SiSieis5l§i:ii^^ i:!.i.-l.'l.ll'll'nr|ivrinll»)l|l IllUpHniJli;. '-I'll MdrMI'i "^w^s K^.,-' • T^»'^ Of ' " ^elow UNIVERSITY Of 4-OS Form i c t V C^S V" HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE BRITISH POETS v^ Frontispiece] A I'OKTS HAUNT. HOMES AMD HAUNTS OK 1'1!K BRITISH POETS WILLIAM IIOWITT V/ITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL MA^'CHESTER AND NEW YOR!C 1894 i - c - • , • fr « • • • fa. 60 •• '^ CONTENTS. POLTS ILLUSTRATIONS. fiOE CHAUCER Tahard Inn, Southwarh 1 SPENSER Kilcohnan Castle on Fire 10 SHAKSPEARE .... Shakspeare reading to Queen Elizabeth . . 29 COWLEY House at Chertsey 40 MILTON" ...... Cottage at Chalfont 46 BUTLER Ludloic Castle G9 DRYDEN Burleirjh House 74 ADDISON Holland House 83 POPE Villa at Tiuiclcnham 04 SWIFT Laracor Church Il'J Stella's House 132 Ilains of Sicift's Hmse 140 THOMSON Cottage hi Kcw Lane 141 SHENSTONE .... Lcasowes 155 CHATTEIITON . . . Muniment Room 158 GRAY ISC GOLDSMITH .... Room at Walker's Hotel 195 BURNS Burns and Mary parting 229 Lincluden Abbey 2C8 COWPEPv House at Westm 269 MRS. TIGHE 281 KEATS Tombs of Keats and Shelley at Home . .292 SHELLEY Shelley's Body found 301 PYRON Anneslcy Hall 322 CRABBE Bchoir Castle 350 riOaO 369 VL CONTENTS. rOITS. ILLUSTRATIONS. J'AGB COLEllIDGE .... Culcridffc Enlistinrj 3l<3 MRS. IIEMANS . . . Bcsidencc at RhjUon 419 L. E. L Cape Coasl Castle 433 SCOTT Abhoisford Aid CAMPBELL Gatcicay of Glasrjow CoUciic 487 SOUTIIEY Residence at Kcsuuh 508 Birthplace at Bristol 525 BAILLIE 526 WORDSWORTL' . , . Grasmere 632 MONTGOMERY . . . Fuhicclc Moravian Sclllancn! 556 LANDOR Residence near Fiesclc 578 LEIGH HUNT , , , . Birthplace at SotUhgate 595 ROGERS House in St. James's Place 609 MOORE Cottage at Sloperlon G26 GEOFFREY CHAUCER. The first thing whicli forcibly striiies our attention in tracing tho Homes and Haunts of the Poets, is the devastation which Time has made amongst them. As if he would indemnify himself for the degree of exemption from his influence in their works, he lays waste their homes and annihilates the traces of their haunts with an active and a relentless hand. If this is startlingly apparent in the cases of those even who have been our cotemporaries, how much more must it be so in the cases of those who have gone hence cen- turies ago. We begin with the father of our truly English poetry, tho genial old Geoffrey Chaucer ; and, spite of the lives which have been written of him, Tyrwhitt tells us that just nothing is really known of him. The whole of his account of what he considers well-authenticated facts regarding him amounts to but twelve pages, including notes and comments. The facts themselves do not fill more than four pages. He is supposed to have been born in 1328, and probably of an old Kentish family. Of his birth-place, further than that it was in London, as he tells us himself in the Testament of Love, fol. 321, nothing is known. The place of his education is by no means clear. It has been said that he was educated first at Cambridge and then at Oxford. He himself leaves it pretty certaiu 2 CH AUG Kit. that he was at Cambridge, atyling hhuself, in The Court of Love, " Philogenet of Cambridge, Clerk." Leland has asserted that he was at Oxford : and Wood, in his Annals, gives a tradition that, " when Wickhfle was guardian or warden of Canterbury College, he had for his pupil the famous poet called Jeffrey Chaucer, father of Thomas Chaucer, Esq., of Ewelme, in Oxfordshire, who, following the steps of his master, reflected much upon the corruptions of the clergy." He is then said to have entered himself of the Inner Temple. Speght states that a Mr. Buckley had seen a record in the Inner Temple of '' Geffrey Chaucer being fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan Friar in Fleet Street." This, Tyrwhitt says, was a youthful sally, and points out the fact that Chaucer studied in the Inner Temple-on leaving college, and befoi^o his travels abroad, which is contrary to the account of Leland, who makes him after his travels reside in the Inner Temple. These travels even in France resting jsolely on the authority of Leland, Tyrwhitt disputes, but of their reality there can be little doubt. Chaucer, having finished his education, became a courtier. The first authentic memorial, says Tyrwhitt, that we have of him, is the patent in Rymer, 41 E. Ill, by which the king grants him an annuity of twenty marks, by the title of Valettus nostcr ; at which time he is also said to have been knighted, on or about the time of his marriage. He was then in the thirty-ninth year of his age. But previously to this we have it on his own evidence that he served under Edward III. in his great campaigns in France ; was made prisoner, and ob- tained his release at the peace of Bretigni, which took place in 1360, consequently in the 34. E. Ill, seven years before. Speght mentions a succeeding grant by the title of Valettus hospitil. By those titles it appears that he was a royal page or groom. In this situation he enjoyed various grants fi-om the king. In the 48 E. III. he had, according to Rymer, a grant for life of a pitcher of wine daily ; in the same year a grant, during pleasure, of the office of Comptroller of the Custom of Wools, Wines, etc. in the port of London. The next year the king granted him the Wardship of Sir Edmund Staple- gate's heir, for which he received 104/. ; and in the following year, some forfeited wool to the value of 71/. As. Gd. His annuity of twenty marks was confirmed to him on the accession of Richard II, and another annuity of twenty marks was granted him in lieu of the daily pitcher of wine. It is probable, too, that he was confirmed in his office of comptroller, though the instrument has not been pro- duced. In the 13th of Richard II. he appears to have been clerk of the works at Westminster, etc., and in the following year at Windsor. In the 17tli of Richard II. the king granted him a new annuity of twenty pounds ; in the 22d, a pipe of wine. On the accession of Henry IV. his two grants, of the annuity of twenty pounds and of the pipe of wine, were confirmed to him, with an additional grant of forty marks. Thus it appears that Chaucer did not miss the profitable part of court patronage. He also reaped some of its honourable employ- ments. Edward III, in the 4Gth year of his reign, appoiut-pd tirgu CHAUCER. with two others, liis envoy to Genoa, Avith the title of Scuiifer noster. Our Squire. This great and able king, it is evident, regarded Chaucer as a good man of business ; and that he proved himself so, is pretty u'cU denoted by the chief grants of his life immediately following his return. On the heels of these grants, came also another em- bassy," in company with Sir Thomas Priest, to Flanders, in 1377, and after that to France, with Sir Guichard d' Angle and Eichard Stan, according to Froissart, to treat of a marriage between the Prince of Wales, afterwards Richard II, and Isabella, daughter of the French king. Other historians assert that the original object of his mission was to complain of some infringement of the truce concluded with France, and which was so well pushed by Chaucer and his colleagues, that it led to some overtures respecting the marriage. However that may be, it is evident that our poet's part in the transaction met with the royal approbation ; for the old king dying, one of the first acts of the prince, on his accession, was to confirm his fixther's grants to him, with an additional one, as we have observed. Eichai-d, more- over, in the very first year of his reign, sent him on a second embassy to Flanders, and, in the following year, on another to Lombardy. Eight years later he was elected a knight of the shire for Kent to Parliament. But Chaucer had also his share of life's reverses. In 1386, he was dismissed from his offices. In the eleventh year of Richard II, that is, only two years later, he had the king's licence to surrender his two grants of twenty marks each, in favour of John Scalby. It is not really known v/hy he surrendered those grants, but it is sup- posed that it was owing to his connexion with the LoUai'd cause, and especially to his alliance with John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lan- caster, and John of Northampton. He was not only attached to the duke on account of their common interest in the reformed opinions, Ijut he was married to a sister of Catherine Swynford, the duke's mistress, and afterwai'ds wife. Chaucer, it seems, had exerted himself zealously to secure the re-election of John of Northampton as mayor of London. There is much mystery attached to the cause of the riot which took place ; but as this Comberton, or John of North- ampton, was a zealous Wickliffite, the supposition that the disturb- ance arose from the violent opposition of the clergy to him, is very probable. Comberton was finally committed to prison, and Chaucer Hed, first to Hainault, then to France, and lastly to Zealand. " Whilst in Zealand," says Mr. Chalmers, " he maintained some of his country- men, who had fled thither on the same account, by sharing the money he had brought with him, — an act of liberality which soon exhausted his stock. In the meantime the partizans of his cause, whom he had left at home, contrived to make their peace, not only without endeavouring to procure a pardon for him, but without aiding him in his exile, where he became greatly distressed for want "jf pecuniary supplies. Such ingratitude, we may suppose, gave him more uneasiness than the consequences of it ; but it did not lessen h:n courage, as he soon ventured to return to England. On this he W43 discovered, and committed to the Tower, where, after being treated with great rigour, he was promised his pardon if he w)ukt IS i 4 oriAtroi^fl. disclose all lie knew, and pxit it in the power of government to restore the peace of the city. His former resolution appears now to have failed him ; or, perhaps, indignation at the ungrateful conduct of his associates induced him to think disclosure a matter of indif- ference. It is certain that he complied with the terms offered ; but •we are not told what was the amount of his confession, or what the consequences were to others, or who they were that he informed against. We know only that he obtained his liberty, and that an oppressive share of blame and obloquy followed. To alleviate his regret for this treatment, and partly to vindicate his own conduct, he now wrote The Testament of Love ; and although this piece, from want of dates, and obscurity of style, is not sufficient to form a very satisfactory biographical document, it at least furnishes the preceding account of his exile and return." This account is attended with its difficulties. Chalmers states this exile to have occurred about the 3d or 4th of Richard II ; Tyrwhitt in the eleventh of that reign. One thing is certain ; that if it occurred in the eleventh, the whole period of his exile and troubles lasted only two years, for in the 13th of Richard II. he was in great lavour at court, and made clerk of the new works at Westminster, ind in other castles and palaces which the king was carrjdng on. Again, the two years during which he claimed protection from the king, are stated by Chalmers to be from the 2d of Richard, and by Tynvhitt, quoting Rymer, are dated from the twenty-first of that reign. It appears, however, pretty certain that he was reduced to gre'at pecuniary distress, and obliged to screen himself from the persecutions of his creditors under the royal grant of protection. There can be little doiibt that Rymer is the correct authority, and that it occurred in the 21st of Richard. About the time of the ter- mination of this grant of protection, he would see his protector also reduced to the need of protection himself ; which he did not find, but was deposed, and succeeded by Henry IV, who confirmed to our poet the grants of the imfortunate monarch Richard. Such are the few prominent facts of Chaucer"s public life. Where, during his abode in London, he took up his residence, we have no knowdedge. During the troubles of the court, and during his own, he is said to have retreated to his favourite Woodstock, This house he had engaged originally, because the court was then much at Woodstock, and he was obliged to be in constant attendance on the king. It became his favourite abode. It was a square stone house near the park gate, and long retained the name of Chaucer's House. n tied.'-- Wjrdiuyi'.ti SHAKSPEARE. There are two reasons why I proposed to omit the homes and Jiaunts of Shakspeare from the present vokimc ; the first, because 1 have found it impossible to include the dramatic poets in the compass of it, and must reserve them for a future one ; and the second, because I have already, in my Visits to Remarkable Places (vol. i.), devoted a considerable article to almost the onlj' place where jiis homes and haunts still remain, Stratford-upon-Avon. A very little reflection, however, convinced me that an entire omission of the haunts of this great national poet from this work, would be received as a disappointment by a numerous class of readers. Shakspeare is not merely a dramatic poet. Great and peerless as is his dramatic fame, the very elements not of dramatic art and fame alone, but of universal poetry, and that of the highest order, are so difFused through- out all his works, that the character of poet soars above the character of dramatist in him, like some heaven-climbing tov/er above a glorious church. Every line, almost every word, is a living mass of poetry ; these are scattered through the works of all authors as such exponents of their deepest sentiments as they cannot command themselves. They are like the Ijranches, the buds, the flowers and leaves of a gi'cat tree of poetry making a magnificent whole, and rich and b^cautiful as 30 SHAKSfEARE. nature itself, down to its minutest portions. To leave out Shak- speare were indeed to play Hamlet with the part of Hamlet himself omitted ; it were to invite guests, and allow the host to absent him- self. In the Walhalla of British poetry, the statue of Shakspearo must be first admitted and placed in the centre, before gradations and classifications are thought of. He is the univer.sal genius, whoso presence and spirit must and will pervade the whole place. And yet, where are the homes and haunts of Shakspeare in London ? Like those of a thousand other remarkable men, in the accidents and the growth of this great city, they are swept away. Fires and renovation have carried everything before them.. If the fame of men depended on bricks and mortar, what reputations would have been extinguished within the last two centuries in London ! In no place in the world have the violent necessities of a rapid and immense development paid so little respect to the " local habitations " of great names. ^Ve may suppose that Shakspeare, on his coming uji to London, would reside near the theatres where he sought his livelihood. The first appears to have been that of Blackfriars. It has long been clean gone, and its locality is now occupied by Playhouse-yard, near Apothecaries' Hall, and the dense buildings around. Playhouse-yard derives its name from the old playhouse. In Knight's London, it is suggested that this theatre might be pulled down soon after the permanent close of the theatres during the Commonwealth, by the Puritans ; but the real old theatre of Shakspeare must, had that not been the case, have perished entirely in the fire of London, which cleared all this ground, from Tower-street to the Temple. If Shakspeare ever held horses at a theatre-door on his first coming to town, it would be here, for here he seems to have been first engaged. The idea of his holding horses at a theatre-door, bold and active fellow as he had shown himself in his deer-stealing exploits, and with friends and acquaintances in town, has been scouted, especially as he was then a full-grown man of twenty-three. The thing, however, is by no means improbable. Shakspeare was most likely as independent as he was clever and active. On arriving in town, and seeing an old acquaintance, Thomas Green, at this theatre, he might, like other remarkable men who have made their way to eminence in London, be ready to turn his hand to anj'thing till something better turned up. Green, who was a player, might be quite willing to introduce Shaksi:)eare into that character and the theatre ; but it had yet to be proved that Shakspeare could make an actor of himself, and till opportunity offered, what so likely to seize the attention of a hanger about the theatre, as the want of a careful horse-holder for those who came there in such style, which it ajapears was then common enough. AVe have the statement from Sir William Davenant, and therefore from a cotemporary, admirer, and assumed relative. We are told that the speculation was not a bad one. Shakspeare, by his superior age and carefulness, soon engrossed all this business, and had to employ those boys who had before been acting on their own account, as his subordinates; whence they acquired, and retained SHAKSPEARE. 31 long after he had mounted into an actor himself within tlie tlieatre, the name of Shakspeai-e's boys. That he became " an actor at one of the playhouses, and did act exceedingly well," Aubrey tells us. He is supposed to have acted Old Knowell in Ben Jonson's " Every Man in his Humour ;" and Oldys tells us that a relative of Shaksi)eare, then in advanced age, but who in his youth had been in the habit of visiting London for the purpose of seeing him act in some of his own plays, told Mr. Jones of Tarbeck, that " he had a faint recollection of having once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, wherein, being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping, and unable to walk, that he wa,s forced to be supported, and carried by another person to a table, ab which he was seated amongst some company who were eating, and one of them sang a song." This is supposed to have been in the character of Adam, in " As you like it ; " and hence it has been inferred, in connexion with his acting the Ghost in Hamlet, and Old Knowell, that he took chiefly old or elderly characters. Every glimpse of this extraordinary man, who, however much ho might have been acknowledged and estimated in his own day, certainly lived long before his time, is deeply interesting. That he was estimated highly we know from Jonson himself : — " Sweet swan of Avon, what a sight it were To see thee in our waters jet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Tlianies That so did take Eliza and our James." When the two monarchs imder whom Shakspeare lived admired and patronized him, we may be sure that Shakspeare's great merits were perceived, and that vividly, though the age had not that intellectual expansion which could enable it to rise above its prejudices against a player, and comprehend that Shakspeare's dramas were not merely the most wonderful dramas, but the most wonderful expositions of human life and nature that had ever appeared. Peo])Ie were too busy enjoying the splendid scenes presented to them by this great genius, to note down for the gratification of posterity the daily doings, connexions, and where- abouts of the man with whom they were so familiar. He grew rich, however, by their flocking to his theatre, and disappeared fi-oni amongst them. In this theatre of Blackfriars he rose to great popidarity both as an actor and dramatic author, and became a proprietor. It was under the management of Richard Burbage, who was also a share- holder in the Globe Theatre at Banlcside. To the theatre at BanKside, Shakspeare also transferred himself, and there he became, in 1()03, the lessee. There he seems to have continued about ten years, or till 1613 ; having, however, so early as 1597, purchased one of the best houses in his native town of Stratford, repaired and improved it, and that so much, tliat he named it New Place. To this, as his proper home, he yearly retired when the theatrical season closed ; and having made a comfortable fortune, when tho theatre was burnt down in 1613 retired from public life altogether. 32 bHAIiSPKARE, Bankside is a spot of interest, because Sliakspearo lived thero many j^eavs during the time he was in London. It is that portion of Southwark lying on the river-side between the bridges of Black- friars and Southwark. This ground was then wholly devoted to public amusements, such as they were. It was a place of public gardens, playhouses, and worse places. Paris garden was one of the most famous resorts of the metropolis. There were the bear-gardens, where Elizabeth, her nobles and ladies, used to go and solace them- selves with that elegant sport, bear-baiting. There also was the Globe Theatre, of which Shakspeare became licensed proprietor, and near which he lived. The theatre was an octagon wooden build- ing, which has been made famiUar by many engravings of it. In Henry the Fifth, Shakspeare alludes to its shape and material : — " Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France ? Or may v>e cram Within this wuodcn O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt ;" It was not much to be wondered at that this wooden globe should get consumed with fire, which it did, as I have already stated, in 1613. Shakspeare's play of Henry VIII. was acting, a crowded and brilliant company was present, and amongst the rest Ben Jonson, as we learn from his Consecration of Vulcan, when in the very first act, where, according to the stage directions, "drums and trumpets, chambers discharged," cannons were fired, the ignited wadding flew into the thatch of the building, and the whole place was soon in flames. Sir Henry Wotton thixs describes the scene in a letter to his nephew. " Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The king's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces from the reign of Henry VIII, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage ; the knights of the order with their Georges and garters, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like ; suflicient, in truth, within a while, to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a mask at Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot ofi" at his entry, some of the paper or other stufl" wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming within an hour, the whole house to the veiy ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks ; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have bi'oiled him, if he had not, by tho benefit of a provident v/it, put it out with bottle ale." Fires seem to have menaced Shakspeare on all sides, and he had narrow escapes. As there is no mention of his name in the accounts of the Globe Theatre in 10 13, nor any in his will, it is pretty clear that he had retired from the proprietorship of the Globe before, and escaped that loss ; but in tlie very year after it was Imrned down, 6HAKSPEARE, 33 there was a dreatlM fire iu Stratford, which consumed a good pare of the town, and put his own house into extreme danger. These were the scenes where Shakspeare acted, for which he wrote his dramas, and where, like a careful and thriving man as he was, he made a fortune before he was forty, calculated to be equal to 1,000/. a-year at present. He had a brother, also, on the stage at the same time with himself, who died iu 1607, and was buried in St. Saviour's Church, South wark, where his name is entered in the jjarish register as " Edmund Shakspeare, a player." The place wliere he was accustomed particularly to resort for social recreation was the Mermaid Tavern, Friday-street, Cheapside. This was the wits' house for a long period. There a club for beaux esprits was established by Sir Walter Ealeigh, and here came, in their several days and times, Spenser, Shakspeare, Philip Sidney, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Marlowe, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, Wotton, and all the brave spirits of those ages. Here Jonson and ShaksjDeare used to shine out by the brilliancy of their powers, and in their " Avit-combats," in which Fuller describes Jonson as a Spanish great galleon, and Shakspeare as the English man- of-icar. " Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and his invention." Enough has been said of this celebrated club by a variety of writers. There can be no doubt that there wit and merriment abounded to that degree, that, as Beaumont has said in his epistle to Jonson, one of their meetings was enough to make up for all the stupidity of the city for three days past, and supply it for long to come ; to make the worst com- panions right witty, and " downright fools more wise." There is as little doubt, however, that with Jonson in the chair, drinking would be as pre-eminent as the wit. The verses which he had inscribed over the door of the Apollo room, at the Devil Tavern, another of their resorts, are, spite of all vindications by ingenious pens, too indicative of that. "Welcome, all wlio lead or follow, To the oracle of Apollo ; Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos, his tower bottle : All his answers are divine ; Truth itself doth How in wine. Han',' up all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sim, tlie king of skinkers. He the half of life abuses That sits watering with the Muses Those dull gods no good can mean (i- . Wine— it is tl'.e milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted : Ply it, and you all are mounted. 'Tis tl'.e true Pliocbian liquor, Cheers tlie brains, makes v.it flie (luicktr, ]'ays all debts, cures all diseases. And at once three senses pleases. A\'elcome, all who lead or follov,', To (he Oracle of Apollo." 3 1 SHAKSPEARE. There is not any reason to believe that Shak.speare, lover of wit and jollity as he was, was a practical upholder of this pernicious doctrine. He may often make his characters speak in this manner, but personally he retired as soon as he could from this bacchanal life to his own quiet hearth at Stratford ; and if we are to believe liis sonnets addressed to his wife, — and they possess the tone of a deep and real sentiment, — he seriously rued the orgies in which ho had participated. " 0)1, fcjv my sake do you with Fortune cliiile, The suilty goddess of my harmfull deeds, That did not better for my life provide Tlian public means which public manners breeds : Thence came it tliat my name receives a brand, And ahuobt thence my nature is subdued To wliat it works in, like the dyer's land ;— Pity me then, and wish I were renewed. Wliilst, like a willing patient, I will drink Potions of eysell,* 'gainst my strong infection. No bitterness that I will bitter think, Nor double penance to correct correction. Pity me, then, dear friend, and 1 assure ye Even that your pity is enough to cure mc." We cannot read these and many other portions of his sonnets, we camiot see Shakspeare retiring every year, and, as soon as able, altogether from the bacchanalian and dissipated habits of the literary men of the day, to the peaceful place of his birth, and the purity of his wedded home, without respecting his moral character as much as we admire his genius. The praises and the practice of drunken- ness by Uterary men, and poets especially, have entailed infinite mischief on themselves and on their followers. What woes and degradations are connected with the history of brilhaut men about town, which have tended to stamp the general literary character with the brand of improvidence and disrespect ;— jails, deaths, pick- ing out of gutters, sponging-houses, and domestic misery, — how thickly do all these rise on our view as we look back through the history of men of genius, the direct result of the absurd rant about drinking and debauch ! With what a beautiful purity do the names of the greatest geniuses of all rise above these details, like the calm spires of churches through the fogs and smokes of London ! How cheering is it to see the number of these grow with the growth of years ! Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Milton, Cowper, Scott, Words- worth, Southey, Shelley, — have all been sober and dom-estic men ; and the sanction which they have given by their practice to the pro- prieties of life, will confer on all future ages blessings as arople as the public truths of their teaching. The Mermaid Tavern, like the other haunts of Shakspeare, has disappeared. It was swept away by the fire. If any traces of his haunts remain, they must be in the houses of the great, where he was accustomed to visit, as those of the Lords Southampton, Leicester, Pembroke, Montgomery, and others. These are, however, now all either gone or so cut up and metamorphosed, that it were vain to look for them as abodes hal- lowed by the footsteps of Shakspeare. If it be true that he was • Vinegar. SHAKSPEARE. I].-, commanded to read his play of Falstaft' iu love — the Merry Wives of Windsor — tc Queen Elizabeth, it would probably be at White- hall or St. James's, for Somerset-House was comparatively little occupied by her. The very places in London more particularly illustrated by his genius Lave too much followed the fate of those in which he lived. It is true, the Tower, Westminster Palace, and some other of those public buildings and old localities where the scenes of his national dramas are laid, still remain, spite of time and change ;,and the sites of others, though now covered with wildernesses of fresh houses, may be identified. But the Boar's Head in East Cheap is annihi- lated ; it, too, fell in the gi-eat fire, and the modern improvements thereabout, the erection of New London Bridge, and the cutting of King William-street, have swept away nearly all remaining marks of the neighbourhood. It is supposed that the present statue of William IV. stands not very fur from the .spot where Hal revelled and Sir John swaggered and drank sack. Over London, and many a spot in and about it, as well as over a thousand later towns, forests, and mountains, of this and other countries, wherever civilised man has played his part, will the genius of Shakspeare cast an undying glory ; but to see the actual traces of his existence, we must resort to the place of his nativity and his death. There stiU stand the house and the room in which he was born : there stands the house in which he wooed his Ann Hathaway, and the old garden in which he walked with her. There stands his tomb, to which the great, and the wise, and the gifted from all regions of the world have made pilgrimage, followed by milHons of those who would be thought so, the frivolous and the empty ; but all paying homage, by the force of reason, or the force of fashion, vanity and imitation, to the universal interpreter of humanity. It is well that the slow change of a country town has permitted the spirit of veneration to alight there, and cast its protecting wings over the earthly traces of that existence which diftused itself as a second life through all the realms of intellect. There is nothing missing of Shakspeare's there but the house which he built, and the mulbeny-tree which he planted. The tree was hewn down, the house was pulled down and dispersed piecemeal, by the infamous parson Gastrell ; who thus " damned himself to eternal fame," more thoroughly than the fool who fired the Temple of Diana. There, only a few miles distant, is the stately hall of Charlecote, whither the youthful poacher of Parnassus was carried before the unlucky knight. There too, and, oh shame ! shame to England, shame to the lovers of Shakspeare, shame to those who annually turn Stratford and their club into a regular " Eatanswill," on pretence of honouring Shakspeare ; there, too, live the descendants of the nearest relative of Shakspeare — of his sister Joan — in un- noticed and unmitigated poverty ! Several years ago, on my visit to this place, I pointed out this fact ; and the disgraceful fact still remains. The Shakspeare Club have gone down to Stratford, and feaste 1 and c 2 yi6 BHAKSPEARE. guzzled ill honour of Shalispeare, and tlie representatives of Shakspeare iu the place have been left in their poverty. There seems to bo some odd association of ideas in the minds of Englishmen on the subject of doing honour to genius. To reward warriors, and lawyers, and politicians, — places, titles, and estates are given. To reward poets and philosophers, the property which they honestly, and with the toil of their whole lives create, is taken from them, and that which should form an estate for their descendants to all posterity, and become a monument of fame to the nation, is conferred on book- sellers. The copyright of authors, or, in other words, the right to the property which they made, was taken away in the reign of Queen Anne, "/o?- the benefit of literature," — so says the Act. Let the same principle be carried out into all other professions, and we shall soon come to an understanding on the subject. Take a lord's or a squire's land from him and his family for ever, after a given number of years, for the benefit of aristocracy, — take the farmer's plough and team, his harrows and his corn, for the benefit of agriculture, — take the mill- uwners' mills, with all their spinning-jennies, and their cotton, and their wool, and their silk, and their own new inventions, for the benefit of manufacturing, — take the merchant's ships and their cargoes, the shopkeeper's shop and his stores, the lawyer's parch- ment and his fees, the physician's and surgeon's physic and fees, for the benefit of commerce, trade, law, and physic : and let the clergy suffer no injury of neglect iu this respect ; let their churches, and their glebes, and tithes, be taken for the benefit of religion, — let them all go shares with the authors in this extraordinary system of justice and encouragement, and then the whole posse will soon put their heads together, and give back to the author his rights, while they take care of their own. But till this be done, — so long as the children and descendants, and nearest successors of the author are robbed by the State, while the poet and philosopher crown their coiuitry with glory, and fill it with happiness, and their country iu return brands their children Avith disgrace, and fills them with emptiness — while they go in rags, and the bookseller in broadcloth, — in leanness, and the book.seller, endowed by the State with the riches of their ancestors, in jollity and fat, — so long let those who are anxious to do honour to the glorious names of our literature, honour them with some show of common sense and common feeling. Honour Shakspeare, indeed ! Has he not honoured himself sufficiently? What says John Milton, another glorious son of the Muse ? " What needs my Shakspeare for liis honour'd bones, The labour of an aj:e in piled stones ? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame ! What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument." But if this honour be not needed, what needs there for our Shakspeare, the still weaker witness of his name, of guzzling, and gormandizing ? Is th^re any the remotest connexion between the SHAKSPEAKi;. 37 achievements of' pure intellect and seven-gallon-barrel stomachs ot anniversary topers ? Between the still labours of a divine imagina- tion, and the uproarious riot of a pubUc feed when half-seas over '? Let us suppose, for a moment, that the spirit of Shakspeare could hear the hiccupings of the cr.ew assembled in his name, to honour him forsooth ! If he were permitted to descend from the sereno glory of his seventh heaven, and appear at the door of their dining- room with the meagre descendants of the Shakspeare family crowd- ing sadly behind him, what are the indignant words that he would address to the flushed throng of his soi-disant worshippers % They have been already addressed to hke ears by the great Master of love and of the philosophy of true honour. " I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in ; naked, and ye clothed me not ; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. * * * Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me." * No, the sycophantic humbugs never did it to Shakspeare. What cares he, in his seventh heaven of glory and of poetry, for their guzzlings ? What have they to do with him or his honour 1 Is it not a precious imposture, to make a feast to a man's honour, and not to invite to it his nearest relatives, especially when they live at the next door 1 In the name of the national reputation, let this wretched and egotistic farce be put down by the good sense of the British jaublic ! If these people will not honour Shakspeare by honouring his family, let them at least abstain from insulting their poverty and their neglect by this public parade, and this devouring of joints. Hear what Robert Southey says : — " The last descendants of Milton died in poverty. The descendants of Shakspeare t ai'e living in poverty, and in the lowest condition of life. Is this just to these individuals 1 Is it grateful to those who are the pride and boast of their country ? Is it honourable or becoming to us as a nation, holding — the better part of us assuredly, and the majority aflecting to hold — the names of Shakspeare and Milton in veneration 1 To have placed the descendants of Shakspeare and Milton in respecta- bility and comfort, in that sphere of life where, with a full provisiou for our natural wants and social enjoyments, free scope is given to the growth of our intellectual and immortal part, simi:)le justice was all that was required — only that they should have possessed the perpetual copyright of their ancestors' works — only that they should not have been deprived of their proper inheritance." % The time is evidently not yet come for setting this great matter right ; for doing this great act of justice towards the teachers of the world and glorifiers of our national name ; for executing this due redress. We have yet much to learn from those divine minds, whom, in Southey's words, we profess to venerate. But still the public mind is not destitute of its glimmerings of the truth, and its respon- sibiUties. Since I wrote the pages quoted, numerous individuals pave written to inquire if nothing can be done to remove tlie oppro- • Matthew xxv. 43—45. f Such are Southej's v.onU. I Colloquies, Vol. H p. 312 o6 BHAKSPEARE. brium of our trcatmeut to tlie Shakspeare family. Many visitora have desired to see the boy whom I poiuted out, and have made him presents, but he still remains unprovided for.* A clergyman wrote to me from the west of England, expressing the interest he felt in this youth, whom he had seen at Stratford, and his anxious desire to have" a subscription raised to educate him, and put him into some honourable way of life. He begged me to make a move, in which he would zealously cooperate, to interest a sufficient number of literary and influential individuals to agitate the question, and commence tho subscription. I made the attempt, but in vain. Some parties gave professions which ended in nothing, others which began in nothing ; some doubted the chance of success, and some successfully chanced to doubt. The Countess of Lovelace, the worthy representative of another great bard, expressed the readiest and most zealous desire to move aU those within the reach of her influence in the matter. But, in a word, it did not succeed. The honour of Shakspeare lay too much on the national tongue instead of on the heart, yet to procure justice to the living members of his family. Let us still trust that that time will come. I will not beUeve that this gieat and intellectual nation, which has given an estate and Htles to the family of Marlborough, and the same to the family of Wellington, will refuse all such marks of honour to the Shakspeare family. Shall the heroes of the sword alone be rewarded 1 Shall the heroes of the pen, those far nobler and diviner heroes, be treated with a penniless contempt 1 In this nation, the worship of military honours is fast subsiding, the perception of the greatness and benefi- cence of intellect is fast gi'owing. We are coming to see that it is out of our immortal minds, and not out of our swords and cannons, that our highest, purest, and most imperishable glory has grown and will grow. The people every day are more and more coming to this knowledge, and making it felt by Government and the world. The money which is spent in visiting the trumpery collected as his at Stratford, Avould have purchased a large estate for the descendants of the Shakspeare family. That has not been done, and never will be done ; but a penny a-piece from every person in this kingdom, who has derived days and mouths of delight from the pages of Shakspeare, would purchase an estate equal to that of Strathfleldsaye, or of Blenheim. What a glorious tribute would this be from the people of England to tlieir great dramatic poet — the greatest dra- matic poet in the world ! How far would it rise above the tributes to violence and bloodshed ! The tribute of a nation's love to j^ure and godlike intellect ! This estate should not be appropriated on the feudal principle of primogeniture ; should not be the estate of one, but of the family : should be vested in trustees, chosen by tlie l)eople, to educate and honourably settle in the world every son and daughter of the Shakspearian family; and to support and comfort the old age of the unfortunate and decrepit of it. That it should not encourage idleness and a mischievous dependence, all such persons, when educated and endowed with a sufficient sum to enable • Visits to Eemarkable Places, Vol. I. p. 98, (3d edition.) SHAKSPEARE. HO them to make theli way in the world, should be left so to make their way. The nation would then have discharged its parental duties towards them, and they could expect no more. They should be educated to expect no more, and more should not be extended to them, except in case of utter misfortune or destitution, and then only on a scale that should be in itself no temptation. Such an estate, founded by the people, would be the noblest monument ever yet erected to any man, or on any occasion. Shak- spoare has a decent monument at Stratford, f,nd an indifferent one in Westminster Abbey ; this would be one worthy of him and of the nation which produced him. It would take away from us a melan- choly opprobrium, and confer on him and the British people an equal glory. But though such a magnificent event, we fear, is very far distant, it is a pleasure to be able to state, that the house in which the poet was born has been purchased, as well as the adjoining houses, so as to be able to isolate the birthplace, and make it more secure from fire. Four tenements, adjoining the birthplace on the western side, were purchased by the Stratford Committee, some years ago, for 820/., and have been paid for by degrees. The portion of the property known as the birthplane, including the Swan and Maidenhead Inn, was purchased at pubhc auction in 1847, by the Stratford and London Committees, for 3,000/., and conveyed in trust to Lord Carlisle, Mr. Thomas Amyott, Mr. Payne Collier, Dr. Thomas Thomson, of Leamington ; and Mr. Flower of Stratford and other gentlemen are trustees for the former purchases. Since then, Mr. John Shakspeare, the Orientalist, who claims to be descended from an ancestor of the poet, has munificently paid into the Stratford Bank, in the name of nine local trustees, the sum of 2,.500/., for the purpose of purchasing and taking down the buildings immediately adjoining the house, so as to carry out the plan of its secure isolation, and to put it into thorough repair. I understand that Mr. Shakspeare is desirous to have the whole house enclosed in a miniature Crystal Palace, to defend it from the destroying influences of the weather. The house is now shown to the pubhc free ot charge, but any one is at hberty to give a trifle towards the necessary expense of keeping it open to inspection. ABRAHAM COWLEY The chief places connected with the name of Cowley are Barn-Elms and Chertsey, both in Surrey. Cowley is one of those poets who had a great reputation in his own time, but who at the present day are only read by those who are anxious to know the real history of the poetry of their country. He is so overloaded with the most out- rageous conceits, and his whole system of versification is at once so affected, artificial, and yet rugged and often mean, that he has, in the midst of so much more genuine inspiration, fallen into almost utter neglect. Johnson, often unjust to our poets, can hardly be said to have been so to Cowley, when he says of him and the other metaphysical poets, that " they were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavour ; but unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they wrote only verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear ; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables.". . . .From this account of their compositions it will bo readily inferred, that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. " For these reasons," Johnson adds, " that though in his own time considered of unrivalled excellence, and as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him, Cowley's rei^utation could not last. His character of writing was indeed not his own : he vmhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise ; and, not sufficiently inqtiiring by what means the COWLKY. 41 ancieuts have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows." In Cowley, in fact, you will find many beautiful sentiments, and much learning ; but he seems always playing with his matter, not deahng earnestly with it ; constructing toys and gewgaws, not everlasting stinictures. You have artifice instead of feeling, and conceits and often downright fustian instead of heart, soul, and human passion. Who would now willingly wade through pages of such doggrel as this 1 — Serpents in Egypt's monstrous land Were ready still at hand, And all at the old serpent's first command. And they too gaped, and they too hist, And they their threatening tails did twist. But strait on both the Hebrew serpent flew, Broke both their active backs, and both it slew." As a specimen of his fiction, Johnson has quoted his description of the archangel Gabriel : " He took for skin a doud most soft and bright, That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through ■with light ; Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, WasU'd from the morning beauties' deepest red; An harmless, flaming meteor shone for hair. And fell adown his shoulders with loose care ; He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, AVhere the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes ; This he with starry vapours spangles all. Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall ; Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made." This comes but indifferently after a passage of Byron or Shelley. But, in fact, Cowley seems to have been a man who could not be permanently and decidedly anything. He could not rise out of aff'ectations, and dubious, halfway sort of positions, either in poetry or in life. He would fain pass for an ardent lover and general admirer of the fair sex, and published a poem called " The Mistress," on the ground stated in the preface to one of its editions, " That poets are scarcely thought freemen of their company, without paying some duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love." This is genuine Cowley : ho did not write a poem on a love subject because he was full of the subject, but because it seemed to be expected of a poet. It was not passion and admiration that fired him, but it was necessary to appearances that he should do it. He was imluckily always spying about on the outside of his subject, and never plunging boldly into it. He was like a man who, instead of enjoying his house, should always be standing in the front, and asking passengers what they thought of it, and if it did not look very fine 1 or, if not, where he could lay on some plaster, or put up a veranda ? This sentiment is strikingly expressed by the very opening lino of his poems : — " What shalJ I do to be foi ever known? " 42 COWLET. That comes upon you as a grand burst of ambition, but it turns out ambition only. If his heart and soul had been engaged, tlicre would have been less opportunity for his eternal self-consciousness ; ho would have done his work for the love of it, and because he could not help it, and not because he found it becoming to do some sort of work. Of love, therefore, says his biographer, he never knew any- thing but once, and then dared not to tell his passion. He was a strong loyalist ; went over to France after the queen of Charles I. retired thither, and became secretary to Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in such compositions as the royal cause required, and particularly in copying and decipher- ing the letters which passed between the king and queen. He aftei'wards came back, and occupied the equivocal character of sjn' on the republican government, and detailer of its proceedings to the royal party abroad. "Under pretence of privacy and retirement, ho was to take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation." This soon led to his arrest and incarceration ; and he was not set at large without a guarantee of a thousand pounds. As it was supposed, he now published his poems, with the object of writing something in his preface which should give government an idea of the abatement of his loyalty. This gave great offence to the royal party, and was in subsequent editions withdrawn. Continuing to live in England as if contented with the existing government, on the death of Cromwell he wrote verses, as is said, in praise of him, and which verses he suppressed ; and then went over again to France, as soon as the Commonwealth gave signs of dissolution ; and came back in the crowd of royalists, eager for the spoil of the nation. Like many others, however, who had been more decided and con- sistent than himself, he did not get what he expected — the Mastershi]} of the Savoy. This, and the ill success of his play, " Cutter of Coleman Street," which also was accused of being a satire on the king, filled Cowley with a desperate desire of retreating into the country. Whenever lie was in trouble at Court, this passion for solitude came rapidly upon him. Under the Commonwealth, when imprisoned as a spy, he introduced into the preface to his poems, that "his desire had been for some days past, and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of the American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever. His courtly ambition being now again disappointed- he styled himself the melanclioJi/ Cowley, and resolved to ruralize irv earnest. He had formerly studied physic, and obtained a diploma, but never practised ; having now, however, convinced himself that he was a lover of the country, he determined to practise that, and so betook himself to Barn-Elms. "He was now," says Sprat, "weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of a Court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclinations of his own mind, which, in the greatest hurry of his owa " COWIEY. 43 business, had still called upon him, and represented to him the delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate Income below the malice and flatteries of fortune." It was not from a mind like Cowley's that we should expect a deep contentment as the result of this choice, and it is said not to have been the case. At first his poverty debarred him the necessary domestic comfort, but through the influence of his old patrons, the Earl of St. Albans and the Duke of Buckingham, he secured a lease of some of the Queen's lands, which afforded him an ample income. Barn-Elms lies about half-a-mile from Barnes, near the road leading from Hammersmith suspension-bridge to Wimbledon. It is an old estate, and in Cowley's time must have been tolerably solitary. Since then the road just mentioned has been made across the estate, and an inn built close to its entrance gate. It still, however, presents the aspect of antiquity. The land is rich and flat ; and the present ])ark is thickly scattered with the trees from which it derives its name. Some of these are reduced to mere massy fragments of trunks, which give a venerable aspect to the place. The house at the time we visited it was occupied by the late Sir Lancelot Shadv/ell, the vice-chancellor of England. The si)ot is remarkable for many other associations than those with Cowley. The old house here was called Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, and from the richness of the meadow land, seems admirably calculated for a dairy on a grand scale. The property belonged to the canons of St. Paul's, having been granted to them by king Athelstan, but it was leased to Queen Elizabeth, and she granted her interest in it to Sir Francis Walsingham and his heirs. Here, in 1589, that subtle courtier entertained the queen and her whole court, where I suppose they would drink milk and be very rural. The Earl of Essex married Sir Francis's daughter, the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and resided here frequently. No other man than Jacob Tonson afterwards lived in this house, to which he built a gallery, wherein he placed the l^ortraits of the members of the Kit-kat Club, which had been painted for him by Kneller. The members of the club were also entertained here frequently by the munificent bookseller, their secretary. Gartli wrote the verses for the toasting glasses of the club, which, as they are preserved in his works, have immortalized some of the principal l)eauties of the commencement of the last century : Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde, and Lady Wharton. Tonson's gallery was partly pulled down a good many years ago, and partly united to a barn, so as to form a riding school. The pictures were removed to Bayfordberry, the seat of William Baker, Esq. near Hertford. In George the Second's time, Heydegger, his master of the revels, was the tenant, and the following whim of his was played off on his royal master. The king gave him notice that he would sup with him one evening, and that he would come from Richmond by water. It was Heydegger's profession to invent novel amusements, and ho was resolved to surprise his Majesty with a specimen of his art. Tho king's attendants, Avho were in tho secret, contrived that he shoidd 44 COWLEr. r:^t arrive at Barn-Elms before night, and it was with difficulty that he found his way up the avenue to the house. When he came to the door all was dark ; and he began to be angry that Heydegger should be so ill-prepared for his reception. Heydegger suffered the king to vent his anger, and affected to make some awkward apologies, when, in an instant, the house and avenues were in a blaze of light, a great number of lamps having been so disposed as to communicate with each other, and to be lit at the same instant. The king heartily laughed at the device, and went away much pleased with his entertainment. Adjoining the park, and not far from the hoiise, is the farm and farm-yard of William Cobbett. Here that extraordinary man, as much attached to agriculture as to politics, had a sort of domicile and sleeping-place made for him in the farm-buildings, and used to survey his planting and ploughing as assiduously as if there were no corruptions to root up, and no rank weeds to extirpate, in the great estate of the nation. Cobbett's farm-yard still stands to I'emind you of him, but the house which Cowley inhabited has long been pulled down. From what I could learn on the spot, and it was little, it seems to have stood near the present stable -yard. The walls of the old gardens still remain, and old mulbei'ry and other frixit-trees bear testimony to the occujiation by wealthy families for ages. The grounds are now disposed in the fashion of a considerable park, with these old gardens and extensive shrubberies adjoining. A carriage-drive of considerable extent leads from the Barnes road down to the house, on one hand giving a level prospect over the meadows towards Ham- mersmith, and on the other bounded with the tall hedge and thick trees enclosing the park. The whole, with its rich meadow land, its old elms and old gardens, and shrubberies of fine evergreens, is almost too goodly for our ideas of the fortunes of a poet, and accords more truly with the prestige of a successful lawyer. The house of Cowley at Chertsey yet remains, though it has been considerably altered : it is still called the Porch-house, but the porch has been cut away because it pi-ojected into the street. Over the front door is a tablet of stone, let into the wall, on which is inscribed a line from Pope, slightly varied, — " Here tlie last accents fell from Cowley's tongue." His garden and grounds were on the level of the meadows, as level as the meadows of Barn-Elms. These meadows lie along the road, as you go from AVeybridge to St. Ann's-hill, and a pleasant brook runs through them, skirting the garden. The country around is very agreeable, and the nearness of St. Ann's-hill, with its heathy sides, and noble views far and wide, is a great advantage. For a heart that loved solitude, there need have been no pleasanter spot, esisecially as the little town of Chertsey could afford all creature comforts, and the occasional chat of the clergyman, the doctor, and a resident family or two. But in Cowley's time, how much deeper must have been the retirement of such a retreat here : how much further it COWLEY. 45 was from London ! Now it is only a few hours' distance by llio South Western Railway ; then, it was a journey — they took a night's rest on the way ! His letter to Sprat from this place gives us an odd idea of his enjoyment of the place : — " To Dr. Thomas Sprat. " Chertsey, May 21, V>C>S. " The first night that I came hither, I caught so great a cold, with a defluxion of liieum, as made me keep my chamber ten days ; and, two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn myself in my bed. This is my personal for- tune here to begin with. And besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows ; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the resh, that you have broke your word with me, and failed to come, even though you told Mr. Bois you would. This is what they call J\[onstri simile. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days, though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it, as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I, and the Lean, might be very merry upon St. Ann's-hill. You might very conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more. Verhv.iu sainenti." Poor Cowley did not long enjoy his retreat here, if he did enjoy it at all. Within two years he died at the Porch-house (in 1667), in the forty-ninth year of his age. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer and Spenser. JOHN MILTON. Perhaps uo man ever inhabited more houses than our great epic poet, yet scarcely one of these now remains. The greater part of his residences were in London ; and in the hundred and seventy-two j-ears since his decease, the whole of this great metropolis has been, as it were, in a ferment of growth and extension. The great fire of London swept away an immense mass of the old houses ; and if we look around us, we see how very few of the ancient framed tenements which then prevailed now remain. Again, Milton generally chose his houses, even in the city, with a view to quiet and retirement. They were, say his biographers, generally garden houses, where he enjoyed the advantages of a certain remoteness fi-om noise, and of some openness of space. These spaces the progress of population has filled with dense buildings, in the course of the erection of which, the old solitary houses have been pulled down. Milton, as is well known, was born in Bread-street, Cheapside, at the sign of the Sjiread Eagle. The spread eagle was the armorial bearing of the family. His father was an eminent scrivener, living and practising there at the time of Milton's birth, which took place on the 9th December, 1608. This house was destroyed in the fire of London. During his boyhood, which was passed here, Milton was educated at home, in the first instance, by a private tutor, Thomas Young. This man Aubrey calls " a puritan in Essex, who cutt his MILTOX. 47 liair .short." Young had suffered persecution for his rehgious faith, and it is supposed that from him Milton imbibed a strong feehng for liberty, and a great predilection for the doctrines which he held. He was much attached to him, as he testified by his fourth elegy, and two Latin epistles. It has been remarked, that however much Milton might be swayed by the principles of his tutor, he never was by his cut of hair ; for, through all the reign of the Roundhead.s, he pre- served his flowing locks. After the private tutor was dismissed, he was sent to St. Paul's School. This appears to have been in his fifteenth year. Here, too, he was a favourite scholar. The then master was Alexander Gill, and his son was the usher, and succeeded his father in the school. With him Milton was on terms of great friendship, and has left a memorial of his regard in three of his Latin epistles. From the relation of his original biographer, Aubrey, we may seo the boy Milton going to and fro between Bread-street and his school, full of zealous thirst of knowledge, and the most extraordinary industry. He studied with excessive avidity, regardless of his health, continuing his reading till midnight, so that the source of his future blindness is obvious in his early passion for letters. Aubrey says, that " when Milton went to school, and when he was very younge, he studied very hard, and sate up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock ; and his father ordered the maid to sett up for him." His early reading was in poetical books. He confirms this account of himself in his Befensio Secunda pro Populo, cjr. He says that his father destined him to liberal studies, which he so eagerly seized upon, that from his twelfth year he seldom ever retired from his books to bed before midnight ; and that his eyes, originally weak, thus received the first causes of their future mischief That per- ceiving the danger of this, it could not arrest his ardour of study, though his nocturnal vigils, followed by his daily exercises under his masters, brought on failing vision and pains in the head. Humphrey Lownes, a printer, living in Bread-street, supplied him, amongst other books, with Spenser and Sylvester's Du Bartas. Spenser was devoured with the intensest enthusiasm, and he has elsewhere called him his master. Todd, the generally judicious biographer of Milton, praises his father for his discernment in the education of his son. The father, who was a very .superior man, and especially fond of and skilled in music, certainly appears to have at once seen in his son the evidences of genius, and to have given to it every opportunity of development ; but it is to be regretted that his fatherly encouragement was not attended with more prudence, and that he had not, instead of en- couraging the habit of nocturnal study, — the most pei-nicious that a student can fall into,— restrained it. Had he done this, the poet might have retained his sight, and who shall say with what further advantage to the world ! At seventeen, IMilton entered as a pensioner at Christ College, Cambridge. He was found to be a distinguished classical scholar^ and conversant in several languages. His academical exercises 48 MILTON. attracted great attention, as well as his verses, both in English and Latin. His Latin elegies, in his eighteenth year, have always been regarded with wonder ; and, indeed, in his Latinity, both iu verse and prose, perhaps no modern writer has surpassed him. Hampton, the translator of Polybius, pronounced him the first Englishman who, since the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance. His extraordinary merit and acquisitions found, from the authorities of his College, general applause, spite of a disposition to severity, induced by his sturdy opposition to them in opinion, ou a plan of academical studies then under discussion. Milton here, it appears, on the testimony of Aubrey, suffered an indignity from his tutor, which it was not in his high and indepen- dent nature to endure with impunity. He refers to the fact in his first elegy. He mentions threats and other things, which his dispo- sition could not tolerate ; that he was absent in a state of inistication, and felt no desire to revisit the reedy banks of the Cam. Aubrey says, from the information of our author's brother Christopher, that i\Iilton's first tutor at Cambridge was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving some unkindness, {lie whipped him) he was afterwards, though it seemed against the rules of the College, transferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell. This information stands in the MS. Mus. Ashmol. 0.1-011. No. x. p. iii. Warton, remarking on the fact, adds, that Milton " hated the place. He was not only offended at the College discipline, but had even conceived a dislike to the face of the country — the fields about Cambridge. He peevishly complains that the fields have no soft shades to attract the Muses, and there is something pointed in his exclamation, that Cambridge was a place quite incompatible with the votaries of Phoebus." It was not very likely that a youth of perhaps eighteen, who was writing the elegies and epistles in Latin which drew upon him so much notice, would submit quietly to so degrading a treatment. This treatment, it appears from Warton, was common enough, nevertheless, at both Cambridge and Oxford, amongst the tutors at that time. But Milton spurned it, as became his great spirit and noble nature, and was in consequence, probably, rusticated for a time. But this could not have been long, nor could it have been accordant to the wishes of the fellows of his College. The offence was against the tutor, not against the heads of the College, in the poet's mind. In his Apology for Smectymnus, he thanks an enemy for the oppor- tunity of expressing his grateful sense of the kindness of the fellows, in these words ; " I thank him ; for it liath given me an apt occasion to acknowledge publickly, with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary favour and respect which I found above any of my equals, at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the fellows of the College wherein I spent some years ; who at my parting, after " aaa taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how luch better i t would content them if I would stay ; as by many letters full of kindness and loving resjject, both before that time and long after, I w^as assured of their good affection to me." Leaving Camb-ridge, Milton went to reside eomc tiius t Horton, MILIOX. 