gion, in the holier recess of which the great Goddess assisted without contradicting our natural vision, and personally resided. Himself too he bade me reverence, enabled us to see far beyond the limits of the Valley as the consecrated minister of her rites. Awe-struck of Life: though our eye even thus assisted permitted by the name of Religion, I bowed before the priest, us only to behold a light and a glory, but what we and humbly and earnestly entreated him to conduct could not descry, save only that it was, and that it me into her presence. He assented. Offerings he took was most glorious. from me, with mystic sprinklings of water and with And now, with the rapid transition of a dream, I salt he purified, and with strange sufflations he ex- had overtaken and rejoined the more numerous party orcised me; and then led me through many a dark who had abruptly left us, indignant at the very name and winding alley, the dew-damps of which chilled of religion. They journeyed on, goading each other my flesh, and the hollow echoes under my feet, with remembrances of past oppressions, and never mingled, methought, with moanings, affrighted me. looking back, till in the eagerness to recede from the At length we entered a large hall, without window, Temple of Superstition, they had rounded the whole or spiracle, or lamp. The asylum and dormitory it circle of the valley. And lo! there faced us the seemed of perennial night-only that the walls were mouth of a vast cavern, at the base of a lofty and brought to the eye by a number of self-luminous almost perpendicular rock, the interior side of which, inscriptions in letters of a pale pulchral light, that unknown to them, and unsuspected, formed the exheld strange neutrality with the darkness, on the treme and backward wall of the Temple. An imverge of which it kept its rayless vigil. I could read patient crowd, we entered the vast and dusky cave them, methought; but though each one of the words which was the only perforation of the precipice. taken separately I seemed to understand, yet when I At the mouth of the cave sate two figures; the first, took them in sentences, they were riddles and in- by her dress and gestures, I knew to be SENSUALITY; comprehensible. As I stood meditating on these hard the second form, from the fierceness of his demeanor, sayings, my guide thus addressed me-Read and be- and the brutal scornfulness of his looks, declared lieve these are mysteries!-At the extremity of the himself to be the monster BLASPHEMY. He uttered vast hall the Goddess was placed. Her features, blend-big words, and yet ever and anon I observed that he ed with darkness, rose out to my view, terrible, yet turned pale at his own courage. We entered. Some vacant. I prostrated myself before her, and then remained in the opening of the cave, with the one or retired with my guide, soul-withered, and wondering, and dissatisfied. the other of its guardians. The rest, and I among them, pressed on, till we reached an ample chamber, that seemed the centre of the rock. The climate of the place was unnaturally cold. As I re-entered the body of the temple, I heard a deep buzz as of discontent. A few whose eyes were bright, and either piercing or steady, and whose In the furthest distance of the chamber sate an ample foreheads, with the weighty bar, ridge-like, old dim-eyed man, poring with a microscope over above the eyebrows, bespoke observation followed the Torso of a statue which had neither basis, nor by meditative thought; and a much larger number, fect, nor head; but on its breast was carved NATURE! who were enraged by the severity and insolence of To this he continually applied his glass, and seemed the priests in exacting their offerings, had collected enraptured with the various inequalities which it in one tumultuous group, and with a confused outcry rendered visible on the seemingly polished surface of this is the Temple of Superstition!" after much of the marble.-Yet evermore was this delight and contumely, and turmoil, and cruel maltreatment on all sides, rushed out of the pile: and I, methought, joined them. triumph followed by expressions of hatred, and vehement railings against a Being, who yet, he assured us, had no existence. This mystery suddenly recalled We speeded from the Temple with hasty steps, to me what I had read in the Holiest Recess of the and had now nearly gone round half the valley, temple of Superstition. The old man spoke in divers when we were addressed by a woman, tall beyond tongues, and continued to utter other and most strange the stature of mortals, and with a something more mysteries. Among the rest he talked much and vethan human in her countenance and mien, which yet hemently concerning an infinite series of causes and could by mortals be only felt, not conveyed by words effects, which he explained to be-a string of blind or intelligibly distinguished. Deep reflection, ani- men, the last of whom caught hold of the skirt mated by ardent feelings, was displayed in them: of the one before him, he of the next, and so on till and hope, without its uncertainty, and a something they were all out of sight: and that they all walked more than all these, which I understood not, but infallibly straight, without making one false step, which yet seemed to blend all these into a divine though all were alike blind. Methought I borrowed unity of expression. Her garments were white and courage from surprise, and asked him,-Who then is matronly, and of the simplest texture. We inquired at the head to guide them? He looked at me with her name. My name, she replied, is Religion. ineffable contempt, not unmixed with an angry susThe more numerous part of our company, affright-picion, and then replied, "No one. The string of ed by the very sound, and sore from recent impostures blind men went on for ever without any beginning: or sorceries, hurried onwards and examined no far- for although one blind man could not move without ther. A few of us, struck by the manifest opposition stumbling, yet infinite blindness supplied the want of of her form and manners to those of the living sight." I burst into laughter, which instantly turned to 'dol, whom we had so recently abjured, agreed to terror-for as he started forward in rage, I caught follow her, though with cautious circumspection. a glance of him from behind; and lo! I beheld a She led us to an eminence in the midst of the valley, monster biform and Janus-headed, in the hinder face from the top of which we could command the whole and shape of which I instantly recognized the dread plain, and observe the relation of the different parts countenance of SUPERSTITION-and in the terror of each to the other, and of each to the whole, and awoke. of all to each. She then gave us an optic glass which 231 CATHERINE. No! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for our presumption in expecting that Mr. would waste his sense on two insignificant girls. FRIEND. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem! Now then commences the discourse; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often usurps its name, on the other LUCIUS. (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the Friend). But is not Love the union of both? FRIEND (aside to LUCIUS). ELIZA. Brother, we don't want you. There! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the flower-vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman. LUCIUS. I'll have my revenge! I know what I will say! ELIZA. Off! off! Now dear sir,-Love, you were saying FRIEND. Hush! Preaching, you mean, Eliza Pshaw! FRIEND. