Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

themselves wings and flown away. The cat, smarting from the harsh gripe of the noodle, turned about by a sudden jerk of its body, and inserted its talons in sundry parts of the lover's frontispiece. The claret flowed profusely from divers fountains; and the poor fellow, like his heart's best treasure, also swooned away. He was afterwards carried to bed in an insensible state. Miss was taken away, put into a carriage, and carried back to Pa' and Ma,' who, it is hoped, will cure the young lady of her foolish passion."

Here, in this vile print, was too clear a solution of the several enigmas touching the three intruders, the absence and destiny of Lavinia, and the horribly disfigured state of my face. My eyes turned in their sockets before I got to the end of the odious paragraph. My whole frame trembled. All things reeled about me. The house appeared to be falling: I felt as if the world had come to an end.

It was long before my consciousness returned. When it did, my first intention was to cover my disgrace from myself and to end my earthly woes, by putting a period to my existence. What were the best means of accomplishing my purpose was the first query which demanded an answer. A razor? I had lost too much blood already, my face was too much mangled by feline talons to think of mangling my throat with a razor. To speak a truth, after what I had seen of gore in the case of my face, I had no wish to see more of that claretlooking commodity, whether drawn by a razor or any other instrument. Drown myself? That could not be accomplished without an ample supply of water; and where this was to be had I knew not, being a complete stranger in the place. "I might have enquired," the reader will say. Had the reader seen my face at that time, he would neither say nor think any such thing. It made it impossible for me to think of going out of doors in open day, on any errand. Besides, had I asked any body the way to a river, my face would infallibly have generated instant suspicion of what my intentions were, and consequently prevented their being carried into effect. Hang myself? The only objection, but it was an insuperable one, which I had to that mode of making my exit was, that all the offscourings of society, every lacquey and chimney sweep who get tired of life, end it.by means of a rope, a handkerchief, or some other suspender. At any rate, it is indubitably certain that no gentleman swings by his own hand. Pistols? Well, I concluded, blowing out one's brains is certainly the preferable mode of doing the business of any yet mentioned. But the evil of it was, I had no pistol: that had already proved my misfortune. It was the most grievous error I ever committed, that I omitted to take a pair of pistols with me when Lavinia and I quitted Carlisle for Gretna. Had I taken these implements with me, she and I had been by this time man and wife. I should, in that case, have instantaneously scattered in a thousand directions, the brains of a couple of the trio of insolent intruders, when they presumed to lay hands on Lavinia, and the third would, cowardlike, have taken to his heels. But regrets were unavailing now; the question was how to procure a pair of pistols for my present purpose.

I could not, for the reason already mentioned, venture out

66

myself in daylight to any shop to purchase the articles; and to have sent any other person would have awakened suspicions, and consequently defeated my purpose. I thought, in all the circumstances, the best way would be to wait until dark, when I might go out myself and procure the implements I wanted, taking care, while in the ironmonger's shop, to keep my face shrouded, by means of my pockethandkerchief, from the unhallowed gaze of the shopmen. Evening came. I had left money to pay my bill, and was in the act of going downstairs to procure the instruments wherewith to execute my rash purpose, when I heard the sound of a coach horn. Holla! Holla! Here's the London coach!" vociferated Boots to some hostler-looking figure at the door. The London coach, thought I. It is dark; no one will see or know me in the coach: I will go to London, where I am all but utterly unknown: perhaps I may after all, by observing a prudent conduct for the future, be a happy man. upstairs for the money I had left, enquired how far on the way to London the coach would be by day-light, was answered, took my seat for that place, and set off. By confining myself in a room in one of the inns of the respective towns all day, and travelling all night, I reached the metropolis after four days' stoppages by the way.

(To be continued.)

I ran

J. G.

ENGLISH SONNETS.*

THE form of the Sonnet for the expression of poetical sentiments has of late become very popular in this country. Its origin is involved in obscurity. It is doubtful whether it was first invented by the Sicilians or the Provenceaux; but it is clear that the Italians were the first to bring it to perfection. The sonnet was first introduced into this country by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in the year 1518. Mr. Housinan maintains that it may now be considered fairly naturalized among us. We hold a different opinion. Nay, we have our doubts whether it ever will become, among the higher class of English poets, a favourite mode of expressing their sentiments. In the first place, the necessity of so many words rhyming together is not so well suited to the English language as it is to the languages of Italy and Spain, the countries in which the sonnet is most popular. In the second place, the restrictions it imposes must always be considered too burdensome to English poets of the higher order to lead them to adopt it. Limited of necessity to fourteen lines, and those fourteen lines divided into two quatrains and two tercets, it is obvious that few great geniuses would like to be so hampered in the expression of their sentiments. Nothing more than a single idea can ever be done justice to in the form of a sonnet. As for in

*A Collection of English Sonnets. By R. F. Housman. Whittaker & Co.

cident, the introduction of that into a Sonnet, were altogether impossible.