4<> •near Colnbrook, iu Buckinghamshire. His father had i-etired from his practice, on a competent fortune, to this village. Tiiis portion of his life Avas, probably, one of the most delightful periodT of it. He had acquired great reputation for talent and learning at College ; he had taken his degree of M.A.; and in tliis agreeable retirement ho not only indulged himself, as he tells us, iu a deep and thorough reading of the Greek and Latin authors, but, j^robably then contem- plating his visit to Italy, made himself master of its language and well acquainted with its literature. To such perfsction did he carry this accomplishment, that in Italy he not only si3oke the languago with perfect fluency, but wrote in it so as to astonish the most learned natives. Five years he devoted to these classical and modern studies, but not to these alone. He was here actively at work in laying the foundation of that great poetical fame which he after- wards achieved. Born in the city, he now made himself thoroughly famihar with nature. In the woods and parks, and on the pleasant hills of this pleasant county, he enjoyed the purest delights of con- templation and of poetry. Here he is supposed to have imbued himself with the allegoric romance of his favourite Spenser, and also to have written his own delightful Arcades, Comus, L' Allegro, II Penseroso, and Lycidas. It is a fact which his biographers have not seemed to perceive, but which is really significant, that the very Italian titles, L' Allegro and II Penseroso, of themselves almost identify the productions of this period and place, where he was busy with the preparation for his visit to Italy. The county of Bucking- ham appeared always to be from this time a particular favourite with him ; and no wonder, for it is full of poetical beauty, abounds with those solemn and woodland charms which are so welcome to a mind brooding over poetical subjects, and shunning all things and places that disturb. It abounds, being so near the metropohs, also, with historic associations of deep interest. " This pleasant retreat," says Todd, " excited his most poetical feelings ; and he has proved himself, in his pictures of rural life, to rival the works of nature which he contemplated with delight. In the neighbourhood of Horton, the Countess Dowager of Derby resided ; and the Arcades was performed by her grandchildren at this seat, called Harefield-place. It seems to me that Milton in- tended a compliment to his fair neighbour, — for fair she was, — ^in his L'Allegro : — ' Tuwers and battlements it sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Wliere, perhaps, some beauty lies, The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.' The woody scenery of Harefield, and the personal accomplishments of the Countess, are not unfavourable to this supposition ; which, if admitted, tends to confirm the opinion that L'Allegro and II Pense- roso were composed at Horton. The Masque of Comus, and Lycidas, were certainly produced under the roof of his father." _ The whole of these poems breathe the spirit #f youth, and of scenes Uke those in which he now daily rambled. Whether L'Allegro am' 50 MILTON. II Pensoroso ^Yere written, a§ Sir William Jones couteuds, at Forest- hill, in Oxfordshire, or hero, need not be much contested. If thoy were written there, it must have been many years afterwards, after liis return from abroad, and after his first marriage ; for it was at Forest-hill that he found his wife. But for the reason assigned, and for that of their general spirit, I incline to the belief that they were Nvritten at Horton, as there is plenty of evidence that Comus and the Arcades were. These latter poems overflow with the imagery and the feeling of the old wooded scenery of Buckinghamshire. " Comin. I know cacli lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, And every bosky bourne from side to side, My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood." How full of the old pastoral country are these lines !-^ " Sec. Bro. Miglit we but hear The folded flocks penned in their wattled cotes, Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock Count the night watches to his feathery dames, 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innunierous boughs." There is no other poet who has been able to transfuse the very ppirit of nature into words, as it is done in the following passages, except Shakspeare, on whose soul images of rural beauty and reposp fell with equal felicity of eft'ect : — • " This evening late, by then the chewing flocks Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb Of knot-grass dew besprent, and were in fold, I sate me down to watch upon a bank Witli ivy canopied, and interwove Witli flaunting honeysuckle, and began. Wrapt in a pleasing flt of melancholy, To meditate my rural minstrelsy, Till Fancy had her fill ; but ere a close, The wonted roar was up amidst the woods," &-c. How exquisite is every image of this passage : — " Keturn, Sicilia.T JFuse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 'J'lieir bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ve valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. On whose fresli lap the swart star sparely looks ; Throw hither all your quaint enamelled eyes. That on the green turf suck the honied showers. And iiurple all tlie ground with vernal flowers. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine. The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet, The glowing violet, Tlie musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, AVith cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears. Bid .\niaranthu3 all his beauty shed. And datTodillies nil their cups with tears. To strow the laureat hearse where Lycid lies." A powrr of poetic landscape-painting like this, is only the result of genius deeply instructed in the school of nature. But the time waa now come fci* the survey of other and more stiiking scenes than MILTON. 51 those of the woodlands and pastoral uplands of Buckingham. Tlie tour of Milton in Italy is a marked portion of his life, and no doubt opened wide fields of poetic imagination and of artistic experience in his mind. He visited Nice, Leghorn, Pisa, Florence ; in the vicinity of which last city, at the village of Belloguardo, or at Arcetri, it is supposed that he paid his visit to Galileo. Thence he went on to Sienna and Rome ; he afterwards proceeded to Naples, and was intending to visit Sicily and Athens, when the news of the revolu- tionary troubles in England reached him, and caused him to retrace his steps through Rome and Florence ; whence he visited Lucca, and crossing the Apennines to Bologna, Ferrara, and Venice, he then hastened homewards by Verona, Milan, and along the lake Leman to Geneva, and so on through France. In every city of Italy he was cordially and honourably received by the most distinguished pei'sons of the age, and studied the works of the great masters, in both painting and sculpture, with an eft'ect which is believed to be ajaparent in his great work. Paradise Lost. The sacrifice which he made to the spirit of patriotism by this return, is eloquently adverted to by Warton. " He gave up," he remarks, " these countries, connected with his finer feelings, inter- woven with his poetical ideas, and impressed upon his imagination by his habits of reading, and by long and intimate converse with the Grecian literature. But so prevalent were his patriotic attachments, that, hearing in Italy of the commencement of the national quarrel, instead of proceeding forward to feast his fancy with the contempla- tion of scenes familiar to Theocritus and Homer, the fires of Etna, and the porticos of Pericles, he abruptly changed his course, and hastily returned home, to plead the cause of ideal liberty. Yet in this chaos of controversy, amidst endless disputes concerning reli- gious and political reformation, independency, prelacy, tithes, toler- ation, and tyranny, he sometimes seems to Irnve heaved a sigh for the peaceable enjoyments of lettered solitude, for his congenial pm-suits, and the more mild and ingenuous exercises of the Muse." But though he might sigh for these, he never suffered them to draw him aside from the path of what he deemed the most sacred duty, both towards God and man ; he sacrificed not only his desire of visiting classical regions, and of lettered ease, but he was willing to risk the achievement of what he considered — and which eventually proved to be — the crowning act of his eternal fame, the writing of his great epic. He had conceived, as he tells us himself, the scheme of his Paradise Lost ; on that he placed his hope of immortality ; but even that he heroically resolved to postpone till he had seen his country rescued from her oppressors, and placed od a firm ground of freedom. The casualties of life might have robbed him and the world for ever of the projected work ; but he ventured all for the great cause of his country and of man, and was rewarded. A story has been repeatedly told as the occasion of Milton's Italian journey, and very generally believed, which Todd has shown to be told also in the preface to " Poesies do Marguerite Eleanore Clotilde, depuis Madame do Surville, Poete Franjaise du xv. Siecle," of another 52 Ml-LTOX. poet, a Loviis dc Puytenclro, exactly agreeing iu all the particulai's, except that the ladies were ou foot. That Milton needed no such romantic incentive to his Italian tour is self-evident, having a suffi- cient one in his classical and poetic tastes ; but as it appeared in a newspaper, and obtained general credeiice, it may be worth transcribing. " It is well known that in the bloom of youth, and when he pursued his studies at Cambridge, this poet was extremely beautiful. Wandering one day, during the summer, far beyond the precincts of the University, into the country, he became so heated and fatigued, that, reclining himself at the foot of a tree to rest, he fell asleep Before he woke, two ladies, who were foreigners, passed in a carriage ; agreeably astonished at the loveliness of his appearance, they alighted, and having admired him, as they thought, unperceived, for some time, the youngest, who was very handsome, drew a pencil from her pocket, and having written some hnes upon a piece of paper, put it with her trembling hand into his own ; immediately afterwards, they proceeded on their journey. Some of his acquaintances who were in search of him had observed this silent adventure, but at too great a distance to discover that the highly-favoured party in it was our illustrious poet. Approaching nearer, they saw their friend, to whom, being awakened, they mentioned what had happened : Milton opened the paper, and with surprise read these verses from Guarini, Madrigal xii. ed. 1598 : ' Occhi, stelle mortali, Ministre de miei mali, — Se chiusi m'uccidete, Aperti che farete ? ' " ' Ye eyes, ye human stars ! ye authors of my liveliest pangs ! If thus, when shut, ye wound me, what must have proved the con- sequence had ye been open 1 ' Eager from this moment to find the fair incorpiifci, Milton traversed, but in vain, through every part of Italy. His poetic fervour became incessantly more and more heated by the idea which he had formed of his unknown admirer ; and it is in some degree to her that his own times, the present times, and the latest posterity, must feel themselves indebted for several of the most irapassioned and charming compositions of the Paradise Lost." Now, to say nothing of the incoherence of this story, — of the questions that naturally suggest themselves, of how these young men, too far oflf to recognise their companion as the object of this flattering attention, could know that the ladies were foreigners, and that the' one who wrote the paper was the youngest, and was very handsome,— it is evident, that had a young Cantab found himself awaking, now-a-days, under a tree, Avith a paper of Italian verses in his hand, and his comrades ready with a story of a couple of beautiful young ladies, foreigners, travelling in a carriage, and the youngest, who vas very handsome, putting this paper into his hand, he would very uaturaii'y have deemed himself the subject of a most palpable quiz. Vet the world, in a simpler age, not only gravely received this narrative as a fact, but Anna Seward did it into verse, MILTON. 53 Eetuiiied from Italy, uot from the vain quest after au imagiuary and romantic fair cue, but with his mind stored with knowledge and poetic imagery, which he had not pursued in vain, Milton took up his residence in London, in order to be I'eady, as occasion presented itself, to serve his country. He had no longer the inducement to return to Horton. He had seen his mother laid in the grave before he went : his father had probably quitted Horton when the civil war broke out, and betaken himself to the security of Reading, a fortified town ; for on the surrender of that town to the Earl of Essex, in 1643, the old man came up to London to his sou, with whom he continued to reside till his death, about four yeai'S afterwards. During the five years spent by Milton at Horton, between leaving Cambridge and setting out on his travels, he did uot entirely bury himself there in his classical books and poetic musings in the woods and fields. He had occasional lodgings in London, in order to culti- vate music, for which he had always a great passion, to prosecute his mathematics, to procure books, to enjoy the society of his friends, amongst whom were many of his old college friends, and, no doubt, to perfect himself in speaking the French and Itahan lau' guages, which it is not to be supposed he could do at Horton. Now, however, duty as well as inclination fixed him almost wholly in London. Great events were transpiring, and he felt a persuasion that he must bear his part in them. There was one circumstance which di-ew him for awhile from the metropolis, and it was this. He became attached to a young lady in Oxfordshire, and is supposed to have made some abode in the place of her residence. " The tradi- tion," says Todd, " that he did reside at this beautiful village of Forest-hill, near Shotover, is general, though none of his biographers assert the circumstance. Madame du Bocage, in her entertaining 'Letters concerning England,' &c., relates that, 'visiting in June, 1750, Baron Schutz and lady, at their house near Shotover-hill, they showed me, from a small eminence, Millon's House, to which I bowed with all the reverence with which that poet's memory inspires me.' " And the same writer quotes this interesting account of the place and circumstance from a letter of Sir William Jones : " The neces- sary trouble of correcting the first printed sheets of my history, prevented me to-day from paying a proper respect to the memory of Shakspeare, by attending his jubilee. But I resolved to do aU the honour in my power to as gi-eat a poet, and set out in the morning, in company with a friend, to visit a place where Milton spent some part of his life, and where, in all probability, he composed several of his earliest compositions. It is a small village on a pleasant hiU, about five miles from Oxford, called Forest-hill, because it formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has since been cut down. The poet chose this place of retirement after his first marriage, and he describes the Ijoauties of this retreat in that fine passage of his L'AlWro:— Soiiiefinie walking' not unseen, liy hedge-row elms, on liillocks green, — While the ploughman, near at hand, Wliistlea o'er the furrowed land, 64 JIILTON. And the mUxma'ul sinftetli blithe, And the luowt- r whets liis sithe. And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawtliorn in the dale. Straight mine eye hath caught new jileaMires, AVhilst the landscape round it measures ; Uusset lawns, and fallows gray, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains, on w hose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest ; Meadows trim with daisies pied. Shallow brooks, and rivers wide : Towers and battlements it sees liosomed high in tufted trees ; Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes From betwixt two aged oaks,' &c. " It was neither the proper season of the year, nor time of thft clay, to hear all the rural sounds, and see all the objects mentioned in this description ; but, by a pleasing concurrence of circumstances, wfc were saluted on our approach to the village with the music of the mower and his scythe ; we saw the ploughman intent upon his iabour, and the milkmaid returning from her country emjployment. " As we ascended the hill, the variety of beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave vis the highest pleasure. We at length reached the spot whence Milton undoubtedly took most of his images ; it is on the tojj of a hill, from which there is a most extensive prospect on all sides. The distant mountains, that seemed to support the clouds ; the village and turrets, partly shrouded in trees of the finest verdure, and partly raised above the groves that surrounded them ; the dark plains and meadows, of a greyish colour, where the sheep were feeding at large ; in short, the view of the streams and rivers, convinced us that there was not a single useless or idle word in the above-mentioned de- scription, but that it was a most exact and lively representation of nature. Thus will this fine passage, which has always been admired for its elegance, receive an additional beauty from its exactness. After we had walked, with a kind of poetical enthusiasm, over this enchanted ground, we returned to the village. " The poet's house was close to the church ; the greatest part of it has been pulled down ; and what remains belongs to an adjacent farm. I am informed that several papers, in Milton's own hand, were found by the gentleman who was last in possession of the estate. The tradition of his having lived there is current amongst the villagers ; one of them showed me a ruinous wall that made jiart of his chamber, and I was much pleased with another, who had forgotten the name of JMilton, but recollected him l)y the title of The Poet. " It must not be omitted, that the groves near this village are famous for nightingales, which are so elegantly described in the Penseroso. Most of the cottage windows are overgrown with sweet- briars, vines, and honeysuckles ; and that Milton's habitation hail the same rustic ornament, we may conclude from his descriptiou ;>f the lark bidding him good morrow : — ' Through the sweet-briar, or the vine, Pf the twisted eglantine ;' MILTOX. .56 for it is evident that he meant a sort of honeysuckle by the eglan« tine ; though that word is commonly used for the sweet-briar, whicV he could not mention twice in the same couplet. " If ever I pass a month or six weeks at Oxford in the summer, I shall be inclined to hire and repair this venerable mansion, and to make a festival for a circle of friends in honour of ]\Iilton, the most perfect scholar as well as the sublimest poet that our country ever produced. Such an honour will be less splendid, hut more sincere and respectful, than all the pomp and ceremony on the banks of the Avon." That Sir William might be, and probably was, mistaken in sup- posing that the Allegro was written at Forest-hill, I think is apparent from the character of that poem and of the Penseroso, which bear, to me, evident marks of a more youthful muse than the Comus and the Lycidas. They deal more in mere description, and, what itf more, the poet himself placed them in his original volume, prior to those poems, as if written prior. The images quoted by Sir William will apply to a thousand other scenes in England, and where Milton himself never was. They are such as a thousand hiU-tops in our beautiful pastoral land can show us. They may be found equally in his earlier haunts in Buckinghamshire. Nevei-theless, Shotover is not the less interesting, nor do the scenes the less apply to it. There Milton undoubtedly did walk and muse, " By liedge-row elms on hillocks green," and hear the ploughman's whistle, the milkmaid's song, and the mower's ringing scythe, and rest his eye on its landscape, tinted and varied as he describes it. There he saw the distant mountains of Wales, and the shepherds under the hawthorns down in the dales below him, each " telling his tale ; " that i.s, not telling a story to .some one, or making love, but " telling the tale," or number of his flock, before penning them for the night, or letting them loose in the morning. That Milton lived at Forest-hill some time, there is no doubt : but when, and how long, and how often, are jooints that now cannot be very well cleared up. Sir William Jones represents him to have chosen this retirement after his lirst marriage. Now Milton was not married before 164,3, at which time he was in his thirty-fifth year. But Comus and Lycidas were wi'itten long before, and so no doubt were L' Allegro and II Penseroso. Mosely, in his Address to the Reader, in the volume of Milton's poems containing all these pieces, pubhshed in 1615, tells us that these poems were known to be written, and that he soUcited them to accompany Lycidas and Comus ; and j\Iilton, in presenting this volume to his friend House, says plainly that they were the productions of his early youth : — " Gemelle cultu simpliei gaudcns liber, Fronde licet geminu, Muiiditia<|ue nitens non operos?. ; Quern marnis atlulit Juveniles olim, Secula tanien iiaud niniii poeta,'' Jjc. 56 MlLTON. This settles the question of the location of the poems ; but the question of when, and how long, and how often Milton resided at I'oi'est-hill, still remains. That he did not reside there long, imme- iliatdy after his marriage, is very clear, from the statement of his nephew and biographer, Phillips. " About AVhitsuntide, or a little after, he took a journey into the country ; nobody about him cer- tainly knowing the reason, or that it was more than a journey of recreation. After a month's stay, home he returns a married man, that went out a bachelor ; his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, tlien a justice of peace at Forestil, near Shot- over, in Oxfordshire." This account is confirmed by Anthony Wood, who states that Milton courted, married, and brought his wife to his house in London, in one month's time. She was very young, and had been accustomed to a gay life. According to Aubrey, '•' she was brought up and bred where tliere was a great deal of company and merriment, as dancing, &c. ; and when she came to live with her husband, she found it solitary, no company coming to her ; and she often heard her nephews cry and bo beaten. This life was irksome to her, and so she went to her parents." Phillips says that she was averse to the philosophic life of Milton, and sighed for the mirth and jovialness to which she had been accustomed in Oxfordshire. It was a gi-eat mistake altogether. Milton was now a man of a sober age ; he was yet but a school- master, though he had a large and handsome house in Aldersgate- street in a garden. This was necessary for the accommodation of his pupils, as well as for his own quiet study. But it must have been immensely dull to a young girl who, from all the glimjises wc can get of her, was, though perhaps handsome and fascinating, of an ordinary nature, and one who had been educated to frivolity and mere enjoyment of the fashionable gaieties of life. What was more, the very work on which Milton was zealously engaged, — the defence of the Parliamentary cause, and the defeat of the kingly, — was i^erfect poison to her and her family, — all high Royalists. " Her relations.'' ^ays Phillips, "being generally addicted to the Cavalier party, and some of them possibly engaged in the king's service, who at this time had his head-quarters at Oxford, and was in some prospect of success, they began to repent them of having matched the eldest daughter of the family to a person so contrary to them in opinion ; and thought it would be a blot in their escutcheon, whenever that events would come to flourish again." These circumstances, operating together, induced his young wife to desert Milton. She asked leave, after a week, to go home and see her parents ; he, in the meantime, was calmly and manfully labouring at his Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, one of the noblest works in our language. His wife had gone home, at the invitation of her friends, to spend the remaining part of the summer with them ; and her husband gave her leave to stay till Michaelmas. Michaelmas came, but no wife. He sent for her, and she refused to come. He sent letter after letter ; these remained unanswered. He despatched a messenger to bring her home ; the s MILTOX. 57 messenger was dismissed from her father's house with contemijt. This moved his spirit, and he resolved to repudiate her. To justify this bold step, he published four treatises on divorce : The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce ; The Judgment of Martin Bucer con- cerning Divorce ; hia famous TetmcJiordon, or Expositions upon the four chief places of Scriptiu-e which treat of Marriage, or Nullities of Marriage ; and Colasterion. It is probable that the lady and her friends would have thanked him for the divorce, had the world gone well with them ; but the political scene was now fast changing. The royal power was waning;" the PoweUs were getting into trouble, or foresaw it approaching, from their active participation in the royal cause. Milton, on the other hand, was fast rising into popular note. He was the very man that they were likely to need in the coming storm ; and with true worldly policy, they forgot all their pride and insults ; were willing to forget the offended husband's public exposure of his wife's conduct, and his active measures for repudiation ; and a plan was laid for retaking him. The plot was this. Milton was accus- tomed to visit a relative in St. Martin's-le-Grand ; and here, as it had been concerted on her part, he was astonished to see his wife come from another apartment, and falling on her knees before him, beg forgiveness for her conduct. After some natural astonishment, and some reluctance on his pai't to a reconciliation, he at length gave way to her tears ; and forgave and embraced her. " Soon his heart relented Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress." It has been supposed that the impression made upon his imagina- tion and his feelings, on this occasion, contributed no little to his description of the scene in Paradise Lost, in which Eve addresses herself to Adam for pardon and peace. And certainly Milton, on this occasion, disjjilayed no little magna- nimity and nobility of character. His domestic peace and reputa- tion had been most remorselessly attacked, yet, says Fenton, " after this reunion, so far was ho from retaining an unkind memory of the provocations which he had received from her ill conduct, that when the king's cause was entirely oppressed, and her father, who had been active in his loyalty, was exposed to sequestration, Miltoy received both him and his family to protection and free entertain' ment, in his own house, till his affairs were accommodated by \\\>- interest with the victorious faction." The old father-in-law had to suffer for his attachment to the royal cause. He was publicly an- nounced as a dehnquent, and fined 576/. 12.?. 3c7. ; besides that hia house was seized by the Parliamentary party. It would be agreeable if from this time we could find data for believing that the returned wife and her friends showed a generous sense of the kindness of the poet. But we cannot. After the royal power was restored, and Milton was in danger and disgrace, we hear of no protection afforded by them to him : no protecting roof ex- tended, no countenance even to the daughters, their mother now being dead. Of these daughters, one died early, liaving married 68 MILTON. a master builder ; one died single ; aud the third married a weaver in Spitalfields. It should be recollected that all three daughters sur- vived their father as well as mother, yet it does not appear that they received the slightest notice or assistance from their wealthier relations of Shotover. Yet his third daughter, Deborah, had great need of it, and, in many respects, well deserved it. She lived to the age of seventy-six. This is the daughter that used to read to her father, and was well known to Richardson and Professor "Ward ; a woman of a very cultivated understanding, and not inelegant of manners. She was generously patronised by Addison, and by Queen Caroline, who sent her a present of fifty guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters, of whom Caleb and Elizabeth are remem- bered. Caleb emigrated to Fort Saint George, where, perhaps, he died. Elizabeth, the yoimgest daughter, married Thomas Foster, a weaver in Spitalfields, as her mother had done before her, and had seven children, who all died young. She is said to have been a plain, sensible woman, and kept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first at Lower Holloway, and afterwards at Cock-lane, near Shoreditch church. In April, 1750, Comus w^as acted for her benefit : Doctor Johnson, who wrote the prologue, says, " She had so little acquaintance with diver- sion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was oflered her." The profits of the performance were only 67/., the expenses being deducted, although Dr. Newton contributed largely, and Jacob Tonson gave 20/. On this trifling augmentation to their small stock, she and her husband removed to Islington, where they both soon died. Such is the history of Milton's posterity. From this melancholy review of his domestic history, let us now return to his homes in London after his return from Italy. He came back with great intentions, but to the humble occupation of a school- master : and here we encounter one of the most disgraceful pieces of chuckling over his lowly fate, to be found in that most disgraceful life of our great poet and patriot, by Dr. Johnson. The Lives of the Poets, by Johnson, in the aggregate, do him no credit. In point of research, even, they are extremely deficient ; but the warped and pre- judiced spirit in which they are written destroys them as authority. On Milton's head, however, Johnson poured all the volume of his collected bile. Such a piece of writing upon the greatest epic poet, as well as one of the most illustrious patriots of the nation, is a national insult of the grossest kind. Take this one passage as a specimen of the whole. " Let not our veneration for Milton for- bid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small performances ; on the man who hastens home because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his ]5atriotism in a private boarding- school." The jiassage is as false as it is malicious. Milton did not promise to come home and put himself at the head of armies or of senates. He knew where his strength lay, and he came to use it, and did use it, most effectually. He did not say, " I will be another Cromwell," but he became the Cromwell of the pen. It was precisely MILTON. 69 because he was poor, — that he had no interest or connexions to i)lace him in the front ranks of action, — that he showed the greatness of his resolve, in hasting to the scene of contest, and standing ready to seize such opportunity as should offer, to strike for his country and for liberty. He desired to do his duty in the great strife, whatever might be the part he could gain to play ; and had he only sincerely desired to do that, and had not yet done it for want of opportunity, he would still have been worthy of praise for his laudable desire. Of all the various residences of Milton in London, as I have re- marked, scarcely one has escaj^ed the ravages of the fire, and the progress of improvement and population. The habit which he had of selecting houses standing in gardens, on account of their quiet- ness, has more than anything else tended to sweep them away These places, as population increased, were naturally crowded, and the detached houses pulled down to make way for regular streets. His first lodging was in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street, on his return from Italy. Here he began educating his two nephews, John and Edward Phillips. Of this lodging nothing now remains. The house, as I learn from an old and most respectable inhabitant of St. Bride's parish, who lives in the Churchyard, and very near the spot, was on the left hand, as you proceed towards Fleet-street through the avenue. It was a very small tenement, very old, and was burnt down on the 24th of November, 1824, at which time it was occupied by a hairdresser. It was — a proof of its age — without party wails, and much decayed. The back part of the Pimch Office now occupies its site. These lodgings were too small, and he took a garden-house in Aldersgate-street, situated at the end of an entry, that he might avoid the noise and disturbance in the street. To his nejAews, he here added a few more pupils, the sons of his most intimate friends. This house was large and commodious, affording room for his library and furniture. Here he commenced his career of pure authorship, — all he did having public reform and improvement for its object. Hei'e he wrote, as a fitting commencement, a treatise Of Reformation, to assist the Puritans against the Bishops, as he deemed the Puritans deficient in learning for the defence of the great principles they wero contending for. That Milton would turn out a stern reformer of Church matters, might be clearly seen from a passage in his Lycidas, written before he was twenty-nine years old. In this he is said even to anticipate the execution of Laud. The passage is curious ; — " llow uell could I Imve spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and elimh into the fold t Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest ; )Jlind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to hold A. sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs ! What recks it them '. What need they ? They are sptd ; And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Urate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; The hungry sheep look up and are not fed, 60 " MILTON. Hut, swoli) witli wiiul and the rank mist they draw Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said : But that two-handed engine at the door. Stands ready to smite once, and smites no more." Here he next wrote his treatise, Of Practical Episcopacy, in defence of the Smectymneans, against Archbishop Usher ; then, Reasons of Church Government, urged against Prelacy. In this work he revealed to his readers his plans for a great poem, — the Paradise Lost, — which only was deferred till the advocacy which the times demanded of him should be completed. It was in this house, on the approach of the troops of Prince Rupert to the capital, in 1642, soon after the battle of Edgehill, that Milton placed in imagination, if not in actual ink, his proudly depre- catory sonnet ; — " Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms. Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please. Guard them, and him within protect from harms. lie can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these. And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, Whatever clime tlie sun's bright circle warms. Lift not thy spear against tlie Muses' bower : The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground ; and the repeated air Of sad Electra's poet had the power To save th' Atlienian walls from ruin hare." His next remove was to a house in the Barbican, now also, without djubt, removed : this was a larger house, for it was necessary to accommodate not only his wife, but her family. From the Barbican issued the first volume of his poems, iiiciuding Comus, Lycidas, L' Allegro, II Penseroso, &c. ; a strange Parnassus, as it now seems to us. In 1647, his numerous inmates having left him, he once moi-e flitted, to use the good old Saxon term, into a smaller house in Holborn, opening backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields ; this house will now be sought in vain. Here he published, in 1649, his bold Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he vindicated what the Parliament had done in 1648, in the execution of the king •, this was followed by some other political pamphlets. As he had made himself a marked man before, this open defence of the royal decapitation bouud him up at once with the measures of the ruhng government. Such a champion was not to be overlooked ; and ac- cordingly, immediately afterwards, ho was invited by the Council of State, without any expectation or solicitation on his part, to become Latin Secretary ; as they had resolved neither to write to others abroad, nor to receive answers from any, except in that language, Avhich was common to them all. Thus, without any anxious solicita- tion, any flatteries, or compromise of his dignity and integrity, he had steadily advanced to that post in which he could effectually serve his country. He was here not merely the secretary, he was the champion of the government ; and accordingly the Eicon BasiUke, attributed to King Charles himself, was ordered bf him to have aii MILTON. iJl auswer, — whick auswei* was his, Eicoiioclastcs, ov the Image-bi'eaker, Then came his great Defence of the People of England, against Salmasius, This work was received, both at home and abroad, with the greatest excitement, abuse, and applause, as the different parties were affected : at Paris and Toulouse, it was burnt ; at home, Milton was comphmented on his performance of his task, by the visits or invitations of all the foreign ministers in London ; his own govern- ment presented him with a thousand pounds, as a testimouy of their approbation of the manner in which he had acquitted himself ; and even Queen Christina of Sweden, the patron of Salmasius, could not avoid applauding it, and soon after dismissed Salmasius from her court. The work itself, and the effect it pro- duced, are said to have shortened the life of Salmasius, who died about two years afterwards, without having finished his reply, upon which he was labouring. On being made Latin Secretary, Milton quitted Holborn, and took lodgings in Scotland-yard, near Whitehall. Here he lost his infant son ; and his own health being impaii-ed, he removed to a more airy situation ; that is, into one of his favourite garden-houses, situ- ated in Petty-France, Westminster, which opened into St. James's Park, in which he continued till within a few weeks of the Restora- tion. In this house some of the greatest domestic events of his life cccm-red. Here he lost the entire use of his eyes ; his left eye having become quite dark in 1651, — the year in which he pubUshed his Defensio PojniU, — the second in 1653. His enemies triumphed in his blindness as a judgment from Heaven upon his writing against the king ; he only replied by asking them, if it were a judgment upon him to lose his eyes, what sort of judgment was that upon the king, which cost him his head ? and by adding that he had charity enough to forgive them. We have seen that he laid the foundation of this deprivation in his youth, by unremitted and nocturnal study ; and, when Avriting the Defence of the People, the physicians an- nounced to him that he must desist, or lose his sight : he believed his duty required him to go on, and he went on, knowing the sacrifice he made. In this house he lost, too, his first wife, Mary Powell ; their infant son was dead, but she left him three daughters, the only children that survived him. He afterwards married Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, who died in child- bed within a year of their marriage. Of the beautiful character of this excellent woman, he has left us this testimony, his twenty- second sonnet : — " Metliouglit I saw my late espoused saint }5rought to me, like Alcestis from the grave, Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, Uescued from death by force, though pale and faint. Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint, Purification in the oird law did save. And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in heaven without restraint, (;ame, vested all in wliite, pure as her mind : llcr face was veiled, yet, to iny fancied sight. 62 MILTON. Love, sweetness, fioodness, in her per.so.i shincd So clear, as in no face with more delight. But, oh ! as to embrace me she inclined, I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night." Here Milton wrote his Second Defence of the People against the attack made in a book called lief/ii Sanguinis clamor ad Cceltim adoersM imrricidas Anglicanos ; written by one Peter du Moulin, afterwards Prebendary of Canterbury ; with other things in the same contro- versy. As he was now blind, he had the excellent Andrew Marvell associated with him, as assistant-secretary. His industry continued at writing, as if he had full use of his eyes. He published now his Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Cases, and The Means of Pemoving Hirelings out of the Church ; collected the Original Letters and Papers addressed to Oliver Cromwell concerning the aftairs of Great Britain, from 1G49 to 1G58, with other things. This memorable dwelling is yet standing. It no longer opens into St. James's Park. The ancient front is now its back, and overlooks the tine old but house-surrounded garden of Jeremy Bentham. Near the top of this ancient front is a stone, bearing this inscription — " Sacred to Milton, the Prince op Poets." This was placed there by Jeremy Bentham, and WiUiam Hazlitt rented the house some years, purely because it was Milton's. Bentham, when he was con- ducting people round his garden, used to make them sometimes go down on their knee.T to this house. The house is tall and narrow, and has nothing striking about it. No doubt, when it opened into St. James's Park, it was pleasant ; now it fronts into York-street, which runs in a direct line from the west end of Westminster Abbey. It is number 19, and is occupied by a cutler. The back, its former front, is closed in b}^ a wall, leaving but a very narrow court ; but above this wall, as already said, it looks into the pleasant garden of the late venerable jDhilosopher. But the time of the Restoration was approaching, and jMilton began to retrace his steps towards the city, by much the same regular stages as he had left it. After secreting himself in Bartholomew- close till the storm had blown over, and his i)ardon was signed, he once more took a house in Holborn, near Red-Lion-Fields ; and thence removed to Jewin-street, near Aldersgate. All these places have been rebuilt, and no house of Milton is now to be found in these thickly-populated parts. People have often wondered why Milton always showed such a preference for the city. There were many reasons. In the first place, he was born and brought up till his seventeenth year in it : the associations of youth form strong attractions. In the second, as Dr. Johnson considerately tells vis, Aldersgate-street and the like were not then so much out of the world as now. Besides this, after the Restoration, it would be far more agreeable to Milton to be at some distance from the West-end, where cavaliers and courtiers were now flaunting with newly-revived insolence ; and nothing but taunts, insults, and the hearing of strange and most odious doings could have awaited him. Here Milton married his third and last wife, Elizabeth MiiLshull, of a good MILTOIT. 03 family in Cheshire, with whom he seems to have lived in gi-eat aftoo- tion, so much so, that he wished to leave her all that was left him Df his property. From Jewin-street, he made his last remove, as to his London residences, into Artillery-walk, Bunhill-fields. Bunhill-fields were, probably, in those days, open, and airy, and quiet ; at present, with the exception of the Artillery-ground itself, and the thickly-populated burial-ground, which contains the bones of Bunyan and De Foe, the whole of that neighbourhood is covered with a dense mass of modern houses. Artillery-walk, Bunhill-fields, is no longer to be found. The nearest approach that you get, even to the name, is Artillery-place, Bunhill-row, which is merely a row of new houses adjoining the Artillery-ground, and a new church which has been erected in that busy, ordinaiy, and dingy street, still called Bunhill-row. Besides an Art of Logic, his Treatise of True Religion, Heresie, and Schism, Toleration, and what best means may he 7(sed against the r/rowfh of PoTpery; his Familiar Letters in Latin ; and a translation of a Latin Declaration of the Poles in favour of John IIL, their heroic sove- reign — the two last published in the last year of his life ; his resi- dence in Bunhill-fields was made remarkable by the publication of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. He left, moreover, in manuscript, a Brief History of Muscovy, and of other less known Countries lying eastward of Russia as far as Cathay, which was published in 1682, and his System of Theology, which was long supposed to have perished, but has been recovered and published of late years, much to the scandal of the orthodox. Thus to the last did this wonderful man live and labour. There is something singularly interesting and impressive in our idea of. him, as he calmly passed his latter days in his quiet habitation in Bunhill-fields. He had outlived the great battle of king and people, in which extraordinary men and as extraordinary events had arisen, and shaken the whole civilized world. Charles I., Laud, and Strafford, had fallen in their blood ; the monarchy and the church had fallen. Pym, Hampden, Marvell, Vane, and the dictator Cromwell, had not only pulled down the greatest throne in Europe, but had made all others seem to reel by the terrific precedent. All these stern agents, with the generals Ireton, Harrison, Lambert, Fleetwood, and their compeers, who had risen from the people to fight for the people, were gone, like the actors in an awful tragedy who had played their role. Some had perished in their blood, others had been torn from their graves ; the monarchy and the church, the peerage and all the old i)ractices and maxims, were again in the ascendant, and had taken bloody vengeance; yet this one man, he who had incited and applauded, who had defended and made glorious through his eloquence and his learning, the whole republican cause, was left untouched. As if some especial guardianship of Providence had shielded him, or as if the very foes who pulled the dreaded Cromwell from his grave, feared the imprecations of posterity, and shrunk from the touch of that sacred head,— there sat the sublime old man jit his door, feeling with grateful enjoyment the genial sunshine faU (M MILTON. (ju him. There he sat, erect, serene, cahii, and trusting in God the Father of mankind. He had hved even to fulfil that iong-deferred task of poetic glory ; the vision of Paradise Lost passed before him, and had been sung foi-th in the most majestic strains that had ever made classical the English tongue. His trust in Providence had been justified ; he had served his country, and had yet not missed his immortality. The great and the wise came from every quarter to converse with him ; and the wonderful passages through which he and his nation had lived, were food for the musings of the longest day or the most solitary moments. Many have thought that those melancholy lines in Samson Agonistes, commencing — " O loss of sight ! of thee I most complain," were his own wretched cogitations. But Milton, unlike Samson, had no weak seductions from the path of his great duty to reproach himself with ; and far likelier were it that the whole apostrophe to light, spoken in his own character in the opening of the third book of Paradise Lost, was the more usual expression of his feelings •-• " Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sov'ran, vital lamp ; but thou Ilevisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; So tliick a drop serene hath qnench'd their orhs. Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet, not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equall'd with me in fate, So were I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old : Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note." Such is the view that Eichardson has given us of him in hia declining days : — "An ancient clergyman of Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright, found John Milton in a small chamber hung with rusty green, sitting in an elbow chair, and dressed neatly in black ; pale, but not cadaverous ; his hands and fingers gouty, and with chalk stones. He used also to sit in a grey, coarse cloth coat, at the door of his house in Bunhill-fields, in warm sunny weather, to enjoy the fresh air ; and so, as well as in his room, received the visits of people of distinguished parts as well as quality." There is an episode in the later life of Milton which we are made acquainted with by Thomas Elwood the Quaker, and which has something very pleasing and picturesque about it. It is that of his abode at Chalfont St. Giles, in Buckinghamshire. Elwood, who waf? the son of a country justice of peace, was one amongst the first converts to Quakerism, and has left us a most curious and amusing autobiography. In this he tells us that, while Milton lived ir> MILTON. 65 Jewin-street, he was introduced to him as a reader, the recompence to Elwood being that of deriving the advantage of a better know- ledge of the classics, and of the foreign pronunciation of Latin. A gi-eat regard sprung up between Milton and his reader, who was a man not only of great integrity of mind, but of a quaint humour and a poetical taste. On the breaking out of the plague in London, Milton, who was then living in Bunhill-fields, wrote to Elwood, who had found an asylum in the house of an affluent Quaker at Chalfont, to procure him a lodging there. He did so ; but before Milton could take possession of his country retreat, Elwood, with numbers of other Quakers, was hurried oflf to Aylesbury gaol. The perse- cution of that sect subsiding for awhile, Elwood, on his hberation, paid Milton a visit, and received the MS. of Paradise Lost to take home and read. With this, Elwood had the sense to be greatly dehghted, and, in returning it, said, " Thou hast said a great deal upon Paradise Lost : what hast thou to say upon Paradise Tonnd? " Milton was silent a moment, as pondering on what he had heard, and then began to converse on other subjects. When, however, Elwood visited him afterwards in London, Milton showed him the Paradise Regained, saying, " This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont ; which before I had not thought of." Thus, in this abode at Chalfont, we hear the first mention of Paradise Lost, and to it we owe Paradise Eegained. It is supposed that Milton wrote the whole of the latter poem there, and that he must have done, or the greater part of it, from his being able so soon after his return to show it to Elwood. It says much for the proprietors of the cottage at Chalfont, and for the feeling of the country in general, that this simple dwelling has been sacredly preserved to this time. You see that all the others near it are much more modern. Tliis is of the old framed timber kind, and is known, not only to the whole village, but the whole country round, as Milton's house. Mr. Dunster, in the additions to his edition of Paradise Eegained, says that the cottage at Chalfont " is not pleasaptly situated ; that the adjacent country is extremely pleasant ; but the immediate spot is as little picturesque or pleasing as can be well imagined." He might have recollected, that it could signify very little to Milton whether the spot _ was Victuresque or not, if it were quiet, and had a good air ; for Milton i\-as, and had been long quite blind. But, in fact, the_ situation, though not remarkably striking, is by no means unpleasing. It is the tirst cottage on the right hand as you descend the road from Beaconsfield, to Chalfont St. Giles. Standing a little above the cottage, the view before you is very interesting. The quiet old agricultural village of Chalfont lies in the valley, amid woody uplands, which are seen all round. The cottage stands facing you, with its gable turned to the road, and fronting into its little garden and field. A row of ordinary cottages is built at its back, and face the road below. To the right ascends the grass field mentioned ; but this, with extensive old orchards 66 MILTON. above the house, is pleasing to the eye, presenting an idea of quiet, rural repose, and of meditative walks in the shade of the orchard trees, or uj) the field, to the breezy height above. Opposite to the house, on the other side of the way, is a wheelwright's dwelling, with his timber reared amongst old trees, and above it a chalk-pit, grown about with bushes. This is as rural as you can desire. The old house is covered in front with a vine ; bears all the marks of antiquity ; and is said by its inhabitant, a tailor, to have been but little altered. There was, he says, an old porch at the door, which stood till it fell with age. Here we may well imagine Milton sitting, in the sunny weather, as at Bunh ill-fields, and enjoying the warmth, and the calm, sweet air. Could he have seen the view which here presented itself, it would have l)een agreeable ; for though in this direction the ascending ground shuts out distant prospect, its gi-ecn and woody upland would be itself a pleasant object of contemplation ; shutting out all else, and favourable to thought. The house, on the ground Hoor, consists of two rooms ; the one on the left, next to the road, a spacious one, though low, and with its small diamond case- ments suggesting to you that it is much as when Milton inhabited it. Here he no doubt lived principally ; and, in all probability, here was Paradise Regained dictated to his amanuensis, most likely at that time his wife, Elizabeth MinshuU. I found the worthy tailor and his apprentice mounted on a table in it, busily pursuing their labour. Outside, over the door, is an armorial escutcheon, at the foot of which is painted in bold letters, Milton. The old man, who was very civil and communicative, said that it was not really the escutcheon of Milton, but of General Fleetwood, who purchased the house for Milton, and wlio at that time lived at the Manor-house, and lies buried in the church here. Of this, Elwood tells us nothing, but on the contrary, that he procured the house for Milton. Whether this escutcheon be really Fleetwood's or not, I had no means of ascertaining, as it was not only very indistinct, but too high to examine without a ladder ; but as Milton's armorial bearing contained sjoread eagles, and as there were birds in the shield, it no doubt had been intended for Milton by ttiose who placed it there. If Fleetwood were living at Chalfont, that might be an additional reason for Milton's choosing it for his then retreat ; but Elwood, and not Fleetwood, took the house, and it is doubtful even whether Fleetwood was still living, being one of the regicides condemned, but never executed. Independent, however, of any other considera- tion, Milton had many old associations with Buckinghamshire, which would recommend it to him ; and in summer the air amid the heaths and parks of this part of the country is peculiarly soft, delicious, and fragrant. We come now to Milton's last house, the narrow house appointed for all living, in which were laid his bones beside those of his father. This was in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. He died on Sunday, the 8th November, 1674, and was buried on the 12th. His fmieral is stated to have been very sfilendidlj' and numerously HILTON. 67 attended. By the parish registry we find tnat he was buried in the chancel: "John Milton, gentleman. Consumption. Chancell. 12. Nov : 1674." Dr. Johnson suj^posed that he had no inscrii^tion, hut Aubrey distinctly states that " when the two steppes to the com- munion table were raysed in 1G90, his stone was removed." Milton'.s grave remained a whole century without a mark to point out whei'c the great poet lay, till in 1793 Mr. Whitbread erected a bust and an inscription to his memory. What is more, there is every reason to believe that his remains were, on this occasion of raising the chancel and removing the stone, disturbed. The coffin was disinterred and opened, and numbers of relic-hunters were eager to seize and convey off fragments of his bones. The matter at the time occasioned a sharp controversy, and the public were at length persuaded to believe that they were not the remains of Milton, but of a female, that by mistake had been thus treated. But when the workmen had the inscribed stone before them, and dug down directly below it, what doubt can thei-e be that the remains were those of the poet ? By an alteration in the church when it was repaired in 1682, that which was the old chancel ceased to be the present one, and the remains of Milton thus came to lie in the great central aisle. The monument erected by Whitbread marks as near as possible the place. The bust is by Bacon. It is attached to a pillar, and beneath it is this inscription : — • JouN Milton, Author of Paradise lost,' Born Deer. igoS. Died Novr. \67i. His father, John Milton, died March, 1040 'ihey were both interred in this church. Samuel Whitbread posuit, ITOS. This church is remarkable for having been the scene of Oliver Cromwell's marriage, and for being the burial-place of many emi- nent men. In the chancel, in close neighbourhood with Milton, lay old John Speed, the chronicler, and Fox, the martyrologist, whosa monuments still remain on the wall. That of Speed is his bust, in doublet and ruff, with his right hand resting on a book, and his left on a skulk It is in a niche, representing one of the folding shrine^ still seen in Catholic churches on the continent. There is a monu- ment also seen there to a lady of the family of Sir Thomas Lucy, ol Shakspeare notoriety ; and another of some noble person, having beneath the armorial escutcheon, an opening representing skulls, bones, and flames, within a barred grating, supposed to be symbolic of purgatory. The burial-ground of Bunhill-helds, where Bunyan and De Foe lie, belongs also to this parish, and their interments aro contained in the registry of this church. * This word " lost," with a little 1 in the inscriptio.n, J) 2 6B MrLTON. Thus the Prince of Poets, as Hazlitt styled him, sleeps iu good company. The times in which he lived, and the part he took in them, were certain to load his name with obloquy and misrei^re- sentation ; but the solemn dignity of his life, and the lofty tone and principle of his writings, more and more suffice not only to vindicate him, but to commend him to posterity. No man ever loved hberty and virtue with a purer affection; no man ever laboured in their cause with a more distinguished zeal ; no man ever brought to the task a more glorious genius, accomplished with a more consummate learning. ]\Iilton was the noblest model of a devoted patriot and true Englishman ; and the study of his works is the most certain means of perpetuating to his country .spirits worthy cf iier greatness. m SAMUEL BUTLER. " In the midst of obscurity passed the life of Butler, a man whose name can only perish witli his language. The mode and place of his education arc miknown ; the events of his life are variously related ; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor." Such are the expressive words with which Dr. Johnson winds up his meagre account of the witty author of Hudibras. A more signi- ficant finish to a poet's biography could scarcely be given. A more striking instance of national neglect, and the ingratitude of posterity, is nowhere to be found. Sti'ensham, in Warwickshire, claims the honour of his bii'th. His father is said to have been an honest farmer there, with a small estate, who made a shift to educate his son at the grammar-school at Worcester, whence he is supposed to have gone to the university ; but whether of Oxford or Cambridge, is matter of dispute. Hi^^ brother as.serted that it was Cambridge, but could not tell at which liall or college. Dr. Nasli discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds a-year, which, in Johnson's time, was still called ]hi(lci's tenement. 70 BUTLER, When we consider the humble position of the fatlier, we can only wonder that he contrived to give him an education at a classical school at all, and may very well doubt, with the great lexicographer, whether he in reality ever did study at Cambridge. Having, how- ever, given his son a learned education, his resources were exhausted, he had no jiatronage, and the young man became, and might pro- bably think himself fortunate in doing so, a clerk to a justice of peace, Mr. Jeflt'erys, of Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire. Here he appears to have passed an easy and agreeable life. " He had," says Johnson, " not only leisure for study, but for recreation ; his amuse- ments were music and painting ; and the reward of his pencil was the friendship of the celebrated Cooper. Some pictures, said to be his, were shown to Dr. Nash, at Earl's Croomb ; but when he in- quired for them some years afterwards, he found them destroyed to stop windows, and owns that they hardly deserved a better fate." From this gentleman's service he passed into that of the Countess of Kent. The celebrated John Selden was then steward of the countess, and it was probably through him, or for his purposes, that Butler was introduced into the family. He was much noticed by Selden, and employed by him as an amanuensis. Whether this were the actual capacity in which he stood in the family of the countess, is, like almost every other event of his life, however, quite unknown. One thing seems certain, that, both at Mr. JefFerys' and here, he had been turned loose into great libraries, the sort of pasture that he of all others liked, and had devoured their contents to some purpose, as is manifested in his writings. These were the real colleges at which he studied, and where he laid np enormous masses of information. His next remove was into the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers. This was the decisive circumstance of his life. Sir Samuel was the hero of his future poem, — the actual Hudibras. But he was here in the very centre of republican action, and secta- rian opinion and discussion. In Sir Samuel, he had a new and rich study of character ; in those about him a new world, abounding with all sorts of persons, passages, and doctrines, which made him feel that he had also a world unknown still in himself, that of satirical fun infinite. Into this world he absorbed all the new views of things ; the strange shapes that came to and fro ; the strange phraseology and sounds of conventicle hymns that assailed his ears. The historian and poet of the new Land of Goshen, where all was light, while the neighbouring Egypt of royalty was all in darkness, was born into it ; and Hudibras, and his Squire Ralph, Sidrophel, Talgol and Trulla, the Bear and Fiddle, all sprung into immortal existence. The story of the utter neglect of Butler by the king and coui-t, at the time that not only they, but all royalists in the kingdom, were bursting with laughter over Hudibras, is too well known. Once it was hoped that he was on the verge of good fortune, and Mr. Wy- cherley was to introduce him to the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham. The story of this interview is too characteristic to be passed over. " Mr. Wycherley," says Packe, " had always laid hold of an oppor- tunity which offered of representing to the D'lke of Buckingham how BUTLEE. 71 well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimit- able Hudibras, and that it was a reproach to the court, that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the want he did. The duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough ; and after some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his Avord, obtained of his grace to name a day when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new j^atron. At last an ap- pointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly ; the duke joined them ; but as the d 1 would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance, — the creature, too, was a knight, — tri^"" by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than at doing good offices to men of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard of his fortune and understanding, to protect them ; and from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise ! " The brightest gleam of his life would seem to be between his quitting Sir Samuel Luke's and the publication of his Hudibras ; but when this exactly took place, and how long this lasted, we are not informed. It must, however, have taken place between the king's return, which was in 1659, and 16G4, some five years or so. During this period he was made secretary to the Earl of Carberry, president of the principality of Wales, who made -iim steward of Ludlow Castle, when the Court of Marches was revived. This was a post in which a poet might feel himself well placed. This ancient castle of the Lacys and Mortimers stands at the west end of the town of Ludlow, on a bold rock, overlooking the river Corve, and near the confluence of tha^ river and the Teme. Many striking events had occurred here since the time that William the Conqueror bestowed it on Roger de Montgomery, from whose des- cendants it passed successively into the hands of the crown, tha AVarines, the Lacys, and the Moi-timer.** On the borders of Wales, it was a strongliold of the crown of England, and, after it fell again into the hands of thi^ king, became the palace of the President of the Marches, and often the residence of princes. Here the young king Edward V. lived, and left it only to proceed to London, into the murderous hands of his uncle, Richard III, who, within two months of his quitting this quiet asylum, had him and his brother smothered in the Tower. Here Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, was married to Catharine of Arragon, who, after his death, was married to his brother, Henry VIII; her divorce finally leading to the Re- formation in England. Here Sir Philip Sidney's fathei'. Sir Henry Sidney, had lived, as President of the Marches ; and manya scene of splendour and festivity had lit up the venerable towers, on the occa- sion of royal visits, and other seasons of rejoicing. Above all, it was for one of those occasions that the youthful Milton had composed his Oomus ; and on a visit of Charles I, in 1031, to the Earl of Eridg- 72 BUTLER. water, then Presidcut of the Marclies, it was performed before him, the work being founded on a real incident occurring in the Lord President's own family, which is thus related by Nightingale : — " When he had entered on his official residence, he was visited by a large assembly of the neighbouring nobility and gentry. His sons, the Lord Brackley and Sir Thomas Egerton, and his daughter, the Lady Alice, being on their journey, ' To attend their father's state, And new intrusted sceptre,' were benighted in Haywood Forest, in Herefordshire, and the lady for a short time was lost. The adventure being related to their father on their arrival at the castle, IMilton, at the request of his friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the family, wrote the masque. Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas Night ; the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himself, each bearing a part in the representation." This single circumstance, of being the scene of the first represen- tation of the Mask of Comus, one of Milton's most beautiful compo- sitions, has given a perpetual interest to Ludlow Castle. I The genius of Butler was of a different stamp. It wanted the sublimity, the pathos, and tender sensibilities of that of Milton ; but, on the other hand, for perception of the ridiculou.s, — for a diving mto the closest folds of cant and fanatical pretence, — for a rough, bold, and humorous power of sketching ordinary life, — it was un- rivalled. A tower is still shown as the place where he wrote a part of his Hudibras. Whether it be the precise fact or not, it is Idle to inquire. There our author has resided ; there he is said to have written something or other, and the very room and spot of its com- position are pointed out. It is best not to be too critical ; and, on the other hand, if we believe in general that where a man of genius has lived he has also written, we shall seldom be far wrong. There is little doubt that here Butler, possessed of more leisure and inde- pendence than at any other period of his life, did really revise and prepare his work for press ; of which the first part was published in 1663, and the second in the year following. Here he married Mrs. Herbert, a lady of good family, with whom he lived in comfort, if not in affluence. Of the j)lace where Comus was first acted by the real personages of it, and where Butler brought forth his Hudibras, some idea may be gratifying to the reader. It was deserted in the first year of William and Mary, in consequence of the dissolution of the Court of the Marches. From an inventory of the goods found in Ludlow ;Castle, bearing date 1708, in the eleventh year of Queen Anne, there appeared to be then forty i-ooms entire. Many of the royal apartments were in that condition ; and the couch of state and the velvet hangings were preserved. In the chapel there were still to be seen on the panels many coats of arms ; and in the hall many of the same kind of ornaments, together with lances, spears, firelocks, and old armour. On the accession of George I, an order came down to unroof the buildings, and strip thorn of their lead. Decay consequently ensued. Several panels beari/ig the BUTLER. 73 arms of the Lords President, were converted into wainscoting foj- a public-house in the town, a former owner of which enriched hini- self by the sale of materials clandestinely carried away. There remains also a rich embroidered carpet, hung up in the chancel of St. Lawrence's church, said to be part of the covering of the council- board. The Earl of Powis, who previously held the castle in virtue of a long lease, acquired the reversion in fee by purchase from the ci'own in 1811. The whole is now a scene of venerable ruin. The castle rises from the point of a headland, and its foundations are engrafted into a bare grey rock. The north front consists of square towers with high connecting walls, which are embattled with deep interstices ; and the old fosse, and part of the rock, have been formed into walks, which in 1722 were planted with beech, elm, and lime trees by the Countess of Powis, and those trees, now grown to maturity, add ex- ceedingly to the dignity and beauty of the scene. Through a chasm on the west rims the broad and shallow river Teme. It were too long to describe all this mass of ruins, with its various courts, re- mafns of barracks, and escutcheoned walls. The first view of the interior of the castle is fine. The court is an irregular square area, not very spacious ; but the lofty embattled structures with which it is surrounded, though in ruin, still preserve their original outhues. The spacious hall is of sixty feet by thirty, the height about thirty- live feet, and is ornamented with a door with a beautiful pointed arch. The once elegant saloon, where the splendid scene of Comus was first exhibited ; where chivalry exhausted her choicest stores, both of invention and wealth, and where hospitality and magnifi- cence blazed for many ages in succession, without diminution or Jecay — is now totally dilapidated, and neither roof nor floor remains. From the time of Butler's quitting this scene of his ease and hap- piness, he seems to have experienced only poverty and neglect. His wife's fortune is said to have been lost through bad securities ; his expectations from the royal person, or the royal party whom he had so immensely served, were wholly disappointed ; and in 1680 he died, where, on the authority of the son of his truest friend and benefactor, Mr. Longueville, he had lived some years, in Rose street, Covent- garden. Mr. Longueville exerted himself to raise a subscription for his interment in Westminster Abbey, but in vain; he thereforo buried him at his own cost in the churchyard of Covent-garden. About sixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, Lord ]\Iayor of London, and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him that monument in Westminster Abbey which is well known. Such were the life, fortunes, and death of the author of Hudibras, whose name, as Johnson justly observes, can only perish with his language. It was his misfortune to look for protection to a monarch who only protected courtezans, and the most disgusting of libertines. Butler should have been a pimp, and not a poet, and he would soon have found employment enough. His neglect is but one opprobrium more added to the lacnjovy of a monarch whose whole life was u nuisance and a disgrace to the country which tolerated him. JOHN DRYDEN. Dryden should have been transferred to the vohime of the dramatic poets, if the quaUty of his dramas had borne any relative proportion to their quantit}^, or to the quality of his poetry ; but it is the latter which gives him his great and lasting distinction. They are his Satires, and Fables, and Translations ; his Absalom and Achitophel ; his Hind and Panther ; his Palemon and Arcite ; the Flower and the Leaf ; and, in short, all those racy and beautiful stories which he threw into modern poetry from Chaucer and Boccaccio, with his Virgil, and lyrical compositions, and, at the head of these, his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, that stamp his character with the English public as one of the most vigorous, harmonious, and truly British writers. Dryden displayed no great powers of creation ; perhaps the literary hurry of his life prevented this ; but he contemplated for years a national epic on Prince Arthur ; and probaVjly, had he possessed pei- fect leisure for carrying out this design, he would have astonished us as much with the display of that faculty as ho delights us with the masterly vigour of his reasoning powers ; with his harmony and nerve of style ; and v>-ith the stiletto stabs of his annihilating satire. But from any necessity of criticism on his genius, the familiar ac- (juaintancc of every true lover of poetry with the merits and beauties DRYDEN. 75 which have fixed his immortality, fortunately for my space, fully exempts me. Even over the long succession of literary events in hi? life we must pass, and fix our attention on his homes and havmts. For nearly forty years, from 1660 to 1700, he was before the public as an active author ; and on the disappearance of Milton from the field of life, he became, and continued to be, the most marked man of his time ; yet it is astonishing how little is known of his town haunts and habits. Of his publications, the appearance of his dramas, the controversies into which he fell with his literary cotemporaries, his change of religion, and his chnging to the despotic government of the Stuarts, we know enough ; but of his home life, next to nothing. That he lived in Gerrard-street, and was a constant frequenter of AVill's coffee-house, Covent-garden, seems to be almost all that is known of his town resorts. Like Addison, and most literary men who have married titled ladies, he did not find it contribute much to his comfort. His wife was Lady Elizabeth Howard, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, and sister of his friend Sir Robert Howard. He was married at St. Swithin's Church, London Stone, Cannon-street, and the following copy of the entry in the register has been kindly forwarded to me by the Rev. W. G. Watkins, son of the rector of that church. It is in engrossing hand : " John Dryden and Elizabeth Howard married 1st of December, 1663, by license." His wife's temper is said to liave been very peculiar, and that she looked down on Dryden as of inferior rank, though he was descended from a very old family, mixed with the most distinguished men of the nobility, and kus the first man of his time ; but conceit or the blindness of aristocratic pride do not alter the real nature or pro- portion of things, except in the vision of the person afflicted with them. Dryden was the great personage, and his titled wife the little one, and on him, therefore, ]ay the constant pressure of the unequal yoke he bore. What no doubt rendered the conduct of his wife worse, was the ])ride of her family on the one hand, and the unlucky connexion of Dryden's brothers with ordinary trades. His family, and that of his mother, the Pickerings, had taken a decided part during the civil wars for the parliament, while that of his wife had been as zealous ou the royalist side. Besides this, Erasmus, his immediate younger brother, was in trade in King-street, Westminster ; James, the fourth brother, was a tobacconist in London ; one of his sisters was married to a bookseller in Little Britain, and another to a tobacconist in Newgate-street ; these would be dreadful alliances to a family proud and poor. " No account," says Mitford, in his life of the poet, " has been transmitted of the person of Dryden's wife, nor has any portrait of her been discovered. I am afraid her personal attractions were not superior to her mental endowments ; that her temper was way- ward ; and that the purity of her character was sullied by some early indiscretions. A letter from Lady Elizabeth to her son at Rome is preserved, as remarkable for the elegance of the style as the correct- ness of the orthography. She says — ' Your father is much at woon 86 to his health, and his dcfnese is wosce, but much as he was wh lu 76 DIIYDKN. he was heare ; give me a true accouut how my deare son Charles is head dus.' Can this be the lady who had formerly held captive iu her chains the gallant Earl of Chesterfield ? " " Lady Elizabeth Dryden," says Scott, " had long disturbed her husband's domestic happiness. ' His invectives,' says Malone, * against the mai-ried state were frequent and bitter, and were continued to the latest period of his life ; ' and he adds from most respectable authority, that the family of the poet held no intimacy with his lady, confining their intercourse to mere visits of ceremony. How could they 1 how could the tobacconist, and the other tobacconist's wife, and the little bookseller's wife of Little Britain, venture under the roof of the proud lady of the proud house of Howard, with * her weak intellects and her violent temper 1 ' " A similar alienation also, it is said, took place between her and her relatives. Sir Eobert Howard perhaps being excepted ; for her brother, the Honourable Edward Howard, talks of Dryden's being engaged in a translation of Virgil as a thing he had learned merely by common report. Her wayward disposition, Malone says, was, however, the eflect of a disordered imagination, which, shortly after Dryden's death, degenerated into absolute insanity, in which state she remained until her own death in 1714, probably in the seventy- ninth year of her age. Poor Dryden ! what with his wife — consort one cannot call her, and help-meet she was not — and with a tribe of tobacconist brothers on one hand, and proud Howards on the other ; and a host of titled associates, and his bread to dig with his pen, one pities him from one's heart. Well might he, when his wife once said it would be much better for her to be a book than a woman, for then she should have more of his company, reply, " I wish you were, my dear, an almanac, and then I could change you once a year." It is not well to look much into such a home, except for a warning. Yet the outside of that life, like many others, would have deceived an ordinary spectator. There all was brilliant and imposing. " Whether," says Sir Walter Scott, "we judge of the rank which Dryden held in society by the splendour of his titled and powerful friends, or bj his connexions among men of genius, we must consider him a;i occupying at one time as high a station, in the very foremost circle, as literary reputation could gain for its owner. Independent of the notice with which he was honoured by Charles himself, the poet numbered among his friends most of the distinguished nobility. The great Duke of Ormond had already begun that connexion whicii subsisted between Dryden and three generations of the house of Butler. Thomas Lord Clifibrd, one of the Cabal ministry, was uniform in patronizing the poet, and appears to have been active in introducing him to the king's favour. The Duke of Newcastle loved liim sufficiently to present him with a play for the stage ; the witty Earl of Dorset, then Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Charles Sedley, admired in that loose age for the peculiar elegance of his loose poetry, were liis intimate associates, as is evident from the turr of The Essay on Dramatic Poesy, where they are the speakers. Wilmot, Earl of DETDEN. 77 Rochester, soon to act a very different part, was then anxious to vindicate Dryden's writings ; to mediate for him with those who distributed the royal favour, and was thus careful, not only of his reputation, but his fortune. In short, the author of what was then held the first style of poetry, was sought for by all among the great and gay who wished to maintain some character for literary taste. It was then Dryden enjoyed those genial nights described in the dedication of the Assignation, when 'discourse was neither too serious nor too light, but always pleasant, and for the most part instructive ; the raillery neither too sharp upon the present, nor too censorious upon the absent ; and the cups such only as raised the conversation of the night, without disturbing the business of the morrow.' He had not yet experienced the disadvantages attendant on such society, or learned how soon hterary eminence becomes the Dbject of detraction, of envy, of injury, even from those who can best feel its merit, if they are discouraged by dissipated habits from emulating its flight, or hardened by perverted feeling against loving its possessors." But all this came ; and in the mean time the poet had to work like Pegasus in the peasant's cart, for the means to maintain this intercourse with such lofty society. And what did all these great friends do for him ? They procured him no good post in return for good services rendered to their partj^, but the poet's meagre office of the laureateship, which, added to that of historio- grapher to royalty, brought him 200/. a year, and his butt of canary. Poor Dryden ! wdth the cross wife, and the barren blaze of aristocracy around him, the poorest coal-heaver need not have envied him. Neither did " glorious John " escape his sliare of annoyance from his cotemporaries of the pen, nor from the pubhshers. He had a controversy with his friend and brother-in-law, Sir Robert Howard, on the true nature of dramatic poetry, which speedily degenerated into personal bitterness and a long estrangement. Then came the Rehearsal, that witty farce in which he was ridiculed in the character of Bayes, and his hterary productions, as well as personal character- istics, held up to the malicious merriment of the world by a combination of the wits and fashionable penmen of the time; amongst them the notorious Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the author of Hudibras, the Bishop of Rochester, and others. The miserable Elkanah Settle was set up as a rival of hira ; and after these rose in succession the hostile train of the licentious Lord Rochester, Lord Shaftesbury, Milbourne, Blackmore, and others, by whom every species of spite, misrepresentation, and ridicule, were for years heaped upon him. Nor did his enemies restrain themselves to the use of the pen in their attacks upon him. One of the most prominent events of Dryden's life is that of a ruffianly attack upon him as he returned from his club at Will's cofiee-house, on a winter's night. Lord [Mulgrave had published a satire called an Essay on Satire, in which Rochester and other wits and profligates of the time were introduced. The poem was a wretched affair; but \)rydcn, to oblige Mulgrave, had undertaken to revise it. Much .abour he could not have bestowed upon it, it was ?o flat and poor ; 78 DRYDEN. but liocliestcr thought fit to attribute it to Drydeii himself; auil a set of ruflians, supposed to be hired by him and the Duchess of Portsmouth, who had been also reflected on, fell on the poet, as he passed through Rose-street, Covent-garden, on his way from Will's coffee-house to his own house in Gerrard-street. A reward of 50/. was in vain offered in the London Gazette and other newspapers for the discovery of the perpetrators of the outrage. The beating was, in those loose times, thought a good joke. The Rose-alley ambuscade became almost proverbial ; and even Mulgrave, the real author of the satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to have descended, in his Art of Poetry, thus mentions the circumstance with a pitiful sneer : — " Though praised and punished for another's rhymes, His own deserve as great applause sometimes." Thus attacked with pens and cudgels by the envious writers of the (lay, Dryden was nearly (starved by the booksellers. On one occasion, provoked by the refusal of timely supplies by Jacob Tonson, he did not do as Johnson did by Osborne, knock him down with a quarto, but ran him through with a triplet, describing the bibliopole's person : — " With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair, ■\Vitli two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair. And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air." " Tell the dog," said the i)oet to the messenger by whom he sent these complimentary lines, " that he who wrote these can write more." But he needed not to write more ; they were as effective as he could desire. Jacob, however, on his part, could make his tongue as i)ungent as Dryden could his verse. Johnson, in the "Life of Dryden," relates that Lord Bolingbroke one day making a call on Dryden, he heard another person enter the house. "That," said Dryden, " is Tonson. You will take care not to depart before he goes away; for I have not completed the sheet which I promised him ; and if you leave me unprotected, I shall suQ'er all the rudeness to which his resentment can prompt his tongue." Perhaps the happiest hours of Dryden's life, next to those spent over his finest compositions in his study, were passed at Will's coffee-house. After dinner, at two o'clock, he used to repair thither, where assembled all the most fiimous men of the time. There he reigned su2)reme. He had a chair placed for him by the chimney in winter, and near the balcony in summer ; where, says his biographer, he pronounced, e.v cathedra, his opinions upon new jiublications, and in general upon all matters of doubtful criticism. Latterly, all who had occasion to ridicule and attack him, represent him as presiding in this little senate. His opinions, however, were not maintained with dogmatism, but he listened to criticism, provided it was just, from whatever unexpected and undignified quarter it happened to come. In general, however, it may be suj^posed that few ventured to dispute his opinion, or to place themselves in the gap between liim and the object of his censure. Dryd'^n's house, which he appears to have resided in from the DRTDEN. 79 period of his luarriage till his death, was, as I h-ave said, in Gerrard- street : the fifth on the left hand, coming from Little Newport-street, now No. 43. The back windows looked upon the gardens of Lei- cester House, of which circumstance the poet availed himself to pay a handsome compliment to the noble owner. His excursions to the country seem to have been frequent ; perhaps the more so, as Lady Elizabeth always remained in town. In his latter days, the friend- ship of his relations, John Dryden, of Chesterton, and Mrs. Steward, of Cotterstock, rendered their houses agreeable places of abode to the aged jjoet. They appear also to have had a kind solicitude about his little comforts, of value infinitely beyond the contributions they made towards aiding him. The principal traits of his domestic life have been collected together by Malone. From these, and from the pen of Congreve, we learn that he was, in youth, of handsome form and agreeable counte- nance ; modest in his manner, reluctant to intrude himself on the notice and company of others, easily chilled and rebuffed by anything like a distant behaviour. He is described as most amiable and affectionate in his family, generous beyond his means, and most forgiving of injuries ; all noble traits of character. Malone related, on the authoi-ity of Lady Diyden, that at that time the poet's little estate at Blakesley was occupied by one Harriots, grandson of the tenant who held it in Dryden's time, who .stated that his grandfather used to take great pleasure in talking of him. He was, he said, the easiest and the kindest landlord in the world ; and never raised the rent during the whole time he possessed the estate. The two most unfortunate circumstances in his life, next to his marriage, were his going over from Puritanism to Popery, and from the liberal opinions of his family to the adherence to the worst of kings. For these changes it would be difficult to assign any better motive than that of mending his fortunes. But if this were the case, he was bitterly punished for it in both instances. The monarchs that he flattered were Stuarts, and the last of them being driven out, left him to encounter all the scorn, the sarcasms, and sacrifices that were sure to come against him with the Dutch monarch of 1688. He was, instead of gaining more from royalty by his change, deprived of that which he had — the laureateship and office of historiographer ; and saw them conferred, with 300/. a year, on his unworthy rival, Shadwell. The change of his religion was equally unpropitious. His sons became more connected with Rome than England. Charles, the eldest, was Chamberlain of the household of Pope Innocent XII ; but having suffered by a fall from a horse, he returned to England, and was drowned in attempting to swim across the Thames at Datchett, near Windsor, in August, 1704. The second son, John, also went to Rome, and acted as the deputy of Charles, in the Pope's household ; he died at Rome. Both of these sons were poetical, and published. Erasmus-Henry, the third son, went also to Rome, and became a captain in the Pope's guards. He afterwards returned to England, and succeeded to the family title of Baronet, but not to the jstate of Canons-Ashby, where he, however, continued to I'.ve with 80 DRYDEN. the proprietor, Edward Drydeu, his cousin, till his death in 1710 Thus terminated the race of the gi'eat satiric poet. In the county of Northampton there are various places connected with Dryden. He was of the old family of the Drydens or Dridens of Cauons-Ashby, which family still remained there at the time of my visit. The poet was born at the parsonage-house of Aldwinkle All-Saints. His father was Erasmus Dryden, and his mother Mary Pickei'ing, the daughter of the rector of Aldwinkle, a sou of the well-known Sir Gilbert Pickering, a zealous puritan. It aj^pears that oitr author's father lived at Tichmarsh, and that his son was born under his grandfather's roof. At Tichmarsh, accordingly, we find Dryden receiving his first education, whence he proceeded to West- minster, and studied under Dr. Busby, and thence to Cambridge. Scott says — " If we can believe an ancient tradition, the poem »f 'The Hind and Panther' was chiefly comj^osed in a country retirement, at Rushton in .N'orthamptonshire. There was an em- bowered walk at this place, which, from the pleasure which the poet took in it, retained the name of Dryden's Walk ; and here was erected, about the middle of the last century, an urn, with the following inscription : ' In memory of Dryden, who frequented these shades, and is here said to have composed his poem of ' The Hind and Panther.' " This spot was, no doubt, the old house and park of the Treshams ; that old, zealous Catholic family, of which one member, Sir Francis Tresham, played so conspicuous a part in the Gunpowder Plot. This Sir Francis Tresham had been actively engaged in the affair of the Earl of Essex, and his head had only been rescued from the block by his father bribing a r/reaf ladij, and some people about the court, with several thousand pounds. This business was so closely veiled, that for some time the direct proofs of Tresham's connexion with the business escaped the hands of the historians. The late examina- tions into the treasures of the State Paper Office, have, however, made this fact, like so many others, clear. Long ago, also, original documents, fully proving it, fell into the hands of Mr. Baker, the excellent historian of Northamptonshire, including an admirable love-letter by this Sir Francis ; who, notwithstanding his narrow escape, again rushed into the Gunpowder treason, being a near rela- tion of Catesby, the prime actor in it. The movements of Tresham in the matter have all the character of those of an actor in some strange romance. From the moment that he was admitted to the secret, Catesby was struck with inward terror and misgivings. Tresham augmented this alarm, by beginning soon to jjlead warmly for warning the Lords Stourton and Mounteagle, who had married his sisters. A few days after, he suddenly came upon Catesby, Winter, and Fawkes, in Enfield Chase, and reiterated his entreaty. They refused ; and then, on the 26th of October, as Lord Mounteagle was sitting at supper, at an old seat of his at Hoxton, which he seldom visited, and to which he had now come suddenly, a letter was brought Jn by his page, saying, he had received it from a tall man, whose face lie could not discern in the dark, and who went hastily away, Tlio CRTDEN. 81 letter was tossed carelessly by Mounteagle to a geutleman iu hia service, who read it aloud- It was the very warning which Tresham wished so earnestly to convey to him. Mounteagle, iu astonishment, carried the letter to Cecil the next morning, and thus the secret of the impending catastrophe was out. Once more Catesby and Winter appointed a meeting with Tresham in Enfield Chase. Their purpose was to charge him with the warning of Mounteagle, and if he were found guilty, to stab him to the heart on the spot. But while they told him what had been done, they fixed their eyes searchingly on his countenance ; all was clear and firm ; not a muscle moved, not a tone faltered ; he swore solemn oaths that he was ignorant of the letter, and they let him go. This man, when part of the conspirators were arrested, remained at large ; while others fled, he hastened to the Council to offer his services in apprehending the rebels. Finally, Arrested and conveyed to the Tower himself, there, under torture, he implicated the Jesuits, Garnet and Greenway, in some treason in Queen Elizabeth's time, then retracted the confession, and died in Agony, as the Catholics believed of poison. Such was the career and end of this strange man. The family estate passed away into the hands of the Cockaynes, and is now the property of Mr. Hope. Could there be a more inspiring solitude for the composition of a poem, the object of which was to smooth the way for the return of Cathohc ascendancy, and that by a poet warm with the first fires of a proselyte zeal ? Amongst other places of Dryden's occasional sojourn, may be mentioned Charlton, in Wiltshire, the seat of his wife's father, the Earl of Berkshire, whence he dates the introduction to his Annus Mirabilis ; and Chesterton, in Huntingdonshire, the seat of his kinsman, John Driden, where he translated part of Virgil. In the country he delighted in the pastime of fishing, and used, says Malone, to spend some time with Mi-. Jones, of Ramsden, in Wilt- shire. Di;rfey was sometimes of this party; but Dryden appears to have underrated his skill in fishing, as much as his attempt at poetry. Hence Fenton, in his Epistle to Lambard : — " By long experience, Durfey may, no doubt, Ensnare a gudgeon, or sometimes a trout ; Yet Dryden once exclaimed in partial spite, ' We fish r — because the man attempts to write." And finally, Canons-Asliby connects itself inevitably with his name. It was the ancient patrimony of the family. It was not his father's, it was not his, or his son's, though the title generally connected with it fell to his son, and there his son lived and died ; yet, as the place which gives name and status to the line, it will always maintain an association with the memory of the poet. These are the particulars respecting it collected by Mr. Bakei*. The mansion of the Drydens, seated in a small deer park, is a singular building of different periods. The oldest part, as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, or pcrha])S earlier, is built round a small quadrangle. There is a dining-room in the house thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, which '\H said to be entirely flooi'cd and wainscoted with tlie timl^er of 82 DRYDEN. one single oak, ■which grew in this lordship. In this roota are various portraits of persons of and connected with the family. The drawing- I'oom is traditionally supposed to have been fitted up for the recep- tion of Anne of Denmark, queen of James I. The estate is good, but not so large as formerly, owing to the Etrange condvict of the late Lady Dryden, who cut oft' her own children, three sons and two daughters, leaving the whole ancient patrimonial property from them to the son of her lawyer, the lawyer himself refusing to have it, or make such a will. The estate here was, it appears, regained, but only by the sacrifice of one in Lincolnshire. Such are the strange events in the annals of families which local historians rarely record. How little could this lady comprehend the honour lying in the name of Dryden ; how much less the nature and duties of a mother ! The monument of the poet in Westminster Abbey is familiar to the public, placed there by SheflSeld, Duke of Buckingham, bearing only a single word, the illustrious name of — Dryden. JOSEPH ADDIS0^7. Addison was a fortunate man ; the houses in which he lived testify it. His fame as a poet, though considerable in his own time, has now dwindled to a point which would not warrant us to include him in this work, were not his reputation altogether of that kind which inseparably binds him up with the poetical history of his country. lie was not only a popular poet in his own day, but he was the friend and advocate of true poetry wherever it could be found. It was he who, in the Spectator, first sounded boldly and zealously abroad the glory of John Milton. In our time the revival of true poetry, the return to nature and to truth, have been greatly indebted to the old ballad poetry of the nation. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southcy, Scott, and others, attribute the formation of their taste in the highest degree to the reading of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. But it was Addison who long before had pointed out these sources, and these effects. It was he who brought forward again the brave old ballad of Chevy Chace ; who reminded us that Sir Philip Sidney liad said that it always stirred his heart like the sound of a tnmipet. It was he who showed us the inimitable touches of nature and of 84 ADDISON. true pathos in it, and how aUve was the old bard who comjjosed it to all the influences of nature and of circumstances. Equally did he vindicate and commend to our hearts the sweet ballad of the Babes in the Wood, and others of the true school of nature and feeling. Who shall say that it was not owing to these criticisms that Bishop Percy himself was led to the study and the collection of the precious relics of former ages, that lay scattered about amongst the people ? The services of Addison to the poetry of England are far greater through what he i-ecommended than what he composed ; and the man who, more than all others, contributed to make periodical literature what it has become, and gave us, moi"e- over, Sir Roger de Coverley, and the spirit of true old English life which surrounds him, with all those noble papers in which reli- gion and philosophy so beautifully blend in the Spectator, must ever remain enshrined in the most grateful remembrance of his countrymen. Addison, I have said, was a fortunate man. It is well for us that he was in that one case so fortunate. It was the service that his pen could render to the government of .the time, that raised him from thp o,ondition of a poor clergyman's son, to a minister of state, and thus gave him afterwards leisure to pursue those beautiful aesthetic speculations which have had so decided and so permanent an influence on our literature and modes of thinking. Addison had his faults, and was not without those thorns in the fiide which few escape in their progi-ess through the wilderness of the world ; but so far as we are concerned, we owe to him nothing but love and admiration. Thus much said, we must, in this brief article, leave all the details of his life and progress, of his travels, and his literary contests and achievements, as matters well known, and confine oxu'selves to a survey of the abodes in which he lived. He wafj born at the parsonage of Milston, in Wiltshire, a humble dwelling, of which a view may be seen in Miss Aiken's life of him ; his father being then incumbent of the parish. He was sent to schools at Shrewsbury and Lichfield, and then to the Charterhouse, where he formed that acquaintance with Richard Steele, which re- sulted in such lasting consequences to literature. Thence he went to Oxford, where he continued till the age of five-and-twenty, when, finding that, notwithstanding his fellowship and the resource of his pupils, he was so for from realizing a livelihood, that he was greatly in debt, he gave up all thought of taking orders, and devoted himself to public business. Fully to qualify himself for this, he applied to Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, with whose friendship he was already honoured, as well as with that of Lord Somers, and procured from government a pension of 300/. a-year, to enable him to make the circle of Euroi^ean travel, and acquaint himself with the real condition of those countries with which every English statesman must come into continual practical contact. He first went over to France, saw Paris, and then settled down at Blois, to make himself master of the language. He continued nearly a year and a half at ADDISON. 8C Blois ; and it was to his intense study during this time that he owed his great knowledge of French hterature. He then sailed from ]\Iar- seilles for Italy. " It was in December, 1700," says Miss Aiken, "that he embarked at Marseilles for Genoa, whence he proceeded through Milan, Venice, Eavenna, and Loretto, to Eome; thence to Naples by sea, and proceeded, by Florence, Bologna, and Turin, to Geneva ; where he arrived exactly one year from his quitting Marseilles, and two and a half after his departure from England." At Geneva he was met by the news of the death of King William. This was followed by the dismissal of the Whigs from office, the consequent loss of his pension, and the blasting of all his hopes of further advantage from them for the present. Instead, therefore, of attending on Prince Eugene, as secretary from the English king, as was appointed for him, he turned aside, on his own slender resources, to take a survey of Germany. After making a pleasant tour through the Swiss cantons, he descended into the plains of Germany, but found the inhabitants in arms, and full of apprehension of the Bavarian troops, and was advised not to trust himself in the territories of the Duke of Bavaria. He therefore lost all opportunity of seeing Munich, Augsburg, and Ratisbon, and was obliged to make his way through the Tyrol to Vienna. In Vienna he felt himself in great anxiety on account of money, and made his v,-ay back through Holland home. Before reaching it, he received a proposal to go on a second tour of Europe for three years, with the son of the Dv;ke of Somerset, but refused the Duke's offers. Soon after his return to England, he was engaged to write a poem on the victory of Blenheim, to serve the Whig cause, and produced The Campaign ; at the time, a most suc- cessful poem, but now chiefly remembered by the passage in which he represents Marlborough, like the angel of divine vengeance, riding on the whirlwind and directing the storm. From this period his advance was rapid, and we here leave him to the biographer, and restrict ourselves to our proper task. The change of circumstances, from the humble author to the minister, and the friend of ministers ; from the simple clergyman's son to the husband of a countess, and the step-father of an earl, cannot be more strikingly displayed than by the singular contrast of his abodes under these different characters. D'Israeli, in his Curi- osities of Literature, says that Pope, when taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, desired Harte to enter a little shop, when, going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Poj^e said, " In this gaiTet Addison wrote his Campaign." That was certainly somewhat different to Bilton and Holland-house. But between the garret in the Haymarket, and these princely houses, there were some connecting and ascending steps in residence. Addison was always anxious to get to a quiet retreat, amidst trees and greenness, where he could write. Such was afterwards his abode at Sandy-end, a hamlet of Fulham. Here he appears to have occupied apartments in a lodging-house established at this place ; whence several of the pub- lished letters of Steele are dated, written at times when he seems to have been the guest of Addison. From Sandy-end, too, are dated ,^6 ADDISOi;. some letters to Lord Warwick, his future step-son, then a hoy, ;ind very anxious to get news ahout birds and birds'-nests, which i\ddison most cordially gives him. He then went to Ireland as chief secretary to the Earl of Wharton, on his appointment to the TiOrd-Lieutenaucy, and resided for some time in that capacity in Dublin. After this, he removed to a lodging at Kensington, owing to his increasing intimacy at Holland-house, and was about this time a frequent guest at Northwick-park, with the first Lord North- wick, and there one of the best portraits of him, by Kneller, still remains. in 1716, he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick ; but five years before this, that is, in 171 1, he had made the purchase of Bilton, as a suitable residence for a person of his position in the state, and of that high connexion towards which he was already looking. Before, however, we indulge ourselves with a view of Addison at ]jilton, let us see the mode of his life in town, on the authority of Pope, Spence, and Johnson : — " Of the course of Addison's familiar day, before his marriage. Pope has given a detail. He had in the house with him Budgell, and perhaps Philips. His chief com- panions were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Brett. With one or other of these he always breakfasted. He studied ail morning ; then dined at a tavern ; and went afterwards to Button's. " Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family ; who, under the patronage of Addison, kept a coflfee-house on the north side of Eussell-street, about two doors from Covcut-garden. Here it was that the wits of that time used to assemble. It is said, when Addison had suffered any vexation from the countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. " From the coffee-house he went to a tavern, where he often sat late and drank too much wine. In the bottle, discontent seeks foi* comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence. It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours. He that feels ojjpression from the presence of those to whom he knows himself superior, will desire to set loose his ])o',vers of conversation ; and who, that ever asked succours from Bacchus, was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary ? " Among those friends it was that Addison displayed the elegance of his colloquial accomplishments, which may easily be supposed such as Pope represents them. The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his company, declared that he was a parson in a tie-wig, can detract little from his character ; he was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville." — Johmoiis Life of Addison. The statement made by Dr. Johnson, in his Lives of the Poets, and by Spence, that Addison's marriage, like that of Dryden, was not a happy one, has lately been strongly argued against by Misa ADDISON. 87 Aikin. One would glacUy be able to acquiesce in it, and if we could believe the painter as well as Miss Aikin, we should be inclined to believe the Countess of Warwick possessed both unusual sense and sweetness of temper. The current of tradition, however, runs strongly the other way ; and I fear we have not now sufficient strength of evidence to divert it. As little do I anticipate that Miss Aikin will prove Addison a veiy sober man ; the statements of his cotemporaries, and the voice of tradition, are against her. We must be content to take the man with his failings and his secret griefs, the foils to a great reputation and a great prosperity. Addison purchased the estate of Bilton for 10,000/., and the money was principally advanced by his brother, Gulston Addison, governor of Fort St. George, at Madras. Thither he conveyed his paintings, liis library, and his collection of medals, which, as connected with his Dialogues on ]\Iedals, was very valuable. Here it may be siip- posed that, during the five years previous to his marriage, he passed much of his leisure time. It was a beautiful retirement, well calcu- lated to dispose to thought, and worthy of the author of the Spec- tator. If we are to believe tradition, that he planted most of the trees now standing around it, he must ha^•e taken great i)leasure in its embellishment. On his death, he left it to his only child, Char- lotte Addison, who could not have been much more than two years old. Here she spent her long life, from the death of her mother, the countess, — dying in 1797, at about eighty yeats of age. Miss Addison — for she was never married — is said to have been of weak intellect ; a fact traced by many to the want of real and spiritual union be- tween her parents, — a supposition which the researches of our own times into the nature of man tend greatly to confirm. With the usual effect of aristocratic prejudice on a feeble mind, she is said to have been especially proud of her mother, but to have rarely men- tioned her father. Being left to the care and education of her mother, this does not very strongly corroborate the case which Miss Aikin labours to establish. It does not speak very eloquently for that true affection which she tells us the countess bore towards Addison, and which she endeavours to prove by his affection for her, as evidenced by his making her his sole executrix, and guardian of his child. By the fruits we must judge of the woman, as well as the tree : and the fruit of Lady Warwick's education of her child was, by all accounts, this, — that she left her ashamed of her fath-^r the commoner, though an immortal man, and proud of her mother, a countess — and nothing more. There arc many stories of the eccentricities and incre<\singi fatuity of poor Miss Addison, floating in the village and neigkcour hood of Bilton, which may as well die out with time. The disposal of her property marks the tendency of her feelings. Her grandfather, Dr. Lancelot Addison, was a native of Cumberland. There, at the time of Miss Addison making her will, still remained many near and poor relations, whom she entirely passed over, as she had done in her lifetime, and bequeathed Bilton to the Honourable John Bridgmau Simpson, brother to Lord Bridgman, whose representative is now Earl (;f Bradford. This gentleman she chose to consider her ncarefi 88 AUDISON. relation, because her mother's relation, though very near ln3 could not be. Her mother, the countess, was the daughter of Sir Thomas Middleton, of Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, by a daughter of Sir Orlando Bridgman ; so that this Mr. Bridgman Simpson, a relative of her grandmother, could not be a very near relative of her own, while she must have had first cousins of the paternal hue in plenty. Those relatives of her own name, and who would have handed down the property, bound up with the name of Addison, as a monument of their family fame, disputed her will, but ineffectually. She is buried in the chancel of the church. Soon after Miss Addison's death, the library was removed to London, and in May, 1799, was sold by auction for 456/. '2s. del., and Addison's collection of medals for 92/. 2s. 2d. The poet's screen, drinking cup, teapot, etc. are now in the possession of "William Ferdinand Wratislaw, Esq. of Rugby, the descendant of one of the most ancient femilies in Europe,— no other than the royal family of Bohemia, of which our " good Queen Ann," the wife of Eichard II., was a princess ; and of which— that is, of Mv. Wratislaw, of Rugby, the present head of the house— the young Count Adam Wratislaw, allied to Queen Victoria by his aunt the Princess of Leiningeu, is a near relative. They could not be in better hands. Since Miss Addison's death, the house at Bilton has been succes- sively occupied by Mrs. Brookes and Lliss Moore ; by Mr. Appcrley, the well-known Nimrod of sporting literature ; by Sir Charles Palmer, Bart. ; by the Vernon family ; by the Misses Boddington ; and lastly, by Mr. Simpson himself. Mr. Simpson has considerably improved the house, rebuilding the back part facing the garden ; but, on the other hand, he cut down a considerable part of a fine avenue of limes, stretching along one side of the garden down to a wood below, called Addison's AValk. This avenue is said to have been planted by Addison, and terminated in a clump of evergreens, where was an alcove, called Addison's Seat. It was not till about half this avenue was felled, that Mr. Simpson heard that it was Addison's AValk, and caused the destruction to stop. He was at the time of our visit a very ^ old man, and had not rasided at Bilton since the death of his wife. The house is, however, furnished ; and after reading Miss Aikin's state- ment, that " a small number of pictures collected by Addison, still, it is believed, remain in the house, which are mostly portraits of his contemporaries, and intrinsically of small value," how gi-eat was my delight and surprise, to find what and how many these paintings were ! But let us make a more regular approach to this gem of an old house, to the actual country seat of our " dear short-face," the Spectator. Issuing from Rugby, Bilton salutes you from the hill on the oppo- site side°of the valley which you have to cross in order to reach it. A lofty mass of trees, on a fine airy elevation ; a small grey church, with finely tapering spire in front of them, show you where Bilton lies ; but house or village you do not discern till you are close upon them. It was not till I had approached within a few hundred yards of Addison's house, or the Hall, as it is called, that I saw the cottaged ADDISON. 89 of the village strett.hing away to my right hand; aud a carriage-road diverging to my left towards the church, brought me within view of the house ; there it stood in the midst of the fine old trees. A villager informed me that no one hved there but the gardener, nor had done for years. The autumn had dyed all the trees with its rich and yet melancholy hues ; leaves strewed the ground in abundance ; and there was a feeling of solitude and desertion about the place which was by no means out of keeping, when I reflected that I was approaching the house of Addison, so long quitted by himself. A finu old avenue of hme-trees, winding with the carriage-drive, brought me to the front of the house. It is a true Elizabethan mansion, not too large for a poet, yet large enough for any country gentleman who is not overdone with his establishment. The front of the main portion is lofty, handsome, and in excellent repair. A projecting tower runs up from the porch to the roof Over the door is cut, in freestone, that masonic sign — the circle enclosing two interlaced triangles, indicating the degree of the royal arch ; and near the top is the date of 1623. On the right hand, a wing of lower buildings runs forward from the main erec'.ion, forming, as it were, one side of a court. These buildings turn their gables towards you, and are covered with ivy. On the left hand, but standing back in a stable- yard, are the out-buildings, seeming, however, to balance the whole fabric, and giving it an air of considerable extent. All round, adjoining the buildings and along the avenue, grow evergreens in tali and luxuriant masses. On the other side of the house lies the old garden, retaining all the characters of a past age. The centre consists of a Hue lawn : the upper part of which, near the house, has recently been laid out in fancy flower-beds, in the form of a star, and corner beds to make up the square. The rest appears as it might be when Addison left it. On the right, a square-cut holly hedge divides it from the fields, which are scattered with lofty trees, amongst which are foreign oaks, said to be raised from acorns brought home by the poet. To tho left, the garden is bounded by a still more massy square-clipped hedge of yew, opening halfway down into a large kitchen-garden, being at the .same time at the upper end an old Dutch flower-garden. At the far side of this garden, opposite to the entrance through the yew hedge, is an alcove, and down that side extends the hme avenue called Addison's Walk. At the bottom of this garden are fishponds, and in the field below, an oak wood. Thus, amidst lofty trees, some of them strong, old, and crooked, presenting a scene worthy of a picture by Claude Lorraine, you look down over the garden to rich fields descending into the country below. At the bottom right-hand corner is an alcove, shut in by a group of evergreen shrubs and pine- trees from the house, but overlooking tlie fields and woodlands, called Addison's Seat ; and a very pleasant seat it is, full of quiet retirement. Such is the exterior of Bilton. The interior of the main part of the house consists principally of two large rooms, a dining and drawing room. These extend quite through, arc lighted at each end, and the projection in front forms a sort of little cabinet in each 90 ADDISON. room. These two fiuc large rooms are hung round with the paintings placed here by Addison : whether they are few, and of no intrinsic value, will soon be seen. In the dining-room are, first, full-lengths of James I, by Mai-k Garrard ; Lord Crofts, Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, by Balthazar Gerbier ; the Duke of Hamilton, Henry Rich, Earl of Warwick, Prince Rupert, and Prince JMaurice, all by Vandyck ; Sir Thomas Middleton, the Countess of Warwick's father, by Sir Peter Lely ; and in the small division in front of the room, Chief Justice the Earl of Nottingham, by Michael Dahl ; Mr. Secretary Craggs, by Sir Godfrey KneUer, a man of fair complexion, and handsome, amiable countenance, in a light bright blue dress ; Sir John Vanburgb, by Verelst ; and Lord Halifax, by Kneller. These are chiefly three- quarter figures. On the staircase is one of the four well-known equestrian Charles tlie Firsts, by Vandyck, the horse by Stone, one of which is at Hampton Court, and another at Warwick Castle. Ojiposite to it is a full-length figure of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, by Mignard. In the drawing-room, a full-length figure of a lady, labelled as Lady Isabel Thynne, daughter of the Earl of Holland, behind which some artist had placed a paper, stating that at Knowle there is a precisely similar picture marked as Lady Frances Grenfield, daughter of the Earl of Middleton, and fifth Countess of Dorset ; as well as a copy of it, likewise, at Knowle. Next to this is a singular picture, which might be one of Lely's, but bears no name of the artist. Thei-e is an exact fac-simile of it at Penshurst. It contains two half-length figures of Lady Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, and Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester, two of the most flattered and remarkable women of the day, and the latter the mother of Algernon Sidney ; next is the Duke of Northumberland, their father, by Lely ; and full lengths of the unfortunate Arabella Stuart, a very pretty and interesting-looking woman, and Rich, Earl of Holland, by Vandyck. On the opposite side of the room is the Countess of Warwick, Addison's wife, by Kneller, in a bright blue dress. She is here rejjresented as decidedly handsome, having a high, broad forehead, dark hair falling in natural ringlets, and with a sweet expression of countenance. To her right is her son, Lord Warwick, as a boy of twelve or fourteen years old, also in a light-blue dress, and red scarf, by Dahl. On her left is a head of Lord Kensington, by Lely. A mother and daughter in two sej)arate pictures, sup^josed to be by Lei}' ; and the Earl of Warwick again as a boy. Within the small department of the room, we find a half-length of Addison himself, also in light blue, which seems the almost universal colour of Kneller's drapery. He appears here about forty years of age, his figure fuller, and the countenance more fleshy and less spiritual than in either of the portraits at Holland-house and Northwick. Besides this, there is another portrait of the Earl of Warwick, by Kneller, as a young man ; a head of Gustavus Adolphus, by Meirveldt ; and lastly of the heiress of the house, Miss Addison herself. She is here a child, nor is there any one of her of a later ADDISOy. 9l age. If this portrait "was done during Addison's life, it must have been represented as older than she really was ; she could not be much more than two, and here she appears at least five years of age. It is a full-length. The child stands by a table, on which is a basket of flowers, and she holds a pink flower in her hand against her bosom. She has the air of an intelhgent child, and, as usual, wears one of Kneller's light-blue draperies, with a lace-bordered apron, and stomacher of the same. Such are the paintings at Bilton. They include a most interesting group of the friends and contemporaries of Addison, besides others. It is a rare circumstance that they have been permitted to remain there, when his library and his medals have been dispfersed. Alto- gether Bilton is one of the most satisfactory specimens of the home.* and haunts of our departed literary men. Of Holland-house, the last residence of Addison, it would require a long article to give a fitting idea. This fine old mansion is full of historic associations. It takes its name from Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, whose portrait is in Bilton. It was built by his father-in- law. Sir Walter Cope, in 1607, and affords a very good specimen of the architecture of that period. The general form is that of a half H. The projection in the centre, forming at once porch and tower, and the two wings supported on pillars, give great decision of effect to it. The stone quoins vv'orked with a sort of arabesque figure, remind one of the style of some portions of Heidelberg Castle, which is what is called on the Continent roccoco. Here it is deemed Elizabethan ; but the plain buildings attached on each side to the main body of the house, with their shingled and steep-roofed towers, have a very picturesque and Bohemian look. Altogether it is a charming old pile, and the interior corresponds beautifully with the exterior. There is a fine entrance hall, a libi-ary behind it, and another library extending the whole length of one of the wings and the house upstairs, one hundred and five feet in length. The drawing- room over the entrance hall, called the Gilt-room, extends from front to back of the house, and commands views of the gardens both ways ; those to the back are very beautiful. In the house are, of course, many interesting and valuable works of art ; a great portion of them memorials of the distinguished men who have been accustomed to resort thither. In one room is a por- trait of Charles James Fox, as a child, in a light-blue dress, and with a close, reddish woollen cap on his head, under which show lace edges. The artist is unknown, but is supposed to be French. The countenance is full of life and intelligence, and the " child " in it is, most remarkably, " the father of the man." The likeness is won- derful. You can imagine how, by time and circumstance, that child's countenance expanded into what it became in maturity. There is also a portrait of Addison, which belonged to his daughter. It represents him as much younger than any other that I have seen. In the Gilt-room are marble busts of George IV. and William IV. On the staircase is a bust of Lord Holland, father of the second earl and of Charles Fox, by Xollekens. This bust, which is massy, and E 92 ADDISON. full of power and expression, is said to have broughb NoIIekena into his'great repute. The likeness to that of Charles Fox is very striking. By the same artist there are also the busts of Charlea Fox, the late Lord Holland, and the present earl. That of Frere, by Chantrey, is very spirited. There are also, here, portraits of Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Eussell, and famity portraits. There is also a large and very curious painting of a fair, by Callot, and an Italian print of it. In the library, down stairs, are portraits of Charles James Fox — a very fine one ; of the late Lord Holland ; of Talleyrand, by Ary Scheffer, perhaps the best m existence, and the only one which lie said that he ever sat for ; of Sir Samuel Romilly ; Sir James ^raekintosh ; Lord Erskine, by Sir Thomas Lawrence ; Tierney ; Francis Horner, by Eaeburn, so like Sir Walter Scott by the same artist, that I at first supposed it to be him ; Lord Macartney, by Phillips ; Frere, by Shee ; Mone, Lord Thanet ; Archibald Hamilton; late Lord Darnley ; late Lord King, when young, by Hoppner ; and a very sweet foreign fancy portrait of the present Lady Holland. We miss, however, from this haunt of genius, the portraits of Byron, Brougham, Crabbe, Blanco White, Hallam, Eogers, Lord Jeffrey, and others. In the left wing is placed the colossal, model of the statue of Charles Fox, which stands in Bloomsbury-square. In the gardens are various memorials of distinguished men. Amongst several very fine cedars, perhaps the finest is said to have been planted by Charles Fox. In the quaint old garden is an alcove, in which are the following lines, placed there by the late carl — " Here Rogers sat — and here for ever dwell With me, those pleasures ^rhich he sang so well." Beneath these are framed and glazed a copy of verses in honour of the same poet, by Mr. Luttrell. There is also in the same garden, and opposite this alcove, a bronze bust of Najwleon, on a granite pillar, with a Greek inscription from the Odyssey, admirably apply- ing the situation of Ulysses to that of Napoleon at St. Helena — " In a far-distant isle he remains under the harsh surveillance of base men." The fine avenue leading down from the house to the Kensington- road, is remarkable for having often been the walking and talking- place of Cromwell and General Lambert. Lambert then occu- pied Holland-house ; and Cromwell, who lived at the next house, when he came to converse with him on state affairs, had to speak very loud to him, because he was deaf. To avoid being overheard, they used to walk in this avenue. The traditions regarding Addison here are very slight. They are, simply, that he used to walk, when composing his Sj)ectators, in the long library, then a picture-gallery, with a bottle of wine at each end, which he visited as he alternately arrived at them ; and that the room in which he died, though not positively known, is sup- jiosedto be the present dining-room, being then the state bed-room. The young Earl of Warwick, to whom he there addressed the ADDISON. 93 emphatic words — "See in what peace a Christian can die!" died also, himself, in 1721, but two years afterwards. The estate then devolved to Lord Kensington, descended from Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, who sold it, about 1762, to the Right Honourable Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland. Here the early days of the great statesman, Charles James, were passed ; and here lived the late patriotic translator of Lope de Vega, amid the society of the first spirits of the age. It has been rumoured that the present amiable and intelligent possessor, his son, contemplated pulling down this venerable and remarkable mansion. Such a thought never did, and never could, for a moment enter his mind, which feels too proudly the honours of intellect and taste, far above all mere rank, which there surround his name and family. ^•5S^*^^^ztaJ ALEXANDER POPE. PoPK, who was bom in Loudon, spent nearly the whole of his life between Binfield, in Windsor Forest, and Twickenham. They were his only two constant residences ; the time which he passed in London, he passed but as a visitor, or lodger. Town poet, or poet of society, as he seems, he was inseparabl;y attached to the country, though it was the country of an easily-accessible vicinity to town, and itself pretty thickly inhabited by people of rank and intelligence. Trom the time that his father purchased the property at Binfield, with the exception of a short time at school at Twyford, near Win- chester, and at another school in Marylebone, which was removed while he was there to Hyde Park Corner, Pope never quitted Binfield as a residence, till he bought Twickenham. He went soon after his twelfth year from school, and he continued to reside at Binfield till 1716, when he was twenty-eight years of age ; and singularly enough, he lived at Twickenham twenty-eight years more, dying in May, 1744, at the age of fifty-six. As is the case of many other people, who, with all their philo- sophy, are not content to rest their claims to distinction on their own virtues and achievements, there was an attempt on the part of Pope to hang his family on an aristocratic peg ; and, as was to be POPE. 95 expected in the case of a man who did not spare his enemies!, and who wrote Dunciads, there was as stout an attempt to pull this peg out. In his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, he makes this claun for hia parentage : — " Of fjentle blood, part shed in lionour's cause, Whilst jet in Britain honour had applause, Each parent sprang." And in a note to that Epistle we are further informed, " that Mr. Pope's father was a gentleman of family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole heiress married the Earl of Lindsay. His mother was the daughter of William Turnor, of York," &c. In reply to this, Warton tells us that when Pope i^ublished this note, a relation of his own, a Mr. Pottinger, observed that his cousin. Pope, had made himself out a fine pedigree, but he wondered where he got it ; that he had never heard anything himself of their being related to the Earls of Downe ; and, what was more, he had an old maiden aunt, equally related, a great genealogist, who was always talking of her family, but never mentioned this circumstance, on which she certainly would not have been silent, had she known any- thing of it. That the Earl of Guildford had examined the pedigree and descents of the Downe family, for any such relationship ; and that at the Heralds' Office, this pedigree, which Pope had made out for himself, was considered to be as much fabricated as Mr. Ireland's tlescent from Shakspeare. This was one of Pope's weaknesses. No man did more than he did, in his day, to free Uterature from the long degradation of servile, fulsome dependence on patrons. He created a property for himself by his own literary exertions, and set a splendid example to literary men of independence. He showed them that they might be free, honourable, and even wealthy, by their o^vn means. He had the l)ride to place himself on equal terms with lords, when they were intellectual, but he scorned to flatter them. It was a pride worthy (jf a literary man, and it was well that when he departed from this just feeling, and would fain set up a claim to rank with them on their own terms of ftimily and descent — a proceeding which under- mined his true and unassailable principle of the dignity of genius — that he should receive a due reprimand from the hands of his enemies. The moment that he abandoned in any degree the patent of God, the long and luminous descent of genius from heaven, — a patent far above all other patents, a descent far higher than all other descents, — it was a fitting retribution that the pigmies of the Dunciad should fling it in his face that his father was a mechanic, — a hatter, or a cobbler, — as it appears that they did, from his reply to Lord Ilervey and Lady Mary Wortlej' Alontagu, who themselves had thus addressed him in print : — -None thy crabbed numbers can endure, Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.' Tho simple fact was, that Pope's grandfather, the highest they rould trace the family, was a clergyman in Hampshire. The second «on was Alexander, the father of the poet. This Alexander waa 96 r-oPE. intended for mercantile offices, and was sent out to reside in a family in Lisbon, where he embraced Catholicism, and transmitted that faith to his son. He afterwards settled in Lombard-street, in London, as a linen-merchant, where Pope was born ; and, acquiring an inde- pendence, retired first to Kensington, and afterwards to Binfield, where he purchased a house, and about twenty acres of land. This was pedigree enough for a poet, who needs none. In a truer tone, he pronounces the genuine honours of both his parents and himself in these words : — " A mother, on whom I never was obliged so far to reflect, as to say, slie spoiled me; and a father, who never found himself obliged to say, that he disapproved my conduct. In a word, 1 think it enough that my parents, such as they were, never cost me a blush ; and that their son, such as he is, never cost them a tear." Improving on this, in his prologue to his Satires, he disclaims any adventitious distinctions from his parents whatever, and draws a beautiful character of his father : — " Born to no pride, inlieritin;;: no strife, Nor niarryins discord in a noble wife ; Stranger to civil and religious rage, The good man walked innoxious through his age ; No courts he saw, no suits would ever try. Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie. Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art , No language but the language of the heart ; By nature honest, by experience wise, Healthy by temperance and by exercise ; His life, though long, to sickness pass'd unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan." From these parents, however. Pope inherited a feeble and crooked frame. This circumstance, added to his being the only child of his father, led to his domestic education and habits. When eight years old, he was placed under the tuition of the family priest. From him he passed to the schools mentioned, and at the early age of twelve returned home. This, he says, was all the instruction he received. He continued, however, to educate himself; and, as Milton had done in Buckinghamshire, so he at Binfield, and in the shades of Windsor Forest, pursued steadily his studies, both of books and nature. One of his earliest favourite books was Homer ; and at Twyford school he wrote a satire on the master, for which he was severely castigated. Both these facts indicated his future character and pursuits. At Binfield, he not only went on strenuously with the study of Latin, Greek, and French, but he commenced author. At twelve, he wrote his Ode to Solitude, a subject with which his situation made him well acquainted. Pope was one of the very rare instances of a genius which was at once precocious and enduring. But the secret of this was, that he did not exhaust his young powers out of mere puerile vanity, but went on reading all the best authors, English, French, Italian, Greek, and Latin, and wrote rather to imitate and j)ractise diffei'ent styles. To his sedulous practice of all kinds of styles, as those of Spenser, Waller, Cowley, Rochester, Dorset, but especially Chaucer and Dryden, may bo attributed that great mastery of language, and that exquisite harmony of versifi- cation, in which he has never yet been excelled. POPE. 97 A great advantage to him in these pursuits was the friendship of Sir Wilham Trumbull, who was not only an excellent scholar, but a man of great taste, and had seen the world. Sir William had been ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, and afterwards one of the secretaries of William III ; he had now retired to East Hamstead, his native place, near Binfield, where he soon found out the promise of Pope, and became his guide and friend so long as he lived. Sir William introduced him to Wycherley, then an old man ; Wycherley introduced him to Walsh ; and the hterary connexions of the young poet spread so rapidly, that at seventeen he was an avovv'ed poet, and frequented Will's coffee-house, which was on the north side of Russell-street, in Covent-garden, where the wits of the time used to assemble ; and where Dryden had, when he lived, been accustomed to preside. But even while giving his evenings to society of the Aighest kind here, he was, diu-ing the day, pursuing his studies in town, and particularly prosecuting, under good masters, his know- ledge of French and Italian. Neither, freely as he had written, had he rushed so very prematurely into print ; it was not till 1709, when he was twenty-one, that he published his Pastorals, including some verses of Homer and Chaucer, in Jacob Tonson's Miscellany. This Miscellany seemed to be the great periodical of the time ; but the same year in which Pope's contributions appeared in it, brought forth the Tatler, which was succeeded by the Guardian and Spectator. In 1711, Pope published his Essay on Criticism : this was soon followed by the Eape of the Lock ; and Pope, still only twenty- three, was at once on the pinnacle of popularity. In 1715, or at the age of twenty-seven, he had already proceeded boldly with his grand tuterpi-ise, the translation of the Iliad of Homer, and had issued the first volume. This great work, however, had been preceded by the Windsor Forest, in 1712, and other detached poems, as his Ode on St. Ceciha's Day, in 1713 ; and his Temple of Fame, in 1714. Long before his Homer was out, he numbered amongst his acquaint- ance and friends every great and distinguished name of the time — Swift, Bohngbroke, Gay, Addison, Steele, Congreve, Mr. Secretary Craggs, Lord Halifax, Prior, Mallet, Arbuthnot, Parnell, Lord Oxford, (jarth, Eowe, Lady i\Iary Wortley Montagu, &c. All this Pope had accomplished by the age of twenty-seven, and while at Binfield. Binfield will, therefore, always remain a place of Lively interest to the lovers of our national literature, and especially to the admirers of the polished, acute, logical, and moral intellect of Pope. Binfield lies near Wokingham, and about two miles north of Ctfisar's camp, a pleasant village, surrounded with handsome houses, and in the midst of the tract called the Royal Hunt. The house in which Pope's father, and Pope too, resided, till he went to Twicken- ham, is a small neat brick house, on the side of the London road. Within about half a mile of this house, and within a retired part of the forest, on the edge of a common, is the spot where, it is said, i-*ope used to compose many of his verses ; on a large tree were iuscribod in capital letters the words, Here Fope saur/ : this sentence 98 POPE. used to be annually refreshed at the expense of a lady of Wokingham, There used to be a seat under this tree, but that has long disappeared ; the fact is, however, that tradition likes to fix on some particular spot, and especially some tree, as a particular object of a poet's attachment ; it is a palpable afi'air, and satisfies the ordinary mind : but Poi)e, no doubt, especially when planning and working out his poem of Windsor Forest, used to ramble through these scenes, and they may all be considered as associated with his memory and genius. Of the town life of Pope we find but few traces, considering the well-known times and the personages amongst whom he moved. Where his settled lodgings were I find no exact mention ; he was sometimes at friends' houses, or at that of Jervas, the painter, which was probably near St. James's Park ; as when Mr. Blount writes to Pope, in 1716, endeavouring to persuade him to make a journey to the continent with him, he exhorts him to leave " laziness and the elms of St. James's Park." Now, this summer Jervas was on a visit to Swift in Ireland, and dui'ing his absence Pope made use of his house as his town sojourn ; it was exactly at the crisis of Pope's removal from Binfield to Twickenham, and no doubt was a great convenience to him till his own house was fully ready for him. His description of this house, in a letter to Jervas, will be well remem- bered by the readers of his letters : — " As to your inquiry about your house, when I came within the walls, they put me in mind of those of Carthage, where you find, hke the wandering Trojan — • Aniraum pictura pascit inani ;' for the spacious mansion, like a Turkish caravanserai, entertains the vagabonds with bare lodgings, I rule the family very ill, keep bad hours, and lend out your pictures about the town. See what it is to have a poet in your house, Frank, indeed, does all he can in such circumstances ; for, considering he has a wild beast in it, he con- stantly keeps the door chained : every time it is opened, the links rattle, the rusty hinges roar. The house seems so sensible that you are all its support, that it is ready to drop in your absence ; but I still trust myself under its roof, as depending that Providence will preserve so many Raphaels, Titians, and Guidos as are lodged in your cabinet. Surely the sins of one poet can hardly be so heavy as to bring an old house over the heads of so many painters. In a word, your house is falling ; but what of that ? I am only a lodger ! " This was mere pleasant badinage. During Jervas's absence, Pope made a journey on horseback to Oxford, a place he was fond of visit- ing ; and the account of his journey and mode of passing his time there, given in a letter to Martha Blount, is a pleasant near peep into his life. " Nothing could have more of that melancholy which once used to please me than my last day's journey; for, after having passed through my favourite woods in the forest, with a thousand reveries of past pleasures, I rode over hanging hills, whose tops were edged with groves, and whose feet watered with winding Tivers, listening to the falls of cataracts below, and the murmuring of tho winds above. The gloomy verdure of Stonor succeeded to these, roPE. 09 and then the shades of the evening overtook me : the moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whose solemn light I passed on slowly without company, or any interruption to the range of my thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford, all the bells rang out in dif- ferent notes ; the clocks of every college answered one another, and sounded forth, some in deeper, some in softer tones, that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I havo since led among these old walls, memorable galleries, stone porticos, students' walks, and solitary scenes of the University. I wanted nothing but a black gown and a salary to be as mere a bookworm as any there. I conformed myself to college hours, was rolled up in books, lay in the most dusky parts of the University, and was as dead to the world as any hermit of the desert. If anything was alive or awake in me it was a little vanity, such as even those good men used to entertain, when the monks of their own order extolled their piety and abstraction ; for I found myself received with a sort of respect which the idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own species ; who are as considerable here as the busy, the gay, and the ambitious are in your world. Indeed, I was treated in such a manner, that I could not but sometimes ask myself in my mind, what college I was founder of, or what library I had built. Methinks, I do very ill to return to the world again ; to leave the only place where I make a figui-e ; and from seeing myself seated with dignity on the most conspicuous shelves of a library, put myself into the abject posture of lying at a lady's feet in St. James's Square." There is a good deal of the poetical and picturesque in this account, as in another, of a ride to Oxford about two years before, there is of the picturesque and ludicrous. Pope and his contemporaries, Swift, Addison, and Steele, have made immortal the triad of great publishers of their day — Tonson, Lintot, and Curll. Curll issued to the light a stolen volume of Pope's letters, to the poet's astonishment ; and, on Pope's very natural anger, Avith very bibliopolical coolness, replied that Mr. Pope ought to be very much obliged to him for making them known, for they did him so much credit. Jacob Tonson was the John Murray of his day ; he turned out the most splendid editions of standard works, and was, moreover, the secretary of the great political Whig, or Kit-cat club, of which the dukes of Somerset, Richmond, Grafton, Devonshire, and Marlborough ; the earls of Dorset, Sunderland, Manchester, Wharton, and King.ston ; lords Halifax and Somers ; Sir Pilchard Steele, Addison. Congreve, Garth, Mainwaring, Pulteney, and many other distinguished men, were members. These, such was the munificence of the great bibliopole, he employed Sir Godfrey Kneller to paint for him, of a size to admit of representing the heads, and which has since been called the kit- cat size. Munificent, however, as he was, Lintot soon out-bid him for Pope's Homer, and made his fortune by it. Of Lintot's active schemes to turn a penny, tlic ride just mentioned to Oxford affords a curious example. Pope had borrowed a horse ot Lord Bm'lington, and set out alone. He had mo.st likely mentioned his going in Lintot's shojj, for lie hud but just entered AVindsor j: -1 100 POPE. Forest, wheu who sliuukl come trotting up bcliiud at a smart rato but Bernard Lintot. Pope had au instant feeling of Lintot's design, and in a letter to Lord Burlington gave a humorous and characteristic account of the singular conversation which took place between them. Pope had observed that Lintot, who was more accustomed to get astride of authors than of horses, sat uneasily in his saddle, for which he expressed some solicitude, when Lintot proposed that, as they had the day before them, it would be pleasant to sit awhile under the woods. When they had alighted, " See here," said Lintot, " what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket ! What if you amused yourself in turning an ode till we mount again ? Lord ! if you pleased, what a clever miscellany you might make at leisure hours." " Perhaps I may," said Pope, " if we ride on ; the motion is an aid to my fancy ; a round trot very much awakens my spirits ; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can." Silence ensued for a full hour, after which Lintot stopped short, and broke out — " Well, Sir, how far have you gone 1 " — " Seven miles," answered Pope. " Zounds ! sii'," exclaimed Lintot, " I thought you had done seven stanzas. Oldsworth in a ramble round Wimbledon Hill would translate a whole ode in this time. I'll say that for Oldsworth, though I lost by his Timothys, he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remember Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not speak ; and there is Sir Eichard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between Fleet-street and St. Giles's Pound, shall make you half a Job." Pope jogged on to Oxford, and dropped Lintot as soon as he could. We may imagine Pope, during his occasional visits to London, looking in at Lintot's to see what was coming out new, or spending a morning with Swift at his lodgings ; with Bolingbroke ; or with Gay, at the Duke of Queensbury's ; with Lord Burlington, or Lord Halifax ; and in the evening meeting in full conclave all the wits and philosophers of the time, at Will's coftee-house, or at Button's, to which some of the company which used to meet at Will's had been transferred by the influence of Addison. This was also called the Hanover club, because the members adhered to the Whig principles and the house of Hanover. But Pope was equally welcome at the Tory club, which had been constituted by his great friends, Boling- broke and Harley, on the downfall of the Whigs at the peace of Utrecht, in opposition to the Kit-cat club, and where these noblemen, their great champio)/ Swift, Sir William Wyndham, Lord Bathurst, Dr. Arbuthnot, and other men of note of that party assembled. This was called the October club, from the month in which the great alteration in the ministry took place. Later, when the dissensions arose between Harley and Bolingbroke, a more exclusive literary club was formed, of which Swift, Gay, Parnell, and Arbuthnot were members. This was the Scriblerus club, amidst whose convivialities originated the history of Martinus Scriblerus, the Discourse on the Bathos, and Gulliver's Travels. At all these places. Pope, who having friends of all parties would uot commit liiinself to any political party, was always welcome, POPE. 101 though the casual iuflueuce of party did not fail to take its effect, and do the work of estrangement amongst many of the leading spirits of the time. Pope always professed to hold Whig principles, but in fact there was little distinction of political principle at that period ; the chief difference was the difference of mere party. To the nation and its interests it was of little consequence what leader was in power. Amid all the convivialities, the excitements of wine, wit, and con- versation, which so many meetings of celebrated men opened to Pope, he began to find himself growing dissipated, and hia health suffering. His wise old friend, Sir William Trumbull, warned him of his danger with an aft'ectionato earnestness, and it is supj^osed with due effect. " I now come," said he, " to what is of vast moment, I mean the preservation of your health, and beg of you earnestly to get out of all tavern company, and fly away tanquam ex incendio. What a misery it is for you to be destro^-ed by the foolish kindness — it is all one, real or pretended — of those who are able to bear the poison of bad wine, and to engage you in so unequal a combat. As to Homer, by all I can learn, your business is done ; therefore come away, and take a little time to breathe in the country. I beg now for my own sake, and much more for yours. Methinks Mr. has said to you more than once — ' Heu ! fuge, iiati dea, teque his, ait, eripe flamiuis.' " Pope felt the justice of this call, and obeyed. It was not, however, without a lingering and reverted look, as a letter of his to Jervas testifies. " I cannot express how I long to renew our old intercourse and conversation ; our morning conference in bed in the same room, our evening walks in the park, our amusing voyages on the watei", our yAilosojihical suppers, our lectures, our dissertations, our gravities, our fooleries, or what not." It appears that not merely Jervas, Parnell, Garth, Eowe, and others of like respectable character, were his companions in the amusements referred to, but that unfortunately for him he had fallen into the company of the dissolute Earl of Warwick, Addison's step-son, and of CoUey Gibber ; who, avaihng themselves of his vivacity, laid a deliberate plan to engage him in an affair derogatory to his reputation. But he cut wisely these connexions, and London, with a valediction to be found in his verses written in the character of a philosophical nike : — "Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell; Thy fools no more I'll tease," &c. ■« * * * " To drink and droll be Rowe allowed Till the third watchman toll ; Let Jervas gratis paint, and Froude Save threepence and his soul. " Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery On every learned sot : And Gartli, tlie best good Christian he, Altbough lie knows it not. 10£ POPE. " I.iiitot, farewell ! thy bard must go . Farewell, unhapi)y Tousoii . Heaven pives thee for thy loss of llowc, Lean Philips and fat Johnson. " Why should I stay? both parties rage ; My vixen mistress squalls ; The wits in envious feuds engage, And Homer — damn him — calls." Here, theu, ends Pope's town life, or that part of his hfe when ho gavo himself most up to it. We now accompany him to his new and his last residence, his beloved Twickenhnm, or Twitenham, as he used to write it. It seems that Pope did not purchase the freehold of the house and gi-ounds at Twickenham, but only a long lease. He took his father and mother along with him. His father died there the year after, but his mother continued to Hve till 1733, when she died at the great age of ninety-three. For twenty years she had the singular satis- faction of seeing her son the first poet of his age ; caressed by the greatest men of the time, courted by princes, and feared by all the base. No parents ever found a more tender and dutiful son. With liim they shared in honour the ease and distinction he had acquired. They were the cherished objects of his home. Swift paid him no false compliment when he said, in condoling with'him on his mother's death, — " You are the most dutiful son I have ever known or heard of, which is a felicity not happening to one in a million." The property at Twickenham is properly described by Eoscoe, as lying on both sides of the highway, rendering it necessary for him to cross the road to arrive at the higher and more ornamental jiart of his gardens. In order to obviate this inconvenience, he had recourse to the expedient of excavating a passage under the road from one part of his grounds to the other, — a fact to which he alludes m these hues : — " Know all the toil the heavy world can heap KoUs o'er my grotto, nor disturbs my sleep." The lower part of these grounds, in which his house stood, con- stituted, in fact, only the sloping bank of the river, by much the smaller portion of his territory. The jjassage, therefore, was very necessary to that far greater part, which was his wilderness, shrub- bery, forest, and everything, where he chiefly planted and worked. This passage he formed into a grotto, having a front of rude stone- work opposite to the river, and decorated within with spars, ores, and shells. Of this place he has himself left this description. " I have put the last hand to my works of this kind, in happily finishing the subterranean way and grotto. I found there a spring of the clearest water, which falls in a perpetual rill, that echoes through the cavern night and day. From the river Thames you see through my arch, up a walk of the wilderness, to a kind of open temple wholly composed of shells in the rustic manner ; and from that distance, under the temple, you look down through a sloping arcade of trees, and see the sails on the river passing suddenly and vanishing, as through a perspective glass. When you shut the dooif POrB. 103 of this grotto, it becomes ou the instant, from a luminous room, a camera ohscura, on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture, in their visible radiations ; and when you have a mind to light it less, it affords you a very different scene. It is finished with shells, interspersed with looking-glass in regular forms, and in the ceiling is a star of the same material, at which when a lamp of an orbicular figure of thii alabaster is himg in the middle, a thousand pointed rays glitter, and are reflected over the place. There are connected to this grotto, by a narrow passage, two porches : one towards the river, of smooth stones, full of light and open ; the other towards the garden, shadowed with trees, rough with shells, flints, and iron ore. The bottom is paved with simple pebbles, as is also the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural taste, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but a good statue with an inscrip- tion, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of. You will think I have been very poetical in this description ; but it is pretty near the truth." To this prose description Pope added this one in verse : — " Thou who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave Sliines a broad mirror through the shadowy cave ; Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil, And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill ; Unpolished gems no ray on pride bestow, And latent metals innocently glow; Approach! great Nature studiously behold, And eye the mine without a wish for gold. Approach ; but awful ! Lo ! the Egerian grot, Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought ; ■\Vhere British sighs from dying Wyndham stole, And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul. Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country, and be poor." But it was not merely in forming this grotto that Pope employed himself; it was in building and extending his house, which was in a Roman style, with columns, arcades, and porticos. The designs and elevations of these buildings may be seen by his own hand in the British Museum, drawn in his usual way on backs of letters. The following passage, in a letter to Mr. Bigby, will be suflicient to give us his idea both of his Thamesward garden and his house in a summer view : — " No ideas you could form in the winter could make you imagine what Twickenham is in this warm summer. Our river glitters beneath the unclouded sun, at the same time that its banks retain the verdure of showers ; our gardens are offering their lirst nosegays ; our trees, like new acquaintance brought happily together, are stretching their arms to meet each other, and growing nearer and nearer every hour. The birds are paying their thanks- giving songs for the new habitations I have made them. My building rises high enough to attract the eye and curiosity of the pas.senge* from the river, where, upon beholding a mixture of beauty and ruin, he inquires. What house is falling, or what church is rising ? So little taste have our common Tritons for Vitruvius ; whatever delight 104 POPE. the poetical gods of the river may take iu reflecting on their streams, Hiy Tuscan porticos, or Ionic pilasters." Pope's arcliitecture, like his poetry, has been the subject of much and vehement dispute. On the one hand, his grottos and his buildings have been vituperated as most tasteless and childish ; on the other, applauded as beautiful and romantic. Into neither ol these disputes need we enter. In both poetry and architecture a bolder spirit and a better taste have prevailed since Pope's time. AVith all his foibles and defects, Pope was a great poet of the critical and didactic kind, and his house and grounds had their peculiar beauties. He was himself half inclined to suspect the correctness of his fancy in such matters, and often rallies himself on his gimcracks and crotchets in both verse and prose. Thus, in his first epistle of his first book of Horace, addi'essed to Bolingbroke : — " But -when no prelate's lawn with haircloth lined Is half so incoherent as my mind ; When — each opinion with the next at strife, An ebb and flow of follies all my life — I plant, root up ; I build, and then confound ; Turn round to square, and square again to round ; You never change one muscle of your face ; You think this madness but a common case." Pope's building madness, however, had method iu it. Unlike the great romancer and builder of our time, he never allowed such things to bring him into debt. He kept his mind at ease by such prudence ; and soothed and animated it under circumstances of con- tinual evil, by working amongst his trees and grottos and vines, and at his labours of poetry and translation. At the period succeeding the rebellion of 1715, Avhen that event had implicated and scattered so many of his highest and most powerful friends, here he was labouring away at his Homer with a progress which astonished every one. Removed at once from the dissipations and distractions of London, and from the agreeable interrui^tions of such society, he found leisure and health enough here to give him vigour for exer- tions astonishing for so weak a frame. The tastes he indulged here, if they were not faultless according to our notions, were healthy, and they endured To the end of his life he preserved his strong attachment to his house and grounds. In 1736, writing to Swift, be says : — "I wish you had any motive to see this kingdom. I could keep you, for I am rich ; that is, I have more room than I want. I can afibrd room for myself and two servants. I have indeed room enough ; nothing but myself at home. The kind and hearty house- wife is dead ! The agreeable and instructive neighbour is gone 1 Yet my house is enlarged, and the gardens extend and flourish, as knowing nothing of the guests they have lost. I have more fruit- trees and kitchen garden than you have any thought of; nay, I have melons and pine-apples of my own growth. I am as much a better v^ardener, as I am a worse poet, than when you saw me ; but gar- dening is more akin to philosoiiliy, for Tully says, '■ Agricultiira jrroxima sapientice^ " And towards the end of the same year he says, in a letter to Ralph Allen, — " I am now as busy planting for myself POPE. 105 as I was lately in planting for another ; and I thank God for everj wet day and for every fog that gives me the head-ache, but prospers my works. They will indeed outhve me, but I am pleased to think my trees will aftbrd fruit and shade to others, when I shall want them no more. And it is no sort of grief to me that those others will not be things of my own poor body ; but it is enough that they are creatures of the same species, and made by the same hand that made me." In 1743, the last year of his life, he was still inspired by the same tastes, and occupied in the same pursuits. " I have lived," says he, March 24th, 1743, "much by myself of late, partly through ill health, and partly to amuse myself with little improvements in my gardens and house, to which, possibly, I shall, if I live, be much more confined." Of the mode of Pope's life here we have, from the letters of him- self and his friends, a pretty tolerable notion. He was near enough town to make occasional visits to it, and his friends there near enough to visit him. His friends and acquaintances were every dis- tinguished man and woman of the time, whether literary characters or statesmen. The greater part of them may be set down as his guests here, at one period or another. He delighted to have his most intimate friends near him, and some one or more of them with him. Bishops Atterbury and Warburton, the Duke and Duchess of Queensbury, Gay's great patrons ; Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Lady Suffolk, Lord and Lady Hervey, Lords Bathixrst, Halifax, Ox- ford, Bolingbroke, Burlington, Lady Scudamore, the Countess of Winchilsea, Lord Chancellor Harcourt, and his son Sir Simon Har- court, the Duke of Chandos, Lords Carlton, Peterborough, and Lans- downe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Addison, Steele, Swift, Parnell, (jfay, Eowe, and all the literary men of the age. What an array of those who wrote, and of those who admired letters, were the fre- quenters of Twickenham. In fact, in a letter to Swift, in 1736, Pope says, " I was the other day recollecting twenty-seven great ministers, or men of wit and learning, who are all dead, and all of ray acquaintance within twenty years past." But Pope loved to induce those he most delighted to converse with, to reside near him. Bolingbroke settled at Dawley, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu at Twickenham itself. The latter remarkable woman was a little too near. All the world is familiar with Pope's intense admiration of her, his having her picture drawn by Sir Godfrey Kncller, to gaze on every day, his worship of her, and their quarrel, which knew no reconciliation. But Pope's attachments were, for the most part, strong and en- during. Except in the case of the flattered, spoiled, and satirical Lady JNfary, there is scarcely a friend of Pope's who was not a friend for life. With the Blounts, the Aliens, "And honest, hatless Cromwell, with red breeches,"— people wlio could confer no distinction, but had qualities worth loving — he maintained the most steady friendship to the last. On 106 ropE. JMartha Bluuat, the woman who above all others ho most loved, he lias couferred au immortality as enduring as his own. But his three most intimate friends, after all, were Swift, Boliug- broke, and Gay. These congenial souls were here much, often, and for long times together. With Pope they not only entered into literary plans, read together, wrote together, and joked and feasted together, but with him they worked at his grotto and in his garden. They helped him to construct his quincunx ; to plant, to sort spars and stones, and to fix them in the wall. Lord Peterborough, who liad run so victorious a career in Spain, did not disdain to lay on a helping hand. " He whose liglitninKs pierced the II)eri:in lines, Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines." Even the querulous dean, even the proud Bohngbroke, as well as the easy and good-natured Gay, zealously partook of the rural as well as the philosophical labours of Pope at Twickenham. Swift made two extraordinarily long sojourns here, one of five months ; and though he took an abrupt leave at length, it was not, as Johnson would biHously represent it, because they could not live together, or had abated their mutual regard, but because they were both completely out of health, and the dean especially, afflicted with the nervous irritability which proved the forerunner of insanity. It was neces- sary for him to get home, where, in that morbid condition, he could as little bear any society. Gay dead, Bohngbroke obliged to live abroad. Swift sunk into a hypochondriac, the latter end of Pope's life was melancholy, and Twickenham a comparative sohtude. He had, however, the cordially cheei-ing attentions of Martha Blount ; and Warburton, whose advancement in the church was the work of his friendship, came in to supply the places of the old companions gone. Such wa,s the home of Pope : there is still another portion of his life of which we get most picturesque glimpses, — I mean into his haunts. Occasionally we find him at Bath for his health, but more frequently making a summer sojourn of a few weeks or months at the houses of some of his friends in the country. At one time he is at Dawley, with Bohngbroke, where they are lying and reading be- tween two haycocks ; at another, at Prior Park, near Bath, at the Aliens', where an odd kind of stifthess grew up between the Aliens and Miss Blount and himself, that was never cleared up, but blew away, and left them as good friends as before. Then he is at Oakley Park, Lord Bathurst's seat at Cirencester. In 1716, he writes to Martha and Teresa Blount, — that was in his young and Homeric (Liys, — " I am with Lord Bathurst at my bower, in whose groves we had yesterday a dry walk of three hours. It is the place that of all others I fancy, and I am not yet out of humour with it, though I have had it some months ; it does not cease to be agreeable to me BO late in the season (October) ; the very dying of the leaves adds a variety of colours that is not unpleasant. I look upon it as upon a beauty I once loved, whom I should preserve a respect for in her decay ; and as we should look upon a friend, with remembrance how POPE. 107 he pleased us once^ though now declined from his gay and flourishing condition. " I write an hour or two every morning, then ride oiit a hunting upon the downs, eat heartily, talk tender sentiments with Lord B., or draw plans for houses and gardens, open avenues, cut glades, plant tirs, contrive water-works, — all very fine and beautiful in our own imagination. At night we play at commerce, and play pretty high. I do more. I bet too ; for I am really rich, and must throw away my money, if no deserving friend will use it. I like this course of life so well, that I am resolved to stay here till I hear of somebody's being in town that is worth coming after." In another letter to these sisters, he gives us a curious peep at court life. " First, then, I went by water to Hampton Court, unat- tended by all but by my own virtues, which were not of so modest a nature as to keep themselves or me concealed ; for I met the prince with all his ladies on horseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. B and Mrs. L " (Mary Bellenden and Mary Lepell, maids of honour to the queen) " took me into protection, contrary to the laws against harbouring papists, and gave me a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversing with Mrs. H " (Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk.) " We all agreed that the life of a maid of honour was of all things the most miserable ; and wished that every woman that envied it had a specimen of it. To eat West- phalia ham in a morning, ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed hacks, come home in the heat of the day with a fever, and — what is worse a hundred times — with a red mark in the forehead from an uneasy hat : all this may qualify them to make excellent wives for fox-hunters, and bear abundance of ruddy-complexioned children. As soon as they can wipe ofi" the sweat of the day, they must simper an hour, and catch cold in the princess's apartment ; from thence, as Shakspeare has it, ' to dinner, with what appetite they may ;' and after that, till midnight, walk, work, or think, which they please. I can easily beUeve no lone house in Wales, with a mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative than this court ; and, as a proof of it, I need only tell you, Mrs. L (Mary Lepell) walked with mt three or four houi's by moonlight, and we met no creature of any quality but the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain, all alone, under the garden wall. " In short, I heard of no ball, assembly, basset-table, or any place where two or three were gathered together, except Madam Kilman- segg's, to which I had the honour to be invited, and the grace to stay away. " I was heartily tired, and posted to park ; (^. Bushy 1) there we had an excellent discourse of quackery ; Dr. S was mentioned with honour. Lady walked a whole hour abroad without dying after it, at least in the time I stayed, though she seemed to be fainting, and had convulsive motions several times in her head. I arrived in the forest by Tuesday at noon." At another time we find him at Orchard Wyndhara, the seat of Sir William Wyndham, in Somersetshire. "The reception we mot 108 POPE. with," says he, " raid the little excursions wo made, were every way agreeable. I think the country abounds with beautiful prospects Sir WiUiam Wyndham is at present amusing himself with some real impi-ovements, and a great many visionary castles. We are often entertained with sea-views and sea-tish ; and were at some places in the neighbourhood, amongst which I was mightily pleased with Dunster Castle, near Minehead. It stands upon a great eminence, and hath a prospect of that town, with an extensive view of the Bristol Channel, in which are seen two small islands called the Steep Holms and Flat Holms, and on the other side we could plainly dis- tinguish the divisions of the fields on the "Welsh coast. All this journey I performed on horseback." To how many readers will this fine scene here mentioned be familiar ! But another visit of Pope's, to Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, an old mansion of Lord Harcourt's, who lent it to him for the summer, has furnished us with a description which, though somewhat long, we must take in fall. So much delighted was Pope with it, that he has described it twice ; once to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and once to the Duke of Buckingham. The following account is made complete by a careful comparison of both these letters ; but may be supposed to be addressed to Lady Mary. " I am fourscore miles from London ; and the i)laco is such as I could not quit for the town, if I did not value you more than, nay, everybody else there ; and you will be convinced how little the town has engaged my affections in your absence from it, when you know what a place ttiis is which I jji-efer to it. I shall therefore describe it to you at large, as the true picture of a genuine ancient country seat. " You must expect nothing regular in my description of a house which seems to be built before rules were in fashion. The whole is so disjointed, and the parts so detached from each other, and yet so joining again, one cannot tell how, that, in a poetical fit, you could imagine it had been a village in Amphion's time, when twenty cottages had taken a dance together, were all out, and stood still in amazement ever since. " You must excuse me if I say nothing of the front ; indeed I do not know which it is. A stranger would be grievously disappointed who should think to get into this house the right way. One would reasonably expect, after the entry through the porch, to be let into the hall : but alas ! nothing less ! you find yourself in a brewhouse. From the parlour you think to step into the drawing-room, but, upon opening the iron-nailed door, you are convinced, by a flight of bh-ds about your ears, and a cloud of dust in your eyes, that it is the pigeon-house. On each side of our porch are two chimneys, that wear their greens on the outside, which would do as well within ; for whenever we make a fire, we let the smoke out of the windows. Over the parlour window hangs a sloping balcony, which time has turned to a very convenient penthouse. The top is crowned with a very venerable tower, so like that of the church just by, that the jackdaws build in it, as if it were the true steeple. POPE. 100 " The great hall is high and spacious, flanked on one side with a very long table, a true image of ancient hospitality-. The walls are all over ornamented with monstrous horns of animals, about twenty broken pikes, ten or a dozen blvmderbusses, and a rusty matchlock musquet or two, which we were informed had served in the civil wars. There is one vast arched window, beautifully darkened with divers escutcheons of 2:)ainted glass. There seems to be a great pro- priety in this old manner of blazoning upon glass ; ancient families, like ancient windows, in the course of generations, being seldom free from cracks. One shining pane, in particular, bears date 1286, which alone ]3reserves the memory of a knight whose iron armour has long since jjerished with rust, and whose alabaster nose has mouldered from his monument. The youthfid face of Dame Elinor, in another piece, owes more to that single pane than to all the glasses she ever con- sulted in her life. Who can say, after this, that glass is frail, when it is not half so perishable as human beauty or glory 1 And yet i cannot but sigh to think that the most authentic record of so ancient a family should be at the mercy of every boy who flings a stone ! In this hall, in former days, have dined gartered knights and courtly dames, with ushers, sewers, and seneschals, and yet it was but the other night that an owl flew in hither, and mistook it for a barn. " This hall lets you, up and down over a very high threshold, into the great parlour. It is furnished with historical tapestry, whose marginal fringes do confess the moisture of the air. The other con- tents of this room are a broken-bellied virginal, a couple of crippled velvet chairs, with two or three mouldered pictures of mouldy an- cestors, who look as dismally as if they came fresh from hell with all their brimstone about them. These are carefully set at the further corner, for the windows being everywhere broken, make it so con- venient a place to dry poppies and mustard seed in, that the room is appropriated to that purpose. " Next to this parlour lies, as I said before, the pigeon-house ; by the side of which runs an entry that leads, on one hand and on the other, into a bed-chamber, a buttery, and a small hole called the chaplain's study. Then follow the brewhouse, a little green and gilt parlour, and the great stairs, under which is the dairy. A little further on the right, the servants' hall ; and, by the side of it, uj> six steps, the old lady's closet for her private devotions, which has a lattice into the said haU, that, while she said her prayers, she might cast an eye on the men and maids. There are, upon the ground floor, in all, twenty-six apartments, hard to be distinguished by particular names ; amongst which I must not forget a chamber that has in it a huge antiquity of timber, which seems to have becn rither a bedstead or a cyder-press. " The kitchen is built in form of the Rotunda, being one vast vault to the top of the house, where one aperture serves to let out the smoke and let in light. By the blackness of the walls, the circular th'es, vast cauldrons, yawning mouths of ovens and furnaces, you would think it either the forge of Vulcan, the cave of Polyphemu.s, 110 POPE. or the temple of Moloch. The horror of this place has made such an impression ou the country people, that they believe the witchea keep their sabbath here, and that once a year the devil treats them with infei'nal venison, a roasted tiger stufied witli tenpenny nails. " Above stairs we have a number of rooms ; you never pass out of one into another but by the ascent and descent of two or three stairs. Our best room is very long and low, of the exact proportions of a bandbox. In most of these rooms there are hangings of the finest work in the world ; that is to say, those which Arachne spins from her own bowels. Were it not for this only furniture, the whole would be a miserable scene of naked walls, flawed ceilings, broken windows, and rusty locks. Its roof is so decayed, that after a favour- able shower we may, with God's blessing, expect a crop of mushrooms between the chinks of the floors. " All the doors are as little and low as those to the cabins of packet- boats; and the rooms have, for many years, had no other inhabitants than certain rats, whose very age renders them worthy of this venerable mansion, for the very rats of this ancient seat are grey. Since these have not yet quitted it, we hope at least that this house may stand during the small remnant of days these poor animals have to live, who are too infirm to remove to another. They have still a small subsistence left them, in the few remaining books of the library. " We had never seen half what I have described, but for an old, starched, grey-headed steward, who is as much an antiquity as any in the place, and looks hke an old family picture walked out of its frame. He failed nqj;, as w^e passed from room to room, to entertain us with several relations of the family ; but his observations were particularly curious when he came to the cellar. He showed where stood the triple rows of butts of sack, and where now ranged the bottles of tent for toasts in a morning. He pointed to the stands that supported the iron-hooped hogsheads of strong beer : then, stepping to a corner, he lugged out the tattered fragments of an unframed lecture. ' This,' says he, with tears in his eyes, ' was poor Sir Thomas, once master of all this drink ! He had two sons, poor young masters ! who never arrived to the age of this beer ; they both fell ill in this very cellar, and never went out upon their own legs.' He could not pass by a heap of broken bottles without taking up a piece, to show us the arms of the family upon it. He then led us up the tower by dark, winding, stone steps, which landed us into several little rooms, one above another. One of these was nailed up ; and our guide whispered to us a secret occasion of it. It seems the course of this noble blood was a little interrupted, about two centuries ago, by a freak of the Lady Frances with a neighbouring priest ; since which the room has been nailed up and branded as the Adultery Chamber. The ghosf of Lady Frances is supposed to walk there, and some prying maids of the family report that they have seen a lady in a farthingale through the keyhole ; but this matter is hushed up, and the servants are forbid to talk of it. " I must needs have tired you by this long description ; but what POPE, 111 engaged me iu it was, a generous principle to preserve the meuiory of that which must itself soon fall into dust ; nay, perhaps, part of it, before this letter reaches your hands. Indeed I owe this old house the same gratitude that we do to an old friend who harbours us in his declining condition, — nay, even in his last extremities. 1 have found this an excellent place for retirement and study, where no one who passes by can dream there is one inhabitant ; and even any body that could visit me does not venture under my roof. You will not wonder that I have translated a great deal of Homer in this retreat ; any one that sees it will own that I could not have chosen a litter or more likely place to converse with the dead." No one, after reading this, can doubt that Pope possessed that rare talent of painting in words which Thomson called so truly " the portrait painting of Nature ;" and which, in a letter to Doddington, from Italy, he justly laments as so rare a faculty. "There are scarcely any to be met with who have given a landscape of the country through which they travelled, — seen thus with the mind's eye ; though that is the first thing which strikes, and what aU readers of travels demand." "We must lament," says Warton, "that we ha\'e no more letters of Bishop Berkeley, who, we see by this before us (from Naples), possessed the uncommon talent of describing jilaces in the most lively and graphical manner, a talent in which he has only been equalled or excelled by Gray, in many of those lively and interesting letters published by Mason ; those especially written during his travels." The want continues to the present hour ; the want of the art of bringing the things you speak of livingly before the reader. It is this want, which can only be supplied by the same principles of study in the writer as iu the painter, which first sug- gested to me the necessity of " Visits to Remarkable Places." No one could have made such visits more eflfectual than Pope. This is a merit for which he yet has received little or no praise ; and yet no talent is rarer, and few more delightful. In his letters, especially those addressed to his two lovely, charming, and life-long fi-iends, Martha and Teresa Blount, such living portraitures of places abound. His description of Sir Walter Ealeigh's old mansion and gardens at Sherbourne is a masterpiece of the kind. You are now at Letcombe, in Berkshire, with Swift, where the author of Gulliver used to run up a hill every morning before breakfast ; now at Bevis Mount, near Southampton, with his friend Lord Peterborough, the conqueror cf Spain ; and in his journeys to Bath or to Lord Cobham's at Stowe, you peep in at a number of country houses, and rich peeps they are. Bath and London society is sketched with great vivacity and gusto ; but such sketches are more common than these peeps into aristocratic country life. Thus you have him rolling along slowly from Cobham towards Bath, drawn by the very horse on which Lord Derwentwater rode in the Rebellion, but then employed by Lord Cobham in rolHng the garden. He looks in at Lord Dcloraiue's on the Downs. He lies one night at Rowsham, the seat of Colonel Cotterell, near Oxford; " the prettiest place for wateifalls, jets, pomls enclosed with beautiful scenes of green and hanging wood, ever seen." 112 POl-E. Then at Mr. Hovru's in Gloucestershire, " as fine a thing of another kind ; where Nature has done everything, and luckily, for the master has ten children." Thou he calls at Sir William Codrington's, at Durhams, eight miles from Bath, where he thus describes his enter- tainment : — " My reception there will be matter for a letter to Mr. Bethel. It was perfectly in his spirit. All his sisters, in the first place, insisted that I should take physic preparatory to the waters, and truly I made use of the time, place, and persons to that end. My Lady Cox, the first niglit I lay there, mixed my electuary ; Lady Codrington pounded sulphur ; Mrs. Bridget Bethel ordered broth ; Lady Cox mounted first up stairs with the physic in a gallipot ; Lady Codrington next, with the vial of oil ; Mrs. Bridget third with pills ; the fourth sister with spoons and tea-cups. It would have rejoiced the ghost of Dr. Woodward to have beheld this procession." But two years before his death, he was again at Stowe, when he says, " All the mornings we breakfast and chspute ; after dinner and at night, music and harmony ; in the garden fishing ; no poUtics, and no cards, nor novel reading. This agrees exactly with me, for the want of cards sends us early to bed." This was the way he describes spending the latter part of his life : — " Lord Bathurst is still my constant friend, but his country seat is now always in Gloucestershire, not in this neighbourhood. Mr. Pulteney has no country seat ; and in town I see him seldom. In the summer, I generally ramble for a month to Lord Cobham's, or to Bath, or elsewhere." Such were the homes and haunts of Pope. In his life one thing is very striking. How much the literary men of the time and the nobility associated, — how little they do now. Are our nobility gi-owu less literary, or our authors less aristocratic ? It may be said that authors now are more independent, and cannot flatter aristocracy. But no man was more independent, and proud of his independence, than Pope. Pope was anxious that some of his friends should have the lease of his house and grounds, to prevent their being demolished ; but it was never done. Since his day they have gone through various liands. His house has long been pulled down ; his willow has fallen in utter decay ; his quincunx has been destroyed. Two new tene- ments, having the appearance of one house, with a portico opening into the highway, have for some years been built at the farther extremity of Pope's grounds next to the Thames. The house itself was stripped, immediately after his death, of all mementos of hini by the operation of his own will. To Lord Bolingbroke he left his own copy of his Translation of Homer, and his other works. To Lord Marchmont, other books, with the portrait of Bolingbroke by Richardson. To Lord Bathurst, the three statues of the Hercules of Farnese, the Venus do Medici, and the Apollo in chiaro oscuro, by Kneller. To Mr. Murray, the marble head of Homer, by Bernini ; and Sir Isaac Newton, by Guelh. To the son of Dr. Arbuthnot, another picture of Bohngbroke. He left to Lord Littleton the busts in marble of Shakspeare, Spensei', and IMilton, presented to him by POPE. 113 the Prince of Wales. His library went amongst his friends ; the pictiu-es of his mother, father, and aunts, to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Rackett. Of that of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by Kneller, there is no mention ; but all the furniture of his grotto, with the urns for liis garden, given by the Prince of Wales, he left to Martha Blount. Thus flew abroad those iDrecious relics, then ; and what changes since in the place itself ! A new house has recently arisen on a part of the Thames bank : so that there are actually three tenements on th3 spot, and it is cut up and divided accordingly. With all this havoc there are still, however, more traces of Pope left than might have been expected. The Thames is there,— nothing can remove or cut up that. The scene across the river is woody, rich, and agreeable as ever. The sloping bank from the road to the river, once Pope's garden, is a pretty garden still. There is even at the end nearest _tf) London a conservatory still standing, which has all the characteristics of another age, and probably was Pope's. It has Tuscan columns, and large panes of glass fit for sash windows. But a fine fantastic sort of Swiss villa has sprung up there, called by the neighbourhood EHzabethan. It has deep, depending eaves, full of wooden ornament, and a lofty tower. It is the property of Sir. Young, a wholesale tea-dealer. When I visited it, heaps of lime and other building materials were lying around, and troops of work-people were busily employed where the lords, ladies, and literati of George II.'s reign resorted. The subterranean passage, or grotto, still runs under the road spite of Bowles telling us that all these things were pulled down and done away with. It is secured by iron gates at each end, and far more of the original spar and shell-work remains than you could have believed. Xear the opening facing the Thames, under some ivied rock- work, stands the figure of a nun in stone, which no doubt has been placed there by some occupant subsequent to Pope. On the opposite side of the road, there is a field of some half-dozeu acres, still bearing traces of its former character. This was Pope's larger garden and wilderness, where he used to plant and replant, contrive and rccontrive, puU down and build up, to his heart's con- tent. Around it still are traces of shrubberies, and over all are scattered many of those trees which, upwards of a hundred years ago, Pope said he was busy planting for posterity. They are now stupendous in size — Spanish chestnuts, elms, and cedars. No doubt many of them have been felled, but what remain are lofty and magnificent trees. The walks and shrubberies are to a great extent annihilated ; the centre of the field was planted with potatoes. In the midst of a clump of old laurels, near the road, there is the remains of a large tree, hewn out into the shape of a seat, not unlike a watchman's box, which is said to have been Pope's, but is doubtful. At the top of the grounds is another gi'otto, that which was erected by Sir William Stanhope, who purchased the estate, or the lease of it, at Pope's death. This gi-otto seems to have formed the passage to still further grounds ; for we are informed that Sir William Stanhope not only built two wings to Pope's house, but extended '14 POPE. iis grounds. Tlieie was placed over the eiilrauce of thi.s grotto n, bust of Pope iu white marble, and on a white marble t-lab the following in.scription : — • " The humble roof, the garden's scanty line, J 1 1 spoke the genius of a bard divine : JUit fancy now displays a fairer scope, And Stanhope's plans' unfold the soul of Pope."— Clare. The.se A-aunting lines, which represent the addition of another gixitto and another field as unfolding the soul of Pope, and Sir William Stanhope as somebody capable of far greater things than the poet himself, still remain, the monument of the writer's and the erector's folly. The bust, of course, is gone. The grotto is lined with spars ; pieces of basalt, perhaps the very joints of the Giant's Causeway sent to Pope by Sir Hans Sloane iu 1742, only two years before Pope's death ; some huge pieces of glazed and striped jars of pottery ; and masses of stalactites and of stone worn by the action of the waters, evidently brought from some cavernous shore, or bed of a torrent, perhaps from a great distance, and no doubt at great expense. As this, however, was the work of Sir William Stanhope, and not of Pope, the whole possesses little interest. Every trace of the temple of which Pope speaks, as being in full view from his grotto, is annihilated ; and the small obelisk, bearing this inscrip- tion in memory of his mother, — Ah ! Editha. Watrum Optima, Mulierum Amantissima, Vale! has been removed, and is said to be in the possession of Lord Howe, and set up in his grounds, just by. Lord Mendip, who married Sir Wilham Stanhope's daughter, i.s said to have been particularly anxious to retain every trace of Pope. Yet in his care to maintain, he must have very much altered. He .stuccoed the house, and adorned it, says a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, in an elegant style. He enclosed the lawn, and propped witli uncommon care the far-famed weeping willow, supposed to be the parent stock of the willows in Twickenham Park. Yes, Pope is said to have been the introducer of the weeping willow into England ; ^that seeing some twigs around the wrapping of an article of vertu sent to Lady Sylvius from abroad, he planted these, saying thev might belong to some kind of tree yet unknown in England. Fron- one of these sprung Pope's willow, and from Pope's willow thousands of others. Slips of his tree were anxiously sought after ; they were even transmitted to distant chmes ; and, in 1789, the Empress of Russia had some planted in her garden at Petersburgh. Kotwith- standing every care, old age overcame this willow, and in spite of all props, it perished, and fell to the ground in 1801. ^ On the decease of Lord Mendip, in 1802, the property was sold to Lir John Briscoe, Bart.; after whose death, it was again sold to the Baroness Howe. This lady, and her husband. Sir J. Waller Wathen, with a tasteless Vandalism, levelled the house of Pope to the ground ; lixtirjwted ruthlessly almost every possible trace of him in the POPE. 1 1 ,S gardens; and erected that house already mentioned at the extremity of Pope's property, now occupied as two tenements. This house of the uupoetical Lady Howe was also erected on the site of an elegant little villa belonging to Hudson, the painter, the master of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Such are the revolutions which have passed over Pope's villa and its grounds. Where he and such celebrated gardeners as Swift, Bolingbroke, and Gay laboured, I found potatoes, black with the disease of 1846, growing. How long the giant trees planted by his hands, and which still lift aloft their noble heads, may escape some fresh change, we know not. The whole of the larger garden of Pope, in which they grow, bears evidences of neglect. Laurels grow wild under the lofty hedges. The stones of Stanhope's grotto lie scattered about ; and vast quantities of the deadly nightshade, as if undis- turbed for years, displayed to my notice its dark purple and burnished berries of death. The remains of Pope rest, with those of his parents, in Twicken- ham church. In the middle aisle, the sexton shows you a P in one of the .stones, which marks the place of their interment. To see the monuments to their memory, you must ascend into the north gallery ; where, at the east end, on the wall, you find a tablet with a Latin inscription, which was placed there by Pope in honour of his parents ; and on the side wall of the gallery nearest the west is a tablet of grey marble, in a pyramidal form, with a medallion profile of the poet. This was placed here by Bishop Warburton, and bears tlie following inscription : — Alexansro Pope. M. II. Gulielmus Episcopus, Glocestriensis, Amicitiae causa fac : cur: 1/61. Poeta loquitur, FOR ONE WHO WOULD NOT BE BUniED IN WESTMINSTER ABBLV. Heroes and kings, your distance keep ; In pence let one poor poet sleep, Who never flattered folks like you: Let Horace blush, and Virgil too. By one of those acts which neither science nor curiosity can excuse, the skull of Pope is now in the private collection of a phreno- logist. The manner in which it was obtained is said to have been this. On some occasion of alteration in the church, or burial of some one in the same spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred, and opened to see the state of the remains ; by a bribe to the sexton of the time, possession of the skull was obtained for a night, and another skull retui-ned instead of it. I have heard that fifty pounds were paid to manage and carry through this transaction. Be that as it may, the undoubted skull of Pope now figures in the phrenological collection of the late Mr. Holm, of Highgate, and was frequently exhibited by him in his lectures, as demonstrating, by its not large but well-balanced proportions, its affinity to the intellectual tharactcr of the poet. o EEAX SWIFT. The principal scenes of residence of Dean Swift lie in Ireland. Johnson, in liis life of tne Dean, makofs it doubtful whether he was really an Englishman or an Irishman by birth. He says : "Jonathan Swift was, according to an account said to be written by himself, the mn of Jonathan Swift, an attorney, and was born at Dublin, on St. Andrew's day, 1667 ; according to his own report, as delivered by Pope to Spence, he was born at Leicester, the son of a clergyman, who was minister of a parish in Herefordshire. During his life, the place of his birth was iindetermined. He was contented to be called an Irishman by the Irish, but would occasionally call himself an Engh.shman. The question may, without much regret, be left in the obscurity in Avhich he delighted to involve it." There has long ceased to be any obscurity about the matter. His relations, justly proud of the connexion, have set that fully in the light which Swift himself characteristically wrapped in mj'stification. He was of an English family, originally of Yorkshire ; but his grand- iather, Thomas Swift, was vicar of Goodrich, in Herefordshire. Taking an active jxirt with Charles I. against the Parliament, he was SWIFT. 117 expelled from his living ; yet he died at Goodrich, and was buried under the altar there. The account of the plundering of his par- sonage by the Paiiiament army, given in the appendix to Scott's life of the Dean, is so lively a description of such an affair, that I wih transcribe it : — " When the Earl of Stamford was in Herefordshire, in October 1642, and pillaged all that kept faith and aUegiance to the king, inforroation was given to Mrs. Swift, wife of Thomas Swift, parson of Goodrich, that her house was designed to be plundered. To prevent so great a danger, she instantly repaired to Hereford, where the earl then was, some ten miles from her own home, to petition him that no violence might be offered to her house or goods. He most nobly, and according to the goodness of his disposition, threw the petition away, and swore no small oaths that she should be plundered to-morrow. The good gentlewoman, being out of hope to prevail, and seeing that there was no good to be done by petitioning him, speeds home as fast as she could, and that night removes as much of her goods as the shortness of the time would permit. Next morning, to make good the Earl of Stamford's word, Captain Kirle's troop, consisting of seventy horse and thirty foot, which were hangers on — birds of prey — came to Mr. Swift's house. There they took away all his i^rovision of victuals, corn, household stuff, which was not con- veyed away. They empty his beds, and fill the ticks with malt ; they roij him of his cart and six horses, and make this part of their theft the means to convey away the rest. Mrs. Swift, much affrighted to see such a sight as this, thought it best to save herself though she lost her goods ; therefore, taking up a young child in her arms, began to secure herself by flight ; which one of the troopers perceiving, he commanded her to stay, or, holding his i)istol to her breast, threat- ened to shoot her dead. She, good woman, fearing death whether she went or returned, at last, shunning that death which was next unto her, she retires back to her house, where she saw herself undone, and yet durst not oppose, or ask why they did so. Having thus rifled the house and gone, next morning early, she goes again to Hereford, and there again petitions the earl to show some com- passion to her and her ten children, and that he would be pleased to cause her horses and some part of her goods to be restored to her. The good earl was so far from granting her petition that he would not vouchsafe so much as to read it. When she could not prevail herself, she makes use of the mediation of friends. These have the repulse also, his lordship remaining inexorable, without any inclina- tion to mercy. At last, hoping that all men's hearts were not adamant relentless, she leaves the earl, and makes her addresses to Captain Kirlo, who, upon her earnest entreaty, grants her a protection for what was left ; but for restitution there was no hope of that. This protection cost her no less than thirty shillings. It seems paper and ink are dear in those parts. And now, thinking herself secure in his protection, she returns home, in hope that what was left she might enjoy in peace and quietness. She had not been long at home but Captain Kirlc sends her word, that if it pleased her, she .:18 SWIFT. might buy four of her own six horses again, assuring her by hor father's servant and tenant, that she should not fear being plundered any more by the Karl of Stamford's forces, while they were in those parts. Encouraged by these promises, she was content to buy her own, and deposited eight pounds ten shillings for four of her horses. And now conceiving the storm to be blown over, and all danger past, and placing much confidence in her purchased protection, she causes all her goods secured in her neighbours' houses to be brought home ; and since it could not be better, rejoiced that she had not lost all. She had not enjoyed these thoughts long, but Captain Kirle sent mito her for some vessels of cyder, whereof having tasted, but not liking it, since he could not have drink for himself he would have provender for his horses, and therefore, instead of cyder, he demands ten bushels of oats. Mrs. Swift, seeing that the denial might give some ground for a quarrel, sent him word that her husband had not two bushels of oats in a year for tythes, nor did they grow any on their glebe, both of which were most true. Yet, to show how wilHng she was, to her power, to comply with him, that the messengers might not return empty, she sent him forty shillings to buy oats. Suddenly after, the captain of Goodridge castle sends to Mr. Swift's house for victual and corn. Mrs. Swift instantly shows him her pro- tection. He, to answer show with show, shows her his warrant ; and so without any regard to her protection, seizeth upon that provision which was in the house, together with the cyder which Captain Kirlo had refused. Hereupon Mrs. Swift writes to Captain Kirle, complaining of this injury, and the affront done to him in slighting his protection ; but before the messenger could return with an answer to her letter, some from the castle come a second time to ])lunder the house, and they did what they came for. Presently after comes a letter from Captain Kirle in answer to Mrs. Swift's, that the Earl of Stamford did by no means approve of the injuries done to her, and withal, by word of mouth, sends to her for more oats. She, perceiving that as long as she gave they would never leave asking, resolved to be drilled no more. The return not answering expecta- tion, on the third of December, Captain Kirle's lieutenant, attended by a considerable number of dragoons, comes to Mr. Swift's house, and demands entrance ; but the doors being kept shut against them, and not being able to force them, they broke down two iron bars in a stone window, and so, with swords drawn and pistols cocked, they enter the house. Being entered, they take all Master Swift's and his wife's apparel, his books and his children's clothes, they being in berl ; and these poor children that hung by their clothes, unwilling to part with them, they swung them about until, their hold-fast failing, they dashed them against the walls. They took away all his ser- vants' clothes, and made so clean work with one that they left him not a .shirt to cover his nakedness. There was one of the children, an infant, lying in the cradle ; they robbed that, and left not the poor soul a rag to defend it from the cold. They took away all the :ron, pewter, and brass ; and a very fair cupboard of glasses, which they could not carry away, they broke to pieces ; and the four horses SWIFT. 