, whatever the character of the fight. The knight comprehends the

nature of the conflict fully; it is not with flesh and blood, but with

“spiritual wickedness in high places” that he “has his warfare.” To him

the great battle is not in the outward and actual, but is transferred to

the inward and spiritual sphere—into the real life—whence the ultimate

facts of existence derive all their currents and ends. So felt the hero

who said, in the great faith, “we have our conversation in heaven”—“we

sit in heavenly places;” and so felt and thought the reformer who

deliberately threw his ink-stand at the devils’ head. The region of the

ideal is the fields of the highest heroism, and every life given to the

world in noble service and generous sacrifice is living in the spirit

sphere in familiar sympathy with the good, and constant strife with evil

angels. This faith is the main impulse in all chivalric action; even a

heroic poem cannot be created without it. It cannot be false, for it

differs nothing in the constancy and efficiency of its presence from the

most palpable facts, and is proved true by the test of harmonizing with

all other truth.

The knight personates the highest ideal of philanthropy; the squire

stands for the lower, more palpable modes of practical benevolence and

reform. They are distinguished as widely as general and special

providence, as the thorough emancipation of the soul and the charity

which relieves the body, or the whole difference between the apostleship

of spiritual and that of civil liberty. They correspond respectively to

the Prophet Elisha, who saw the mountain tops filled with horses and

chariots of fire, outnumbering and overwhelming the hosts of the Syrian

king; and his servant, who saw but two men, his master and himself,

opposed to a numerous and well appointed army. Such is the difference

between the seer and the servant in any labor or conflict of faith—in

any enterprise which involves the spiritual forces that rule the

movements of the world. Throughout the whole action of the drama the

agency and deportment of the knight and his follower are marked by this

distinction. But the scene shifts, and the sympathetic and corroborative

movements in Fairy-land, are revealed. The Fairy of the Oak appears and

summons the spirits of the Air, Earth, Water and Fire. The elements,

disordered by the fall, and thenceforth at war with the poor fugitive

from Paradise, must render their aid in his restoration, that when the

last enemy is put under his feet the material creation, cursed for his

sin, may be renewed with his recovery, and the harmonies of matter

answer to the sanctities of spirit. The spirits of the material forces

obey the invocation, and cordially promise sympathy and service:

“Throughout all space—above, below,

In earth or air, through fire or snow,

Where’er our mission calls we fly,

Our tasks performing merrily,

Our guerdon winning happily.”

The actors, human and ethereal, thus adjusted to their several offices,

the knight and his squire enter the haunted wood—the squire to struggle

with the grosser forms of evil, some as ludicrous as sad, others as

horrible as atrocious, and all odious, coarse and palpable; the knight

to be tempted of the devil, and do battle with him for the redemption of

the enchanted family from his dominion.

On the open front of the stage, darkened with smoke and foul with

offensive odors of noxious gases, the squire is hotly engaged with the

great dragon, in close rencontre, and at the same time assailed above,

around, in flank and rear, by harpies, fiery serpents, and other forms

of terror—the battle of life translated into coarse _diablerie_. The

sentiment and significance of the play in this take great liberties with

the regular charities and practical reforms of our social system. The

sorts of evil which these monsters so uncouthly represent are such as

physical suffering, drunkenness, violence, fraud, and the thousand

shapes of slavery, personal and political, and of all castes and colors.