For poets, of the third or fourth class, then, the sonnet, may answer very well, where only a detached idea is to be worked out; but no poet of the higher order of genius can ever resort to it without feeling himself moving in fetters, and without manifest injustice to his reputation. Following the example set by their contemporaries of Italy and Spain, with whom the sonnet was at that time quite in vogue, Shakspeare and Milton both tried their hand at sonnets. It is fortunate for their own reputation, as well as for their country, that they did not confine themselves to that form of expressing their thoughts. Had they never written any thing else than sonnets their names would have been unknown in the present day.

Let us not be considered as objecting to the sonnet in general; we are only endeavouring to prevent its becoming so popular in this country as to induce the higher class of poets to become unduly enamoured of it, and by that means divert themselves from taking that comprehensive range in the expression of their thoughts which so many other species of poetry afford them. Many modern sonnets are beautiful, and we believe we are among their greatest admirers; but still we hold that no one ever can infuse poetic genius into them, however gifted the mind from which they emanate.

The sonnet has invariably, as far as our observation extends, been hitherto confined to the embodying of some tender or contemplative idea; but Mr. Housman thinks it is equally adapted to subjects of a humourous or satirical nature. Here we differ from him; let the happiest sonnet writer of the present day only try his hand at the humourous or satirical in the form of a sonnet, and we will answer for it the result will be to make both the subject and himself ridiculous.

Mr. Housman deserves our best thanks for the labour he has undergone in selecting the best sonnets which have been written by English poets, from the time of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, down to the present day-a period embracing the three last centuries. We shall avail ourselves of his labours in presenting our readers with some of the best sonnets written by English poets at different periods. The first is from the earliest of the sonneteers-the earl of Surrey.

NIGHT.

ALAS! So all things now do hold their peace!

Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing:

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,
The nightès chair the stars about doth bring.

Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less;

So am not I, whom Love, alas, doth wring,
Bringing before my face the great increase
Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,
In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease;

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring;
But, by and by, the cause of my disease

Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting,
When that I think what grief it is again

To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

The following is from Sir Philip Sydney. It is on

SLEEP.

COME, Sleep! O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge between the high and low;
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw;
O, make in me those civil wars to cease;
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.

And if these things, as being thine by right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.
Edmund Spencer has a beautiful sonnet on
TRUE BEAUTY.

MEN call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that yourself you daily such do see;
But the true fair, that is the gentle wit
And virtuous mind, is much more praised of me,
For all the rest, however fair it be,

Shall turn to naught, and lose that glorious hue;
But only that is permanent and free

From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue.

That is true beauty, that doth argue you

To be divine, and born of heavenly seed;

Deriv'd from that fair spirit from whom all true

And perfect beauty did at first proceed.

He only fair, and what he fair hath made;

All other fair, like flowers, untimely fade.

Next comes our immortal Bard of Avon. We select his sonnet on

RETROSPECTION.

WEARY with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,

To work my mind, when body's work's expired;
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eye-lids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see,

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find,

William Drummond, of Hawthornden, has a beautiful one
TO SLEEP.

CARE-CHARMING Sleep, son of the sable night,

Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,
Destroy my languish ere the day be light,
With dark forgetting of my care's return;

* Press.

And let the day be long enough to mourn

The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth;
Let watery eyes suffice to wail their scorn,
Without the troubles of the night's untruth.
Cease, dreams, fond image of my fond desires,
To model forth the passions of to-morrow!
Let never rising sun approve your tears,
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow;
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain,
And never wake to feel the day's disdain.
We come now to John Milton.
his sonnets we select that

From several specimens given of

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he, returning, chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask-but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies-God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest`;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

The circumstances under which the above sonnet was written give it a touching interest.

Of the sonnets written by Gray, Mr Housınan only gives the following. It is

ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD WEST.

IN vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire.
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,

A different object do these ears require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.
Yet morning smiles, the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their litttle loves the birds complain :
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.

The only sonnet of Sir Egerton Brydges which Mr. Housman gives is that on "Echo and Silence." It is the most beautiful, perhaps, in the English language. We have much pleasure in transferring it to our columns.

ECHO AND SILENCE.

In eddying course when leaves began to fly,

And Autumn in her lap the store to strew,

As, mid wild scenes I chanced the Muse to woo,

Through glens untrod, and woods that frown'd on high,

« НазадПродовжити »