119 lately redeemed are with them lawful prize again, and nothing left of all the goods but a few stools, for his wife, children, and servants to sit down and bemoan their distressed condition. Having taken away all, and being gone, Mrs. Swift, in compassion to her poor infant in the cradle, took it np, almost starved with cold, and wrapped it in a petticoat, which she took off from herself ; and now hoped, that having nothing to lose would be a better protection for their persons than that which they purchased of Captain Kirle for thirty shillings. But as if Job's messenger would never make an end, her three maid- .servants, whom they in the castle had compelled to carry the poultry to the castle, return and tell their mistress, that they in the castle .said they had a wan-ant to seize upon Mrs. Swift and bring her into the castle, and that they would make her three maid-servants wait on her there, and added things not fit for them to speak nor us to write. Hereupon Mrs. Swift tied to the place where her husband, for fear of the rebels, had withdi-awn himself. She had not been gone two hours, but they come from the castle, and bring with them, three teams to carry away what was before designed for plunder, but wanted means of conveyance. When they came, there was a batch of bread hot in the oven. This they seize on ; her children on their knees entreat but for one loaf, and at last, with much importunity, obtained it ; but before the children had eaten it, they took even that one loaf away, and left them destitute of a morsel of bread amongst ten children. Ransacking every corner of the house, that nothing might be left behind, they find a small pewter dish in which the dry-nurse had put pap to feed the poor infant, the mother who gave it suck being fled to save her life. This they seize on too. The nurse entreats for God's sake that they would spare that, pleading that in the mother's absence it was all the substance which was or could be provided to sustain the life of the child, that ' knew not the right hand from the left,' a motive which prevailed with God him- self, though justly incensed against Kineveh. " Master Swift's eldest son, a youth, seeing this barbarous cruelty, demanded of them a reason for this so hard usage. They replied that his father was a traitor to the king and parhamcnt, and added, that they would keep them so short, that they would eat the very flesh from their arms ; and to make good their word, they threaten the miller, that, if he groimd any corn for these children, they would grind him in his own mill ; and not contented with this, they go to Mr. Swift's next neighbour, whose daughter was his seiwant, and take him prisoner : they examine him on oath what goods of Mr. Swift's he had in his custody. He professing that he had none, they charge him to take his daughter away from Mr. Swift's service, or else they threaten to plunder him ; and to make sure work, they make him give them security to obey all their commands. Terrific/ with thiSj the neighbours stand afar oft", and pity the distressed con- dition of these persecuted children, but dare not come or send to their relief. By this means the children and servants had no suste- nance, hardly anything to cover them, from Friday, six o'clock at night, until Saturday, twelve at night, until at last/tlic neighbours, 120 SWIFT. moved with the lamentable cries and complaints of the children and servants, one of the neighbours, overlooking all difficulties, and showing that he durst be charitable, in despite of these monsters, ventured in, and brought them some provision. And if the world would know what it Avas that so exasperated these rebels against this gentleman, the Earl of Stamford, a man that is not bound to give an account of all his actions, gave two reasons for it. First, because he had bought arms, and conveyed them into Monmouthshire, which, under his lordship's good flivour, was not so ; and, secondly, because not long before, he preached a sermon in Rosse, upon that text, ' Give unto Ca;sar the things that arc Caisar's,' in which his lordshijj said he had spoken treason in endeavouring to give Coesar more than his due. These two crimes cost Mr. Swift no less than 300/." * With the memory of such things as these in the family, there need be no wonder at the Dean's decided tendency to toryism. His father and three uncles, that is four out of ten sons, and three or four daughters of the persecuted clergyman fled to Ireland, where the eldest son, Godwin Swift, a barrister, married a relative of the Marchioness of Ormond, and was made, by the Marquis of Ormond, his attorney-general in the palatinate of Tipperary. This Godwin married the co-heiress of Admiral Deane ; the second son, a daughter of Sir William Daveuant. Another was Mr. Dryden Swift, so called After his mother, who was a Dryden, and a near relation of the poet's. Thus Swift was of good family and alliance. He was the only son of Jonathan Swift, the eighth son of Thomas Swift, the vicar of Goodrich, who was so jilundered. His mother was Abigail Erick, of Leicestershire, descended from the most ancient family of i he Ericks, who derive their lineage from Erick the Forester, a great commander, who raised an army to oppose the invasion of William the Conqueror, by whom he was vanquished, but afterwards employed to command that prince's forces. In his old age he retired to his house in Leicestershire, where his family has ccntinued ever since, has produced many eminent men, and is still represented by the Heyricks of Leicester town, and the Herricks of Beaumanor. Swift's father was a solicitor, and steward to the Society of the King's Inn, Dublin ; but he died before Swift was born, and left his mother in such poverty, that she was not able to defray the expense?- of her husband's funeral. He was born on the 30th of November, 1667, St. Andrew's-day, in a small house now called No. 7, in Hoey's- court, Dublin, which is still pointed out by the inhabitants of that quarter, and by the antiquity of its appearance seems to vindicate the truth of the tradition. Here a circumstance occurred to him as singular as the case of his father, who, as a child in the cradle, had his clothes stripped from him by the troopers of Captain Kirle. His imrse was a woman of Whitehaven, and being obhged to go thither, in order to see a dying relative from whom she exjsected a legacy, nut of sheer affection for the child, she stole on shipboard, unknown to Ills mother and uncle, and carried him with her to Whitehaven, where he continued for almost three years. For when the matter * Mercurins liuslicus. London, 1638. SWIFT. 121 was discovered, his '.motlier sent orders by all means not to hazard a second voyage till he could better bear it. The nurse was so careful of him, that before he returned he had learned to spell, and by the time that he was five years old, he could read any chajiter in the Bible. After his return to Ireland, he was sent, at six years old, to Kilkenny school, and thence, at fourteen, he was transferred to the university at Dublin. At Kilkenny, it is said that his name is still shown to strangers at the school, cut, boy fashion, upon his desk or form. At the university, like Goldsmith, he was more addicted to general reading and poetry, than to the classics and mathematics. He was poor, and the sense of his poverty on his proud spirit made him reckless, and almost desperate. He got into dissipation to drown his mortification. Between the 14th of November 1685, and the fcith of October 1687, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for non-attendance at chapel, for neglecting lectures, for being absent at the evening roU-call, and for town-haunting, the academical phrase for absence from college without licence. These brought censures, suspension of his degree ; and on his part, satirical sallies against the college authorities. He finally received his degree of bachelor of arts by special grace, that is, not by his own fair acquisition. His uncles, Godwin and, after his death, Dryden, had borne the cost of his education ; his mother had gone over to her native Leicester and friends, and on obtaining his degree, he passed over to England to lier. His mother was rc'lated to the wife of Sir William Temple, and through her Swift was received into Sir Wilham's house as his private secretary. This brings us to the first home which Jonathan Swift may almost be said to have had. Sir William, according to some authorities, was residing at this time at Sheen, near Richmond; according to others, he had retired to his favourite residence of jMoorpark, near Farnham, in Surrey. Whichever place it was originally, it soon became MoorjDark. Here William III. used to visit Temple, and here, as at Sheen, it was that the Dutch monarch, it is related as a most important fact, taught Swift to cut asparagus the Dutch way. The fact is Dutch and economical, and worthy to be known to all gardeners, and all other people who undertake this useful operation. It consists in cutting with a short and circular stroke, not with a wide sweeping one. In the first case you cut off only the head of asparagus you want, ir. the other you most probably cut oS" half-a-dozen heads that have not yet appeared above the soil. Still, this was only half the advantage derived from the royal gardener ; he taught Swift how to eat the asparagus when cut; and Swift used always to tell his guests that King WiUiam ate the stalks as weU as the heads. If he taught him ho^v' to make them eatable, it is a great pity that the secret is lost. William is said also to have offei'ed Swift a troop of horse, which might naturally arise out of their cutting //or.sr radish for dinner at the same time, though of this the biographers do not inform us. Certain it is, that Swift must have become a great favourite with William, or have thought so, for though he respectfully declined 122 SWIFT. becoming a trooper, he gave the king to understand that he had no objection to become a canon; and the king, as Swift wi'ote his uncle, desired him not to take orders till he gave him a prebend. Such ■was the opinion entertained by both Sir William Temple and Swift, of his standing in the monarch's estimation, that he was employed by Sir William, who was himself laid up with the gout, to lay before the king reasons why his majesty ought to assent to the bill for triennial jjarliaments. Swift could strengthen Sir William's opinion by several arguments drawn from English history, but all his argiiments had no effect on William III, who knew how to cut triennial parliaments as cleverly as asparagus. This was Swift's first dip into politics, and though he said it helped to cure him of vanity, it did not of addicting himself to the same unsatisfactory pursuit in after life. Swift's residence at Moorpark is marked by all the characteristics of his after life, and by two of those events which are mixed up with its great mystery, and which brought after them its melancholy ending. He was so morose, bitter, and satirical, that Mr. Temple, nephew to Sir William, stated, that Sir William for a long time very much disliked him " for his ill qualities, nor would allow him to sit down at table with him." Though related to Lady Temple, Sir William had engaged him only in the capacity of reader and amanuensis, at a salary of 20/. a year and his board, and looked upon him as " a young fellow taken into a low office who was inclined to forget himself." We can well believe that the proud and unbending spirit which through life never deserted Swift, made him feel that he was thus regarded, and excited his most hostile and disagreeable qualities. He was also very defective in his education, and the consciousness of this in a towering spirit like Swift's, while it mortified him, could not make him humble. Yet his better qualities at length prevailed. He took to study ; was commended by Sir William ; and this on his part induced a more respectful deportment towards Sir William, whose fine mind and noble character no one could better estimate than Swift, and it ended, notwithstand- ing an occasional jar, and a parting at one time, with Swift's becoming the most zealous, attentive, and affectionate friend of Sir Wilham, who admitted him to his most entire and cordial confidence. The whole period of Swift's residence at Moorpark was two years. During this time, he went for awhile to Oxford to take his degree, and he was absent twice in Ireland ; once a few months, on account of his health, and the second time, when Swift, anxious for some means of independence, and Temple only offering him an employ- ment worth a hundred a-year in the office of the rolls in Ireland, they parted with mutual displeasure. Swift then went to Ireland, where, tlie heat of their difference having almted on both sides, through Sir William's influence, he obtained the prebend of Kilroot, in the diocese of Connor, worth about a hundred pounds a-year. To this rfinall living he retired, and assumed the character of a country ck-rgyman. But this life of obscurity and seclusion was not likely long to suit the reckless, aspiring nature of Swift. He sighed to SWIFT. 1 i'3 return to the intellectual pleasures and persons who resorted to Moori^ark, and Sir William had not the less sensibly felt the absence of Swift, than Swift the absence of Mooi'park. He returned within the year, and was welcomed back w'ith warmth and respect, and thenceforward stood in a new position. With his abrupt departure from Kilroot two very different stories have been connected ; one Avhich, if true, would sink his character for ever ; the other, which has never been questioned, evidencing the noblest qualities in that character. The first of these stories is, that he attempted violence on the daughter of a farmer, one of his parishioners. Of this it is enough to quote the words of Sir Walter Scott, which, after giving the particulars of the refutation of this calumny, are : — " It is suffi- cient for Swift's vindication to observe, that he returned to Kilroot after his resignation, and inducted his successor in face of the church and of the public ; that he returned to Sir William Temple with as fair a character as when he left him ; that during all his public life in England and Ii'eland, when he was the biitt of a whole faction, this charge was never heard of ; that when adduced so many years after his death, it was xmsupported by aught but sturdy and general averment ; and that the chief jiropagator of the calumny first retracted his assei'tions, and finally died insane." That thei-e might be somethipg on which this charge was founded is by no means improbable, and that Swift, as alleged, was brought before a magistrate of the name of Dobbs, for it is confessed that in his youth he was of a dissipated habit, and it is far more likely that these habits induced that constitutional affection, with giddiness, deafness, and ultimate insanity, which made his future life wretched, than that it was owing to eating an over quantity of stone-fruit. lu this point of view the life of Swift presents a deep moral lesson, for no man, if that were the case, ever drew down upon himself a severer chastisement. But as regards this particular fact, it could by possi- bility be nothing so flagrant as was endeavoured to be propagated by the report. The second statement one is imwilling to weaken, because in itself it is so beautiful ; yet in the Dean's life there are so many proofs of his making professions of patriotism and gene- rosity to cover and screen his private purposes, that one is equally tempted to suspect a certain share of policy. The fact is thus stated : — "In an excursion from his habitation, he met with a clergym.an, with Avhora he formed an acquaintance, which proved him to bo learned, modest, well-principled, the father of eight children, and a curate at the rate of forty pounds a-year. Without explaining his fmrjjose, Swift borrowed this gentleman's black mare — having, no lorse of his own — rode to Dublin, resigned the prebend of Kilroot, and obtained a grant of it for this new friend. When he gave the presentation to the poor clergyman, he kept his eyes steadily fixed on the old man's face, which at first only expressed pleasure at finding himself preferred to a living ; but when he found that it was that of his benefactor, who had resigned in his fixvour, his joy •issumed so touching an expression cf surprise arid gratitude, that 124 swiFi'. Swift, himself deeply affected, declared he had never cxperieuced so much pleasure as at that moment. The poor clergyman, at Swift's depai'ture, pressed upon him the black mai'c, which he did not choose to hurt him by refusing ; and thus mounted for the first time on a horse of his own, with fourscore pounds in his purse, Swift again rode to Dublin, and there embarked for England, and resumed his situation at jMoorpark, as Sir William Temple's confidential secretary." The incident is a charming one, and we may admit the facts as regards the clergyman to be fully true, and that the pleasure of Swift must have been great in having the opportunity of thus making a good man happy ; but in order to place the transaction on its pro- bably correct basis, we must not forget that Swift was confessedly already most thoroughly weary of the obscurity of Kilroot, and longing for return to Moorpark. This takes a good deal of the romance out of it. Without, therefore, astonishing ourselves at the unworldly generosity of a young man abandoning his own chance in life to serve a poor and meritorious man, we may supj)ose to the full that Swift was glad to do the good man such a service while it coin- cided with his own wishes. No person was more clear-sighted than Swift as to the consequences of such things ; and none could better estimate the wide difference in the mode of doing the thing, between saying, " Well, I am tired of this stupid place, I must away again to E;iG;laud, but I'll try to get the living for you," and leaving the high merit of such a personal sacrifice to be attributed to him. In any vi^y, it was rich in consequences. He left behind a family made happy; grateful hearts, and tongues that would sound his praises through the country ; and W'hat a ])restigc Avith which to return to ]\Ioorpark ! He came back like a hero of romance. That, judging by the after life of the Dean, is probably the true view of the affair. He did a good deed, and he took care that it presented to the publio its best side. These ten years of life at Moorpark, which ended only with the death of Sir AVilliam Temple, were every way a most important jjortion of Swift's life. Here he laid at once the foundation of his fame and his wretchedness. Here, with books, leisure, and as much solitude as he pleased ; with the conversation of Sir William Templo and the most distinguished literati of the age who visited him ; Swift in so auspicious an atmosphere not only thought and studied much, but wrote a vast deal, as it were to practise his pen for great future efforts, when he felt his mind and his knowledge had reached a sufficient maturity. Ho informs his friend, Mr. Kendall, that ho had "written, and burned, and written again upon all manner of subjects, more than perhajis any man in England." He wrote Pin- daric Odes ; translated from the classics ; and exercised his powers of satire till he could confidently to himself predict the force of that " hate to fools '' which he afterwards assumed as his principal cha- racteristic. Besides this, he was deeply engaged in assisting Sir AV'illiam in tlie controversy on the superiority of ancient ov laoderu learning, in which Teniple, Boyle, Wotton, and Bcntley were •■(]] SWIFT. 125 involved. This occasioned Swift's " Battle of the Books," though it was not printed till some years afterwards. Here, also, he wi-ote his famous " Tale of a Tub," which more than any other cause stopped effectually the path of his ambition towards a bishopric. Though not known avowedly as an author, Swift was now well known as a man of great ability to many Uterary men, and was on terms of particular friendship with Congreve. But his literary' jiursuits here had not so completely engrossed him as to prevent his engaging in what, in any other man, would have been termed more tender ones ; in Swift they must take some other name, be that what it may. The history of his conduct, too, with regard to every woman to whom he paid particular court, is the most extraordinary thing in all literary research. There have been several ways of accounting for it, into which it is not my intention to descend ; let the causes have been what they may, they stamp his character for intense selfishness beyond all possibihty of palliation. If Swift felt himself disqualified for entering into matrimonial re- lations from whatever cause or motive, as it is evident he did, he should have conducted himself towards women of taste and feeling accordingly ; but, on the contrary, he never, in any instance, seems to have j)ut the shghtest check on himself in this respect. He paid them the most marked attentions ; in some instances he v/ooed with all the appearances of passion, and proposed marriage with the most eager importunity; he saw one after another respond to his warmth, and then he coolly backed out, or entered into such a tantalizing and mysterious position — where the woman had to sacrifice every- thing, peace of mind being destroyed, and character being put into utmost jeopardy — as wore their very hearts and lives out. He played with women as a cat does with mice. So that they were kept fast bound within his toils, cut off from all the better prospects of life, .sacrificed as victims to his need of their society, he cared nothing. He was alarmed and agitated almost to madness by the fear of losing them, yet this was a purely selfish feeling ; he took no measures to set their hearts at rest ; he placed them in siich circumstances that he coTild not do it ; to satisfy one he must immolate another. Some of the finest and most charming women of the age were thus kept, as it were, with a string round their hearts, by v;hich he could pluck and torture them at pleasure ; and keep them walking for ever over the burning ploughshares of agonizing im certainties, and the world's oblique glances. There is nothing which can ever reclaim Swift's memory, in this respect, from the mo.st thorough contempt and indignation of every manly mind. Every instance of what are called love-afl:'airs, in which Swift was concerned, presents the same features, even under the softened effect of the colouring of his most laudatory biographci-, Sir Walter Scott. While Swift was at Leicester, his mother was afraid of his forming an imprudent attachment to a young woman there ; at which Swift; knowing him.self pretty well, only laughed. His flirtations, he re- presented, were only "op])ortunitics of amusement;" a "sort (k insignificant gallantry which he used towards the girl in question ; 12) SWIFT. a *' iiabit to be laid aside whenever lie took sober resolutions, a..-\d Avhicli, Khould he enter tlio church, he should not find it hard to lay down at the porch." This is base language, and that of Scott i.s hardly better. He says — " it is probably to a habit, at first indulged only from vanity or for the sake of amusement, that we are to trace the well-known circumstances which embittered his life, and impaired his reputation." And is this all 1 Are habits of indulging vanity, and of amusing oneself with the affections aiid the happiness of others, to be thus ooolly talked of? "Circumstances which embittered /lis life, and impaired //is reputation," indeed ! Swift had the greatest right to embitter his own life, and imjmir his own reputation, if he pleased, but that is not the question ; it was because he most recklessly, for the indulgence of his vanity and his self-love, embittered the lives of those who listened to him, and impaired their reputations, that he was culpable in proportion to his brilliant powers, and placed himself thereby in the category of heartless villains. These are severe words ; but I have always felt, and still cannot avoid feeling, ihat their application to Swift is most just and necessary. Perhaps no instance of mere meanness was ever more striking than that shown in his second courtship. The lady in this case was not a simple country girl, but was Jane Waryng, the sister of an ancient i-oUege companion ; to this yoimg lady, in his affected pastoral style, he had given the name of Varina. Let it be remembered that this was in Ireland, while he was bearing the name and performing the functions of a clergyman. His suit for this lady was continued for four or five years with all the appearances and protestations of the deepest attachment ; he proposed marriage in the most unequivocal terms. The J'oung lady docs not seem to have responded very cor- dially to his advances for a long time, in fact, till that very response put a speedy end to the disgraceful farce. When she did agree to accept him and his ofi'er, " he seemed," saj^s Scott, " to have been a little startled by her sudden offer of capitulation." He then assumed quite another tone ; — let Scott's own language relate what he did : " Swift charged Varina with want of affection, and indifference ; stated his own income in a most dismal point of view, yet intimated that he might well pretend to a better fortune than she was pos- sessed of ! He was so far from retaining his former opinion as to the effects of a happy union, that he inquired whether the physicians had got over some scruples they appeared to entertain on the subject of her health. (He had made this delicate health before a plea for entreating her to put herself under his care.) Lastl}', he demanded peremptorily to know whether she would undertake to manage their domestic affairs with an income of rather less than three hundred jjounds a-year ; whether she would engage to follow the methods he should point out for the improvement of her mind ; whether she could bend all her affections to the same direction which he should give his own, and so govern her passions, however justly provoked, as at all times to resume her good humour at his approach ; and, tinally, whether she could account the place wjt"»re he resided mor^ SWIFT. 1 ?' welcome than courts and cities without him ? These prem-bbo agreed, as indispensable to please those -who, like himself, 'wore deeply read in the world,' he intimates his willingness to wed her, though tcithoid personal beauty or large fortune." This language requires no comment ; it is the vile shufHe of a contemptible fellow, who, taken at his word, then bullies and insults to get oft" again. His next victim was Esther Johnson, the Stella of this strange history. This young lady was the daughter of the steward of Sir William Temple at Moorpark ; she was fatherless when Sv»-ift com- menced his designs upon her ; her father died soon after her birth, and her mother and sister resided in the house at Moorpark, and were treated with particular regard and esteem by the family. Miss Esther Johnson, who was much younger than Swift, was beautiful, lively, and amiable. Swift devoted himself to her as her teacher, and under advantage of his daily office and position, engaged her young affections most absolutely. So completely was it understood by her that they were to be married when Swift's income warranted it, that on the death of Temple, and Swift's preferment to the living of Laracor in Ireland, she was induced by him to come over and fix her residence in Trim near him, imder the protection of a lady of middle age, Mrs.Uingley. The story is too well known to be minutely followed ; Swift acquired such complete mastery over her, that he kept her near him, and at his command, the greater part of his life, but would neither marry her, nor allow her to marry anyone else, though she had excellent ofters. It was not till many years after- wards, when this state of dependence, uncertainty, and arbitrary selfishness had nearly worn her to death ; and when these were aggra- vated by fears for her reputation, and then by the appearance of a i-ival on the scene, that she extorted from him a marriage which was .still kept a profound secret, unacknowledged, and which left her just in the position she was in befoi-e, that of a mere companion in pre- sence of a third party, when he chose. The rival just mentioned was a Miss Vanhomrigh, the daughter of a widow lady, whose house he frequented during his life in London. This young lady, to whom he, on his uniform plan, v;hich tended to prevent unpleasant claims by the evidence of letters, gave the name of Vanessa, as he termed himself Cadenus, was high-spirited and accomplished. When Swift, in his usual manner, had for a long time paid every marked atten- tion to Miss Vanhomrigh, and was regarded both by herself and the whole family as an acknowledged lover, yet never came to plain terms, the young lady came boldly to them herself. The gay deceiver was thunder-struck : he had for years been living in the most intimate state of confidence with Stella, as her affianced lover; she had all the claims of honour and affection upon him that a wife could have ; for, tliough maintaining the strictest propriety of life luider the closest care of Mrs. Dingley, she was devoting her time, her thoughts, the very flower of her life, and the hazard of her good Jiame, to his social happiness. This jjlain dealing, therefore, on the \\\.\i of Vanessa, was an embarrassing blow. " We cannot doubt," 12S SWIFT. says Scott, " that he actually felt " the shame, cUsappointmeut, guilt, surprise, " expressed in his celebrated poem, though he had not the courage to take tlic open and manly course of avowing those engage- ments Avith Stella, or other impediments, which prevented his accepting the hand and fortune of her rival." The fox in fact was taken in his wiles. He had more on his hands than with all his cunning he knew how to manage. His Kclfisli tj'ranny had been able to control and put off jjoor Stella, but Vanessa was a different kind of subject, and occasioned him great alarm and anxiety. He retired to Ireland ; but this did not mend the matter, it tended rather to make it Avorse ; for Miss Vanhom- righ had property there, and speedily announced to the guilty Dean her presence in Dublin. He was now in as pretty a fix as one could Avisli such a double-dealer to be. " The claims of Stella," says Scott, '• were preferable in point of date, and to a man of honour and good faith, in every respect inimitable. She had resigned her country, her friends, and even hazarded her character, in hope of one day being united to Swift. But if Stella had made the greater sacrifice, Vanessa was the more important victim. She had youth, fortune, fashion; all the acquired accomplishments and information in which Stella was deficient ; possessed at least as much wit, and certainly higher powers of imagination. She had, besides, enjoyed the advan- tage of having in a manner comi^elled Swift to hear and reply to the language of passion. There was in her case no Mrs. Dingley, no convenient third party, Avhose presence in society and community in correspondence neces.sarily imposed on both a restraint, conve- nient perhaps to Swift, but highly unfavourable to Stella." The consequences were such as might be expected. Swift endea- voured to temporize and amuse Miss Vanhomrigh, and to induce her to return to England, but in vain. She never ceased to press the, to lier, important question, and to keep him in what he used to call " a quickset hedge." She im23ortuned him with complaints of cruelty and neglect, and it was obvious that any decisive measure to break this acquaintance would be attended with some such tragic consequence, as, though late, at length concluded their story. He was thus compelled to assume a demeanour of kindness and affection to Vanessa, which, of course, soon was reported to Stella, and began to produce in her the most fatal symptoms. Her heart was wrung by fears and jealousies ; her health gave way ; and Swift was com- pelled to a private marriage, in order not to clog his conscience with Jier murder. The conditions of this marriage were, that it should continue a strict secret from the public, and that they should con- tinue to live separately, and in the same guarded manner as before The grand business of his life now was to soothe and wheedle A^anessa, and to play the hypocrite lover to her while he was the iiusband of another woman ; a fine situation for a clergyman and a dean ! This, we may believe, with a woman of Miss Vanhomrigh's temperament, was no easy task. His next plan was to try to get rid of her by inducing her to marry some one else, and for tlais pur- pose he presented to her Dean Winter, a frentleman of character and SWIFT. 129 fortune, and Dr. Price, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel. It was iu vain ; she rejected such offers jjeremptorily, and at length, as if to hide her vexation and seek repose in nature, she retired to Marley Abbey, her house and property, near Celbridge. But tlie dreams of love and jealousy pursued her thither with only the more force. She heard whispers of Stella being actually the wife of Swift, and she determined to know the truth. For this pui-pose che Avrote at once to Stella, and put the plain question to her. The result of this was rapid and startling. In a few days she saw the Dean descend from his horse at her gate, and advance to her door, dark and fierce as a thunder-cloud. He entered, threw down a letter upon the table before her, and with a look black as night, stalked out again without a word, mounted, and rode away. As soon as Miss Vanhomrigh recovered in some degree from her terror and amazement, she took up the letter, opened it, and found it her own to Stella ! Stella herself confirmed the fatal truth by a candid avowal, and Miss Vanhomrigh sank under the shock. For eight years, trusting probably to the promises of Swift, and the apparently failing health of Stella, she had maintained the unequal contest with her deep- rooted passion and Swift's mysterious conduct, but this revelation of his villany was her deatli. However, she lived only to revoke in haste her will, which had been made in favour of Swift, and to leave Jier fortune to Mr. i\Iarshall, afterwards one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, and Dr. Berkeley, the celebrated philosopher, and afterwards Bishoji of Cloyne ; and to command the pubhcation of all the letters which had jiassed between Swift and herself, as well as the celebrated j^oem of Cadenus and Vanessa. Stella died in 1727-8,'having borne the secret and corroding suffer- ing of the position imjioscd by the selfishness of Swift for upwards of thirty years. Mrs. Whiteway, a lady who was on terms of great intimacy Avith Swift, and spent much time at the deanery of St. Patrick's, stated that when Stella was on her death-bed she expostu- lated with Swift on his having kept their marriage unnecessarily .secret, and expressed her fear that it might leave a stain on her reputation ; to which Swift replied, " Well, my dear, if you wish it, it shall be owned." Stella replied, " B is too later Scott says, " he received this report of ]\Irs. Whiteway with j^lea- sure, as vindicating the Dean from the charge of cold-blooded and hard-hearted cruelty to the unfortunate Stella, when on the verge of existence." How does it vindicate him from any such charge ? The a^-owal was never made by him ; and so dubious was the very fact of the marriage left, as far as any act of Swift's was concerned, that its very existence has since been strenuously denied, especially by Mr. ^lonck ]\Iason in his History of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The simple truth is, that the whole of Swift's conduct to Stella for thirty-three years was a piece of " cold-blooded and hard-hearted cruelty," which admits of no defence. Such was the treatment which all ladies who manifested an attachment to Swift received at his hands ; is it any wonder that such a man went mad ? These circumstances have given a singular character to the b''9' l30 SWIFT. graphy of Swift ; the letters of Stella and Vanessa, which have boon ])ublished, convert it by their passion and heart-eloquence into u .si>ecies of romance ; in which, however, Swift himself plays the part of a very clever, witty, and domineering, but certainly not a,ttractive, hero. Moorpark will always possess an interest connected with Stellii, Tt was amid its pleasant groves that, young, beautiful, and confiding, she indulged with Swift in those dreams of after-life which he was so bitterly to falsify. There is a cavern about three quarters of a mile from the mansion, called Mother Ludlam's Hole, which the country tradition represents as having been a frequent resort of Swift and Stella in their walks. It lies halfway down the side of the hill covered with wood, towards the southern extremity of the park. It seems to have been hewn out of the sandstone rock, and to have increased considerably in its dimensions since it was described by Grose. The greatest height of this excavation may be about twelve feet, and its breadth twenty, but at the distance of about thirty feet from the entrance it becomes so low and narrow as to be passable only by a person crawling on his hands and knees. From the bottom of the cave issues a small, clear stream, and two stone benches have been placed for the accommodation of visitors. The gloom and un- cei-tain depth of the grotto, the sound of the water, and the beauty of the surrounding soUtary scene, surveyed through the dark arched entrance, shagged with weeds and the roots of trees, give the spot an impressive etfect. HaufF has introduced this cavern into a drama called " Ludlam's Hohle." Grose gives a jocose account of the origin of the name of the cave. Old Mother Ludlam, he tells us, was a lohiic witch ; one who neither !nlled hogs, rode on broomsticks, nor made children vomit nails and crooked pins, but, on the contrary, did all the good she could. That the country people, when in want of any article, — say a frying-pan or a spade, — would come to the cave at midnight, and turning three times round, would three times say, "Pray, good Mother Ludlam, lend me such a thing, and I will return it within two days." The next morning, on going there again, the article would be found laid at the entrance of the cave. At length the borrower of a large cauldron was not punctual in returning it, which so irritated the good mother, that when it did come she refused to take it in again, and in course of time it was conveyed away to Wayerley Abbey, and, at the dissolution of the monasteries, was deposited in Frens- ham church. From the hour of the non-appearance of the cauldron, however, at its proper time. Mother Ludlam never would lend the .slightest thing. Moorpark is now a water establishment, conducted by Dr. Lane. The resorts and residences of Swift in London, during his life there, have no very pecuhar interest. He frequented freely the houses of the great political characters with whom he was connected. His immediate friends were Harley, Bolingbroke, and Godolphin. He was a frequent attendant at Leicester-house, the court of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II. He was on the most familiar term.s with all the literati, Gay, Pope, Addison, and, for a considerable SWIFT. 131 period, Steele, &c. He was often at Twickenham for months together, and a frequenter of Button's coffee-house with the other wits of the time. It is not in these places, however, that the deep interest of Swift's life has settled, and, therefore, wo cross the Channel to Ireland, and seek his homes there. Wo have already noticed his brief abode at Kilroot : his next residence was at Laracor, in Meath. Swift was about tliirty-two years of age when he attended Lord Berkeley, one of the Lords Justices of Ireland, to that country as his chaplain and private secretary. Berkeley had promised him the first good chui-ch living that fell vacant, but the rich deanery of Derry soon after tailing out, he would only sell it to Swift for a thou- sand pounds. Swift resented this in such a manner, that to prevent making so formidable an enemy, Berkeley gave him the next vacancy, — the rectory of Agher, and the vicarage of Laracor and Rathbeggan . These livings, united, amounted to about 230/. yearly ; and the pre- bend of Dunlavin being added in the year 1700, raised Swift's income to betwixt 350/. and 400/. His manner of taking possession of Laracor, where he resolved to live, was characteristic. He was a great pedestrian, and is said to have walked down incocpiifo to Laracor from Dublin, making doggrel rhymes on the places which he passed thi-ough. Many anecdotes are related of this journey. Arriving, he entered the curate's house, demanded his name, and announced him- self bluntly " as his master," AU was bustle to receive a person of such consequence, who, apparently, was determined to make his consequence felt. The curate's wife was ordered to lay aside the Doctor's clean shirt and stockings, which he carried in his pocket ; nor did he relax his airs of domination until he had excited much alarm, which his subsequent friendly conduct to the worthy couple turned into respectful attachment. These Lrusqueries of the Dean's were, no doubt, very amusing to liimself, and are agreeable enough to read of, but they must have been anything but agi-eeable to those upon whom they were played off. They betray a want of regard to the feelings of others, and were offences against the best laws of society, which every one who regards the kindly sparing of the feelings of the humble and the snodest ought to condemn. However respectful might be the after attachment of this worthy curate and his wife, we may well believe tliat the first strange rudeness and severity of tlie dreaded Dean would leave a wound and a terror behind that were not deserved, and that no one ought willingly to inllict. There were cases whero folly merited tlie eccentric chastisement which Swift gave them. The farmer's wife who invited him to dinner, and then spoiled the dinner by repeatedly complaining that it really was too poor for him to sit down to, though the table groaned with good things, deserved, in some degree, the retort, — " Then why did you not get a better '< — you knew 1 was coming ; I have a good mind to go av/ay and u the contrary, saw room for still greater reserve, when her situation became that of a solitary female, without the society or countenance of a female relation." Marley Abbey, Vanessa's house, is now the residence of ^Ir. Henry Grattan, M.P. In D'Altou's "History of the County of Dublin," p. 344, there is an account of the present state of Delvillc, the residence of Dr. Delany, / ~f JAMES THOMSON". The author of The Seasons was boiu at Eduam, a couple of miles or so from Kelso, on the 11th of September, 1700. His father was the minister of the parish, and it was intended to bring him up to the same profession. The early childhood only of Thomson was spent here, for his father removed to Southdean, near Jedburgh, having obtained the living of that place. Ednam has nothing poetical about it. It hes in a rich farming country of ordinary features. The scenery is flat, and the village by no means picturesque. It consists of a few farm-houses, and long rows of hinds' cottages. David Macbeth Moir, the Delta of Black- wood'.s Magazine, dcscrilxid the place some years ago in these lines : — " A rural cliurdi ; .some scattered cottage roofs, From -whose secluded hearths the thin blue smoke Silently wreathing tlirou!,'h the breezeless air, Ascended inin},'ling with the summer sky, A rustic bridge, mossy and -weather-stained ; A fairy streamlet, finginn to iisclf ; .\nd liere and there a venerable tree In foliated beauty ;— of these elements. And only these, the simple scene was fonneu." 142 THOMSON. Yet even this description is too favourable. It would iuduce us to believe that the spot had something of the picturesque— it has nothing of it. The streamlet sings little even to itself through that, tlat district ; — the mossy bridge has given way to a good substantial but unpoetical stone one. The landscape is by no means over enriched by tine trees. There are some limes, I believe they are, in the churchyard. The old church has been pulled down since Thomson's time, and the new one now standing is a poor barn-like affair, with a belfry that would do for a pigeon-cote. The manse in which the poet was born has also disappeared, and a new, square, un- picturesque one been built ui^on the site. Perhaps no class of people have less of the poetical or the picturesque in them than the Pres- byterian clergy of Scotland. The hard, dry, stern Calvinism im- parted by John Knox has effectually expelled all that. The country people of Scotland are generally intelligent, and have a taste for poetry and literature ; but to a certainty they do not derive this from their clergy. In no country have I found the parish clergy so ignorant of general literature, or so unacquainted with anything that is going on in the world, except the polemics of their own church. The cargo of Geneva which Knox imported has operated on the religious feeling of Scotland worse than any gin or whisky on its moral or physical condition. It is a ifpirit as unlike Chris- tianity as possible. One is all love and tenderness ; the other all bitterness and hardness : — the one is gentle and tolerant ; the other fierce and intolerant : — the one careless of form, so that the life and soul of charity and piety are preserved ; the other is all form and doctrine — doctrine, hard, metaphysical, rigid, and damnatory. On the borders too, in many places, the very people seem to me more ignorant and stupid than is the wont of Scotland ; they would match tho Surrey chopsticks or Essex calves of England. I walked over from Kelso to Ednam on a Sunday morning. The 2>eople were collected about the church door, waiting for the time of service. I thought it a good o^iportunity to hear something of the traditions of the country about Thomson. Nobody could tell me anything. So little idea had they of a poet, that they informed me that another j^oet had been born there besides Thomson. I asked whom that might be ? They said, " One White, a decrepit old man, who used to write under the trees of the churchyard ;" and this they thought having another poet ! Such — as we are often obliged to exclaim — is fame ! An old woman, into whose cottage I stepped, on returning, to avoid a shower, was more intelligent. She told me that her mother had Uved at the old manse, and frequently heard what had been told to inquirers. The manse in which Thomson was born, she said, was of mud ; and he was born in the parlour, which had a bed in a recess concealed by a curtain. I stayed the service, or at least nearly three hours of it. It is the odd custom of many country places in Scotland, where the people have too far to come to be able to do it twice in the day, to hava actually two services performed all at one sitting. With that atteu- THOMSON, 143 tion to mere rigid formality wiiich Calvinism has introduced, that task-work holiness which teaches that God's wrath will be aroused if they do not go through a certain number of prayers, sermocs, and ceremonies in the day, they have the morning and afternoon services all at once. There were, therefore, tico enormously long sermons, three prayers, three singings, and, to make worse of it, the sermons consisted of such a mass of doctrinal stubble as filled me with astonishment that such actual rubbish, and worse than rubbish, could at the present day be inflicted on any patient and unoffending people. What a gross perversion and misconception of Christianity is this ! How my heart bled at the very idea that the state paid and upheld this system, by which the people were not blessed with the pure, simple, and benign knowledge of that simplest, most beautiful, and love-inspiring of all systems — Christianity, but were actually cursed with the drawing of the horrid furze-bushes of school divinity and Calvinistic damnation across their naked con- sciences. Imagine a company of hard-working and care-worn peasants, coming for five or ten miles on a Sunday to listen to such chopj)ed- straw preaching as this. The sermons were to prove that the temptation of Christ in the wilderness was a (^o;/c<' /o'e and actual history. And, first, the preaclier told them what profound subtlety the temptations of Satan showed, such as advising Christ after fortV days' fast to cause the stones to be made bread ; as if Christ could not have done that, if he needed, without the devil's suggestion. And then he told them that Christ was God himself, so that the devil, knowing that, instead of showing such profound subtlety, must have been a very daft devil indeed to try to tempt him at all. Poor people ! of all the beautiful sayings and doings in the life of our Saviour ; of all the divine precepts which he peculiarly brought down from heaven for the especial consolation and invigoration of the poor ; of all the deeds and the expressions of an infinite love ; of all those teachings that " the Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath ;" of all the gracious declarations, that it was not by doctrine and cunningly devised fables, but by the great spirit of love — love to God and to one another, and by keeping his com- mandments, that we are to be saved — was there nothing that could be dealt out to you ? Could your dry and thirsty sjiirits receive nothing but this dry and musty fodder of sectarian disqui.sition ? Oh ! how much better were one simple word of genuine feeling from the most unlettered preacher on a bare hill-side ! My only wonder was to find any body in the church, for I thought I must have met the whole village going to Kelso, where they have eifiht different sects, the most zealous of all being the Free Church. It is only by a passage through Scotland that you get a living idea of what a movement the movement of this Free Church has been. In every town, from the cxtremest south to the extremest north, you see free churclies rising or arisen. Even in little Melrose there is a large one ; and 1 observed that they built them as near, on all occasions, as possible to the cstablishctl one, and, if compassable, 141 TH03IS0N, exactly opposite. Indeed, I have been told that land has, in many instances, been oflei'ed gratuitonsly to build a free church upon, and has been refused because it was not opposite to the established one. Such is the fruit of an Establishment in Scotland, and such were the evidences of its teachings in Ednam. How different to the fine, genial, and genuine faith of James Thomson ! On a hill on the right hand of the road, proceeding from Kelso to Ednam, and about a quarter of a mile from that village, a i)lain obelisk has been erected to the memory of the poet, bearing this inscription : — " Erected in memory of James Thomson, Author of the Seasons. Born at Ednam, 11th of September, a.d. 1700." The Earl of Buchan, who erected a temple of the Muses at Dry- burgh, in the centre of which he placed Thomson, and who affixed the brass tablet to his memory in the church at Richmond, also instituted an annual commemoration of his fame at Ednam, which has long fallen into desuetude. For the first meeting of this kind, Burns wrote his address to the shade of Thomson in crowning his ]>ust at Ednam. Of Thomson's sojourn at Southdean nearly all that is now kuowii is comprehended in the following passage in Mi-, llobert Chambers's "Picture of Scotland:" — "The father of James Thomson was re- moved from Ednam to this parisli while the poet was a child ; and here accordingly the author of the Seasons spent the days of his boyhood. In the churchyard may still be seen the humble monu- ment of the father of the poet, though the inscription is nearly obliterated. The manse in which that individual reared his large family, of whom one was destined to become so illustrious, was what would now be described as a small thatched cottage. It is traditionally recollected that the poet was sent to the University of Edinburgh, seated behind his father's man on horseback, but was so reluctant to quit the country for a town life, that he had returned on foot before his conductor, declaring that he could study as well on the braes of Sou'den — so Southdean is generally pronounced — as in Edinburgh." Southdean lies in a much more beautiful country than Ednam. In his rambles he' could reach the banks of the Tweed and the Teviot, and the fine ruins of Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Melrose ; and here Thomson undoubtedly acquired that deep love for nature, and that intimate acquaintance with it, which enabled him to produce the poem of the Seasons, which, with considerable faults of style, is one of the richest compositions in the language, in the legitimate subject-matter, in the grandeur of its scenery drawn from all regions of the earth, and in tlie broad and beautiful spirit of its religious philosoj^hy. It has stood the test of more than a century, during which time great changes have taken place in the theory of versi- fication and in public taste. Compositions of great variety, and of the most splendid character, have since rendered fastidious the public judgment, yet the Seasons are, and will continue to be, read with pleasure. Through the I'ecommendation of Mr. I'iccaltounj the minister oJ THOMSON. " 145 Hobkirk, Thomson was sent to Jedburgh school. His iiucle was gardener to Sir Gilbert Elliott, of Minto, and that gentleman and Sir 'vYilliam Bennet, of Chesters, noticed something promising in the lad, and invited him to their houses. Though the old man-servant, who had jogged along to Edinburgh with little Jemmy Thomson behind liim, was astonished on his return to find him at home again, yet another attempt must have been more successful, for at the Uni- versity of Edinburgh he finished his education. The poetic nature, however, convinced him by that time that it was not his vocation to preach the arid notions of Knox, and palm them off as the grand heart-opening truths of Christianity. His father had died, two years after his coming to Edinburgh, in a very extraordinary manner, being fatally struck on the head, it is said, by a ball of fire, while trying to exorcise a ghost at a place called Woolic, leaving his mother with nine children, who raised upon her little estate by mortgage what she could, and came to reside in Edinburgh. James resolved not to weigh upon her resources longer tlian needful ; but set out for London with his poem of Winter in his pocket. He had introductions to several influential persons, and one of them to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to the sons of the Duke of Montrose, with whom, after residing some time r.ear East Barnet as a tutor to the eldest son of Lord Binning, he went to live. His great want. Dr. Johnson says, on reaching London, was a i^air of shoes. To make his calls these were necessary, and his "Winter was his sole resource. It was a wintry one, for lie could find no purchaser for it for a long time, and when purchased it did not for a good while sell. At length it fell under the eye of a Mr. Whatley, who instantly per- ceived its merit, and zealously spread the information. Thomson was quickly a popular author, and from this time resided chiefly in the neighbourhood of London. Before this period he was fagging as usher of an academy in Little Tower Street. On the success of his "Winter he left the school, and took lodgings in Lancaster Court, Strand. He made one tour on the Continent as companion to ]\Ir, Talbot, the eldest son of the chancellor. The despotism which ho .saw abroad induced him to write his poem of Liberty, one of his very worst productions, and which lost him much government pre- ferment ; and when the public complained of this, a ministerial writer remarked that " Thomson had taken a JAhniy which was not agreeable to Britannia in any Season^ Government preferment, however, he did receive. The chancellor conferred on him the place of Secretary of the Briefs, which made him independent. On the death of the Chancellor Talbot ho lost his post, through being too indolent to make application to Lord Hardwicke for it, though Hardwicke kept it open for some time that he might. He was again reduced by this circumstance to poverty and difficulty, out of which he was, after a while, permanently raised through the influence of Lord Lyttelton, a pension of a hun- dred a year lieing conferred on him. This removed the jiressure of utter necessity, but compelled him to work, without which com- pulsion perhaps no man Avould have worked less- About tlu'ce years M6 THOMSON. before his death, Lord Lyttelton, being then in power, made him Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands. Those islands he sur- veyed from his elevation on Richmond-hill, and very general his survey of course must have been. The particular and actual survey was left to his deputy in the islands themselves, and Thomson netted a yearly balance, the deputy being paid, of three hundred a year ; which, with his pension, left him most comfortably at ease in tho castle of indolence. Besides his two principal poems he wrote several tragedies, as Sophonisba, in which the unfortunate line, " O Sophonisba, Sophonisba, O ! " was parodied by a wag with— " O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, ! " and was echoed through the town everywhere and for a long time. Agamemnon was another, Edward and Eleonora a third, and Tan- cred and Sigismunda his last and best ; except a posthumous one — Coriolauus. Amongst the haunts of Thomson were the country houses of many of the more literary or more tasteful noblemen of the time ; as Hagley, the seat of Lord Lyttelton ; Bub Doddington's seat in Dorsetshire ; Stowe, then the seat of Lord Cobham; the seat of the Countess of Hertford, etc. The last place, however, it seems, only received Thomson once. It was the practice, says Johnson, of the Countess of Hertford, to whom Thomson dedicated his poem of Spring, to invito some poet every summer into the country to hear her verses and assist her studies. This honour was once conferred on Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with Lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical operations, and never therefore received another summons. Thomson was, in fact, the last person to hope for much literary •ind understrapper service from, though in the shape of a countess, where, on the one hand, bad verses had to be inflicted on him, and on the other there was a good table and good talk. Indolence and self-indulgence were his besetting sins. Every one has heard of tho lady who said she had discovered three things concerning the author in reading the Seasons : that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigidly abstinent ; at all which Savage, who had lived much with him, laughed heartily, saying that he believed Thomson was never in cold water in his life, and that the other particulars were just as true. The anecdote of Quiu, regarding Thomson's splendid descrip- tion of sunrise, has been equally diffused. He, like Savage, asserted that he believed Thomson never saw the sun rise in his life ; and related that, going one day to see him at Richmond, he found him in bed at noon, and asking him why he did not get up earlier, he replied listlessly, that " he had nae motive." That no man ever lived more completely in a castle of indolence there can be little question, and perhaps as little that it cut his life short. He died August the 27th, 1748, at the age of forty-eight, of cold taken on the Tliames between Kiav and Richmond. He used, it seems, to be in the habit of v.'alking from town to his house at THOMSO.V. 147 llichmond, and crossed at a boat-house, somewhere hereabout, which being also a public-house, he there took a rest and refresli- rneiit. The place is still shown. Here, it would seem, he came warna fron; liis walk, and crossing in a damp wind took cold ; but this sus- ceptibiUty to cold was the direct resiUt of his indolent, self-indulgent, and effeminate habits. Had he followed those jiractices of healthy activity so finely described in his poem, how much longer and more useful might his life have been ! Yet it must be a fact unquestion- able, that Thomson as a boy rose earlj', saw both sunrises and all the glories of nature, plunged into the summer flood, and braved tho severity of winter. No man could so vividly or so accurately describe what he had not experienced, and they who know best the country know how exact is his knowledge of it. Every one can feel how masterly are his descriptions of the grandest phenomena of naturo in every region of the world, when such descriptions are deducible from books. In those, however, which came under his own eye, there is a life and there are beauties that attest that personal know- ledge. The faults of his Seasons are those of style. His blank verso is peculiar ; you can never mistake it for that of any other poet, but it has not the charm of that of Milton, of Wordsworth, or of various other poets. It is often turgid, and still more often prosaic. There are strange inversions used ; and with his adverbs and adjectives he plays the most terrible havoc. Frequently the adjective is tossed behind the substantive, just for the sake of the metre, and regardless of all other effect, as, — " Driving sleets Deform the day deliglitless ;" instead of the deliglitless day. His adverbs are continually lopped of their last syllable, and stand like wretched adjectives out of place ; as, — the sower "liberal throws the grain," instead of liberally, — clouds, "cheerless, drown the crude, unripened j'car," instead of cheer- lessly, — the herb dies, though with vital power " it is copious blest," instead of copioush'. These barbarisms, which greatly deface this jjoem, abound ; but especially in the Sjiring, which was not pub- lished first in its native i^osition, but third, the routine of appearance being AVinter, Summer, Spring, and Autumn. But, above its faults, how far ascend the beauties and excellences of this poem ! the finest of which spring out of that firm, glowing, and noble spirit of patriotism and religion which animated James Thomson. His patriotism bursts forth on all occasions, but more especially in that elaborate description of England, her deeds aiii/. worthies, in the Summer, commencing — " Heavens ! wliat a goodly prospect spreads around, Of hills and dales, of woods and lawns, and spires And glittering towns, and gildi^d streams, till all 'I'hc stretching landscape into smoke decays ! Happy Britannia!" etc. His piety, — the piety of love and wonder, of that profound admira- tion which the contemplation of the works of the Divine Creator bad inspired him with, and of that grateful love and trust which the 148 THOMSON. manifestations of j)avental goodness everywhere had impressed upon his heart, — these are, as it were, the hving soiil of the poem, and the principles of imperishable vitality. These sentiments, diffused throughout the jjoem itself, concentrate themselves at its conclusion as predominant over all others, and burst foi-th in that magnificent hymn, which has no lival in the language, excej^t the glorious one of Milton, the morning hymn of our first jjarents, beginning,— " These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Ahnighty ! Tliine this universal frame, Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then," etc. The religion, too, of Thomson was the religion not of creeds and crabbed doctrines of humanity. He had studied nature in the spirit of its i\Iaker, and the fruit of that study was an enlarged and tender s^Tiipathy for his fellow-men. This sentiment is everywhere con- .spicuous as his piety ; and in the passage following the fine account of the man perishing in the snow, rises to a high degree of power ^nd descriptive eloquence. " Ah ! little think the gay licentious proud. Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround ; They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth. And wanton, often cruel, riot waste ; Ah ! little think they, while they dance along. How many feel, this very moment, deatli. And all the sad variety of pain : }low many sink in tlie devouring flood, (Jr more devouring flame: how many bleed. By shameful variance betwixt man and man ; How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms ; Shut from tlie common air, and common use Of their own limbs : how many drink the cup Of baneful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery: sore pierced by wintry winds, How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheerless poverty ! How manj' shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse; Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life, They furnish matter for tlie tragic Muse. Even in the vale where Wisdom loves to dwell. With Friendship, Peace, and Contemplation joined. How many racked with honest passions, drooj) In deep retired distress. How many stand Around the death-bed of their dearest friends. And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, That one incessant struggle render life. One scene of toil, of suflering, and of fate. Vice in his high career would stand appalled, And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think ; The conscious heart of Charity would warm, And her wide wish Benevolence dilate; The social tear would rise, the social sigh, And into clear perfection, gradual bliss. Refilling still, the social passions work." — Winter. Ics, if the great sentiment of this passage were but firmly im- printed on the hearts of all men and all women, but especially the rich and powerful, how soon would the face of earth be changed, and the vale of tears be converted into a lesser heaven ! It is the grand defect of our systems of education, for rich and for poor, but pre- eminently for the former, that they are not taught that no man can THOMSON. 149 Ii\o inuocently who lives only for liis own enjoyment; that to live merely to enjoy ourselves in the highest treason against God and man ; that God does not li-\'e merely for himself, his eternal existence is one constant work of beneficence ; and that it is the social dnty oi every rational being to live like God, his Creator, for the good of others. Were this law of duty taught foithfuUy in all our schools, with all its responsibilities, the penalties of its neglect, the inelFable delight of its due discharge, there would be no longer seen that moral monster, the man or woman who lives alone for the mere pur- pose of selfish enjoyment. That host of gay and idle creatures, who pass through life only to gUtter in the circles of fashion, to seek ad- miration for personal attractions and accomplishments — for dressing, playing, dancing, or riding — v^iiose life is but the life of a butterfly when it should be the life of a man, would S2:)eedily disperse, and bo no more seen. That life would be shrunk from as a thing odious and criminal, because useless ; when faculties, wealth, and fame are put into their hands, and a world is laid before them, in which men are to be saved and exalted ; misery, crime, shame, despair, and death prevented ; and all the hopes and capacities for good in the human .soul are to ])e made easy to the multitude. To live for these objects is to be a hero or a heroine, and any man or woman may be that ; to live through this world of opportunities given but once, and to neglect them, is the most fearful fate that can befal a creature of eternal responsibilities. But poets and preachers have proclaimed this great truth for ages ; the charge now lies at the door of the educators, and they alone can impress effectually on the world its highest and most inalienable duty, that of living for the good of others. Amongst those wdio have used the voice of ]3oetry given them of God to rouse their fellow-men to a life of beneficence, none have done it more zealously or more eloquently than Thomson. For this we pass over here the mere charms of his poetic achievements ; over those great pictures which he has painted of the world, and its elements of frosts, tempests, plagues, earthquakes ; of the views of active life at home and abroad ; the hunter's perils and the hunter's carouse, " In t;liostly halls of grey l•cno^Yn ;" of man roaming the forests of the tropics, or climbing the chfFs of the lonely Hebrides ; to notice in this brief article those bursts of eloquent fh-e in which he calls to godhke deeds,— those of mercy and of goodness. In this respect, as w^ell as in that of mere poetical beauty, his poem of the Castle of Indolence is i)rc-cminent. Thomson suffered from the seductions of the vile wizard of Indolence, and in his first canto he paints most effectively the horrors of that vice ; in the second canto he shows that though he had fallen into the net of sloth, it had not entirely conquered, and it could not corrupt him. lie calls with the energy of a martyr on his fellow-men to assume the privileges and glories of men. The Castle of Indolence is as felicitous in its versification as in its sentiments ; it is full of har- mony, and the spirit of picturesque beaixty pervades every line • ] 50 THOMSON. tlierc is a mauliuess of sentiment about it that is worthy of true genius. Such a stanza as this is the seed of independence to the iiiiuils of tliousands : " 1 care not, Fortune ! what you nie ilenj- : You cannot rob nie of free Nature's frrace ; You cannot s)iut tlie windows of tlie sky. Through which Aurora shows lier hriglit'ninj; face ; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve ; Let liealth my nerves and finer fibres brace. And I their toys to the great cliildren leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can nie bereave." The address of the bard of active virtue is wortliy of being hstenod to in every age. " Ye hapless race ! Dire Labouring here to smother Reason's ray, 'I'hat lights our Maker's image in our face. And gives us wide o'er earth imquestion'd sway : AVhat is the adored Supreme Perfection, say .' Wliat but eternal, never-resting soul, Almighty power, and all-directing day; By whom each atom stirs, the planets roll : Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole. " Come, to the beaming God your hearts unfold ! Draw from its fountain life ! 'Tis thence alone We can excel. Up from unfeeling mould To seraphs burning round the Almighty's throne, Life rising still on life, in brighter tone, _ Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss. In universal nature this clear shown Not needeth proof; to prove it were, I wis. To prove the beauteous world excels the brute abyss. " It was not by vile loitering in ease, Tliat Greece obtained the brighter palm of art ; Tliat soft, yet ardent Athens learn'd to please, To keen tlie wit, and to sublime the heart. In all supreme, complete in every part ! It was not thence majestic IJome arose. And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart : For sluggard's brow tlie laurel never grows • Renown is not the child of indolent repose. " Had unambitious mortals minded nought, lUit in loose joy their time to wear away ; Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought, Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay; Rude nature's state had been our state to-day ; Xo cities here their towery fronts had raised. No arts had made us opulent and gay; With brother brutes the human race had grazed ; Noae e'er had soared to fame, none honour'd been, none praised. " Great Homer's song had never fired the breast To thirst of glory and heroic deeds ; Sweet Maro's Muse, sunk in inglorious rest, Had silent slept amid the Mincian reeds ; The wits of modern times had told their beads. And monkish legends been their only .strain ; Our Milton's Eden had lain wrapp'd in weeds ; Our Shakspeare strolled and laugh'd witli Warwie'ii swair'.s; Ne had my master, Spenser, charm'd his !\Iulla's plairA. THOMSON. 151 "Dumb, too, Iiad been the sajre historic muse, And perished all the sons of ancient fame; Those starry lights of virtue that diffuse Through the dark depths of time their vivid flame, Had ail been lost with such as have no name. ■VVlio then had scorn'd his care for others' good ? Who then had toil'd rapacious men to tame? Who in tlie public breach devoted stood, And for his country's cause been prodigal of blood? " Heavens ! can you then thus waste in shameful wise Your few important days of trial here ? Heirs of eternity ! yborn to rise Tlirough endless states of being, still more near To bliss approasihing and perfection clear ; Can you renounce a fortune so sublime, — • Such glorious hopes, your backward steps to steer. And roll with vilest brutes through mud and slime ? No ! no ! — your hcaven-touch'd hearts disdain the sordid crime ! '' It 16 a pleasure to find tliat the spot where these noble sentiments were penned is still preserved sacred to the memory of the poet of truth and virtue. As far as the restless and rapid change of property would permit so near London, the residence of Thomson has been kept from destruction: changed it is, it is true, but that change has been made with a veneration for the muse in the heart of the new inhabitant. The house of Thomson, in what is called Kew-foot-lauc at Richmond, as shown in the woodcut at the head of this article, was a simple cottage ; behind this lay his garden, and in front he looked down to the Thames, and on the tine landscape beyond. The cottage now appears to be gone, and in the place stands the goodly villa of the Earl of Shaftesbury ; the cottage, however, is not really gone, it is only swallowed up in the larger house of the present time. After Thomson's death his cottage was purchased by George Koss, Esq., who, out of veneration for hi-? memory, forbore to pull it down, but enlarged and improved it at the expense of 9,000/. The walls of the cottage were left, though its roof was taken off, and the walla continued iipwards to their present height. Thus, Avhat was Thom- son's cottage forms now the entrance hall to Lord Shaftesbury's house. The part of the hall on the left hand was the room where Thomson used to sit, and here is preserved a plain mahogany Pem- broke table, with a scroll of white wood let into its surface, on which is inlaid, in black letters, this piece of information : — "Ontliis table James Thomson constantly wrote. It was therefore purchased of his servant, who also gave these brass hooks, on which his liat and cane were hung in this his sitting room. F. B." These initials, F. B., are those of the Hon. Frances Boscawcn, the widow of Admiral Boscawen, who came into possession of the i)ro- perty after the death of Mr. Ross, whose name, however, still attaches to it, being called Rossdale, or more commonly, Rosedale, House. Mrs. Boscawen it was who repaired the poet's favoiu'itt; seat in the garden, and placed there the table on which he wrote his poems ; she it was too, no doubt, who hung the inscrijitions there, her initials being again found appended to one of them. Her son, Lord Falmouth, sold the jolace. No brass hooks are now to be seen, that 1 could discover or learn anything of. 1,52 THOMSON. The garden of Thomson^ whicli lay bcliiud the house, has been preserved, iu the same manner and to the same extent as his house ; the garden and its trees remain, hut these now form only part of the present grounds, as the cottage forms only part of the pre- sent house. ]\Ir. Ross, when he purchased the cottage and some adjoining grounds, and came to live here after Thomson, not only enlarged the house, but threw down the partition fence, and enlarged the "rounds to their present extent. A plcasanter lawn and shrub- beries are rarely to be seen ; the turf, old and mossy, speaks of long duration and great care ; the trees, dispersed beautifully upon it, are of the finest growth and of the greatest beauty. In no part of Eng- land are there so many foreign trees as in the grounds of gentlemen's villas near London ; in many of them the cedars of Lebanon arc of a oi'OAvth and majesty which probably Lebanon itself cannot now show. In these grounds are some fine specimens, and one of especial and surj^assing loveliness ; it is the piuits picect, or silver cedar. The •Towth is broad, like that of the cedar of Lebanon, though its boughs do not throw themselves out in that exact horizontal direction that those of the cedar of Lebanon do ; they sweep down to the ground iu a style of exquisite grace. Heavy, full of life, rich in hue as masses of chased silver, their effect with the young cones sitting birdlike on them resembles that of some tree of heaven, or of some garden of poetic romance. Besides this superb tree, standing on its ample portion of lawn, there are here the evergreen ilex, hickory, wliite sassafi'as, scarlet and liagland oaks, tlie tuhp-trec, the catalpa, the tupelo, the black American ash, etc. The effect of their large growth, their varied hues and foliage, their fine branches sweeping over the soft velvet turf, is charming ; for trees display the effects of breeding and culture quite as much as horses, dogs, or men. A large elm not far from the house is pointed out as the one under which Thomson's alcove stood ; this alcove has, however, been removed to the extremity of the grounds, and stands now under a large Spanisli chestnut-tree in the shrubbery. It is a simple wooden construction, with a plain back and two outward sloping sides, a bench running round it within, a roof and boarded floor, so as to be readily removable altogether. It is kept well painted of a dark green, and in it stands an old small walnut table with a drawer which belonged to Thomson. On the front of the alcove overhead is painted, on a white oval tablet — " Horo 'J'homson san^ The Seasons and their change." Within the alcove hang three loose boards, on wliich arc painted the following inscriptions : — " Hail, Nature's Foet, v/hom she taught alone To sing her ^voiks in numbers like her own. Sweet as the thrush that warbles in the dale, And soft as Philomela's tender tale ; She lent her pencil, too, of wondrous pn-wer, To catch the rainbow, and to form the flower Of many mingling hues ; and, smiling, said^- Uut first with laurels crowned her favourite's liead— TJIOMSOX. 163 These beauteous children, though so fair they shine fade in my Seasons, let them live in Thine. And live they shall ; the charm of every eye, Till Nature sicicens, and the Seasons die." F. B. ' Within this pleasing retirement, Allured by the music of the nightingale, Which warbled in soft unison to the melody of his soul, In unatfected cheerfulness. And general though simple elegance, Lived James Thomson. Sensitively alive to the beauties of Nature, He painted their images as they rose in review. And poured the wliole profusion of them Into his inimitable Seasons. Warmed ■\vitli intense devotion To the Sovereign of the Universe, Its flame glowed through all liis compositions. Animated with unbounded benevolence, W'ith the tenderest social sensibility. He never gave one moment's pain To any of his fellow-creatures, Save only by his death, which happened At this place on the 27th day of August, 1748." " Here Thomson dwelt. He, curious bard, examined every drop That glistens on the thorn ; each leaf surveyed That Autumn from the rustling forest shakes. And marked its shape ; and traced in the rude w ind Its eddying motion. Nature in his hand A pencil, dipped in her own cojours, placed, AVith which he ever faithful copies drew, r.ach feature in proportion just." Oil a brass tablet in the top of the table in the alcove i.s iuscribcil — " This table was the property of James Thomson, and always stooil hi this seat." ' Such is the state of the former residence of James Thomson at Richmond. Here, no doubt, he was visited by many of his literary cotemporaries, though it does not appear that Pope, who was so near a neighbour, was of this number. Poets, with advancing years, grow exclusive. Wordsworth, in his old age, said that he read no new poets, but left them to their cotemporaries ; so, in the cori'espondenco of Pope, you find no further mention of Thomson, than that " Thomson and some other young men have published lately some creditable things ;" and Gray, writing to one of his friends, says — '•'Thomson has ju.st published a poem called 'The Castle of Indo- lence,' Avhich contains some good stanzas." The view down to the Thames, and over the country beyond, which he enjoyed, is now much obstructed by the walls, including \yAv\j of the royal property, on which the Queen has erected her laundry — sending, it seems, all the royal linen, from Windsor, the Isle of Wight, and elsewhere, to be washed and got up here, suffi- ciently, as one would think, near enough to the smoke of L(.)ndoii. loi THOMSON. The vicinity of the royal washliouse certainly does not improve Lord Shaftesbury's residence here, especially as a tall, square, and most unsightly tower, most probably intended to carry the soot from the drying iires pretty high, overlooks his grounds. But it will not •listurb tlie remains of the poet; and let us hope that the Queen's iinen will enjoy the benefit of all the Seasons, from this close neighbourhood. Thomson is buried in Eichmond church, at the west end of the north aisle. There is a square brass tablet, well secured into the wall with ten large screws, bearing this inscription • — " In the earth helow this Tablet Are the remains of James Thomson, A itlior of tl\e beautiful Poems entitled, Tlie Seasons, Castle of Indolence, etc. cw wlio (lieil at Kiclimond on the 27th day of August, and was buried liere on t!ie 2!)th, old style, 174S. Tlie Earl of Buchan, unwilling that so good a man and sweet a poet should be without a memorial, has denoted the place of his inter- ment for the satisfaction of his admirers, in the year of our Lord 1792. '•' " Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme ! () teach me what is good ; teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice From every low pursuit ! and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue puie, Sacred, substantial, nevcr-fnding bliss !" — Wintr.r. WILLIAM SHENSTONE. No poet of the same ])retensions has been so much kno-\vn through his residence as Shenstonc. Without the Leasowcs he would have been nothing. His elegies and pastorals would have Iain on the dustiest of book-shelves, and his Schoolmistress, by far the best of his productions, would hardly have retained vitality enough to make herself noticeable in the crowd of poetical characters. The Leasowes was the chief work of Sheustone's life, and it is the chief means of that portion of immortality which he possesses. Into every quarter of the kingdom the fame of this little domain has penetrated. Xature there formed the grand substratum of his art, and nature is always beautiful. But I do confess, that in the Leasowcs, I have always found so much ado about nothing ; such a parade of minia- ture cascades, lakes, streams conveyed hither and thither ; surprises in the disposition of woods and the turn of walks, with a seat placed here, and another there ; with inscriptions, Latin and English ; and piping Fauns faunbirj upon you in half-a-dozen places, that 1 have heartily wished myself out upon a good rough heath, with the winds blowing away the cobwebs of so many conceits from niy brain. The remarks of Dr. Johnson appear to mc, in the case of Shen- .stone, who was amial)le but trifling, very just : — "Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to ]i1acc a bench at every turn 156 SHENSTONE. whore there is an object to catch the view ; to make -watei- run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen ; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to bo hidden, demand any great powers of mind, I will not inquire ; perhaps a sullen and surly spectator may think such i)erformanccs nither the sport than the business of human reason." This seems to me the in'ecise merit of Sheustone. He introduced a better taste in landscape gardening, though his taste was often questionable, and may be ranked with Browne and Kent. He was a man of taste rather than of genius, and may claim a full alliance Avith tlie lovers of nature, but is as far from the association with great poets — with such men as Milton or Shakspeare, Burns or Elliott, as the glow-worm is with the comet. Poetry is not only the highest art, but, next to religion itself, the most divine principle on earth. It is a religion itself, or rather, forms part and parcel of that of Christ ; for its object is to stimulate virtue, abash vice, raise the humble, abase the iproud, call forth the most splendid qualities of the soul, and pour love like a river over the earth till it fills every house, and leaves behind it a fertility like that which follows the inundations of the Nile. We do injustice to Shenstone when we place him beside the giants, and thus i^rovokingly display his true proportions. "The pleasure of Shenstone," continues Johnson, " was all in his eye ; he valued what he valued merely for its looks ; nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his water. " His house was mean, and he did not improve it ; his care ■was of his grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floors flooded hj a shower through the broken roof ; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time his expenses brought clamours about him that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song ; and his groves were haunted by beings very different to fauns and fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. * * * 'lie died at the Leasowes, of a putrid fever, in 1763, and was buried by the side of his brother in Hales- owen churchyard. "He was never married, though he might have obtained the lady whoever she v^ras, to whom his Pastoral Ballad was addressed. He is represented by his friend Dodsley as a man of great tenderness and generosit}', kind to all that were within his influence ; but if once offended not easily appeased ; inattentive to economy, an() careless of his expenses. In his person he was larger than the middle size, with something clumsy in his form ; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for wearing his grey hair in a particular manner ; for he held that the fashion was no rule of dress, and that every man was to suit his appeai-ance to his natural form. His mind was not very comprehensive, nov his curiosity active ; he had no value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultiva,ted." Gray visited the Leasowes. and his opinion of Shenstone was SHENSTONE, 157 very similar to that of Johnson. The Leasowes is about six or seven miles distant from Birmingham on the road to Kidderminster, and about four miles from Hagley, in the parish of Halesowen. Arriving at Halesowen, you have to descend a long and steep hill, from the top of which you have a view of the Bromsgrovo, Clent, and Dudley hills, which are in the immediate neighbourhood, — Hagley -park- being situated on one of the Clent hills, — and of the Clee hills in the jlistance ; these form a boundary between the counties of Hereford and Salop. About halfway down this descent, which is a mile long, vou turn to the left down a shady lane ; this leads to the Leasowes, .ind in some degree partakes of the character of the place ; winding continually, yet still presenting a beautiful archway of trees, of nearly all descriptions. From this lane you enter the Leasowes ; and crossing a bridge, pass on to the lawn. On your left lies a beau- tiful piece of still water, overshadowed with evergreens, and con- veying the idea of infinite depth. This is nearly the lowest part of the grounds, which here begin to ascend towards the house, com- manding, not an extensive, but a beautifully condensed prospect. Going round the house to the right, and still ascending, you gain another prospect equally agreeable, yet diflFerent, and in both cases are surprised by the skill which presents to the eye the artificial depth of forest which there strikes it. A canal which has been cut through the valley between the house and Halesowen, so far from injuring the prospect, as many of these things are apt to do, rather improves it, giving a rest to the eye, and shutting out, by its em- bankment, sundry forges w^hich would otherwise be visible. In order to discover, however, the true spirit of the place, you must cross the lawn at the back of the house, where you are reminded of passages in Shenstone's jDastorals. Let us now suppose the grounds lying in the shape of a Y ; the house not standing at the top, but near the centre of the fork, and the lowest part of the scene, the stem. The lines forming the fork of the Y are beautifully wooded ravines, or dolls, down which flow small streamlets, meeting at the bottom of the hill, and in their progress forming numerous small pools, which may well represent " the fountains all bordered with moss." The walks along the sides of these streams are now neglected, but they still conduct you to the natural beauties of the scene. There is one spot which com- mands the view of the whole grounds, and all the poetry of them. Following the course of one of the streams, you arrive at that part of the scene which was Shenstone's favourite spot ; still marked by the remnants of several fallen statues. Still advancing along the i>rook side, you come to a pool. This may be called the tail or stem of the Y ; and at dusk, on a November day, it gives you no bad idea of the Lake of the Dismal Swamp in miniature. Lideed, the feeUng on quitting the place is, that you have been well deceived as to extent ; so small a space really containing great variety of scenery. The Leasowes now belongs to the Attwood family ; and a Miss Attwood resides there occasionally. But the whole place boars tho Jrapress of desertion and neglect. ,i"ir. -.■^'^t}\'';\:laik ! the death-owl loud doth sing To the nightmares, as they go. My love is dead, etc. Whiter is my true love's shroud ; Whiter than the morning sky. Whiter than the evening cloud. My love is dead. etc. " Here, upon my true love's grave. Shall the barren flowers belaid; Xot one holy saint to save All tlie coldness of a maid. My love is dead, etc. " With my hands I'll bend the briars Hound his holy corse to gre :* Klfin fairies, light your fires ; Here my body still shall be. My love is dead, etc. " Come with acorn-cup and tliorn. Drain my heart's blood all away ; Life and all its good I scoki, Dance by night, or feast by day. Sly love is dead. Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. W'ater-witches, crowned with reytcs,t IJear me to your lethal tide. X die ! I come ! my true love waits ; — Thus the damsel spoke, and died." This roundelay has always, and most justly, been greatly admired for its true pathos, and that line harmony which charms us so much in the fragments of similar songs preserved by Shakspeare. Not less beautiful is the Chorus in Godwin. Tliere is something singularly great and majestic in its imagery. * Grow. t Water-flags. ICS CHATTERT0?7. CHORUS IN GODWIN. " WliL'u Frcctlom, dressed in Wood-stained vest. 'J'o every knif>Ut lier war-song suns;. Upon her lic.ul wild weeds were spread ; A sory anlacc liy her hung: She danced upon tlie lieath ; She heard the voice of death ; Pale-eyed Affrisht, his heart of silver hue In vain assailed her hosom to aeaie;* She heard unmoved the shrieking voice of woe, And Sadness in the owlet shake the dale. She shook the pointed spear. On high she reared her shield; Her foemen all appear, And fly along the held. Power, with his head aloft unto the skies. His spear a sunbeam, and his shield a star, Like two fierce flaming meteors rolled his eyes, Chafes with his iron feet and sounds to war. She sits upon a rock. She bends before his spear, , She rises with the shock, AVielding her own in air. Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on ; Wit, closely mantled, guides it to his crown, — ilis long sharp spear, his spreading shield is gone; He falls, and falling, rolleth thousands down. War, gore-faced War, by Envy armed, arist,t His fiery helmet nodding to the air. Ten bloody arrov.'s in his straining fist." #**■»» Next let Its take a posm whose truest criticism is coiitaiiiod in its own title : — AN EXCELLENT BALLAD OF CHARITY. " From Virge did the sun diffuse his sheen. And liot upon the meads did cast his ray; Jled grew the apple from its paly green. And the soft pear did bend the leafy spray ; The pied goldfinch sung the livelong day : 'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year, And eke the ground was dight in its most deft aumere.t " The sun was gleaming in the midst of day, Dead still the air, and eke the welkin blue, When from the sea arose in drear array A heap of clouds of sable sullen hue ; The which full fast unto the woodlands drew, Hiding at once the sun's rejoicing face, And the black tempest swelled and gathered up apace. " Beneath an holm fast by a pathway side, Which did unto St. Godwin's convent lead, A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide ; In aspect poor, and wretched in his weed. Long filled with the miseries of need. Where from the hailstone could the almer§ fly ? He had no house at hand, nor any convent nigh. " Look in his gloomed face, his sprite there scan ; How woe-begone, how withered, dry and dead! Haste to thy church-glebe-honse,i| unhappy man! Haste to thy cotiln, thy sole sleeping bed. Cold as the clay which will lie on thy head Is charity arid love amongst higli elves; Now knights and barons live for pleasure and themselves. • Pivf/c. t Arose. J PLobe. § Beggar. || urave. CHATTERTON. 1&9 *' The gathered storm is rife ; the big drops fall ; The sun-burnt meadows smoke and drink the rain ; The comuig ffliastness* doth the cattle 'i)all. And the full flocks are driving o'er the piain. Dashed from the clouds, the waters fly again ; The welkin opes ; the yellow levin flies, And the hot fiery steam in the wide flashing dies. " List! now the thunder's rattling, dinning sound Moves slowly on, and then augmented clangs, Sliakes tlie high spire, and lost, dispended, drowned, Still on the startled ear of terror hangs. The winds are up ; the lofty elm-tree swings ! Again the levin, and the thunder pours, And the full clouds at once are burst in stony showers. " Spurring his palfrey o'er the watery plain. The Abbot of St. Godwin's convent came ; His chapournettet was drenched -with the rain, llis painted girdle met with mickle shame; He backward told his bead-roll at the same ; The storm grew stronger, and he drew aside With the poor alms-craver near to the holm to bide. " His cloak was all of Lincoln cloth so fine, A golden button fastened near his chin ; llis autreinete t w'as edged with golden twiiir, .\nd his peaked shoes a )iol)le's might have b^i-n ; l''ull well it showed that he thought cost no sin ; The trammels of the palfrey pleased his sight. Tor the horse-milliner§ his head with roses dight. " 'An alms, sir priest ! ' — the dropping pilgrim sniil ; ' O ! let me wait within your convent door, Till the sun ohineth high above our head, .And the loud tempest of the air is o'er ; Helpless and old am I, alas ! and poor ; Ko house, nor friend, nor money in my pouch ; All that 1 call my own is this my silver crnuv/n:' " ' Varlet ! ' replied the Abbot, ' cease your din ; This is no season alms and prayers to give ; .My porter never lets a stroller in ; >c'-milUii.T was till lately, if not still to be seen,' in Bristol. II Crucilix. :. Begging friar. 170 . CHATTERTOJT. " ' But oil ! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me, Scarce any give a rent-roll to their Lord. ]lfre, take my semi-cape,* thou'rt bare I see ; 'Tis thine; the saints will give me my reward.' He left the pilgrim, and away he strode. Virgin and iloly Saints who sit in gloure.t Or give the mighty will, or give the good man power :" The following presents a very living picture of the ceremony of church consecration formerly: — OK THE DEDICATIOK OF OUR LADY's CHURCIt. " Soon as hright sun along the skies had sent his ruddy light, And fairies hid in oxlip cups till wished approach of night; The matin hell with shrilly sound reechoed through the air; A troop of holy friars did for Jesus' mass prepare. Around the high unsainted church with holy relics went ; And every door and post about with godly things hespent. Then Carpenter,! in scarlet dressed, and mitred holily. From Master Canynge, his great house, with rosary did hio. Before him went a throng of friars, who did the mass song sing ; Behind him Master Canynge came, tricked like a barbed king. And then a row of holy friars who did the mass song sound ; The procurators and church reeves next pressed the holy ground. And when unto the church they came, a holy mass they sang, So loudly that their pleasant voice unto the heavens rang. Then Carpenter did purify the church to God for aye, AVith holy masses and good psalms which he therein did say. Then was a sermon preached soon by Carpenter holily ; And after that another one > preached was by me. Then all did go to Canynge's house an interlude to play, And drink his wines and ale so good, and prr.y for him for aye." \\'c will select just one short lyric more, because its stanza and rhythm seem to me to have communicated their peculiar music to one of the sweetest of our living poets : — SONG OP SAINT ■WAREVRUH. " When king Kynghill in his hand " Then the folks a bridge did make Held the sceptre of this land. Over the stream unto the hecke, Shining star of Christ's own light, All of wood eke long and wide, I'he murky mists of pagan night Pride and glory of the tide, 'fian to scatter far and wide ; Which in time did fall away. Then Saint Warburgh he arose, Then Earl Leof he bespe'' Doffed his honours and fine clothes; This great river from its bed. Preaching his Lord Jesus' name Hound his castle for to run ; To the land of West Sexx carne, 'Twas in truth an ancient one ; Where yellow Severn rolls his tide. But war and time will all decay. " Strong in faithfulness he trode " Now again with mighty force, Over the waters like a god, Severn in his ancient cofirse, Till he gained the distant hecke -.5 }lolls his rapid stream along. In whose banks his staff did stick With a sand both swift and strong. Witness to the miracle. AVhelming many an oaken wood. Then he preached night and day, We, the men of Bristol town, And set many the right way. Have rebuilt this bridge of stone. This good staff great wonders wrought. Wishing each that it may last More than guessed by mortal thought, Till the date of days be past. Or than mortal tongue can tell. Standing where the other stood." Now, would it ever have been believed, had not the thing really taken jjlace in its unmitigated strangeness, that such poetry as this • — poetry, indeed, of which these are but mere fragments, which, while they display the power, poetic freedom, and intellectual riches of the writer, do not show the breadth and grandeur of his plans, to be seen only in the works themselves, — that they could have been * Short under-cloak.; t Glory. X Bishop Carpenter. f Height. CHATTERTON. 1"! presented to the public, and passed over with contempt, not a cen- tury ago ? Would it have been credited, that the leading men of the' literary world at that time, instead of flinging back such poems at the boy -who presented them as a discovered antiquity, were not struck with the amazing fact, that if the boy were an impostor, as they avowed, if he indeed had written them himself, he must at tlio same time be a glorious poet ? Yet Horace Walpole, Gray, ]\Iason, Dr. Johnson, and the whole British throng of literati were guilty of this blindness ! That was a dark time in which Chatterton had the misfortune to appear. Spite of the mighty intellects, the wit or learning of such men as Johnson, Gray, "Goldsmith, Thomas and Joseph Warton, Burke, and Walpole, poetry, and the spirit of poetry, were, as a general fact, at a low ebb. It was the midnight succeeding the long declining day of the imitators of Pope. The great crowd of versifiers had waiTdered away from Nature, and her eternal fountain of inspira- tion, and th&long array of Sprats, Blackmores, Yaldens. Garths, and the like, had wearied'^ the ear and the heart to death with their T>olished commonplaces. The sweet muse of Goldsmith was almost the only genuine beam of radiant light, before the great dawn of a more glorious day which was about to break ; and Goldsmith himself was hasting to his end. Beattie was but just appearing, publishing the first part of his ]\Iinstrel the very year that Chatterton perished by his own hand. The great novelists, Richardson, Fielding, and Sterne, had disappeared from the scene, and their fitting cotemporary, Smollett, was abroad on his travels, where he died the year after Chatterton's suicide. Akenside died the same year ; Falconer was drowned at sea the year before ; Sheridan's litei-ary s\m appeared only above the horizon five years later, with the publication of his Rivals. Who then were in the ascendant, and therefore the influential arbiters of public opinion ; they who must put forth the saving hand, if ever put forth, and give the cheering "all hail," if it were given ? They were Gray, who, however, himself dieel the following year, Armstrong, Anstey of the Bath Guide, I^Iason, Lord Lyttelton, Gibbon, the Scotch historians and philosophers, Hume, Robertson, Adam Smith, and the like. There were, too, such men about the stage as Foote, ^lacklin, Colman, and Cumberland ; and there were the lady writers, or patrons of literature, ^Irs. Carter. Mrs. ^Macauley. ^Irs. Montagu. Macpherson was smarting under the flagellations received on account of his Ossian, — and that w;is about all. Spite of great names, is that a literary tribunal from which mucli good was to be hoped ? No, we repeat it, so far as poetry, genuine poetry, was concerned, it was a dark and wintry time. The Wartons were of a more hopeful chai-acter, and Mrs. Montagu, the founder of the Bhie- Stocking Club, had then recently published her Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakspeare. She, a patron and an atlvocate of Shakspeare, might, one would have thought, have started from the herd, and done herself immortal honour by asserting the true rank of the new genius, and saving him from a fearful death. But it is one thing t'> assert the fame of a Shakspeare, established on the 172 CHATTERTON. throne of the world's homage, and another to discover, much more to ]iymn, the advent of a new genius. The literary world, warned by tha t^earifying castigation which Macphersou had undergone for intro- ducing Ossian, as if, instead of giving the world a fresh poet, he had robbed it of one, shrunk back from the touch of a second grand im- postor — another knave come to forge for the public another greaf' poet ! It was a new kind of crime, this endowment of the republic of literature with enormous accessions of wealth : and, what was more extraordinary, the endowers were not only denounced as thieves, but as thieves from themselves ! Macphersou and Chatterton did not assert that theij had written new and great poems, which the acute critics proved to be stolen from the ancients, Ossian and Eowley ; that and their virtuous indignation we might have comprehended ; but, on the contrary, while the critics protested that Chatterton and jMacpherson themselves were the actual poets, and had only put on tlie masks of ancients, they treated them, not as clever maskers, joining in the v/itty conceib, and laughing over it in good-natured triumph, but they denounced them in savage terms, as base thieves, false coiners, damnable impostors ! And of what were they impostors ? Were not the poems real ? Were they not genuine, and of the true Titanic stamp 1 Of what were they thieves 1 Were not the treasures which they came dragging into the literary bank of England genuine treasures ? and if they ^s'ere found not to have indeed dug tliem out of the rubbish of the ruined temple of antiquity, were they not their oion ? Did the critics not protest that they were their own ? What, then, was their strange crime % That they would rob themselves of their own intellectual riches, and deposit them on the altar of their country's glory.'* Wondrous crime ! wondrous age ! Let us rejoice that a better time has arrived. Not thus was execrated and chased out of the regions of popularity, and even into a self-dug grave, " The Great Unknown," " The Author of Waverley." He wore his mask in all peace and lionour for thirteen years, and not a soul dreamed of denouncing Sir AValter Scott, when he was compelled to owji himself as the real nuthor, because he had endeavoured to palm off his productions as those of Peter Pattison, or Jedediah Cleishbotham. The world has grown \riser, and that through a new and more generous, because a more gifted, generation which has arisen. The age which was in its wane when Chatterton appeared upon the stage, Avas lying beneath the incubus of scholastic formality. Dr. Johnson ruled it as a growling dictator, and the mediocre herd of coj)yists sln-unk equally from the heavy blow of his ci'itical cudgel, and the * Thii fact of two poets at the same period producing cxtraoidinary compositions, wliich they protested were not tlicir own, and who, rather than enjoy the glory of them, died steadfastly rei-udiating them, amid one universal yell of execration as impostors, is one of the most inexplicable phenomena in the history of litoratnre. The Spiritualists would solve the whole by declaring them unconscious mediums. And, curiously enouRli, Macpherson belonged to the country of second-sight, and Chatterton exhibited all tlia symptoms of mediumship. His trance-like appearance in the Kedclifie meadows, in which he made sudden oracular declarations; liis wonderful arcliitecture ; and tha Bplendour of his poetry, so far a))ove his years, all favour their supposition, and without pronouncing upon it, we may aflimi that it is, at least, curious. CHATTEUTOX. 173 sharp puncture of Horace TTalpole's wit. But the dawn was at hand. Bishop Percy had aheady, in 1705, pubHshed his Kehques, and they were beginning to operate. Men read them, went back again at once to nature, and, at her inspiration, up sprung the noble throng of poets, historians, essayists, and romance writers, which, have, clothed the nineteenth century with one A\"ide splendour of the glory of genius. The real crime, however, which Chatterton committed was, not that he had attempted to palm off upon the world his own produc- tions as Rowley's, but that he had succeeded in taking the knowing ones in. He had caught in his tra]3 those to whom it was poison and death not to appear more sagacious thaii all the world besides. He had showed up the infallibility of the critics, — an unpardonable crime ! These tricks of mere boys, by which the craft, and the owl- gravity of the greybeards of literary dictation, might any day be so lamentably disconcerted, and exposed to vulgar ridicule, was a dan- gerous practice, and therefore it was to be put down with a genuine Mohawk onslaught. Walpole, who had been bitten by Macpherson, and was writhing imder the exposure so agonizing to his aristocratic pride, was most completely entrapj^ed again by Chatterton. Spite of his cool denial of this, any one has only to read liis letter to Chatterton, despatched instantly on the receipt of Chatterton's first packet, to be quite satisfied on this point. He '-'thinks himself singularly obliged," he '•' gives him a thousand thanks for his very curious and kind letter." ""What you have sent," he declares, "is valuable, and full of information ; hvt instead of correcthuj yo7!, sir, yon (ire far mr/re able to correct meV Think of the cruel chagrin of tlie ])roud dilettante, Walpole, when he discovered that he had been making this confessiou to a boy of sixteen I What was worse, h(! had offered, in this letter of March 28, 1769, to print the poems of Rowley, if they had never been printed ! and added, " The Abbot John's verses which you have given me are wonderful for their harmony and spirit ! " Xever was a sly old fox so perfectly entrapped by a mere lad. Ijut hear with what excess of politeness he concludes : — " I will not trouble you with more questions now, sir ; but flatter myself, from the urbanity and politeness you have already shown me, that you will give mo leave to coustilt you. I hope, too, you will forgive the simplicity of my direction, as you have favoured mc with no other. " I am. Sir, " Your much obliged and obedient servant, " Horace Walpolk." This was before Gray and Mason, Avho had seen the MS. sent, declared it to bo a forgery ; and before Hoi'acc had discovered that he had been thus complimenting a poor lawyer's clerk, and liis poems ! Ho thought that he was addressing some gentleman ot' fortune, pursuing antiquarian lore in his own noble library, no doubt ; but he was stung by two serpents at once — the writer was a poor lad, and the verses were his own ! 174 CHATTERTON. There has been a great war of words regardmg the. conduct of Walpole to Chatterton. Some have declared him guilty of the fate of the poor youth ; others have gone as far the other way, and exempted him from all blame. In my opinion, nothing can excuso the conduct of Walpolc. If not to prevent the fate of Chatterton, was, in his case, to accelerate it, then Walpole must be pronounced guilty of the catastrophe which ensued ; and what greatly aggravates the offence is, that he made that a crime in Chatterton of which ho himself had set the example. Chatterton gave out that his poems were written by Rowley ; Walpole had given out that his Castle of Otranto was the work of an old Italian, and that it had been found, not in Canynge's chest, but " in the library of an ancient catholie family in the north of England." Nothing is more certain, then, that, brought into close communication with this extraordinary youth and his brilliant productions, he either did not or would not see, that if Rowley were nobody, Chatterton was a great poet, and as a boy, and a poor boy, was an extraordinary phenomenon ; and that both patriotism and humanity demanded that he should be at once brought under the notice of the good and wise, and everything pos- .sible done to develop his rare powers, and secure them to his country. Walpole coolly advised him to stick to his desk, and left him ! Sir Walter Scott has said that Walpole is not alone to blame ; the whole country partakes the censure with him, and that he gave the boy good advice. This is not quite true. The whole country did not know of Chattei'ton, of his wonderful talents, and his peculiar situation ; but all these were thrust upon the attention of Waljjole, imd he gave him advice. True, the advice in itself was good ; but, imluckily, it was given when Walpole by his conduct had destroyed all its value with Chatterton — when the proud boy, seeing the con- temptible way in which the aristocrat, wounded in his vanity, turned round upon him, had torn his letters to atoms, and stamped them under his feet. Had Walpole, when he discovered the real situation and genius of Chatterton, kindly taken him by the hand, — had he, instead of deserting him on account of his poverty, and of his having put on him the pardonable trick of representing his ovrn splendid pro- ductions as those of a nonentity, Thomas Rowley, then and there advised him to adhere to his profession, as a certain source of fortune, and to cultivate his poetic powers in his leisure moments, promising to secure for him, as he so easily could, a full acknow- ledgment of his talents from the public, — it is certain that he might have made of Chatterton, who was full of affection, what he would. He might have represented to him what a fair and legitimate field of poetry he had chosen, thus celebrating the historic glory of his nation, and what an injustice he was doing to himself by giving the fame of his own genius to Rowley. Had he done this, he would have assuredly saved a great mind to his country, and would have ileserved of it all honour and gratitude. But to have expected this from Walpole was to expect wai-mth from an icicle. Si)ite, therefore, of the advice of Walpole, "given with as much CHATTERTOX. 17£ kindness and tenderness as if he had been his guardian,"' no argii- ment or eloquence can shield him from the blame of posterity. There stands the fact — that he turned his back on a great poet, when he stood before him blazing like a star of the first magnitude, and suffered him to perish. He did more. When that poet had perished, and the great soul of his country had awoke to its error and its loss, and acknowledged that " a prince had fallen in Israel," then, on the publication of Chatterton's letters to him in 1786, did this inean-souled man, in a canting letter to Hannah More, absolutely deny that he had ever received these letters ! — " letters jiretended to hate been sent to me, and which never icere sentr * After this, let those defend Walpole who like ; would that we could clear that rough, dogmatic, but noble fellow, Samuel Johnson, from a criminal indifference to the claims and fate of Chatterton ; but, with that unreflecting arbitrariness of will, which often led him into error, we learn from Boswell, who often urged him to read the poems of Eowley, that he long refused, saying, " Pho, child ! don't talk to me of the powers of a vulgar, uneducated stripling ! Xo man can coin guineas but in proportion as he has gold." When at length he teas induced to read them, he confessed — " This is the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the whelp has written such things." It had then been long too late to begin to admire ; and the giant prejudices of Johnson had driven poor Chatterton as completely from him, as the petit-maitre vanity of Walpole rei^ulsed him in that quarter. Miss Seward, a woman who, with all her faults as a writer, had always the tact to discern true genius, would have dared to acknow- ledge the vast powers of Chatterton, had it been in her own day of popularity ; but at the death of Chatterton, she was a country girl of twenty-thi'ee. What she says of Johnson's conduct is xcry just: — • " Though Chatterton had long been dead when Johnson began his Lives of the Poets, — though Chatterton's poems had long been before the world, — though their contents had engaged the literati of the nation in controversy, — ^yet would not Johnson allow Chatterton a place in those volumes into which Pomfret and Yalden were admitted. So invincible were his grudging and surly prejudices, enduring long-deceased genius but ill, and contemporary genius not at all." Thus we have traced the course of Thomas Chatterton to that eventful crisis of his fate, when he found himself rejected, as it were, by the literary senate of his nation, and thrust down the few steps of the temple of fame, which ho had dfjred to ascend, as a forger and imi)Ostor. He was thrust away, in a manner, from the heart, and what was more, from the intellect of his country ; yet his proud spirit spurned the ignominious treatment, and he dared to make one grand effort, one great and final appeal against the fiat, in the face of the whole world, and in the heaii of the British metropolis. Alas ! it was a desperate enterprise, and our hearts bleed as we follow hiiu in his course. There is nothing, in my opinion, so utterly nu^ancholv * Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. ii. ISJC 176 CUATXEliTOX. iu all the Lisiory of the ealauiities of authors, as the four fata) months of Chatterton's sojourn in London. It was his great misfor- tune, from the hour of his birth till that moment, that he never had one suitable fi'iend — one wise, generous, and sympathising friend^ who saw at once his splendid endowments, and the faults of hi.-^ character, and who could thus acquire a sound, and at the same time uu inspiring influence over him. Born of poor people, who, however they might love him, did not and could not comprehend him,—- living iu a town devoted to trade, and nailed to the desk of a petti- fogging attorney, — he went on his way alone, conscious of his own ]jowers, and of the inferiority of those around him, till his pride and his passions kept j)ace with his genius, and he would have been a miracle had he not had great and many faults. If we, therefore, sigh over his religious scepticism, and regret the occasional symp- toms of a sufficient want of truth and high principle in his literary hoaxes, especially in foisting fictitious matter into grave history, we are again compelled to acknowledge that it was because he had no adequate friend and counsellor. He was like a young giant wander- ing sohtarily over a wilderness without guide or guide-post ; and if he did not go v/rong in proportion to his imusual ardour, strength, and speed, it were a wonder. But from the moment that he sets foot in London, what is there in all biography so heart-breaking to contemplate ? With a few borrowed guineas he sets out. Arrived in this great ocean of human life, v/here one living wave rushes past another as unrecognizaut as the waves of the ordinary sea, his heart overflowing with domestic affections, he expends the fcAV borrowed guineas in presents to his mother and sister, and sends them with flaming accounts of his prospect of honours for himself, and of wealth for them. If any one would make himself acquainted with the true pathetic, let him only read the few letters written home by Chatterton, from Shoreditch and Holborn. He was to get four guineas a month by one magazine ; was to write a History of Eng- land, and occasional essays for the daily jiapers. " What a glorious prospect !" He was acquainted with all the geniuses at the Chapter coffee-house. " No author can be poor who understands the arts of booksellers ; this knowledge I have pretty well dipped into ! " Ah ! ])oor Chatterton, one frog move gone to put himself under the pro- tection of King Stork ! Mr. Wilkes knew him by his writings ; and he was going to visit him, and use his interest to secure the Trinity House for a Mi's. Ballance. He wi'ote to all his young men acquaint- ances : they were to send him up compositions, and he would have them inserted in all sorts of periodicals. Songs he was to write for a Doctor in Music ; and such was the good fortune pouring in, that he could not help exclaiming — '■'■Bravo, nnj hoys, up we go ! " One person would give him a recommendation as travelling companion to the young Duke of Northumberland, only he spoke nothing but English ; another to Sir George Colebrook, an East India Director, for a place of no despicable description, only he would not go to sea- He was about to wait on the Duke of Bedford ; and had had a most polite interview with Beckford, the Lord J\Iayor. In short, all. r^f CHATTERTOX. 1 7 accordiDg to his poetic fancy, was going on most mountingly. " Ily' wrote he to his sister, " money flowed as fast npon me as honoiu-s, i would give you a portion of 5,000/." But what was the stern reality ? Amid all the flush, of imagin.'i'i.y' honours and success, or what he would have his family to ihiy'tt such, to tranquillise their minds, he was, in truth, almost from the rirst, in a state of starvation. His journey, and the presents so generously but so injudiciously purchased for his mother and sister, — the little fund of borrowed guineas, was gone. Of friends he does not appear to have had one in this huge human wilderness. Besides the booksellers for whom he did slave-work, not a single influential mortal seems to have put out a finger of fellowship towards him. So far as the men of literary fame were concerned, it was one wide, dead, and desert silence. From the wretched region of Shoreditcli, lie flitted to the good-natured dressmakei-'s of Brook-street, Holborn. But starvation pursued him, and stared him every day more fearfully in the face. He was, with all his glorious talents and his indomitable ])ride, utterly alone in the world. Walpole, who had gdven him advice '"'as kindly as if he had been his guardian," was in great bodily Comfoi't, penning smart letters, and compiling a " Catalogue of Eoyal and Noble Authors," at Strawberry-hill ; while the noblest genius living was stalking on sternly through the streets of pitiless London, to famine and desj)air. Sam Johnson, all Ais struggles now over, and at the annual price of 300/. become, according to his own definition of Pensioner in his Dictionary, — " A slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master," — was comfortably lolling on the soft sofas of Mrs. Thrale, or acting the lion in the Literary Club, oi" in the saloon of some wealthy noble. Goldsmith was hastening to his end at fiftj'-three, and Chattertou to his at seventeen ! Of all the tine flourishes about the booksellers, whose arts he flattered himself that he understood, the following extract from his pocket-book, found after his death, will show the wretched result : — " Received to May 23, for Middlesex £1 II (5 „ ,, ofB 12." „ ,, of Fell, for the Consuliad ... 10 (i ,, ,, of Mr. Hamilton, for Candidus and Foreiun Journal 2 „ ,, of Jlr. Fell 10 (i ' ,, ,, of Middlesex Journal .... 086 „ ,, of Mr. Hamilton, fov 10 son j;s 10 (i '£4 1.5~n " In another part of this little book," says his biographer, " shortly before his death, he had inserted a memoi'andum, intimating that, the sum of eleven pounds was duo to him from the London pub- lishers. It was a cruel fate to be compelled to turn literary drudge, with four-and-twcnty shillings a month for wages, — and more cruel still, to be doomed to sufler all the pains of hunger because those wages were not paid !" Such was the hfe of Chatterton. His fate is too well known : and so little sensation did the awful death of this " Marvellous boy, The sleepless soul, who perished in hia pride," ITS CHATTERTON'. dccasiou, that it was loug before liis friends heard anything of liuii. He was buried without ceremony umongd paupers in Shoe-lane; hi.s identity could with difficulty be established when the fact was known. In all the annals of literature thei'e is nothing resembling the history of this boy-poet; he stands alone. Never did any other youth of the same years, even under the most favourable circum- stances, produce works of the same high order ; and never was child of genius treated by his country with such unfeeling contempt, with such an iron and unrelenting hai'shness of neglect. The fate of Francis Hilary Gilbert, a French writer, has been compared to that of Chatterfcon ; but, besides that Gilbert was a man of forty- three, and had no claims to the genius of Chatterton, being a writer on veterinary medicine and rural economy, he destroyed himself because the government, which had sent him to Spain, neglected to send him his remittances, — not from neglect of a whole nation. Except in the mere facts of destitution and suicide, there is little resemblance in the characters, claims, or fates of the two men. Ohatterton's death has furnished a tragedy to the French stage from the pen of Alfred de Vigny. The haunts of Chatterton lie within a narrow space. He was not one of those whom fate or fortune allows to traverse many lauds ; Bristol and London were his only places of residence. In London, little can now be known of his haunts : that he frequented Vauxhall and Marylebone gardens ; resorted to the Chapter coffee- house ; that he lived nine weeks at Mr. Walmsley's, a plasterer, in Shoreditch ; and then removed to Mrs. Angel's, dressmaker. No. 4, Brook-street, Holborn, comprises nearly the totality of his homes and haunts in London. Where Mr. Walmsley's house was cannot now be ascertained ; the Chapter coffee-house still retains its old situation, but has long ceased to be the resort " of all the literary characters" of London ; Vauxhall is in its deserted old age, and Marylebone gardens are, like many other gardens of Chatterton's time, now overrun, not with weeds, but houses. No. 4, Brook- street, Holborn, would be an interesti'ag number if it remained— but, as if everything connected with the history of this ill-fated youth, except his fame, should be condemiied to the most singular iatality, there is no No. 4 — it is swallowed up by an enormous fur- niture warehouse, Charles Meeking's, now fronting into Holborn, and occupying what used to be numbers one, two, three, and four of Brook-street. Thus, the whole of the interior of these houses has been cleared away, and they have been converted into one long show- shop below, and as long manufacturing shops above. In this form they have been for the last eight-and-twenty years ; and previous to that time, I am told, were occupied by an equally extensive iron- mongery concern. Thus, all memory of the i^articular spot which was the room of Chatterton, and where he committed the suicide, is rooted out. AVhat is still more strange, the very same fate has attended his place of sepulture. He was buried amongst the paupers in Shoe-lane ; so little was known or cared about him and his fate, CHATXERTOX. 179 that it was some time, as stated, before his frieuds learned the sad story ; in the meantime, the exact site of his grave was well-nigh become unknown. It appears, however, from inquiries which I have made, that the spot was recognised ; and when the public became at length aware of the genius that had been suffered to perish in despair, a headstone was erected by subscription amongst some admirers of his productions. With the rapid revolutions of pro- perty which now take place, especially in the metropolis and other large cities ; with new plans and improvements, which in their progress seem to spare nothing of the past, however sacred, wo have already seen, in the course of these volumes, how many traces of the resoi'ts and dwellings of our poets have vanished from amongst us. The very resting-place of Chatterton could not escape the ungenial character of his fate. London, which seemed to refuse to know him when alive, refused a quiet repose to his ashes. To lie amongst the paupers of Shoe-lane was, one would have thought, a sufdciently abject lot for so proud and soaring a nature ; but fortune had still another spite in reserve for his remains ! The burial-ground in Shoe-lane, one of those enclosures of the dead which a dignitary of the Church has asserted to be guarded and guaranteed against all violence and change by the ceremony of con- secration, was sold to form Farriugdon-market ; and tombs and memorials of the deceased disappeared to make way for the shambles and cabbage-stalls of the living. Was there no lover of literature, no venerator of genius, to take the alarm ; to step in and see that the bones and the headstone of Chatterton were removed to the graveyard which still is attached to St. Andrew's church ? It appears not. .Neglected in death as in life, the headstone was pulled up, the bones of the poet were left to share the fate of those of his pauper •comrades, and it is now most probable that they are scattered — Heaven knows where ! for I am assured, on good authority, that liouses are now built on the spot where this unfortunate youth lay. If houses are built, most likely cellars were dug to those houses ; and then the bones of Chatterton — where are they ? Echo may answer — where ? Mr. Pryce, in his " Memorials of the Canynges' Family," gives a letter, dated January, 1853, from Joseph Cottle to Sholto Vere Hare, in which he states that, forty years befoi'e, Mr. George Cumberland, a descendant of Bishop Cumberland, and a highly respectable man of literary tastes, informed him that Mrs. Edkins, so frequently mentioned in Chatterton's life, assured him, that so soon as Mrs. Chatterton heard of her son having destroyed himself, she wrote to Chatterton's uncle, a carpenter in London, " urging him to send down his body in a coflBn or box. The box was, accordingly, sent down to Bristol ; and when," said Mrs. Edkins, " I called on my friend Mrs. Chatterton to condole with her, she, as a great secret, took me upstairs and showed me the box ; and, removing the lid, I saw the poor boy, while his mother sobbed in silence. She told me she should have him taken out in the middle of the night, and bury him in RedcIifTe churchyard. Afterwards, when I saw her, she i80 CHATTERTON. .said she Lad managed it very well, so that iioue but the sextou aud his assistant knew anything about it. This secrecy was necessary, or he could not have been buried in consecrated ground." — Memorialx uf the Campigcs" Famib/, p. 293. Mr. Cottle infers that the poet was buried in " the family grave," though it is not so asserted in this passage. Can this very circum- stantial story be true, and yet have continued unknown so many years? Chatterton has been now dead eighty-six years. It is a question of curious interest to the public; and a "pick-axe and a spade " would decide, in a single hour, whether he really ever was buried in his father's grave. Let us now quit the desecrated scene of the jjoet's interment, and, returning to Bristol, seek that of his birth — we shall seek it equally in vam ! The house of his birth, and the last narrow house of his lemains, are alike swept away from the earth ! Chatterton was born on Eedcliffe-hill, in a back-couit behind the row of houses facing the north-west side of St. Mary's churchyard ; the row of houses and its back-courts have all been pulled down and rebuilt. The house; in which Chatterton was born was behind a shop nearly opposite the uorth-west corner of the church ; and the monument to the young poet, erected by subscription in 1840, was })laced in a line between this house and the north porch of the church in which he professed to have found the Eowley MSS. This monument was a gothic erection, much resembling an ancient cross, and on the top stood Chatterton, in the dress of Colston's school, and with an unfolded roll of parchment in his hand. It was erected from the design of ^Ir. Frijip, Avhich superseded the one planned by John Britton, the antiquary, who, so much to his honour, long zealously exerted himself to rescue Chatterton's memory from apparent neglect in his native city. The man who could gaze on this monument ; could contemplate the boyish figure and face of the juvenile poet ; could glance from the quarter where he was born in poverty, to that old porch, where he planned the scheme of his fame ; and could call to mind what he was, and what he did, without the profoundest sensations of wonder and regret, might safely pass through life without fear of an astonishment. How much, then, would that feeling of sympathy and regret have been augmented, had the monument simply borne the very words written by the inspired boy himself for his supposed tomb, and inserted in his '■' will ! " " To THE Memory op THOMAS CHATT.EllTOX. Reader,, judsc not : if thou art a Christian— believe that lie shall 1)0 judged by a Superior Pov.er ; — to that Power alone is he now answerable." The fate of Chatterton still seems to pursue his memory. This Mionument, soon after the publication of the first edition of this work, was pulled down, it is said, because it impeded, or was in danger from the operations of the restoration of the church. It was feaid at the time that it was to be re-erected in another part of the CHATTERTOX. 