They are represented as greedy and ugly, and full of mocking and

malignity, but with little intrinsic capability of mischief, for they

are really unattractive in temptation and extremely awkward in battle,

and much more remarkable for thick-skinned insensibility to assault than

for any adroitness in the combat. The squire bravely deals his blows

upon the great dragon. Horror, fear and hatred of the monster, earnest

devotion to the “great cause,” with the courage of full commitment, and,

perhaps, some regard for his reputation as a hard-hitter, put life and

metal in his veins, and right lustily he mauls away. The earliest

effects of his prowess are remarkable. The dragon, defending his own

ground as confidently and angrily as if the empire of evil were really a

rightful one wherever sanctioned by antiquity of possession, dashes his

ponderous jaws at the reckless agitator, opened wide enough to swallow

him, with all his weapons and armor at a gulp; but he manages to elude

the clumsy wrath, and, nothing daunted and nothing doubting, deals his

blows with energy in the ratio of the rage they rouse. Curiously, but

conformably enough, at every stroke another ring of the monster’s tail

unrolls. At first he was an unwieldy, but not an utterly misshapen

brute; now he has become a serpent and a scarecrow; the head and tail

are as incongruous as the pretended righteousness of his cause and his

villainous method of defending it. The strife goes on, and grows only

the worse and wickeder for its continuance, till it is plain that the

beast is not to be mastered with hard blows, and if he yields it is

because his huge, unwieldy bulk is exhausted with the protracted effort

of defense, and he subsides at last rather than submits. So ends the

battle, and then comes the triumph. The valorous victor, claiming all

the honors he has won, mounts his sometime foe in the new character of

hobby, and rides him grandly off the stage in a blaze of gaseous glory,

cheered most vociferously by the boys and affording not a little

merriment, mixed with admiration, to the old folks. What a figure that

procession made! and how exact a figure, too, of many another that the

world witnesses admiringly. The squire is, however, none the less a hero

that his principles are rugged, his method rude, his ideas a little

vulgar, and his aims tinged but not tainted with his egotism. The

dragons, serpents and hobgoblins must be routed, and he is the man for

the emergency.

All the while this palpable warfare is proceeding in open view, the

knight is engaged with the subtler fiends in the dim and doubtful

darkness of the background. Quite behind the scenes the severest strife

is maintained, but enough is seen and intimated upon the stage to reveal

the real character of the conflict. The fidelity of illustration in the

conduct of the allegory here was really admirable. At one time we

descried him through the gloom by the flashing of his sword, engaged in

hand-to-hand combat with a host of fiends, rushing upon the foe with

true chivalric enthusiasm; at another, hard pressed and well-nigh

exhausted, sternly enduring the blows he could not parry or

repay—exhibiting, in turn, every mood of courage to do and fortitude to

endure the varied fortunes of the field. But anon, with equal

truthfulness of portraiture, he is discovered trembling in sudden and

strange panics, which show the temporary failure of his faith, and seem

to threaten his utter desertion of the field. In the open presence of

the foe his courage never fails, but the stratagem of darkness and

desertion successfully evades the sword-thrust and the shield’s defense,

and gives him up to doubt and desperation. The powers of darkness take

hold upon him, and in his agonies of fear and suffering he would, if it

were possible, that the cup might pass from him. In these moments of

anguish and depression the Fairy of the Oak instantly appeared to

strengthen him. With a touch and a word she reassures him, and the

divine virtue again shines out, exposing visibly the demon of the doubt,

and the good sword again flashes in the gloom, and the fiends, forced

into open fight, are finally overthrown.

Bulwer strikes the same profound fact of experience in heroic

enterprise, in his “Terror of the Threshold.” The reformer, however,

confident in virtue and assured of the goodness of his undertaking,

naturally trembles at critical stages of revolution in opinions and

institutions long established and interwoven with the existing order of

society, for the risk of introducing new truths may well check the

current of a wise man’s zeal. If I pull down, he will say, this temple

whose ceremonial, though barbarous and blinding, yet supports the morals

of the worshiper and the present order of the social system, will the

liberty and light bestowed avail for the designed improvement, or will

they only unsettle the securities of law and prove occasions of disorder

and licentiousness? The brave bigot and fiery enthusiast know nothing of

this indecision. The cautious hesitation which springs from solicitude

for the best ends and most expedient means, never troubles their

stubborn bluntness of purpose nor abates their boasted consistency of

action. But the regular procedure of Providence is marked by regard for

the influence of conditions and the established law of progress. In

these things the highest benevolence meets impediments and suffers

modifications and even submits to postponement to avoid defeat; and the

agents and instruments of the world’s regeneration have their

Gethsemanes as well as their triumphs and transfigurations.