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not the most common thing in the world: and mutual love still less so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the well-known ballad, "John Anderson, my jo, John," in addition to a depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature; a constitutional communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul; a delight in the detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament within-to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide of life-even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away, and which in all our From a man turned of fifty, Catherine, I imagine, lovings, is the Love;— expects a less confident answer. CATHERINE. A more sincere one, perhaps. FRIEND. Even though he should have obtained the nickname of Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at Christmas times? Nay, but be serious. ELIZA. FRIEND. Serious? Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be asked whether I am not the "elderly gentleman" who sate 'despairing beside a clear stream," with a willow for his wig-block. ELIZA. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself. CATHERINE. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for us. FRIEND. -I mean that willing sense of the insufficing. ness of the self for itself, which predisposes a gener. ous nature to see, in the total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own-that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and, finding, again seeks on-lastly when "life's changeful orb has pass'd the full," a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus brought home and pressed, as 'it were, to the very bosom of hourly experience: it supposes, I say, a Say another word, and we will call it downright heart-felt reverence for worth, not the less deep be affectation. cause divested of its solemnity by habit, by familiar ELIZA. CATHERINE. Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to make me despair of finding a "John Anderson, my jo, John," to totter down the hill of life with. ity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of guise of playful raillery, and the countless other modesty which will arise in delicate nunds, when infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial they are conscious of possessing the same or the feeling. correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged VIRTUE the caressing fondness that belongs to the INNOCENCE of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty. ELIZA. What a soothing-what an elevating idea! CATHERINE. If it be not only an idea. FRIEND. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, housemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment, save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper-one or the other-too often proves "the dead fly in the compost of spices," and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own selfimportance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part, grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving the same but by negatives-that is, by not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical,-or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering. ELIZA (in answer to a whisper from Catherine). To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me from such folks! But they are out of the question. FRIEND. FRIEND. Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer in you, you may hope to find in another. But well than good women, but that what another would find which would be more than an adequate reward for however, may that boon be rare, the possession of the rarest virtue. ELIZA. Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, must have possessed it? FRIEND. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment! (Then, after a pause of a few minutes). Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat, The fancy made him glad! Faith asks her daily bread, That boon, which but to have possess'd True! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too general insensibility to a very important truth; this, namely, that the MISERY of human life is Doubts toss'd him to and fro; made up of large masses, each separated from the Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a Like babes bewilder'd in a snow, child; years after, a failure in trade; after another That cling and huddle from the cold longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have In hollow tree or ruin'd fold. married unhappily;-in all but the singularly un fortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum Those sparkling colors, once his boast, counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS Thin and hueless as a ghost, 1190 Where was it then, the sociable sprite It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow, O bliss of blissful hours! The boon of Heaven's decreeing, Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate! THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO. Of late, in one of those most weary hours, The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan Of manhood, musing what and whence is man Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry The brightness of the world, O thou once free, But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might And Nature makes her happy home with man; See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views of poetry, to observe, that in the attempt to adapt the Greek metres to the English language, we must begin by substituting quality of sound for quantity- that is. accentuated or comparatively emphasized syllables, for what, in the Greek and Latin verse, are named long, and of which the prosodial mark is; and vice versa, unaccentuated syllables for short, marked ". Now the hexameter verse consists of two sorts of feet, Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy the spondee, composed of two long syllables, and the muse! Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY. LINES COMPOSED ON A SICK BED, UNDER SEVERE Bow unto God in CHRIST- in Christ, my ALL! The Heir of Heaven, henceforth I dread not Death, is that a Death-bed, where the CHRISTIAN lies? FRAGMENTS FROM THE WRECK OF MEMORY: OR PORTIONS OF POEMS COMPOSED IN EARLY MANHOOD. NOTE.-It may not be without use or interest to youthful, and especially to intelligent female readers dactyl, composed of one long syllable followed by two short. The following verse from the Psalms, is a rare instance of a perfect hexameter (i. e. line of six feet) in the English language: God came up with a shout our | Lord with the sound of a | trūmpēt. But so few are the truly spondaic words in our language, such as Egypt, üprōar, turmoil, &c., that we are compelled to substitute, in most instances, the trochee, oră, i. e. such words as merry, lightly, &c. for the proper spondee. It need only be added, that in the hexameter the fifth foot must be a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee, or trochee. I will end this note with two hexameter lines, likewise from the Psalms. There is a river the | flowing where | of shall | gladden the city. Hällě | lūjǎh thě | city of | Gōd Jéhōvăh! hăth | blēst hěr.j I. HYMN TO THE EARTH. EARTH! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee! Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges— Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions. Travelling the vale with mine eyes-green meadows, and lake with green island, Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness, Thrilled with thy beauty and love, in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, Great Mother, I lie, thy child with its head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that creep or rush through thy tresses: Green-haired Goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first in- Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical troduced the works of Homer to his countrymen. I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imaginations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio; where the sage instructor, Racheo. as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancafiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. Incomincio Racheo a mettere il suo officio in essecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece legere il santo libro d' Ovvidio, nel quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Ve nere si debbano ne freddi cuori occendere." 16 |