181 chuvchyarJ, but this has never yet been done. The stones of the monument he in the crypt of the church, and the statue is carefully enclosed in a box, locked and nailed down. From the inquiries of a friend on the sj)ot, made at my request, and who saw both the architect for the restoration, the church- wardens, and the persons who have the keeping of the crypt, it appears that nothing whatever is determined on as to the re-erection. One party believed that it would be re-erected if there were funds, which he stated there were not ; another thought the mojiument of a suicide would not be permitted to stand on consecrated ground. The only thing certain apjaeared that it was apparently as fur from re-erection as on the day when it was pulled down. What are the subscribers about ? They who purchased this monument should see that it is erected somewhere. Is there no other public spot in Bristol where could stand the monument of the greatest man it ever produced ? Why not the com-t of Colston's school? The statue of Lord Byron, repelled from the portal of Westminster Abbey, has found a fitting locale in his university at Cambridge, — why should not that of the Colston boy stand in front of Colston's school 1 If allowed to stand there till it produce; another such boy, we may jsromise it a term of occupation probably without limit. At aU events, Bristol owes a duty to the memory of Chatterton, and to itself, which it ought not to neglect. One of the spots in Bristol which we should visit with the in- tensest interest connected with the history of Chatterton, would be the office of Lambert the attorney, where he wrote the finest of his poems attributed to Rowley. The first office of this person was on St. John's steps, but he left this during Chatterton's abode with him ; and, ceasing to be an office, it does not now seem to be exactly known in which house it was. From this place he removed to the house occupied, at the time of my visit, by Mr. Short, silversmith, in Cornhill, opposite to the Exchange ; and here Chatterton jwo- bably wrote the greater portion of Eowley's poems. Another favourite haunt of Chatterton's, Redcliffe meadow, is now no longer a meadow, but is built all over ; so rapidly has about eighty years eradicated the footsteps of the poet in his native place. There are two objects, however, which from their public character remain, anc' are likely to remain, unchanged, and around which the recollectioui. of Chatterton and his singular history will for ever vividly chng— these are, Colston's school and the church of St. Mary. The school in Byle-street, where he was sent at five years of age, and which his father had taught, I believe no longer exists. The school on St. Augustine's Back exists, and is likely to do so. It is one of those endowments founded by the great merchants of Eng- land, which, if they had been preserved from the harpy and per- verting fingers of tnistees, would now suffice to educate the whole ;-.ation. Tliis school, founded at a comparatively recent date, and in the midst of an active city like Bristol, seems t) be well adminis- "32 CHATTERTOX. tei'cd. Thurc you find au ample school-room, diniiig-hall, chai)el, and spacious bed-rooms, all kept in most clean and healthy order ; a hundred boys, in their long blue full-skirted coats, and scarlet stockings, exactly as they were in the days of Chatterton. You may look on them and realize to yourself precisely how Chatterton and his schoolfellows looked when he was busy there devouring books of history, poetry, and antiquities, and planning the Burgum pedigree, and the like. Take any fair boy, of a similar age, let him be one or the oldest and most attractive, — for, says his biographer, " there was a stateliness and a manly bearing in Chatterton beyond what might have been expected from his years." " He had a proud air," says Mrs. Edkins, and, according to the general evidence, he was as remarkable for the prematurity of his person, as he was for that of his intellect and imagination. His mien and manner were exceed- ingly prepossessing ; his eyes were grey, but piercingly brilliant; and when he was animated in conversation, or excited by any passing event, the fire flashed and rolled in the lower part of the orbs in ji wonderful and almost fearful way. Mr. Catcott characterised Chatterton's eye " as a kind of hawk's eye, and thought we could )ee his soul through it." As with Byron, '' one eye was more re- markable than the other ; and its lightning-like flashes had some- thing about them supernaturally grand." Take some fine, clever- looking lad, then, from the crowd, and you will find such, and you will feel the strangest astonishment in imagining such a boy- appearing before the grave citizen Burgum, with his pedigree, and within a few years afterwards, acting so dai'ing and yet so glorious a part before the whole world. To the admirers of genius, and the sympathizers with the strange fate of Chatterton, a visit to this school must always be a peculiar gratification. I found all so airy, fresh, and cheerful ; there was such a spirit of order evinced even in the careful rolling up of their Sunday suits, with their broad silver-plated belt clasps, each arranged in its proper place, on shelves in the clothes-room, under eveiw boy's own number, and yet without that order degenerating into severity, but the contrary, — that I could not hv.lp feeUng the grand beneficence of those wealthy merchants who, like Edward Colston, make their riches do their generous will for ever ; who become thereby the actual fiithers of their native cities to all generations ; who roll, in every year of the world's progress, some huge stone of anxiety from the hearts of jjoor widows ; who clear the way before the unfriended but active and worthy lad; who put forth their invisible hands from the heaven of their rest, and become the genuine guardian angels of the orphan race for ever and ever ; raising from those who would otherwise have been outcasts and ignorant labourers, aspiring and useful men, tradesmen of substance, merchants, the true enrichers of their country, and fathers of happy families. How glorious is such a lot ! how noble is such an appro- priation of wealth ! how enviable is such a fame ! And amongst such men there were few mere truly admirable than Edward Colston. He was worthy to have been lifted by Chatterton to the side of the CHATTERTON'. 183 Biagaificent Canynge, and one cannot help wondering that he says 40 httle about this great benefactor of his city. Edward Colston was not merely the founder of this school for the clothing, maintaining, and apprenticing of one hundred boys, at a charge of about 40,000/., but he also founded another school in Temple-street, to clothe and maintain fortj^ boys, at a cost of 3,000/. ; and he left 8,500/. for an almshouse for twelve men and twelve women, with Gs. per week to the chief brother, and 3,?. per week to the rest, with coals, &c. ; 600/. for the maintenance of six sailors in the Merchants' Almshouse ; 1,500/. to clothe, maintain, instruct, and apprentice six l)oys ; 200/. to the Mint Workhouse ; 500/. to rebuild the Boys' Hospital ; 200/. to put out poor children ; 1,200/. to be given in 100/. a-year, for twelve years, to apprentice boys fi-om his school, at the rate of 10/. each; 1,230/. to beautify different churches in the city ; 2,.o00/. to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London ; and 2^000/. to Christchurch School in London ; 500/. to St. Thomas's Hospital ; 500/. to Bethlehem Hospital ; 200/. to New Workhouse in Bishopsgate AVithout ; 300/. to the Society for Propagating the Gospel ; 900/. for educating and clothing twelve poor boys and twelve girls, at 45/. yearly, at Mortlake, in Surrey ; to build and endow an almshouse at Sheen, in Surrey, sum not stated ; 6,000/. to augment poor livings ; besides various other sums for charitable purposes. All this pro- perty did this noble man thus bestow on the needs of his poorer brethren, without forgetting, as is often the case on great occasions, those of his own blood relatives, to whom he bequeathed the princely sura of 100,000/. But, like an able and wise merchant, he did not merely bequeathe these munificent funds, — he " performed all these charitable works in his lifetime ; invested revenues for their support in trustees' hands ; lived to see the trusts justly executed^ as they are at this day ; and saw with his own eyes the good effects of all his establishments." Great, too, as were these bequests, they were not the result of hoarding during a long penurious life, as is often the case, to leave a boastful name at his death ; his whole life was like the latter end of it. True, he did not marry ; and when urged to it, used to reply with a sort of pleasantness, " Every help- less widow is my wife, and her distressed orphans my children." "He was a most successful merchant," says Barrett, in his History of Bristol, "and never insured a ship, and never lost one. He lived first in Small-street, Bristol, but having so much business in London, and being chosen to represent the city, he removed thither ; and afterwards lived, as he advanced in years, a very retired life, at Mortlake, in Surrey. His daily existence was one of the noblca'l; acts of Christian benevolence ; and his private donations were not lesi than his public. He sent at one time 3,000/. to relievo and frea debtors in Ludgate, by a private hand ; freed yearly those confined for small debts in Whitechapel prison and the Marshalsea ; sent 1,000/. to relieve distress in Whitechapel ; twice a-week distributed beef and broth to all the poor around liiin ; and were any sailor suffering or cast away, in his emjiloy, his family afterwards found a sure usvlurn in liim."' ^ 18i CSATTERTON. Why did not Chatterton, who by the splendid provision of this man recoived his education and advance into life, resound the praises of Edward Colston as loudly as he did those of William Canynge ? There is no doubt that it was because time had not sufficiently clothed with its poetic hues the latter merchant, as it had the former. Canynge, too, as the builder of EedcliiFe church, was to him an object of profound admiration. This church is the most lively monument of the memory of Chatterton. His mother is said to have lived on Redclifie-hill, nearly opposite to the upper gate of this church, at the corner of Colston's parade ; this must have been when he was apprentice at Lambert's, and also probably before, while he was at Colston's school. The houses standing there now, how- ever, are too large and good for a woman in her circumstances to have occupied ; and it is, therefore, jirobablc that this abode of his, too, must have been pulled down. We turn, then, to the church itself, as the sole building of his resort, next to Colston's school, which remains as he used to see it. A noble and spacious church it is, as we have stated, of the lightest and most beautiful architecture. The graceful lofty columns and pointed arches of its aisles ; the richly groined roof ; and the fine extent of the view from east to west, being no less than 197 feet, and the height of the middle cross aisle, 54 feet, with a proportionate breadth from north to south, fills you, on entering, v>'ith the highest admiration and pleasure. What does not a little surprise you, is to find in the church, where the great painted altar-piece used to hang, now as large a painting of the Ascension, with two side-pieces ; one representing the stone being rolled away from the sepulchre of our Saviour, and the other, the three Marys come to visit the empty tomb ; and those by no other artist than — Hogarth ! The curiosity of such a fact makes these paintings a matter of intense interest ; and if we cannot place them on a par with such things from the hands of the old masters, we must allow that they are full of talent, and wonderful for a man whose ordinary walk was extremely different. Another object of interest is the tomb of Admiral Penn, the father of the founder of Pennsylvania, which is in the pavement of the .south aisle, with this inscription : — " Here lieth the body of Sir William Penn, who departed this life the 16th of September, 1G74. Dum clavum teneam." On a pillar near hang two or three decayed banners, a black cuirass and helmet, gauntlets and sword, with his escutcheon and motto. Not being aware that Admiral Penn lay buried here, I cannot describe the singular feeling which the sight of these remnants of aristocratic pageantry, suspended above the tomb of the father of the great quaker ofPennsylvania, gave me ; suspended, too, in one of the proudest temples of that proud national church, the downfal of which this very man predicted on his death-bed : — " Son William," said he, " if you and your friends continue faithful to that which has been made known to you, you will make an end of priests and priestc»'aft to the end of the world." In the south transept stand conspicuously the tomb and effigies of William Canynge. These arc striking objects in connexion with the CEATTERTON. 1S5 history of Oliatterton. Here you behold the very forms which, from the early dawn of his life, filled the mind of the poet-child with the deepest sense of admiration. It was here, before these recumbent figures, that he used to be found sitting in profound thought ; and when the reading of the wealth, the princely merchant state, and the munificent deeds of William Canynge, had arrayed the inanimate stone with the hues of long-past life and the halo of solemn and lieautiful deeds, — the raising of this fair church the most beautiful of all, — then was it these which became the germ of the great Eowley fable. Canynge, the ancient and magnificent, now the merchant and now the shaven priest and dean, arose once more at the touch of the inspired boy, and played his part, not as a citizen of Bristol, but as a citizen of the world. These effigies are singular in themselves. First, you have William Canynge and Joan his wife, lying on an altar-tomb, in full proportion, under a canopy handsomely carved in freestone ; then, not far ofi", you have Canynge again carved in ala- baster, lying along in his priest's robes as dean of Westbury, with hands lifted up as in devotion, and a large book under his head. It is rare, and almost unique, to have two monuments of the same person side by side, and that in two different characters ; yet still, little would these have attracted notice, more than a thousand other goodly tombs in our churches, had they not chanced to attract the attention of this little charity-boy, the descendant of the sextons of the church. Last, but far most striking of all the haunts of Chatterton, is that mimiment-room over the north porch. When you ascend the dark and winding stair, and enter this dim and stony hexagon apartment, and see still standing on its floor the seven very chests of the Rowley story, old and mouldering, their hds, some of them circular as if hewn out of solid trees, broken ofi', and all dirty and worm-eaten, the reality of the strange facts connected with them comes thrillingly upon you. You seem then and there only first and fully to feel how actual and how sad is the story of Thomas Chatterton ; that here, indeed, began his wondrous scheme of fame : hence it spread and stood forth as a brilliant mystery for a moment ; hence the proud boy gloried in its sudden blaze, as in that of a recognising glory from heaven ; and then " Black (Ios]::iir, The shadow of a starless ni};!il, Mas throun Over the earth, in v.hich he inovec'. a'.oiio." — Shelley, GIIAY. AT STOKK-POCrS. The lilo of Thomas Gray, the author of the Elegy in a Couiitvy Churchyard, was passed in London, in Cambridge, and at Stoke- Pogis, in Buckinghamshii'e, except what he spent in travelling, which was considerable. Gray was born in Cornhill, November 2G, 1716. His parents were reputable citizens of London. His grandfather was a considerable merchant, but his father, ISIr. Philip Gray, ]\Iason says, tliough he also followed business, was of an indolent and reserved temper ; and therefore rather diminished than increased his paternal fortune. He had many children, of whom Thomas was the fifth ; all except him died in their infancy. The business of Gray's father was, like that of Milton's, a money-scrivener. But, unlike Milton's father Philip Gray was, according to Mason, not only reserved and indolent, but of a morose, unsocial, and obstinate temper. His indolence led liim to neglect the business of his profession ; his obstinacy, to build a country house at Wanstead, without acquainting his wife or son of the design, to which he knew they would bo very avei'se, till it was executed. This turned out a loss of two thousand pounds to the family ; and the character of the father, which is supposed to have been stamped by bodily ailments, was the occasion of Gray, though an only child, being left with a very narrow patrimony. His mother, to provide for her family, entered into business independent of her husband, with her sister, Miss Antrobus. The two ladies kept a kind of Lidia warehouse in Cornhill. As clever ladies in business generally do, they succeeded so well, that, on Mr. Gray'.s death, which happened about the time of the young poet's return from his first trip to the Continent, they retired, and went to join housekeeping with their third sister, Mrs. Pogers, the widow of a gentleman of that name, who had formerly been in the law, and had retired to Burnham, in Buckinghamshire ; where we find Gray, on one occasion, describing, in a letter to Walpole, the uncle and the place thus. " The descrip- tion of a road that your coachwheels have so often honoured, it is needless to give to you ; suffice it that I arrived safe at my uncle's, who is a great hunter in imagination. Hi.s dogs take up every chair in the house, so I am forced to stand up at this present writing : and though the gout forbids him galloping after them in the field, GRAY. 18 f yet lie contirmcs still to regale his cars and nose with their comfort- able noise and stink. He holds me mighty cheap, I perceive, for walking when I should ride, and reading when I should hunt. My comfort amid all this is, that I have at the distance of half-a-mile, through a green lane, a forest — the vulgar call it a common — all my own, at least as good as so, for I spy no human thing in it but my- self. It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices ; mountains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the decli- vities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as well as I do may venture to climb, and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their old stories to the winds : — • And as they bow, their hoary tops relate, In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of Fate ; While visions, as poetic eyes avow, Cling to each leaf and swarm on every bough.' At the foot of one of these squats me I, il penscroso, and there grow to the tnuik for a whole morning. The timorous hare and sportive .squirrel gambol around me like Adam in Paradise, before he had Eve ; but I think he did not use to read Virgil, as I commonly do there. In this situation I often converse with my Horace, aloud too, that is, talk to j'ou, but I do not remember that I ever heard you answer me. I beg pardon for taking all the conversation to myself, but it is entirely your own fault. We have old Mr. Southern at a gentleman's house a little way oft", who comes often to see us. He is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory ; but is as agi-eeable as an old man can be, at least I persuade myself so when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oronoko.'" By this agreeable extract, however, we have outstepijed the pro- gress of Gray's life. He was educated at Eton, under the care of Mr. Antrobus, his mother's brother, then assistant to Dr. Geoi'gc ; and, when he left school, in 1734, entered a pensioner at Peterhouso in Cambridge. It was intended that he should foUow the profession of the law, for which his uncle's practice and connexions seemed to open a brilliant way. He therefore lived on at college so long as his attendance on the lectures was required, but took no degree. His uncle's death put an end to his prospects of that kind, and he aban- doned the idea of the legal profe.ssion. When he had been at Cam- bridge about five year.s, he agi-eed to make a tour on the Continent with Horace Walpole ; and they proceeded together through France to Italy, where they quarrelled and parted, taking different ways. On his return, he again went to Cambridge, took the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law, and continued there, without liking the place or its inhabitants, as we are informed by botn Johnson and Mason, or professing to like them. His pleasure lay in wading through huge libraries, out of wliicli, on a vast number of subjects, he extracted a vast amount of information. Such were Gray's assiduous study and research, that the following character of him by a contemporary, the II 188 ORAT. Rev. Mr. Toinple, rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, written a fe\1 months after his death, can scarcely bo termed overdrawn :— "Per liaps he was the most learned man in Euro^je. He was equally iiequainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, antl that not superlicially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both natural and civil ; had read all the original histories of Eng- land, France, and Italy ; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his plan of titudy. Voyages and travels of all sorts were his favourite amuse- ment ; and' he had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening." lie was, in fact, one of the first to open up the Scandinavian mythology, antiquities, and legendary literature, still so little under- stood in this country, and on which our best literary historians dis- play so marvellous an ignorance ; Hallam, amongst others, describing the " Niebelungen Lied " as an original German poem, not aware that the nxagnilicent original of that poem exists in the Icelandic. Gray was also one of the very first, if not the very first person, who began to trace out and distinguish the diiferent orders of Anglo-Gothic architecture, by attention to the date of its creation. These were the studies, enough to occupy a life, which kept him close at Cam- bridge in his rooms for years, and once induced him to take lodgings for about three years near the British Museum, where he diligently copied from the Ilarleiau and other manuscripts. The death of his most intimate friend, Mr. "West, the son of the Chancellor of Ireland, soon after his return from the Continent, tended only the more to fix this habit of retirement and study. He lived on at Peterhouse till 1758, whcu a curious incident drove him forth. Two or three young men of fortune, who lived in the same staircase, had for some time intentionally distm'bed him with their riots, and carried their ill- behaviour so far as frequently to awaken him at midnight. After having borne their insults longer than might reasonably have been expected, even from a man of less warmth of temper, Mr. Gray com- plained to the governing part of the society ; and not thinking his remousti'ance sufficiently attended to, quitted the college. He took lip his residence at Pembroke-hall, where he continued to reside till the day of his death, which occurred here in the fifty-fifth year of his age, July 30, 1771, being seized with gout in the stomach while lit dinner in the college-hall. He had for the last three j'ears been appointed Professor of 1 listory in this college ; but such was his indolence, fastidiousness, or aversion to so public a duty, that, to use the words of Johnson, " ho was always designing lectures, but never reading them ; uneasy at his neglect of duty, and appeasing his imeasiness with designs of reformation, and with a resolution which he believed himself to have made, of resigning the office if he found himself unable to discharge it." He continued thus to vacillate, and held on till his death. A eircumstance which attached him more to Pembroke college was, that Mason was elected a Fellow of ib in 1747; tliey grew warn.) friends, and Mason afterwards became his biographer. ORAY. I SO Such was the general outline of Gray's life. In reading it we iind the most interesting features those which he descril^es so well in his letters, his travels, and his occasional retreats at Stoke-Pogi«. lie made a tour into the north of England, to the lakes, and into Scot- land ; at another time through Worcester, Hereford, JMonmouth, and parts of the neighbouring counties ; and all his details of such rambles, as they are given with an evident zest, are full of life and interest. In his prose, Gray gets out of the stiff and stilted formality of much of his poetry. He forgets his learning and his classical notions, and is at once easy, amiable, witty, and jocose. There was a degree of effeminacy about him, which you see in his portraits, and which you do not the less detect in his poetry ; but his prose gives you a far more attractive idea of him, such as he must have been in the familiar circle of his friends. On tm-ning to Gray's account of those places which 1 have visited in vaiious parts of the kingdom, I have always found him seizing on their real features, and impressed with their true spirit. It is at Stoke-Pogis that we seek the most attractive vestiges of (iray. Here he used to spend his vacations, not only when a youth at Eton, but during the whole of his future life, Avhile his mother and his aunts lived. Here it was that his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, his celebrated Elegy written in a Country Church- yard, and his Long Story, were not only written, but were mingled with the cii'cumstances and all the tenderest feelings of his own life. His mother and aunts lived at an old-fashioned house in a very retired spot at Stoke, called West End. This house stood in a hollow, much screened by trees. A small stream ran through the garden, und it is said that Gray, when here, iised to employ himself much in this garden, and that many of the trees stiU remaining are of his planting. On one side of the house extended an \ipland field, which was planted round so as to give a charming, retired walk ; and at the •oummit of the field was raised an artificial mound, upon which was built a sort of arcade or summer-house, which gave full prospect of \Vindsor and Eton. Here Gray delighted to sit. Here he was accus- tomed to read and write much ; and it is just the place to inspire tiie Ode on Eton College, which lay in the midst of its fine landscape, beautifully in view. The old house inhabited by Gray and his mother, at the time of my visit, had just been pulled down, and replaced by an Elizabethan mansion by the present proprietor, Mr. Penn, of Stoke Park, just by. The garden, of course, had shared in the change, and now stood gay with its fountain and its modern greenhouse, and, excepting for some tine trees, no longer remindeil you of Gray. Tlie woodland walk still remained round the atljoining field, and the summer-house on its summit, though much cracke(l by time, and only held together by iron cramps. The trees were so lofty as completely to obstruct the view, and shut out both Eton •md Windsor. It was at this house, now destroyed, that the two ladies from the Park made their memorable visit, which gave occasion to the Long vitory. The fact^ were these. Gray had finished his Elegy, and liad 100 GKAY. gent it in iiiamiscript to Horace VValpole, by whom it was shown about with grout a[)plaiisc. Amongst the rest of the fashionable world to whom it was thus communicated, Lady Cobham, who lived at the Mansion-house at Stoke-Pogis, had read and admired it Wishing to make the acquaintance of the author, and hearing that he was so near her, her relatives, Miss Speed and LadySchaub, then at her house, luidertook to bring this about by making him the first y'lait. lie happened to be from home when the ladies arrived at his aunts' solitary mansion ; and when he returned, was surprised to find, written on one of his i^apers in the patloTir where he usually i-cad, the following note : — "Lady Schaub's compliments toMr. (Jray. She is sorry not to have found him at home, to tell him that Lady Brown is very well." This necessarily obliged hira to return the visit, and soon after induced him to compose a ludicrous account of lliis little adventure for tlie amusement of the ladies in question. This was a nicrGjeu (Vesirnt, and, extravagant as some parts of it are, is certainly clever. Gray regarded it but as a thing for the occasion, and never included it in his published poems. But Mason tells us that when it appeared, though onlj' in manuscript, it was handed about, and the most various opinions pronounced on it. By some it was thought a masterpiece of original humour, by others a wild and fantastic farrago. It in truth much more resembles his prose, and ])roves that, if he had not always had the fear of the critics before his eyes, he would have written with far more freedom and life than lie often did. "We may take a few stanzas, as connected with our further subject. " In Britain's ible, no matter where, An ancient pile of building stands : Tlie Iliintingdons and Hattons tliero Employed the power of fairy hands To raise "tlie ceiling's fretted height, Each panel in acliievements clotliing, llicli windows that exclude the light, And passages that lead to nothing. Full oft within the spacious walls. When he had fifty winters o'er him. My grave Lord Keeper led the brawls ; The seal and maces danced befoi'j him. His bushy heard, and shoe-strings green. His high-crowned hat, and sntin doublet. Moved the stout heart of England's Uueen, Though Pope and Sjianiard could not trouble it. « * » • A house there is, and that's enough, I'rom whence one fatal mornmg issues A brace of warriors, not in bulf. But rustling in their silks and tissues. The first came ciip-u-pie from France, Her conquering de>tiny fulfilling, Whom meaner beauties eye askance, And vainly ape her art of killing. The other Amazon, kind Heaven Had armed with spirit, wit, and satire ; JJnt f'obhani had the polish given. And tipped her arrows with gO(jd-nalure. To celebrate her eyes, her air — Coarse panegyrics would but tease her; Melissa is her nom dc guerre ; Altts! who would not wish to please heil GKAT. 191 Witli bonnet blue, and capuchhie, And aprons long, they liid their armour, And veiled their weapons bright and keen, In pity to the country farmer, lame, in tlie sliape of Mr. P— t — Hy this time all the parisli know it — Had told that thereabouts there lurked A wicked imp they call a poe' ; Who prowled the country, far and near, Bewitched the children of the peasants, Dried up the cows, and lamed the deer, And sucked the eggs, and killed the pheasants. My lady heard their joint petition. Swore, by her coronet and ermine. She'd issue out her high commission, To rid the manor of such vermin. The heroines undertook the task. Through lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventured, Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask, 15ut bounce into the parlour entered. The trembling family they daunt, They flirt, they sing, they laugh, they tattle. Rummage his mother, pinch his aunt, And upstairs in a whirlwind rattle," etc. Tho ancient pile here mentioned was tlie Mauor-liou.se, Stoke Pai'k, which was then in the possession of Viscountess Cobham. This place and the manor had been in seme remarkable hands. • Tho manor was so ctilled from the Pogies, the ancient lords of that nann-. The heiress of this family, in the reign of Edward the Third, married l^ord Molines, who shortly afterwards procured a licence from the king to convert the Manor-house into a castle. From hira it descended to the Lords Hungerford, and from them to the Hastings, Earls of Huntingdon, and was afterwards the residence of Lord Chancellor Hatton. Sir Christopher Hatton had won his promotion with Queen Elizabeth through his graceful person and fine dancing, and is very picturesquely described by Gray, with "his shoe-strings green, high-crowned hat, and satin doublet," leading off the brawls, a sort of figure-dance then in vogue, before the queen. Sir Edward Coke, having married an heiress of the Huntingdon family, became the next possessor ; and here, in the year 1601, he was honoured with a visit from Elizabeth, whom he entertained in a very sump- tuous style. After the death of the Viscountess Cobham, the estate was purchased by Mr. William Ponn, chief proprietor of Pennsylvania, a descendant of the celebrated William Penn, the founder of that State. This old manor-house has since been swept away, as Gray's resi- dence is also, and a large modern mansion now occupies its place. This was built from a design by Wyatt, in 1789, and has since been altered and enlarged. It is built chiefly of brick, and covered with stucco, and consists of a large square centre, with two wings. The north, or entrance front, is ornamented with a colonnade, consisting of ten Doric columns, and approached by a flight of steps leading to the Marble Hall. The south front, 196 feet long, is also adorned with a colonnade, consisting of twelve fluted columns of tho okl Doric order. This is surrounded by a projecting portico of foui 1^)2 GRAY. Ionic columns, .sustaining an ornamental pediment ; and again on tlic top of tlie house by a dome. Stoke Park, thus interesting both on account of tliese older asso- ciations, and of Penn and Gray, is about a couple of miles from Slough. The country is flat, but its monotony is broken up by the noble character and disposition of its woods. Near the house is a fine expanse of water, across which the eye falls on fine views, par- ticularly to the south, of Windsor Castle, Cooper's Hill, and the Forest Woods. About three hundred yards from the nortii front of the house stands a colunm, sixty-eight feet high, l)eariug on the top a colossal statue of Sir Edward Coke, by Rosa. The woods of the park shut out the view of West End House, Gray's occasional resi- dence, but the space is open from the mansion across the park, so as to take in the view both of the church and of a monument erected by the late JNIr. Penn to Gray. Alighting from the carriage at a lodge, I entered the park just at the monument. Thi.s is composed of fine freestone, and consists of a large sarcophagus, supported on a square pedestal, with inscriptions on each side. Three of them are selected from the Ode to Eton College and the Elegy. They are — " IFaid by yon wood, now smiling as in .^corn, .Mntlering his wayward fancies lie would rove; Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree ; Anotlier came : nor yet beside the rill, Kor up the lawn, uor at the woo'j;exude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The 'breezy call of incense-breathing moi-n, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing liorn, No mure shall rause tiieni from their liuvlv bed ' GHAT. 1^'J llie fourth bears this inscription : — " This ^ronunicnt, in lionmir of Thomas Gray, ■\Vas erected a.d. 1799, Among the scenery Celebrated hy that great Lyric and Elegiac Fciet. lie died in 1771, And lies unnoted in the adjoining Cliurch-yard, Under tlie Tombstone on wliich lie pionsly And pathetically recorded the interment Of his Aunt and lamented Jlother." This monument is enclosed in a neatly kept garden-like enclosure, with a winding walk approaching from the shade of the neighbouring trees. To the right, across the park at some little distance, backed by fine trees, stands the i-ural little church and churchyard, where firay wrote his Elegy, and where he lies. As you walk on to this, the mansion closes the distant view between the woods with fine effect. The church has often been engraved, and is therefore toler- ably fumihar to the general reader. It consists of two barn-liko structures, with tall roofs, set side by side, and the tower and finely tapered spire rising above them at the north-west cornei\ The church is thickly hung with ivy, where " The moping owl may to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient, solitary reign." The structure is as simple and old-fashioned, both without and within, as any village church can well be. No village, however, is to be seen. Stoke consists chiefly of scattered houses, and this is now in the midst of the park. In the churchyard, " Beneath those'rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid. The rude forefathers of the hanikt sleep." All this is quite literal ; and the tomb of the poet himself, near the south-east window, completes the impression of the scene. It is a plain brick altar tomb, covered with a blue slate slab, and, besides his own ashes, contains those of his mother and aunt. On the slab are inscribed the following lines by Gray himself : — " In the vault beneath are deposited, in hope of a joyful resurrection, the remains of Mari/ Anlrohus. She died unmarried, Nov : 5, 1749, aged Bixty-six. In the same pious confidence, beside her friend and sister, here sleep the remains of Dorothy Gvcnj, widow ; the tender, careful mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to Burvive her. She died March 11, 1753, aged sixty-seven." No testimony of the interment of Gray in the same tomb was hiscribed anywhere till Mr. Penn, in 1799, erected the monument already mentioned, and placed a small slab in the wall, under the window, opposite to the tomb itself, recording the feet of Gray's IJl GHiT. burial there. Tlie whole scene is well worthy of a summer day's stroll, especially for such as, pent in the metropolis, know how to enjoy the quiet freshness of the country, and the associations of poetry and the past. The Great Western llailway now will set such down in about one hour at Slough, a pleasant walk from Stot;p. The late Mr. Penn, a gentleman of reiined taste, and a great reverencer of the memory of Gray, possessed his autographs, which liave been sold at great prices. It is to be regretted that his house, too, is now gone ; but the church and the tomb will remain to future ajrcs. OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Of all our poets, there is none who more completely verifiid the words of Crabbc than Oliver Goldsmith : — " And never mortal left this world of sin More like the infant that he entered in." He was a genuine Irishman, all heart and impulse. Imposed upon, ill-treated, often made the butt of witlings, and compelled to labour and live on with that cancer of the heart, constant anxiety to prociu'(' the ordinary means of existence — none of these things could conve? t the milk of hmaan kindness within him into gall, could teach liini one lesson of malevolence, or dim the godlike sense of truth and humanity in his soul. Through a long experience of men and things, living by shifts, and writing for mere bread, he still remained tin. same simple, warm-hearted, generous, and unsophisticated creatun that he was cit the beginning. Improvident he was, out of the ovit flowing goodness of his natiu-e ; ready, at the iirst ciy of distress, tc {.'ive away that which he had bitterly toiled for, and which had \>vt-u ;'rud/ tcants without icritlng for any party ; the assistance therefore you offer is unnecessary to me;' and so I left him," added Dr. Scott, "in his garret." How completely was this Dr. Primrose ! How thoroughly Avas he the same man in everything. How could a clerical vampyre hke this Scott, himself crammed with two fat livings, the price of subservience understand such high principle ? AVhen his aid was needed by his fellow-man — " Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began." It is because lie embodied himself in all he wrote, that his writings eommaud such undecaying interest ; for in impressing his own heart »n his page, he impressed there nature itself in its most unselfish 206 GOLDSMITH. and generous character. Every circumstance, therefore, connected Avitli " Tlio Deserted Village" of &ach a man will always be deeply interesting to the visitor of the spot, and we must for that reason notice cue or two facts of the kind before quitting Lissoy. Mr. Best, an Irish clergyman, met by Mr. Uavis in his travels in the United States, said — " Tlie name of the schoolmaster was Paddy Burns. I remember him well. He was indeed a man severe to view. A woman, called Walsey Cruse, kept the alehouse. I have often been in the liouse. The hawthorn bush was remarkably large, and stood opposite the house. I was once riding with Brady, titular Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me — ' Ma foy, Best, this huge, overgrown bush is mightily in the way ; I wall order it to be cut down ! ' ' What, sir,' said I, ' cut down Goldsmith's hawthorn bush, that supplies so beautiful an image in the Deserted Village !' 'Ma foy !' exclaimed the bishop, ' is that the hawthorn bush 1 Then ever let it be sacred from the edge of the axe, and evil to him that ■would cut from it a branch!'" In other places, the Schoolmaster is called, not Paddy Burns, but Thomas Byrne, evidently the same person. He had been educated for school-teaching, but had gone into the army ; and, serving in Spain during the reign of Queen Anne, became quarter-master of the regiment. On the return of peace he took up his original calling. He is represented to be well qualified to teach ; little more than writing, reading, and arithmetic were wanted, but he could ti'anslate extemporaneously Virgil's Eclogues Into Irish verse, in considerable elegance. But his grand accomplishment was the narration of his adventures, which was commonly exercised in the alehouse ; at the same time that, when not in a particular humour for teaching, he would edify his boys in the school with one of his stories. Amongst his most eager listeners was Oliver, who was so much excited by what he heard, that his friends used to ascribe his own love of rambhng to this cause. The schoolmaster was, in fact, the very man to excite the imagination of the young poet. He was eccentric in his habits, of a romantic turn, wrote poetry, was well versed in the fairy superstitions of the country, and what is not less common in Ireland, believed implicitly in their truth. A poor woman, named Catherine Geraghty, was supposed to be — " Yon widowed, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring : She, wretched matron, pressed in age for bread. To strip the brook witfi mantling cresses spread.' The brook and ditches, near where her cabin stood, still furnish cresses, and several of her descendants reside in the neighbourhood. The school-house is still pointed out, but it is unfortunate for its identity tliPt no school-house was built then, school being taught in the master's cottage. There is moi-e evidence in nature of the poet's recalling the place of his boyhood as he wrote his poem. The waters and marshy lands, in more than one direction, gave him acquaintance with the singular bird which he has introduced with such effect, as* an imago of desolation. GOLDSMITH. 207 " Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow -sounding bittern guards its nest." Little charm as Lissoy has at the jn-esent moment, iudependcnt of association with Oliver Goldsmith, with him and genius it possesses one that grows upon you the more you trace the scenes made pro- minent in his poem, and we leave it with regret. There are various other places in the same part of Ireland which are connected with the early history of Goldsmith. At the school of Paddy Byrne he made little progress, as was to be expected, except in a growing attachment to the marvellous. He devoured not only the romantic stories of the schoolmaster, but those of the peasantry. He listened enthusiastically to their ballads, their feiry tales and superstitions, of which they have in Ireland a plentiful stock. He got hold of, and read with equal avidity, what have been called the cottage classics of Ireland, — those books which may be found in their cabins everywhere : History of Witches and Ghosts ; the Devil and Dr. Faustus ; Parisuuis and Parismenus ; Montelea, Knight of the Oracle ; Seven Champions of Christendom ; Mendoza's Art of Boxing ; Ovid's Art of Love ; Lives of celebrated Pirates : History of the Irish llogues and Eapparees ; of Moll Flanders ; of Jack the Bachelor, a notorious smuggler ; of Fair Eosamond and Jane Shore ; of Donna Rosena ; the Life and Adventures of James Freny, a famous Irish robber, etc. A precious literature for a lad, it must be confessed ! Luckily, if it excited his imagination, it failed in corrupting his heart ; and, thanks to the spread of knowledge, a better class of books has now found its way even into Irish cabins. To jDut Oliver under more suituable tuition, he was sent to the Ilev. j\Ir. Griffin of Elphin, master of the school once taught by his grand- father. Here he became an inmate of his uncle, I\Ir. John Goldsmith, of Ballyoughter, in the vicinity. Displaying now much talent, which was at once seen and cordially acknowledged by his uncle, he was destined for the university ; and pi-eparatory to that he was sent to a school of repute at Athlone. At this school he continued two years ; when lie was removed to Edgeworthstown, under the care of the Rev. Patrick Hughes, where he continued till he went to tht imiversity. That we may take a connected view of his homes and haunts in this part of the country, we must include at once his life hereabout before he went to the university, and his visits hither during an interval of two years, between his quitting the university and his quitting Ireland, to study physic in Edinburgh, and, in fact, never again to return to Ireland. There are several facts connected with liis school days at Edge- worthstown that are very interesting. Ho is said to have become acquainted, cither here or at Ballyoughton, with Turlogh O'Carolan., the last of the ancient Irish bards. This popular musician and poet, whose songs have been translated into English and published, main- tained the style and life of the minstrel. He disdained to play for money, but went as an admired and honoured guest from house to house amongst the most ancient and opulent families of Conuaught. 208 GOLDSMITH. To complete his character as a harper, he was blind ; and had been so from the age of eighteen. His songs, which are sung by the peasantry with enthusiasm, are numerous, and celebrate the persons and families of his patrons. If they do not in the mind of an Englishman appear to possess an originality equal to their fame in Ireland, it is to be remembered that they have there all the charm of association ; their very titles being the names of lords and ladies of old families : O'Connor Faby ; Dennis O'Connor ; Plansty Stafford ; Nelly Plunket ; Jlrs. French ; Anna M'Dermott Roe, etc. The influence which the other local poet, Laurence Whyte, had on the mind and genius of Goldsmith is very striking. Whyte wrote, as part of a larger poem, The Parting Cup, or the Humours of Deoch an Doruis, in four cantos. It is a lively picture of a Westmeath farmer's life, about the year 1710, and shows not only how its themes had sunk into the mind of Goldsmith as a boy when they reappeared in the Deserted Village, but also how old and how fixed a portion of Irish history are the miseries and outrages of eviction ; the stream of consequent emigration ; and the curse of absenteeism. Whyte'.s ])oem is very clever, and deserves to be better known. Speaking of the better condition of farmei-s in the seventeenth century, he pro- ceeds : — JIow viunij villnrjes l/ici/ razed, IIdv: mrinij parishes laid waste, To fallen bullocks, sheep and cows, When scarce one parish has two ploughs. Tlieir flocks do range on every plain, That once produced all kind of grain. Depopulating every village, Wliere we had luisbandry and tillage ; Fat bacon, poultry, and good bread, ]!y which tlie poor were daily fed. ^f * * -K- * Instead of living well and thriving, There's nothing now but Icadijig, drieing, — The lands are all monopolized, The tenants racked and sacriliced ; Whole colonies, to shun ihefale Of being oppressed at such a ralf, 111/ tijranis who still raise their rent, Sail to the Western Continent, llather than lire at home like slaces, ***** 'J'hey trust themselves to winds andwa'JCs " If a i)oet at the present hour were describing the acts and deeds of the Irish exterminators, could he have done it more literally ? To turn to a more agreeable subject. The chief incident in " Shr Stoops to Conquer" is said to have originated in an amusing adven- ture of Goldsmith's, on his last going from home to the school at Edgeworthstown ; and is thus related by Prior : — '•' Having set off on horseback, there being then, and indeed now, no regular wheeled conveyance from Ballymahon, he loitered on the road, amusing him- self by viewing the neighbouring gentlemen's seats. A friend had presented him with a guinea ; and the desire, perhaps, of spending it — to a schoolboy — -in a most independent manner at an inn, tended to slacken his diligence on the road. Xigitt overtook him in the ' Tims farmers lived like gentlemen. Ere lands were raised from five to ten ; Again from ten to three times five, Then very few could hope to thrive; Hut tugged against the rapid stream. Which drove them back from whence they came : .At length 'twas canted to a pound, AVhat tenant then could keep his ground .' Not knowing which, to stand or lly. When rent-rolls mounted zenith hijh, They had their choice to run away, Or labour for a groat a day. Kou) beggared and of all bereft, Are doomed to starve or live by theft. Take In the m.ounlain or the roads, When banished from their old abodes. Their native soil were forced to Quit, So Irish landlords thought it fit ; Who tvilhout ceremony or rout. For tlieir improvements turned them out. GOLt)SirlTQ. 209 g-mall town of Ardagh, about half-way on his journey. Inquiring for the best house in the place, meaning the best inn, he chanced to address, as is said, a person named Cornelius Kelly, who boasted of having taught fencing to the JMarquis of Granby, and was then domesticated in the "house of Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune in the town : he was known as a notorious wag ; and, willing to play ofi' a trick upon one whom he had no doubt discovered to be ■d, swaggering schoollioy, directed him to the house of his patron. " Suspecting no deception, Oliver proceeded as directed ; gave authoritative orders about the care of his horse ; and, being thence conceived by the servants to be an expected guest, was ushered into the presence of their master, who immediately discovered the mis- take. Being, however, a man of humour, and willing to enjoy an evening's amusement with a boy under the influence of so unusual a blunder, he encouraged it, particularly when, by the communicative disposition of the guest, it was found he was the son of an old acquaintance on his way to school. Nothing occuri-ed to undeceive the self-importance of the youth, fortiiied by the possession of a sum he did not often possess ; wine was therefore ordered, in addition to a good supper, and the supposed landlord, his wife and daughters, were invited to partake of it. On retiring for the night, a hot cake was ordered for breakfast the following morning ; nor was it until preparing to quit the house next day that he discovered he had been entertained in a private family." Ballymahon, the little foreign-looking town near his native place, figure,'! conspicuously in Goldsmith's early life. After his father'.s death, which took place while he was at college, his mother removed thither ; and thither during vacations Oliver betook himself. Again, when he quitted college, he spent two years amongst his relations, with no fixed aim ; sometimes he was with his uncle Contarine in Eoscommon ; sometimes at Lissoy, where now his brother-in-law, ]\Ir.Hodson, lived in the old hous3 ; at other times he was with his brother Henry, who, officiating as curate, lived at Pallasmore in tlie house where Oliver was born, and, to eke out his small salary, kept a school, in which Oliver assisted him. No place was so dear to him, however, as Lissoy, where he entered into all the rural sports and occupations of his brothei'-in-law with fullest enjoyment. There is no doubt that, had he had sufficient means, he would have continued to live here a country life, and the world would most probably have lost a poet. As it is", he has made the life and characters of Lissoy Jamiliar to all the world, in both the Deserted Village andthe Yicar of Wakefield. No man drew more from real, and especially from his own past life, than Goldsmith. The last years he spent in the coiuitry he was a tutor in the family of a gentleman in the county (if Eoscommon, of the name of Flinn ; and the nature of his impressions I'egarding such a situation he is supposed to have recorded in the history of The Man in Black. His mother's house at Ballymahon, where she lived as a widow about twenty years, is still pointed out to the curious ; it forms one corner of the road to Edgeworthstown. Some shop accounts have 210 GOLDSMITH. been preserved, in whicli Oliver, nnder the familiar title of Master Noll, is found figuring as his mother's messenger for tea and sugar ; it was only to the next door. Opposite to his mother's house stood George Conway's inn, where he used to spend many a gay and jovial evening, in the company of those who resorted thither ; often amused them with a story or a song, and was naturally a great authority in matters of learning. From scenes and characters occurring here, it is believed he drew the first idea of Tony Lumpkin ; at all events, in such a circle he saw traits of human life and action that would be found as old gold at the necessary time. At Ballymulvey House in the neighbourhood, he spent many happy hours with his friend and quondam college and school companion, Mr. Robert Bryanton ; and ilso with him made excursions into the surrounding country, some- times shooting, sometimes fishing in the Inny, which runs through the town. In these rambles he made himself as familiar with nature and her wild children as he did with man in towns ; he traced the haunts of the wild fowl, and hunted the otter in the waters, that there comm^^nicate with the Shannon. There are many objects in the neighbourhood of Ballymahon still proudly pointed out as be- longing to the haunts of Goldsmith : the islets in the river ; the I'uins of a mill, in his time in full activity ; the places on the river side where he used to sit and play on his flute ; as well as the house of a Mr. Gannon, where, as he himself tells us in his Animated Nature, he first saw a seal, this gentleman having two for ten years ill his house. In this portion of his life there are many rich incidents, which it iS to be regretted we cannot here introduce ; particularly that most amusing account of his visit to an old college friend, who had often pi'essed him to come and "command his stable and his purse," but who turned out as such friends often do. But we have overstepped his sojourn at college, and must turn back to it. Trinity College, Dublin, is a noble structure ; and, with its spacioiLS courts and extensive gardens, more fittingly deserving the name of parks, one would think a place where the years of studentship might — especially in the heart of such a city — be very agreeably spent. But Goldsmith entered there under circumstances that were irksome to him, and, to add to the matter, he met with a brute in his tutor. The family income did not allow him to occupy a higher rank than that of a sizer, or poor scholar, and this was mortifying to his sensi- tive mind. The sizer wears a black gown of coarse stufi' without sleeves, a plain black cloth cap without a tassel, and dines at the fellows' table after they have retired. It was at that period far worse ; they wore red caps to distinguish them, and wei-e compelled to perform derogatory offices : to sweep the courts in the morning, carry up the dishes from the kitchen to the fellows' table, and wait in the hall till they had dined. No wonder that a mind like that of Goldsmith's writhed under the degradation ! He has recorded his own feelings and opinions on this custom : "Sure pride itself haa dictated to the fellows of our colleges the absurd fashion of being attended at njeals, and on otlier public occasions, ')y those poor uu;y GOLDSMITH. 5 1 who, willing to be scholars, come in upon some charitable foundation. It implies a contradiction, for men to be at once learning the liberal ai-ts and at the same time treated as slaves ; at once studying freedom and practising servitude." A spirited fellow at length caused the abolition of the practice of the sizers acting as ^vaiters, and that, too, on grand occasions before the pulilic, liy flinging the dish he was carrying, on Trinity Sunday, at the head of a citizen in the crowd assembled to witness the scene, who made some jeering remarks on the office he had to perform. His tutor, a great brute — let his name be known ; it was the Rev. Theaker Wilder — proceeded sometimes to actual corporal castigation ; and with Oliver's natural tendency to poetry, rather than to dry classical and mathematical studies, like many other poets, including Scott and Byron, he cut no great figure at college ; and, like the latter, detested it. Amongst his cotemporaries at the college was lulmund Burke, but they appear to have known little of each other. To add to Goldsmith's uncomfortable position, there occurred a riot of the students, who, hearing that one of their body had been arrested in Fleet-street, rushed to the rescue, seized the bailiffs, dragged them to the college, and pumped them soundly in the old cistern. They next attempted to break open Newgate, and make a general jail delivery, but failed for want of cannon. In the subsequent inquiry, Goldsmith came in, not for any severe punishment, but for a college censure. Feeling his self-respect deeply wounded by his brutal tutor entering his chambers, on one occasion when he had a party of merry comrades there, and in their presence inflicting personal chastisement upon him, he quitted college, selling his books, and set off to Cork to embark for some foreign country. Bat his money failed ; he was compelled to sell his clothes from his back ; and, brought to the utmost condition of misery and starvation, he thus reached his brother's house, who again clothed him, and brought him back to college, endeavouring to propitiate the brutal tutor. His father dying, he was reduced to the deepest distress. His generous uncle, Contarine, helped to the utmost of his power, but, with Oliver's careless habits, he was still often reduced to the iitmost straits. He was sometimes compelled to pawn his books, and borrow others to study from. His condition became that of squalid poverty, and, at length, he was driven to the extremity of writing street ballads, which he found a ready- sale for at five shillings a copy, at a shop known as the sign of the Reindeer, in Mountrath-street. Eventually obtaining the degree of B. A. he quitted the university, and, as we have seen, retreated to his own native neighbouihood and friends. During this interval of his life Goldsmith gave great concern to }iis friends. He appeared before the Bishop of Elphin in a pair of scarlet breeches to be examined for orders, and was, of course, rejected. He then spent what money he had in buying a horse, on which he disapi)eared no one knew whither, and after a time I'eap- peared on a sorry hack which he called " Fiddleback." All chance of succeeding as a clergyman, to which office he more- over had an aversion, appearing out of the question, and liavirg 2 J 2 GOLDSMian. lither no inclination or not sufficient ,s})irifc of plodding for llio ])ursnit of law, which had been recommended to him, by assistance of liis friends lie crossed over to Edinbnrgh, and commenced, in tluat rmiversity, tlie .study of physic. We have no clue to the exact lodgings of Goldsmith during his stay in Edinburgh, which was two wiiitcrs. Men in the poverty of Goldsmith, as a student, seldom I'ecord very traceably their whereabouts. The tradition is, however, that the lodgings he chiefly occupied were in the College Wynd ; and this is very likely, both because the situation is convenient for the college, and because the character of the place agrees pretty nnich with the sort of entertainment he describes himself to have ibund in them. The College Wynd is a narrow alley of wretched houses, now inhabited only by the lowest grade of population. It is probable, however, that in it was the better class of lodgings which Goldsmith occupied in this city. The house in which he located Jiirasolf at first was also a boarding-house, but of such a description that he used, in after days, to amuse his friends in London with an account of the economy of the table. A leg of mutton, as he told the story, dished up in various ways by the ingenuity of his hostess, served for the better part of dinner during a week ; a dish of broth being made on the seventh day from the bone. He soon fled fi'om this luxurious abode, and joined several other students, his friends and countrymen, who were better accommodated, most likely in thi.s College Wynd. He had the advantage of studying under the elder Monro ; he became a member of the Medical Society ; but was soon more noted for his convivial talents and habits than for his indus- trious study. He made a trip into the Highlands on a pony, he says, of the size of a ram, and wrote a humorous account of Scotland and the people, to his friend Robert Bryanton, of Ballymahon. Through some Irish connexion he was invited to the Duke of Hamilton's, whose duchess at that time was one of the celebrated Gunnings : but he said he soon found himself liked rather as a jester than as a companion, and he at once disdained the company of dukes on any such terms. Amongst his college friends was that Lauchlan Maclcane whom some writers have endeavoured to prove to be the real Junius, though his claims were long ago sifted, and rejected by public opinion. Having, with his usual incaution in such matters, become security for a fellow-student, Goldsmith would not have been able to quit Edinburgh, had it not been for Macleane and Dr. Joseph Fenn Sleigh, a Quaker, and afterwards a popular physician at Cork. Saved from arrest by their kindness, he embarked for Bordeaux, but was driven into Newcastle-on-Tyne ; where the ship proving to be engaged in enlisting soldiers for the French army, he was seized and cast into prison for a fortnight, before he could prove his innocence. In the meantime the ship had escaped out of the harbour. He had lost iiis passage, and his passage-money and luggage ; but saved his life, for the ship was wrecked, and every soul perished. He then went over to Rotterdam, studied at Leyden for a year, but, so far as appears, took no degree ; and thence set off", on foot, on that tour of GOLDSMITH. 213 which so much has always been said in counexion with his name. With his usual good-natured thoughtlessness, when about to set for- ward from Leyden, provided with a small fund by his undo Contarine, being struck, in the garden of a florist, with some beautiful buibous flowers, and recollecting in his gratitude his uncle Contarine's admi- ration of those flowers, he spent most of the money in purchasing a quantity of them to ship to Ireland for him, as the most welcome present he could think of; and then set out, almost penniless, on his journej'. His tour extended through Flanders and France, at Paris attending the chemical lectures of Rouelle, and being introduced to Voltaire ; a small portion of Germany ; thence thi-ough Switzerland, visiting some of its most celel^rated scenes, and chmbing some of its highest mountains, as the Jura ; and thence into Italy, where he extended his journey to most of the northern cities, Mantua, Milan, Padua, Florence, Verona, Venice, and the wilds of Carinthia; but never reached Rome or Naples. His necessities became too great to permit Kim to go further. In France his flute was, amongst the 2)easantry, as represented in his Traveller, a never-failing resource — not so in Italy. There the higher taste for music made his nule skill useless; but he found many of his coimtrymen residents in the monasteries, and these were always ready to reheve his wants. He found also another resource, which ho relates in his Philosophic Vagabond : — " My skill in music could avail me nothing in Italy where every peasant was a better musician than I ; but by this time I had acquired another talent, which answered my purpose as well ; and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against everj' adventitious disputant ; for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought my way towards England ; w^alked along from city to city, examinedVaukind more closely, and, if I may so express it, saw both sides of the picture." There is no question that this hardy enterprise of making the tour of Europe on foot, and pushing his way as he could, by his powers of argument, or his flute, though, as he observed, it made him a debtor in almost every kingdom in Europe, yet immensely extended his knowledge of human nature. He was the first man, through his close observation of the French people, to predict their breaking up the despotism of the old monarchy. " As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom. When I consider that these parliaments, the members of which are all created by the court, the presidents of which can only act by immediate direction, presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who, till of la,te, received directions from the throne with implicit luimility ; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs successively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, and the country will certainly once more be free." J51 [ COLDSMITir. This was a remarkable pr()[)Iiecy ; the sagacity of Goldsmith pene- trated the eventful future twelve years before the mind of Burke, by treading the same ground, arrived at the same conclusion. In 17o6 Oliver Goldsmith reached England, destined now to the ind of his life to become the scene of his varied struggles, his i^overtv, and his ftime. It were a long story to follow him minutely through all his numerous pursuits of an existence, his various changes of residence, for a long time without much advance towards profit or reputation. The early part of his career is lost in obscurity and conjecture. He stepped upon the shore of England a nameless adventurer, destitute of cash, and uncertain as to what means of livelihood he should embrace. The struggle which now and for some time went on was for life itself. He was reduced to the most desperate circumstances. He applied for assistance to his relations in Ireland ; but whether tliey could no longer help him, or whether they now regarded his continual wanderings, and continual drain upon them, as the confirmed signs of a thriftless vagabond, none r-anie. It is said that in this situation he tried the stage in a comitry town ; and his intimate acquaintanceship with the interior of the wretched country playhouse, as displayed in The Adventures of a Strolhng Player, and the conclusion of the story of George Primrose, renders it very probable. He was driven by utter need, according to the byeword of the Irishman, to be almost " anybody's customer." Phe next resource was, trusting to his scholastic acquirements to procure an engagement as an usher in a country school. But his appearance must have been against him ; reference he had none in tills country to give ; and though he applied to his old kind tutor in Dublin, Dr. Piadclifif'e, not the brute Wilder, he requested his recom- mendation to be given to him under a feigned name, being ashamed of hereafter having his_present condition associated with his own. Dr. RadchfFe was obliged to be silent. Goldsmith held this situation, it may be supposed, under these circumstances, for no long period ; but the very location of the school is unknown ; it has been said to be in Yorkshire, and also in Kent, near Ashford or Tenterdeu. "What sort of a life he had of it in this " Do-the-boj-s Hall," wherever it was, we may learu from the curious catechism he puts into the mouth of the cousin of one of his heroes. " Ay, this is indeed a very pretty career that has been chalked out for you. I have been an usher at a boarding-school myself ; and may I die by an anodyne necklace, but I had rather be under-turnkey in Newgate. I wa^ tip early and late. I was browbeat by the master ; hated for my ugly face by the mistress ; worried by the boys within, and never jier- mitted to stir out to receive civility abroad. But are you sure you are fat for a school ? Let me examine you a little. Have you been bred apprentice to the business ?" " No." " Then you won't do for a school. Have you had the sijiall-pox V " No." " Then you won't do for a school. Can you lie three in a bed 1 " " No." " Then you won't do for a school. Have you got a good stomach 1 " " Yes." " Then you will by no means do for a school ! " Driven from such a purgatory even for want of a character, Gold- GOLDSMIin. 