Nothing in language, scenery or costume irreverently asserted the

allusions which I am exposing. I do not know that either playwright,

performer or spectator was concerned about or even conscious of the

significant symbolism of the fable and its circumstantial exposition in

the play. It was produced as a beautiful dramatic spectacle. Apart from

any mystical meanings, it was a perfect luxury of scenic entertainment.

It was so regarded by the visiters, and probably was designed for

nothing more; but to me the analogy was a surprise and a delight,

growing at every step of the development. It struck me first when I saw

the knight and his brave squire standing on the threshold of the

enchanted hall, after their victory in the wilderness. With equal zeal,

truthfulness and devotion they had battled with the formidable foe, but

with very different aims and apprehensions. The difference was most

manifest when they stood in the presence of the enchanted family. The

knight, breathless with awe and melting with compassion, showed how

tenderly and reverently he felt the moral and mental bondage which

struck his opened vision; but the squire, though so faithful and loyal

as a follower, and efficient as a servant, had yet not the penetration

of a seer; and the preposterous spectacle of princes, counselors,

knights, esquires, priests, soldiers, pages, artisans, musicians,

dancers, slaves, retainers—every class and calling among men—all

arrested in mid-action, and slumbering for a century amid the luxury and

pageantry of a gorgeous festival, with the viands untasted and the cup

undrained before them, struck him with a comic wonder and pleasant

sportiveness which he cared not to suppress. Approaching the venerable

prime minister of the realm, who sat with the goblet near his lip,

immovable as death, the thirsty soldier familiarly proposed to drink his

health, and only made mouths at the cup when he found it “as dry as

dust.” The cheek of the dancing girl, who stood pivoted for her century

upon one toe, he found “as cold as a stone;” and the apples offered by

an African slave to a guest, whose hand hung arrested midway in the

reach, proved to his disappointed taste a petrified humbug. The whole

scene of deprivation and incapacity before him he pronounced an epidemic

sleeping fever, and he wondered if it was catching, and where and how he

should get his dinner!

All this has its parallel and exposition in the boys that mock a

drunkard reeling through the street, and the contrasted sadness which a

soul alive to the moral ruin feels at the same sight; or it may be

witnessed again in the conduct of an insensible boor and that of a

person of refinement in the presence of the insane; and in general, in

the sentiments of those who have, and those who have not, learned that

“the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment.”

These reflections present themselves in the pause while the champion

stands, riveted with emotions of wonder and pity at the mingled gloom

and glory of the scene.

But the action proceeds again. A strain of melody spontaneously waking

from the silence of an age, fitly preludes and prophesies the harmonies

of the new era, and there wants only the taliha-cumi of the Deliverer to

awaken the princess and her household into the activities of full life.

At the bidding of the minstrel he advances to her pavilion. Answering to

his word and touch, she rises. One by one the women first resume their

proper consciousness, and the revival of the men follows in proper

order, till the spell is broken and the last shadow of the long night

gives place to the perfect day. The renovated realm every where receives

its primal beauty, the flowers of Eden bloom again, and the fruits

regain their flavor, the wine is new in the new kingdom, and all the

material ministries of life without, respond to the renewed faculties

within.

The fable has not yet exhausted the facts. Obeying the poetical

necessities of the epic story, and conforming also to the apocalyptic

vision of the world’s fortunes, which are to follow the first victory

over the dragon and the binding of the adversary for a thousand years,

we have the peace and happiness of the disenchanted household once more

disturbed. The prince of the powers of darkness, that great magician who

is the author of all the mischief from the beginning, is “loosed out of

his prison,” and gathering all his forces for a final battle, he

surrounds the castle. The queen’s army, led by the knight, go out to

meet the grand enemy in battle, and he is utterly overthrown and his

power broken for ever. The conquerors return in triumph to the castle,

and in the midst of their rejoicings a herald from the outer wall, who

has witnessed the scene, announces the total annihilation of the enemy.

The elements, marshaled by their ruling spirits, have overwhelmed him; a

tempest of hail and fire bursts upon his castle, and the earth opening

has swallowed up the last vestige of his kingdom and power.

The battle of Gog and Magog (20th Rev.) in which the deceived of the

four quarters of the earth are gathered together, and compass the camp

of the saints about, is the very prototype of this incident in our

story, and “the fire which came down from heaven,” and the “casting of

the devil which deceived them into the lake of fire and brimstone,” is

only a different expression of the same final deliverance of the human

family from the last enemy.

The marriage rites close and crown the grand achievement, and a

magnificent tableau illustrates the consummation. The spirits of the

elements arise, and array themselves in a vertical arch upon the stage.

The centre and summit is occupied by a new figure, now first introduced,

costumed appropriately in pure white, representing Truth in augurated or

universal harmony; the Spirit of Earth at the base on one side, and of

Water at the other, while impersonations of Air and Fire occupy the

intermediate positions. This bow of beauty and promise, emblematically

dressed and decorated, stood a happy symbol of the restored order of the

material creation. The household, artistically arranged and displayed,

represented the divine order of society, where government and liberty,

refinement and efficiency, luxury and industry, are reconciled, and man

with his fellow man is organized in the harmonies of the creative

scheme. And, that the joy may be full to the utmost limits of communion

and sympathy, the Fairy of the Oak is seen ascending, to take

possession, in behalf of her race, of their recovered heaven—the

guerdon of their services to the redeemed family of Adam. So, the last

scene in the drama mingles the new Heavens with the new Earth, and all

the worlds in our universe triumph together in the general resurrection,

as they rejoiced on the birth-day of the creation.

I do not know the history of the fairy tale, its age or origin. I know

nothing of the design with which it was prepared for theatrical

representation, nor do I see why it should be inferred, because the idea

and method are so strikingly significant, that the manager, after the

fashion of the ancient “Mysteries,” intended to restore sacred subjects

to the stage in allegorical disguise. I suppose that the fable is simply

fancy’s method of the great fact, and that its doctrinals are the

natural intuitives and inevitable theory of the human mind concerning

the mystery of life, the great epochal experiences of the human family,

their final fortunes, and the interests and sympathies of other worlds

included; for such conceptions as these are general and common among all

men. The question of special revelation is not affected by its

concurrence with universally received ideas. The correspondence

pervading all systems proves the truth and unity of origin of the

essential points in all, but in no wise touches the method of their

revealment, discovery or propagation.

The points and particulars of the play are none of them manufactured to

supply the running parallel we have given, nor are they nearly

exhausted. Moreover, it will readily occur that the plan of the play

illustrates the whole philosophy of world-mending by its merely human

hero. The actual and eventual progress of civilization, religion and

liberty can be laid down upon its scheme in the exactest detail of

principles, which facts _must_ follow and fulfill. The supernatural

agencies introduced also answer this aspect and rendering of the myth.

They well represent the material and immaterial forces concerned in all

societary movements, and if they may not serve for the religion of the

great process, they may do duty as philosophical abstractions, or as a

beautiful system of poetical symbolism—for in the mystical

correspondence of all these systems of ideas there is such fundamental

unity of use.

W.

* * * * *

HYLAS.

BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.

No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida

The hot noon lay, and on the plain’s enamel;

Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.

“Why should I haste?” said young and rosy Hylas:

“The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.

Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,

Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;

The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended

On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen

Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,

Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander.”

So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys

And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,

Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms

That spangled thick the green Dardanian meadows.

Then, stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins

And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure,

Naked, save one light robe, that from his shoulder

Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing

Of warm, white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood,

Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.

Now to the river’s sandy marge advancing,

He dropped the robe and raised his head exulting

In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing

Held him against Apollo’s glowing bosom.

For sacred to Latona’s son is Beauty,

Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.

A joy indeed, a living joy was Hylas,

Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,

That slew the dreaded boar of Erymanthus,

To men though terrible, to him was gentle,

Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter

When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders

Dragged the huge paws of the Nemæan lion.

The thick, brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead,

Fell soft about his temples; manhood’s blossom

Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly

Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lip’s parting,

Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow;

His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,

Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;

Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulder rounded

To the white arms and whiter breast between them.

Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:

His back was like a god’s; his loins were moulded

As if some pulse of power began to waken;

The springy fullness of his thighs, outswerving,

Sloped to his knee, and lightly dropping downward,

Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.

Musing a space he stood, a light smile playing

Upon his face—a spirit new-created

To the free air and all-embracing sunlight.

He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored

In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it

On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:

Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.

Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching

Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters

Swirled round his thighs, and deeper, slowly deeper,

Till on his breast the River’s cheek was pillowed,

And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple

Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet’s bosom

His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.

There, as he floated, with a rapturous motion,

The lucid coolness folding close around him,

The lily-cradling ripples murmured: “Hylas!”

He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine

Curls, that had lain unwet upon the water,

And still the ripples murmured: “Hylas! Hylas!”

He thought: “the voices are but ear-born music.

Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling

From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley:

So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontos,

Have heard the sea-waves hammer Argo’s forehead,

That I misdeem the fluting of this current

For some lost nymph”—again the murmur: “Hylas!”

And with the sound a cold, smooth arm around him

Slid like a wave, and down the clear, green darkness

Glimmered on either side a shining bosom—

Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer

Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,

Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles

Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.

Their eyes of clear, pale emerald then uplifting,

They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,

And once again there came a murmur: “Hylas!

O come with us, O follow where we wander

Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling—

Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander

With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,

Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing.

Thou fair Greek boy, O come with us! O follow

Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,

But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,

Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!

We have no love; alone, of all th’ Immortals,

We have no love. O love us, we who press thee

With faithful arms, though cold—whose lips caress thee—

Who hold thy beauty prisoned. Love us, Hylas!”

The sound dissolved in liquid murmurs, calling

Still as it faded: “Come with us, O follow!”

The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure

Lock round his limbs, and bear him, vainly striving,

Down from the noonday brightness. “Leave me, Naiads!

Leave me!” he cried; “the day to me is dearer

Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean’s quiet.

I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure:

I would not change this flexile, warm existence,

Though swept by storms and shocked by Jove’s dread thunder,

To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.”

Still moaned the humid lips, between their kisses;

“We have no love. O love us, we who press thee!”

And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas:

“My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens

I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish,

Unlock your cold, white arms—take from my shoulder

The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.

Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,

And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,

Will fret to ride where Pelion’s twilight shadow

Falls o’er the towers of Jason’s sea-girt city.

I am not yours—I cannot braid the lilies

In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms

Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.

Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,

Your world of watery quiet:—Help, Apollo!

For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music

Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture:

The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,

Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.

O leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,

Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining.”

But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,

And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:

“We have thee now, we hold thy beauty prisoned—

O come with us beneath the emerald waters!

We have no loves; we love thee, rosy Hylas.

O love us, who shall nevermore release thee:

Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle

Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,

Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces.”

And slowly, slowly, sunk the amorous Naiads;

The boy’s blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,

Pleading for help; but Heaven’s immortal Archer

Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,

And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,

So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,

Closing, reluctant, as he sunk forever.

The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.

Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly

Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.

The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,

And up the ropes was heaved the snowy canvas.

But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,

Unmindful stood, beside the cool Scamander,

Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys

Tossed o’er an urn, was all that lay before him:

And when he called, expectant: “Hylas! Hylas!”

The empty echoes made him answer: “Hylas!”

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE HIGHLAND CHASE.]

* * * * *

THE VISION OF MARIOTDALE.[1]

BY H. HASTINGS WELD.

I.—THE SURPRISE.