215 sniitli, with the Deserted Village and the Viear of Wakefield in liifi head, was once more wandering the streets of London amid a thousand other equally destitute wretches. He applied to apothecary after apothecar}', trusting to his medical education for employment with them ; but with all the traces of vagabond indigence upon hiin, and without any recommendation to show, his repulses were certain. A chemist of the name of Jacob, residing at the corner of Monument or Bell-yard, on Fish-street-hill, taking comjiassion on his destitute condition, at length gave him employment. It may be supposed to be about this time that his lodgings were of that magnificent descrip- tion with which he once in after life startled a circle of good company, • — In-eaking out suddenly in some fit of forgetful enthusiasm with — • " When 1 lived amongst the beggars in Axe-lane." His first gleam of better fortune was finding his old Edinburgh college friend. Dr. Sleigh, in Loudon, who received him in all his squalor with the warmth of true friendship, and enabled him to commence as physician in Baukside, Southwark. It did not answer, and the next glimpse of him is, acting as a corrector of the press in the printing office of llichardson the Novelist. The next fortunate circumstance was meeting with Mr. Milner, one of his old Edinburgh fellow-studciits, whose Kither, Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister, kept a classical school at Peckham, in Surrey. By him he was recommended to his father, to assist him in his school duties. Dr. Milner was suffering under severe illness, and Goldsmith's services were accepted. Here he con- tinued for some time — it has been said by part of the family, three years ; and this connexion led to the one which brought him into the direct field of authorship. Mr., afterwards Dr. Griffiths, a book- seller of Paternoster-row, had started the Monthly Review, and was beating up for contributors. Goldsmith, whom he had . become acquainted with at Dr. Milner's, was one invited. The engagement is calculated to make both proprietors and authors of the present day smile. Goldsmith was regularly boarded and lodged in the bibliopole's house — the hired servant of literature. How satisfac- tory tills odd arrangement of keeping a tame author turned out, may be guessed by the fact that the engagement for a year ended in five months. The great fact at which Goldsmith kicked was, that not only Griffiths, but his icife, was in the regular habit of acting as the censor, and altering the articles written for the lleview. From this time to the day of his death Goldsmith was regularly launched into the drudgery of literature ; the most wearing, feverish, uncertain, and worst remunerating life under the sun. To live in one long anxiety, and to die poor, was his lot, as it has been that of thousands of others. There are innocent minds, who are filled witii gladness at the sight of a goodly library ; who feast on a well-bound j'ow of books, as the lover of nature does on a poetical landscape or on a bank of violets. For my part, I never see such a collection of books witliout an inward pang. They remind me of a catacomb ; every volume is in my eyes but a bone in the great gathering of the remains of literajy martyrs. When I call to mind the pleasure with which many of these books were written, followed by the agonies of 210 GOLDSMITH disappointment thoy brought ; the repulses and contempt of book- sellers, to whom the authors had carried them in all the flush of their inexperience and of high hope ; the cruel malice of the critics which assailed them, — '• Those cut-throat bandits in tlie paths of fame ; Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monros :^ lie hacks to teach, they mangle to expose." — Burns. When I think of the glorious hopes which accompanied their com- position, and the terrible undeceiving which attended their i)ublicu- tion ; when I reflect how many of these fair tomes were written in bitterest poverty, with the most aching hearts, in the most cheerlci-s homes, and how manj' others ruined the writers who were tolerably well off before they jjut pen to paper ; when I remember, on passing my eye along them, how many of them never were raised to their present rank till the unhappy authors were beyond the knowledge of it ; when I see others which had their fame during the author's life-time, but enriched only the lucky bibliopole, and left the con- scious producer of wealth only doubly poor by seeing it in the en- joyment of another ; when I see those works which, while the author lived, were assailed as blasphemous and devilish, now the text-books of liberty and progress ; and when I call to mind all the tears which have bedewed them, the sadness of soul, often leading to suicide, which has weighed down the immortal spirits which created them, — I own that there is to me no such melancholy spectacle as a tine cnllection of books. Goldsmith had his full share of this baptism of literary wretched- ness. I cannot follow him minutely through the years of book- drudgery and all its attendant adventures. Suffice it, that he wrote ail immense mass of articles for the periodicals ; hosts of histories ; plays, tales, essays and the like, anonymously ; and which, therefore, brought him precarious bread, but little fame. He commenced writing in the Monthly Keview, in 1757, and it was not till 1764 that his name was first affixed to his first poem — The Traveller. Thus he served a seven years' apprenticeship to anonymous author- ship before he began to take that rank in English literature which was his destined portion ; exactly in ten years more he was in his grave, having in the mean time given to posterity his exquisite Deserted Village ; his inimitable Vicar of Wakefield ; his Good- natured Man, and She Stoops to Conquer ; besides hosts of histories, written to make the pot boil, — Histories of Animated >N"ature ; of ]:^ngland. Greece, Rome, and what not. During the whole of his career the pecuniary condition of Goldsmith was one of uneasiness. It is true that his generous, improvident disposition might have left the result the same had he won ten times the sum he did ; but one cannot help regarding the sums received by him for his writings as 'tomething most humiliating, when their real value to the booksellers of all ages is considered. ^7e find his life abounding Vi'ith his bor- rowing two and three guineas of his bookseller ; and receiving sjich sums for articles. The Traveller bi'ought him tirciili/ guineas ! The Vicar of Wakefield, sixtij ; and for the Deserted Village, one hundred ; GOLDSMITH. 5^17 —not two buiulred pounds altogether, for three of the most popular works in any language. It would be a curious fact to ascertain, were it possible, what these three works alone have made for the book- sellers. But if Goldsmith was not well remunerated for the works with- which he enriched the English language, he was rich in friends. Johnson, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, all the great men of the age, v\-ere his intimate associates, and knew how to value both his genius and his unselfish nature. The friendship of Johnson for him was beautiful. All the world knows the story of Johnson selling " the manuscript of the Vicar of Wakefield" to save the author from an arrest of his landlady for arrears of rent. It has been made the subject of more than one excellent painting ; but it is not so gene- rally known, that so uncertain were both Johnson and the publisher of its merits, that it remained nearly two years in the pubhsher's desk before he ventm-ed to publish it. It was the fame of Tlie Traveller which emboldened the bibliopole to bring it out, and the public at once received it with one instant and general cheer. But it was the public which welcomed it thus warmly, not the critics. Some of these never even noticed it, others gave a bare account of its story, but not one of them dared to praise it heartily, if he ever perceived its merit. It requires genius to discover genius, or, what is better, heart. And it was the unsophisticated heart in the reading public at large which was at once touched by the pathos, tlie humour, and the genuine pictures of life in tliis incomparable story. Before the year was out it had passed through three editions ; and then the directors of the literary world began to find that there was something in it. Goldsmith lived to see its sixth edition ; an(.l since his time it has passed through some hundreds ; has been translated into almost every language, including the Chinese, and has received the highest applause from the greatest geniuses of all nations. Goethe, in his " Wahrheit und Dichtung," says that, being in- troduced to his notice by Herder, it opened up a new world to him ; and every one feels how much he has endeavoured to give to one of the most interesting episodes of his student life, that of the daughters of the Pfarrer of Sesenheim the colouring of Goldsmith. 'We must now confine ourselves to a brief indication of successive j'csidences and haunts of Goldsmith during his iiterary life in London ; first observing only, that so unpromising for a long time was the field of authorship, that lie sought several times to quit it. In 17^8, ho procured the post of physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel, but was refused his certificate at Sur- geons' Hall, as not duly qualified. He tried, in 17G0, to procure the Bituation of secretary to the Society of Arts, as a means of perma- nent support ; and failing, he recurred to a wild project, which he had entertained years before, of going out to the East to decypher the inscriptions on the Written Mountains, though he was totally ignorant of Arabic or the language in wliich the inscriptions might be supposed to be written. His inducement was the salary of '.iOOL a-3'ear, which had been left for that puvpo.se. He pi-oposed in thi? 218 GOLDSMITH. expedition also to acquire a knowledge of the arts peculiar to tha FJast, and introduce them into Britain. When Johnson heard of thia he said,—" Why, Sir, he would bring home a grinding-barrow, which yon see in every street of London, and think he had furnished a "wonderful improvement." The scheme appeared as visionary in other quarters, and so fell through. These various plans, however, all show what a thorny path was that of authorship to him. We find Goldsmith first residing, after he had quitted Griffiths's roof, about 1757, in the vicinity of Salisbury-square, Fleet-street ; where exactly, is not known. At this time he was in the habit of frequenting the Temple Exchange coffee-house, near Temple-bar ; where he had his letters addressed, and where he even saw, according to the fashion of the times, his patients, when he had any. There does not appear to bo any such coffee-house now. Green-ai'bour- court, between the Old Bailey and what was lately Fleet Market, was his next abode, where he located himself towards the end of 17oS. " Here," says his biographer, "he became'well-known to his literary brethren, was visited by them, and his lodgings well remem- bered."^ This house, a few years ago, formed the abode, as it appears to have done in his own time, of laborious indigence. The adjoining ] louses likewise presented every appearance of squalid poverty, every floor being occupied by the poorest class. Two of the number fell down from age and dilapidation ; and the remainder, on the same side of the court, including that in which the poet resided, standing on the right-hand corner on entering from Farringdon-street by what is called, from their steepness and number. Breakneck-steps, — were taken down some time afterwards to avoid a similar catastrophe. They were four stories in height, the attics had casement windows, and at one time they were probably inhabited by a superior class of tenants. The site is now occupied by a large building, enclosed by a wall running through the court or square, intended for the stabling and lofts of a waggon office." In the beginning of March, 1759, he was seen here by the Rev. Mr. Percy, afterwards Bishop Percy, the collector of the Reliques, and author of the Hermit of Warkworth, one of his earliest literary friends. "The doctor," observed the prelate, "was emj^loyed in writing his Enquiry into Polite Learning, in a wretchedly dirty room, in which there was but one chair ; and when, from civility, this was offered to his visitant, he himself was obliged to sit in the vrindow. While they were conversing, some one gently rapped at the door, and on being desired to come in, a poor ragged little girl of very decent behaviour entered, who, dropping a curtsy, said — 'lly mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of your lending her a potful of coals.' " f Mr. Prior, in 1820, going into a small shop in the Clapham-road to purchase the first edition of Goldsmith's Essays, lying in the window, found the woman in the shop an old neighbour of the poet's. She said she was a near relative of the woman who kept the house in Green-arbour-court, and at the age oF seven or eight went frequently thither ; one of the inducements to which was the cakes and sweet GOLDSMITU. 219 meats given to her and other children of the family by the gentleman ■who lodged there. These they duly valued at the moment ; but when afterwards considered as the gift of one so eminent, the recollection became the source of pride and boast. Another of his amusements consisted in assembhug these children in his room, and inducing them to dance to the music of his flute. Of this instrument, as a relaxation from study, he was fond. He was usually shut up in the room during the day, went out in the evenings, and preserved regular hours. His habits otherwise were sociable, and he had several visitors. One of the companions whose society gave him particular jileasure w^as a respectable watchmaker, residing in the same court, celebrated for the possession of much wit and humour ; qualities which, as they distinguish his own writings, he professes to have sought and cultivated wherever they were to be found. . Here the woman related that Goldsmith's landlord, having fallen into difSculties, was at length arrested ; and Goldsmith, who owed a small sum of money for rent, being applied to by his wife to assist in the release of her husband, found that, although without money, he did not want resources. A new suit of clothes was consigned to the pawnbroker, and the amount raised proving much more than sufficient to discharge his own debt, was handed over for the release of the prisoner. What is most singular is, that this eftbrt of active benevolence to rescue a debtor from gaol, gave, in all probability, rise to a charge against him of dishonesty. As we have said. Gold- smith proposing to go out to India, took his examination at Surgeons' Hall. To make a creditable appearance there, he had borrowed money of Griffiths, the bookseller, for a new suit of clothes. These clothes Griffiths soon afterwards discovered hanging at a pawn- broker's door. As Goldsmith had lost the situation he had boasted of when he borrowed this money, and kept his own not very flatter- ing secret of the cause of the loss — his rejection at Surgeons' Hall, — Griffiths, a man of coarse mind, at once jumped to the conclusion that it was all a piece of trickery. He demanded an explanation of Goldsmith ; Goldsmith refused to give it. He demanded the return of his money ; Goldsmith, of course, had it not. They came to a fierce and violent, and, as it proved, irreconcilable quarrel ; and Goldsmith, disdaining to explain the real circumstances, long bore the disgrace of duplicity as the result of his generous act. There is one more anecdote connected with his residence here, and it is characteristic. A gentleman inquiring whether he was within, was shown up to his room without farther ceremonj^, when, soon after having entered it, a noise of voices, as if in altercation, was heard by the people below, the key of tlie door at the same moment being turned within the room. Doubtful of the nature of the interview, the attention of the landlady was excited, but both voices being distinguished] at intervals, her suspicions of personal violence were lulled, aiKl no further notice taken. £ate in the even- nig the door was unlocked, a good supper ordered by the visitor from the neighbouring tavern, and the gentlemen who met so ungraciou.sly at first, .spent the remainder of the evening in great good Inimour, 1 220 GOLDSMITH. The explanation given of this scene was, that the poet being behind- hand with certain writings for the press, and the stated period of jjublication arrived, the intruder, who was a printer or publislier, probably Hamilton or Wilkie, for both of whom he wrote at that time, would not quit the room till they were finished ; and for this species of durance infiicted on the author, the supper formed the I apology. ^ In those apartments, little indebted as we may believe to the labours of the housemaid, he is said to have observed the predatory habits of the spider, and drawn up that paper on the subject which appeared in the fourth number of the Bee, reprinted in the Essays, and given in substance in the History of Animated Nature. In these lodgings he wrote a Memoir of the Life of Voltaire, and a Translation of the Henriade ; an Enquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe ; besides a multitude of reviews and other articles in the Bee, the Busybody, and other magazines of the day. He wrote also his Chinese Letters, and newspaper articles at least two a-week, at the rate of a guinea per article. In 1760 he quitted Green-arbour-court, and took respectable lodgings in Wine-office- court, Fleet-street, where he continued about two years in the house of an acquaintance, a relative of the friendly bookseller, Newbery, predecessor of Hunter, corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, since of Harris, and now Grant and Griffiths. Here he had a large literary acquaintance amongst men of aU grades of reputation and talent. Amongst them Dr. Percy was a frequent visitor, and here it was that Dr. Johnson was introduced to him by Dr. Percy, at a large party which Goldsmith gave to persons chiefly literary. Johnson went dressed in his highest style, and on Percy remarking it as they went along, '•'Why, Sir," said Johnson, " I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanhness and decency by quoting my practice ; and I am desirous this night to show him a better examiile." From the first moment of meeting, these two great men took vastly to each other, and continued firm friends till Goldsmith's death. During Goldsmith's residence in Wine-olfice-court, he was busily employed on a pamphlet on the Cock-lane Ghost ; a History of Mecklenburg ; the Art of Poetry on a New Plan ; an Abridgement of Plutarch ; Additions to English History ; a Life of Beau Nash ; and contributions to the Christian Magazine : most of these being written for Newbery. To relieve the tedium of his drudgery, he ■\vas in the habit of frequenting the IMonday evening meetings of the Robin Hood Debating Society, held at a house of that name in Butcher-row, whither it had been removed from the Essex Head, in Essex-street, in the Strand. The payment of sixpence formed the only requisite for admission ; three half-pence of which were said to be put by for the purposes of charity. The annual number of visitors averaged about 5,000. A gilt chair indicated the presiding I'.uthority, and all questions, not excepting religion and politics, were open to discussion. In these discussions Goldsmith used even to Li,ke part, but his '/vi\d delight was to listen to thp harangues of GOLiySMlTH. 221 au eloquent baker, at the conclusion of one of which Goldsmith exclaimed to his companion, Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a lord chancellor ; " to which Derrick replied, " No, no, not so high ; he was only intended for master of the rolls' "'he mar^ actually became a magistrate in Middlesex, and, as was said, a first- rate one. In 1762 Goldsmith quitted Wine-office-court, and took lodgings in the house of a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, in Islington. This was to be near his friend and publisher, Mr. Newbery, who resided at Canon- buiy-house, near to Mrs. Fleming's. Here he continued till 17G4, chiefly employed upon job-work for his friend Newbery ; amongst the most important, the Letters of a Nobleman to his Son, and the Hi.story of England. He used to relieve the monotony of his life by weekly visits to the Literary Club, of which Johnson, "Burke, and Sir Joshua Eeynolds, were principal members, and which was held at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, Soho. Here, there is every reason to believe, occurred the event already alluded to, the thi'eat of his arrest, and the sale of the mariuscript of the Vicar of Wakefield, by Johnson, to liberate him. Of this story there have been various versions ; Mrs. Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Cumberland, and Boswell, all relate it, all profess to have heard it from Johnson, and yet each tells it very dift'erently. In all these stories, however, there is a landlady demanding arrears of rent, and bailiffs waiting to arrest if the money were not forthcoming. All agree that Goldsmith was drinking, most of them say Madeira, to drown his vexation ; and Cumberland adds, that the landlady jm-o- jDosed the alternative of payment or marriage. W^hether the latter point were i-eally included in the demand is not likely ever to be known : but that ]\Irs. Fleming, who went by the name of Goldsmitb's ho.stess, and is thus painted by Hogarth, was the woman in question, I think there can be little doubt ; though Prior, the biographer, would fain exempt her from the charge, and suppose the scene to occur in some temporary lodging. There does not appear the smallest gi'ound for such a supposition. All facts point to this place and person. Goldsmith had been here for at least a year and a half ; for Prior himself gives the particulars of this landlady's bill reaching to June 22d. As it occurred in this year, and about this time, — for it is expressly stated that the Vicar of Wakefield was kejjt about two years by the bookseller unpublished, and it was not published till the end of March, 1766, — it could not possibly happen anywhere else. He could not have left Mrs. Fleming, or if he had, he could not have been away long enough to accumulate any alarming score. Here, on the contrary, everything indicates that he was in debt anure of the country when the neighbourhood was all woodland. GOLDSMITH. 223 \Vhat gave it particular interest in my eyes was the circumstance that it had been the residence of a poet. It was here Goldsmith resided when he wrote his Deserted Village. I was shown the very apartment. It was a relic of the original style of the castle, with panelled wainscot and Gothic windows. I was pleased with its air of antiquity, and its having been the residence of poor Goldy." Ii-ving located his " Poor Devil Author" in this room of Goldsmith's, but represents him as soon driven away by the troops of Londoners. " Sunday came, and with it the whole city world, swarming about fanonbury-castle. I could not open my window but I was stunned with shouts and noises from the cricket-ground ; the late quiet road lieneath my windows was alive with the tread of feet and the clack of tongues ; and, to complete my misery, I found that my quiet retreat was absolutely a ' shovz-housc,' being shown to strangers at sixpence a head. There was a perpetual tramping up stairs of citizens and their families, to look about the country from the top of the tower, and to take a peep at the city through the telescope, to try if they could discern their own chimneys." The reason why Irving located his " Poor Devil Author " in Canon- bury-tower, no doubt, was because it had been the resort of several such, as well as men of gi'eater note, — Smart ; Chambers, author of t he Cyclopcedia ; Humphries, author of Canons, a poem, Ulysses, an opera, &c. " Here Humpliiies breathed Ivis last, tlie Muses' fiienU, And Chambers found his mighty labours end." See on the distant slope, majestic shows Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile , To various fates assigned ; and where by turns Meanness and grandeur have alternate reigned. Thither in latter days hath genius fled From yonder city to repine and die. There the sweet Bard of Auburn sate, and tuned The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. There learned Chambers treasured lore for jiiti/i, And Newbery there his ABC for babes." One of these citizens who took a particular pleasure in a visit to Caiionbury-towcr was William Hone. The view of the tower in his lOvery-Day Book is very correct, except that there is now an iron balustrade round the top, for greater security of those who ascend it for the prospect. His account of it is as follows : — ' Canonbury -tower is sixty feet high, and seventy feet square. It is part of an old mansion which appears to have been erected, or, if erected before, much altered, about the reign of Elizabeth. The more ancient ediiice was erected by the priors of the Canons of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, and hence was calle I Canonbury, to whom :t appertained until it was suiTcndered with the priory to Henry Vill. ; and when the religious houses were dissolved, Henry gave the mansion to "^Jliomas Lord Cromwell. It afterwards passed through other liand.s, till it was possessed by Sir John Spencer, an Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, known by the name of * rich Spencer.' While he resided at Canonbury, a Dunkirk pirate came over in a shallop t(/ Baj'king creek, and hid himself with some 9;rmed men in Islington- 224 GOLDS.MITII fields, near the path Sir John usually took from his house iu Crosby- place to this mansion, with 'the hope of making him prisoner ; bub as he remained in town that night, they were glad to make off, fur fear of detection, and returned to France disappointed of their prey, and of the lai'ge ransom they calculated on for the release of his person. His sole daughter and heiress, Elizabeth,* was carried off in a baker s basket from Canonbury-house, by William, the second Lord Compton, lord president of Wales. He inherited Canonbury, with the rest of Sir John Spencer's wealth, at his death, and was after- wards created Earl of Northampton ; in this family the manor still remains." In Hone's time a Mr. Symes, the bailiff of the manor under Lord Northampton, was residing in the tower. He had lived there for thirty-nine years. His mother-in-law, Mrs. Evans, wife to the former bailiff, told Mr. Symes that her aunt, Mrs. Tapps, a seventy year inhabitant of the tower, was accustomed to talk much about Gold- smith and his apartment. It was an old oak room on the first floor. ]\[rs. Tapps affirmed that he there wrote his Deserted Village, and slept in a large press bedstead placed in the eastern coi-ner. Since (loldsmith's time the room has been much altered and subdivided. The house is still the residence of the bailiff of the manor. Poor Hone lamented sorely over the changes going on in this once sweet neighbourhood. " I ranged the old rooms, and took perhaps a last look from the roof. The eye shrunk from the wide havoc below. Where new buildings had not covered the sward, it was cmbowelling for bricks, and kilns emitted flickering fire and sul- phurous stench. Surely the dominion of the brick-and-mortar king will have no end ; and cages for commercial spirits will be there, instead of every green thing." " So, Canonbury, thou dost stand awhile; Yet fall at last thou must ; for thy rich warden Is fast ' improving; ' all thy pleasant fields Have fled, and hrick-kilns, hricks, and houses rise At his command : the air no longer yields A fragrance — scarcely health ; the very skies Grow dim and town-like ; a cold creeping gloom Steals into thee, and saddens every room ; And so realities come unto me. Clouding the chambers of my mind, and making me — like thee." One-and-twenty years have passed since Hone took this melancholy view of the changes going on round Canonbury-tower. There has been no pause in the process of housification since then. The whole neighbourhood is fast engulfing in one overflowing London. What a change since Queen Elizabeth used to come to this solitary tower, to hunt in the far-spreading woodlands around ; or to take a view from its summit of her distant capital, and of the far-off winding Thames ! What a change even since Goldsmith paced this oUl tower, and looked over green fields, and thick woods, and over tlic .vhole airy scene, full of solitude and beauty ! There are still okl gardens with their stately cedars, and lanes that show that they were * For an account of this extraordinary woman, see " The Visits to Remarkabla Places," vol. i. p. 3l.«- GOLDSMITH. 22.5 once in a rural district, aud tliat Canonbury was a light pleasant place. But the goodly house of Sir Walter Raleigh, who grew ena- moured of the spot from attending his royal mistress thither, is degraded to the Pied Bull, and long terraces of new houses extinguish one green held rajsidly after another. Everything seems in a state of spreading and acti^'0 advance, except the great tavern near tho tower, whose cricketers and revellers used to din Washington Irving so much, and that now stands empty and ruinous ; the very Sunday roisterers from the city have sought some more greenly suburban resort. The last residences of Goldsmith in London were within the pre- cincts of the Temple. He first took apartments ou the library staircase. No. 2, Garden-court. This is now pulled down, and I suppose on the site stands the new library, for on going into tho court you now find no No. 2, but only Nos. 3 and 4, looking odd and puzzhug enough to the inquirer. Hence he removed to the King's- bench-walk ; but the particular house does not appear to be known. Lastly, he removed to No. 2, Brick-court. His lodgings w^ere on tho second floor, on the right hand ascending the staircase ; and are said to consist of three rooms, sufficiently airy and pleasant. With an imprudence which brought upon him deep anxiety, and probably hastened his end, he borrowed of the booksellers and of the occupier of the opposite rooms, ]\Ir. Edmund Bott — a literary barrister, who was much esteemed by him, and became his j^rincipal creditor at his death, and the possessor of his papers — four hundred pounds, with which he furnished these apartments in an expensive manner. Here, also, ho occasionally gave expensive suppers to his literary friends. Below Goldsmith, on the tirst floor, lived Sir William Blackstone, and is said there to have written his Commentaries. There were other barristers living in the Temple, especially a Mr. William Cooke, author of a work on Dramatic Genius, and called Conversation Cooke, with whom Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy. In this portion of his life, the accounts of him abound with the naivetes of his talk and character, for which he is more famous with some people than for his genius. His bloom-coloured coat, with sky-blue linings, is stiU commented on by writers, who will never be able to com- prehend the grand nobihty of his nature. He was now visited by almost every man of note of the time ; Johnson with his Boswell, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, Percy, Sir IPhilip Francis, &c. Almost twenty years after his death these rooms became the scene of a tragical adventure, by a Miss Brodcrick shooting in them a Mr. Eddington, with whom she had formerly lived, and who took this desperate means of punishing his desertion. These rooms are at the lower end of Brick-court, at the corner of the range of building on your right hand as you descend the court from Fleet-street. There seems to be a considerable mistake in Prior's account of them. Nearly all that he says appears to apply much more natm-aUy to his rooms in Garden than in Brick court. In Garden-court, they most likely would be airy and pleasant, and there the anecdote of his watching the rooks might take place. It 226 GOLDSMITH, is thus given : " The view towards the gardens supplied him with an observation given in Animated Nature, respecting the natural history of the rooks. ' I have often amused myself with observing their plan of policy from my window in the Temple, that looks upon a grove where they have made a colony in the midst of the city,' " &c. This could not be in Brick-court, where there is no view towards the garden. The court is built all round with buildings as old as Goldsmith's time, and older. In his rooms in Garden-court he could have full view of the elms in the garden, the probable scene of the rookery in question. During Goldsmith's life here, he was in the habit of meeting his literary friends often in the evenmg at the Mitre tavern, Fleet- ijtreet ; at a card club at the Devil tavern, near Temple-bar, not now existing ; at the Globe tavern, also near there, nov/ gone too ; and at Jack's coffee-house, now Walker's hotel. Dean-street, corner of Queen-street, Soho. This was at that time a resort of Garrick and his friends, being kept by Jack Roberts, formerly a singer of Gar- rick's theatre. It was here that Goldsmith confounded the gravity of Johnson with one of his oft-hand and simple jokes. They were Bupping tete-a-tete on rumps and kidneys. Johnson observed,- — • " Sir, these rumps are pretty little things, but they require a good many to satisfy a man." "Aye, but," said Goldsmith, "how many of these would reach to the moon 'i " " To the moon ! aye. Sir, I fear that exceeds your calculation." "Not at all. Sir," said Goldsmith, " I think I could tell." " Pray then let us hear." " Why (i//e, if it were long enough." Johnson growled at this reply for some time, but at last, recollecting himself, " Well, Sir, I have deserved it ; I should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question." This house, in 1770, was the oldest tavern in London but throe, and is now probably the oldest. Mr. Walker, the landlord at the time I visited it, who had lived in it fifty years, and had then reached the venerable age of ninety, was proud of the ancient honours of the house. On his card he duly informed his friends, that it was here that " Johnson, Garrick, Goldsmith, and other literary characters of eminence," used to resort. The house is old, spacious, and quiet, and well adapted for the sojourn of families from the country, who are glad to escape the noise of more fre- quented parts of the city. By permission of Mr. Walker, I present at the head of this article a view of the room once honoured by Johnson and Goldsmith. It is pleasant to find the author of The Traveller and Deserted Village, amid all his labours, ever and anon escaping to the country, which no man more profoundly enjoyed. It is delightful to imagine with what intense j)leasure he must have traversed the groves or Ham, and the lovely scenes of Dove-Dale. He made many similar rambles into Hampshire, Sussex, Suftblk, Yorkshire, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire. When he wanted at once to enjoy country retire- ment apd hard work, he would " abscond " from his town associates GOLDSMn'H. 227 without a word — dive iuto some queer obscure retreat, often on the Harrow or Edgeware roads, and not be visible for two or three months together. One of these retreats is said to be a small wooden cottage, on the north side of the Edgeware-road, about a mile from Paddington, near what is called Kilburn Priory. At such places it was his great luxury, when tired of writing, to stroll along the shady hedge-sides, seating himself in the most agreeable spots, and occa- sionally setting down thoughts which arose for future use. When he was in a more sociable mood, he got ujj parties for excursions into the neighbourhood of London, in which he and his companions had a good long ramble amongst the villages, dined at the village inn, and so home again in the evening. These he called "trades- men's holidays," and thus were Blackhcath, Wandsworth, Fulham, Chelsea, Hampstead, Highgate, Highbury, &c., explored and enjoyed. "There was a very good ordinary," says Cons^ersation Cooke, who was occasionally of the party, " at Highbury Barn about this time, at ten-pence per head, including a penny to the Avaiter ; and the company generally consisted of literary characters, a few Templars, and citizens who had left oif trade. The whole expenses of this da3''.s fete never exceeded a crown, and were oftener from three and six- pence to four shillings." On those occasions Goldsmith gave himself up to all his love of good fellowship and of generously seeing others happy. He made it a rule that the party should meet and take a splendid breakfast at his rooms. The party generally consisted of four or five persons ; and was almost sure to include some humble person, to whom such a treat would never come from any other quarter. One of the most constant of these was his poor amanuensis, Peter Barlow. Peter had his oddities ; but with them a spirit of high independence. He always wore the same dress, and never would pay more than a certain sum, and that a trifle, for his dinner, but that he would insist on paying. The dinner always costing a great deal more. Goldsmith paid the difference, and considered himself well reimbursed by the fund of amusement Peter furnished to the party. One of their frequent retreats was the well known Chelsea Bun-house. Another of these companions was a Dr. Glover, a medical man and author of no great note, who once took Goldsmith into a cottage in one of their rambles at West End, Hampstead, and took tea with the family as an old acquaintance, when he actually knew no more of the people than Goldsmith did, to his vast chagrin on discovering the fact. A temporary retreat of Goldsmith's was a cottage near Edgeware, in the vicinity of Canons. There he lived, in conjunction with his friend Bott, and there he worked hard at his Roman History. It had been the retreat of a wealthy shoemaker of Piccadilly ; and, having •I pleasant garden, they christened the place " The Shoemaker's Paradise." The last country lodging which he had was at Hyde, on the Edgeware-road. It is described by Prior as " of the superior ^rder of farm-houses, and stands upon a gentle eminence in what is called Hyde-lane, leading to Kenton, about three hundred yards from I 2 228 GOLDSMITH. the village of Hyde, on the Edgeware-road, and commauds a view of an undulating country directly opposite, diversified with wood, in the direction of Hendon." From Mr. Selby, the occupier of the pro- perty, Mr. Prior obtained this information. He was himself a lad of sixteen at the time Goldsmith lodged there, and remembered him perfectly. He had only one room there, up one pair of stairs, to the right of the landing. There he wrote She Stoops to Conquer. He boarded with the family, but commonly had his meals sent up to his own apartment. When he had visitors to tea, — for his friends used to come out from London, take tea, and then drive home, — he had the use of the parlour immediately under his own room. Occasionally he would wander into the kitchen, and stand with his back towards the fire, apparently absorbed in thought. Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was seen loitering and musing under the hedges, or perusing a book. In the house he usually wore his shirt-collar open, in the manner represented in the portrait by Sir Joshua. Occasionally he read much in bed, and his mode of extinguishing his candle, v/hen out of immediate reach, was to fling his slipper at it, which in the morning was found near the overturned candlestick, l)edaubed with grease. There, then. Goldsmith sper:t the last days of his life, except what lie spent on his sick-bed, in the full enjoyment of those two great t;harms of his existence, nature and books. There he forgot all his bitter struggles, his ill -paid, endless work for the publishers, ami even the empty honours of his latter years, which he expressively styled " giving him ruffles, when he wanted a shirt." There he could ibrget that great disease of hunger, which be said killed so many who were said to die of broken hearts, some of whom he declared that lie had known. He was still poor, but famous, and in these moments happy. Occasionally he would indulge in a festive diversion — liave a dance got up amongst his visitors ; and on one occasion took the young people of the house in a carriage to Windsor, to see a company of strolling players, and made himself and his juvenile ])arty very merry by his remarks on the performance. From these ({uiet enjoyments and field musings, death called him away. He returned to town, and died in his lodgings in the Temple, on the 4th of April, 1774, only five months more than forty-five years of ago. 1 lis constitution is said to have been exhausted by his labours and his consuming anxieties. He died two thousand pounds in debt, and Dr. Johnson, on hearing this fact, exclaimed, " Was ever poet so trusted before ?" He was privately interred in the Temple burial- ground, and a tabular monument to his honour placed on the walls of Westminster Abbey. That gi-eat and noble building does not hold the remains of a nobler or better heart. Ohver Goldsmith was a true Irishman, generous, .impulsive, and improvident ; but he was more, he was a true man and true poet. Whether avc laugh with him or weep with him, we arc still the better for it. ROBERT BURNS. We come now to the man who is the great representative of a class which is the pccuhar glory of Great Britain ; that is, to Robert ]jurns. It is a briUiaiit feature of English literature, that the people, the mass, the multitude, — call them what you will, — have contributed to it their share, and that share a glorious one. We may look in vaiu into the literatuj-e of every other nation for the like fact. It is true that there may be found in all countries men who, born in the lowest walks of life — orphans, outcasts, slaves even — men labouring under not only all the weight of social prejudices, but under the curse of jDersonal deformity, have, through some fortunate circumstance, generally the favour of some generous and superior person, lusen out of their original position, and through the advantages of acade- mical or artistic education have taken their place amongst the learned and illustrious of their race. We need not turn back to the /Esops and Terences of antiquity for such characters ; they are easy to select from the annals of the middle ages, and modern art and Icai-ning ; but there is a class, and this class is found in Great Britain alone, which, belonging to the body of the people, has caught, as it were passingly, just the quantum of education Avhicli had come within the 230 B0BNS. people's reach, ami who, on this slender participation of the general intellectual projiort}', have raised for themselves a renown, great, glorious, and enduiing as that of the most learned or most socially exalted of mankind. These extraordinary individuals, who arc found in the literature of all civilized nations, — these men who, admitted from the ranks of the people to the college or the studio, have dis- tinguished themselves in almost every walk of science or letters, — these have vindicated the general intellect of the human race from every possible charge of inequality in its endowments. They have shown triumphantly that " God is no respecter of persons." They have thus vindicated not only man's universal capacity for greatness, Init the Creator's justice. They have demonstrated that " God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth ;" and still more, tliat he has endowed them all with one intellect. Over the whole bosom of the globe its divine Architect has spread fertility ; he has diffused beauty adapted to the diversity of climes, and made that beauty present itself in such a variety of forms, that the fi'eshness of its first perception is kept alive by ever occurring novelties of construc- tion, hue, or odour. It is the same in the intellectual as iu the physical world. In the iinivcrsal spirit of man he has implanted the universal gifts of his divine goodness. Genius, sentiment, feeling, the vast capacity of knowledge and of creative art, are made the common heritage of mankind. But climate and circumstance assert a gi'eat and equal influence on the outer and the inner life of the earth. Some nations, under the influences of certain causes, have advanced beyond others ; some individuals, under the like causes, have advanced beyond the generality of their cotemporaries. But these facts have not proved that those nations, or those individuals, were more highly endowed than the rest ; they have rather proved that the soil of human nature is rich beyond all conception, — the extent of that wealth, however, becoming only palpable through the opera- tion of peculiar agencies. The causes which developed in Greece, iu Rome, in India, in Egypt, such manifestations of grace, spirit, and power at certain periods, as never were developed even there at any other periods, before or since, present a subject of curious inquiry, but they leave the grand fact the same ; and this fact is, that the soul of universal man is endowed with every gift and faculty which any possible circumstances can call upon him to exert for his benefit and the adornment of his life. He is furnished for every good word and work. He is a divine creature that when challenged can p)-ove amply his divinity, though under ordinary circumstances he may be content to walk through this existence in an ordinary guise. Every great social revolution, every great popular excitement of every age, has amply demonstrated this. There never was a national demand for intellect and energy, from the emancipation of the Israelites from the Egyptian yoke, or the destruction of the Thirty Tyrants of Athens, down to the English or the French Eevolution, which was not met, to the astonishment of the whole world, with such a supplj' of orators, poets, warriors, and statesmen, speakers and actors, in- ventors and constructors, in every shape of art, wisdom, and abilitj, BURNS. 231 as' mast completely to certify that the powei'S which slumber in the human bosom, are far beyond those which are called into activity. The fertility of the soil of the earth is there in winter, but it liea rmnoticed. The sun breaks out, and, like a giant alarmist thundering at the doors of the world, he awakens a thousand hidden powers. Life, universal as the earth itself, starts forth in its thousand shapes, and all is movement, beauty, sweetness, hurrying on through a charmed being into an exuberant fruit. Those men, then, who have risen through the medium of a finished education to literary, artistic, or scientific eminence, have, I repeat, vindicated the universality of intellectual endowment ; but there is .still another class, and that, as I have said, peculiar to these islands, who have shown that a finished or academical education is not abso- lutely necessary to the display of the highest order of genius. Cir- cumstances, again, have been at work here. The circumstances of this country are different to those of any other. We have preserved our liberties more entire. The British people have disdained from age to age to suffer the curb and the bit that have been put upon the neck, and into the mouth, of the more pliant nations of the Continent. Whether these circumstances are to be looked for in the peculiar mixture of races, or in this particular mixture coexisting with peculiarities of climate and insular position, might afford scope to much argument ; enough, these circumstances have existed, and their results do exist in a race, proud, active, free, and indomi- table. " Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of human kind pass by ; Intent on high designs, a tlioughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's Iiand, I'ierce in tlieir native liardiness of soul ; True to imagined right, above control ; While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate liimself as man." Goldsmith, The Traveller. Thus it is that this free constitution of the British empire ; this spirit of general independence ; this habit of the peasant and the artizan of venerating themselves as men, has led to an universal awakening of mind in the people. In other countries few think ; it is a few who are regularly educated, and arrogate the right to think, and write, and govern. If the poor man become an acknowledged genius, it is only through the passage of the high school. The mass IS an inert mass ; it is a labouring, or at best a singing and dancing multitude. But in Great Britain, there is not a man who does not feel that he is a member of the great thinking, acting, and govern- ing whole. Without books he has often caught the spark of inspi- ration from his neighbour. In the field, the workshop, the alehouse, the chartist gathering, he has come to the discussion of his rights, and in that discussion all the powers of his spirit have felt the arousing influence of the sea of mind around, that has boiled and heaved from its lowest depths in billows of fire. Under the opera- tion of this oral and, as it were, forensic education, wliich has Iteeu going on for generations in the British empire, the whole rnun with 232 BURXS. all his iiowers lias become wide awake ; and it required only the .simple powers of writing and reading to enable the peasant or artizan to gather all the knowledge that he needed, and to stand forth a poet, an orator, a scientific inventor, a teacher himself of the nation. To these circumstances we owe our Burns, Hogg, Bloomfield, Clare, Elliott, Allan Cunningham, Bamford, Nicoll, Thorn, Massey ; our Thomas IVDUer, and Thomas Cooper. To these circumstances we owe, however, not merely poets, but philosophers, artists, and men of practical science. Such were Drew, Opie, Smeaton, Brindley, Arkwright, Sfcrutt, Crompton, "Watt, Hugh Miller ; such men axe AYilliam Faii'bairn, one of the greatest civil engineers in the world. Sir Joseph Paxton, the architect of the Crj'stal Palace, Joseph Barker, the religious reformer of the peojDle, and Carlton, the vigorous delineator of Irish actual life. For such men we look in vain abroad ; and at home they constitute themselves a constella- tion of genius, such as more than one country of continental Eurojie cannot muster from all the gathered lights of all its ages. It is with pride, and more than pride, that I call the attention of my countrymen to this great and unique section of their country's glorious hterature. I look to the future, and see in these men but the forerunners of a numerous race springing from the same soil. They are evidences of the awakened mind of the common people of England. They are pledges that out of that awakened mind there will, as general education advances, spring whole hosts of writers, thinkers, and actors, who shall not merely represent the Avorking classes of our society, but shall point out the people as the grand future source of the em'ichment of our literature. They are luminous proofs, and the forerunners of multitudinous proofs of the same kind, that genius is not entirely dependent uj)on art ; but can, having once the simple machinery of reading and writing, seize on .sufficient art to enable it to exhibit all the nobler forms of intellec- tual life, and to speak from heart to heart the hving language of those passions and emotions, which are the elements of all human exertion after the good and the great, which console in distress, liarden to necessary endurance, or fire to the generous rage of conquest over diffi.culties, and over the enemies of their just rights. These men are the starry lights that glitter on the verge of that dawn in which mankind shall emerge. to its true position, — the many being the enlightened spirits, and the few the weak exceptions, shrinking like shadows from the noonday of human progress. At the head of this great class stands, first in stature as in era, Tiobert Bui-ns. True, before him there had been a Stephen Duck, and a Eobert Dodsley, — glow-worms preceding the morning star ; wonders, because the day of genuine minds had not yet come ; re- spectable men, but not geniuses of that Titanic stamp which, by its veiy appearance, puts an end to every question as to its rank or nature in the utter astonishment at its colossal presence. There have been many small geniuses paraiJed before the public as curio- BURNS, 233 sities, Lecause tliey were uneducated ; but when Burns came forth from the crowd of his fellow-meu, it was as the poet of the people ; issuing Hke Moses from the cloud of God's presence, with a face so radiant with divine light, that the greatest prophets of the schools were dazzled at the apparition. He needed no apologies of want of academic discipline ; he was a man with all the gifts and powers of a man, fresh and instinctive in their strength, as if direct from the Creator's hand. Burns was the representative of the common man in representative perfection. He was a combination of all the powers and the failings, the strength and the weakness, of human nature. He had the great intellect of such a specimen man, awakened to its full consciousness, but not polished to the loss of any of its I^rominences. He was manly, blunt, daring, independent ; full of passion and the thirst of pleasure ; yet still, tender as a woman, sensitive as a child, and capable of sinking to the humblest penitent at the suggestions of his conscience, or rising to the dignity of a prophet or the sanctity of an apostle, as the oppressions of man or the sublimity of God aroused or exalted his spirit. He had the thrilling nerves and the changing moods of the poet ; quick, versatile, melancholy or humorous, he reflected all the changes of the social sky. His sensations were too acute to obey the sole dictates of mere reason, — they carried him to every extreme. He was now bursting with merriment in the midst of his convivial comrades, singin^ like the lark or the nightingale in the joy of his heart ; now thundering against the outrages of the strong and arbitrary, or weeping in con- vulsive grief over his follies or his wounded affections. But if his sensations were too acute to obey reason at all times, his moral nature was too noble not to obey the clear voice of a conscience, which he often outraged, but never strove systematically to destroy. There are numbers who have wondered that David should be called " a man after God's own heart ;" but to me there is nothing wonderful in such an appellation. God knows that we are weak and imperfect, that in proportion to the strength of our passions are we liable to go wrong, and he does not expect miracles from us. What ho expects is, that errors committed in the hurricane of passion shall be abhorred and repented of, as soon as they are fully displayed tc our consciences. To endeavour to do right, yet, if ovei-taken with error, to abhor oiir crime, and to I'cpent in the dust and ashes of Ijrostrate remorse, marks a heart frail, yet noble, — and such is human nature at best. The evidence of a corrupt spirit, of a truly criminal nature, is that leaven of malignity, which goes doggedly wrong, sub- stituting the base purposes of its selfishness for the broad commands of God, and finding a satanic pleasure in working evil against its fellow-men. Such was not Eobert Bui-ns. He was no faultless monster, nor yet a monster with all his faults. His vivid sensibili- ties, — those sensibiHties which gave him the capacity for poetry, those qualities which were the necessary requisites for his vocation, —often led him astray, often stained the purity of his mind ; but they never succeeded in debasing his moral nature. That was too generous, too noble, too true to the godlike gift of a great human 234 BURNS. heart, wliicli was to feel for all mankind, and to become tlie inspiroi of the general mass with truer and higher ideas of themselves, and of their rank in creation. Woefully fell David of old, — the poet taken from the sheepfold and the solitude of the wilderness to sit on the throne of a great jDeople, — and bitterly in the sight of that people did he lie in the dust and deplore his errors. Greatly went Eobert Burns astray, — the poet taken from the plough to sit on the throno of the realm of poetry, — and bitterly did he, too, bow down and weep in the ashes of repentance. God gave, in both instances, im- ]>rcssive proofs to the world, that glorious talents given to men leave them but men still ; and that they who envy the gift should not forget that they too, with the gift, would be exposed to the immineut danger of the fall. There is a comfort and a warning, tliere is a *^ t-tfigies are still shov.'n in a faded condition on a stone in the eastern parapet, near the south end of the bridge. There certainly is such a stone, and you may rather fancy than distinctly trace two outlines of heads. The whole bridge is, as described by Burns, very old and Lime-worn. " Auld Brig appeared o' ancient Pietisli race The very wrinkles Gothic in his face; He seemed as he wi' Time had warstled lam;, Yet, teuglily doure, he baide an unco hanij." BURNS. 23!) ' There is a peculiar pleasiu'c iii standing on this old Brig, so exactly has Burns enabled you to place yourself in the very scene that he contemplated at the moment of conceiving his poem. " A siin;)!:; bard, Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward, Ae night, v.-ltliin the ancient burgii of Ayr, By whim inspired, or haply pressed '.vi' care. He left his bed, and took iiis wayward route. And down by Simpson's wheeled the left about ; The drowsy Dungeon clock had numbered two, And Wallace tower had sworn the fact was true ; The tide-swollen Firth, wi' sullen sounding ro.ir, Through the still night dashed hoarse along the shore. All else was hushed as Nature's closed e'e ; The silent moon shone high o'er tower and tree; The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam. Crept, gently crusting, o'er the glittering stream" From this scene " the drowsy Dungeon clock " is removed, the old jail having been pulled down ; but " Simpson's " is still to be seen,— a public-house at the end of the bridge on the side most distant from the town ; and Wallace tower, — I believe, however, almost wholly I'ebuilt since then, and presenting now a very modernized aspect, — • rears itself in a distant part of the town. Along the river side the " ancient burgh of Ayr " presents its antiquated houses, roofs, and gables, much as they did to the eye of Burns. Ayr, though it stands on a flat, has still great charm of location ; and this you perceive as you set out to visit the birthplace and monument of Burns, which he about three miles south of Ayr. You may, if you please, take the way along the shore ; and here you have the sea, with its living billows, displaying at a distance opposite the c-raggy mountain heights of Arran, and the Mull of Cantire. Nortli- ward, Troon, with its new houses, may be seen standing on its naked promontory; and southward, the tower of Dunbere is a bold but sombre object on an elevated knoll on the margin of the ocean, and far out south-west, Ailsacraig is descried, towering amid the waters. It is a fine and animated scene. It was Sunday forenoon as I ad- vanced over the very level ground near the shore, towards Alloway. People were walking on the beach enjoying the sunshine, breeze, and glittering world of waters ; lovers were seated amongst the broomy hillocks, children were gathering flowers amid the crimson glare of the heather ; all had an air of beauty and gladness. To my left lay a richly-wooded country, and before me, beyond Alloway and the Doon, stretched the airy range of the Carrick hills. It was the direc- tion which I was pursuing that Tarn o' Shanter took fi-om the town to Alloway, for the old road ran that way ; but there is a new and more direct one now from Ayr, and into that, having been shown the cottage where Mrs. Begg, Burns's sister, .still lived, I struck. This agreeable road I soon saw diverge into two, and asked a poor man which of the two led to Burns's monument. At the name of Burns his face kindled with an in.stant animation. " I am going part of the way. Sir," ho said, "and will be proud to show it you." I begged him not to put himself at all out of his way. " Oh," said he, " I am going to look at my potato plot, which lies out b'",v." Wu fell into i!4(> BURNS. couvci'satioii about Bld'iis : the way agaiu showed a fresh branch ; that was the way to his potato field — but the poor fellow gave a hesi- tating look, he could not find in his heart to give up talking about Burns, and begged that I would do him the honour to allow him to walk on with me. " But your potatoes, my friend 1 " " Oh ! they'll tak no harm, Sir. The weather's very growing weather — one feels a natural curiosity to see how they thrive, but that will do next Sunday, if you iro/eld allow me to go on with you ? " T assured him that nothing would give me greater pleasure. I only feai'ed that I might keep him out too long, for I must see Burus's birth-place. Kirk Alloway, the Brig of Doon, the monument, and everything of the kind. It was now about noon, and must be liis dinner-hour. He said, " No ; he never had dinner on a Sunday ; for years he had accustomed himself to only two meals on that day, because he earned nothing on it, and had ten children I But he generally took a walk out into the country, and got a good mouthful of fresh air, and that did him a deal of good." I looked more closely at my new companion. He was, apparently, sixty, and looked like a man accustomed to diuc on air. He was of a slight and grasshopper build ; his face was thin and pale ; his hair grizzled ; yet there was an intelligence in his large grey eyes, but it was a sad intelligence, one which had long kept fellowship with patience and suiiering. His grey coat, and hat well worn, and his clean but coarse shirt collar tm-ned down over a narrow band of a blue cotton neckerchief, with its long ends dangling over his waist- coat, all denoted a poor but a careful and superior man. I cannot tell what a feeling of sympathy came over me : how my heart warmed towards the poor fellow. We went on ; gay groups of people met us, and seemed to cast looks of wonder at the stranger and his poor associate ; but I asked mj^self whether, if we could know, as God knows, the hearts and merits of every individual of tlioso well-dressed and laughing walkers, we should find amongst them one so heroic as to renounce his Sunday dinner, as a perpetual practice, because he " earned nothing on that day, and had ten children." Was there a man or a woman amongst them who, if they knew this heroic man, as I now knew him, would not desire to give him, for that one day at least, a good dinner, and as much pleasure as they could ? " My friend," said I, " I fear you have had more than your share of hardship in this life ? " " Nay," he replied, he could not say that. He had had to work hard, but what poor man had not ? But he had had many comforts ; and the greatest comfort in life had been, that all his children had taken good ways ; " if I don't except," and the old man sighed, " one lad, who has gone for a soldier ; and I think it a little ungrateful that he has never written to us since he went, three years ago. Yet I hear that he is alive and well, in Jamaica. I cannot but think that rather ungrateful," he added ; " but of a' Eobin Burns's poems, there's none, to my thinking, that comes up to that one — Man waa made to mourn." BURNS. i!41 1 could not help again glancing at the thin, pale figure, which went «s softly at my side as if it were a ghost, and could not wonder that Burns was the idol of the poor throughout Scotland, and that the Sunday wanderer of his naiive place had clung so fondly to the southern visitor of the same sacred spot. " Can you explain to me," I asked, " what it is that makes Burns such a favourite with you all in Scotland 1 Other poets you have, and great ones ; out of the same class, too, you had Hogg, but I do not perceive the same instant flash, as it were, of an electric feeling; when any name is named but that of Burns." " I can tell," said he, " why it is. It is because he had the heart of a man in him. He was all heart, and all man ; and there's nothing, at least in a poor man's experience, either bitter or sweet, which can happen to him, but a line of Burns springs into his mouth, and gives him courage and comfort if he needs it. It is like a second Bible." I was struck with the admirable criticism of the poor artizai-.. What acuteness of genius is like the acuteness of a sharp experience, after aU ? I found that, had I picked the whole county of Ayr, 1 could not have hit on a man more clearly aware of the real genius of Burns, nor a more excellent guide to all that related to him here- abouts. He now stopped me. AVe were on the very track of Tarn o' Shantei*. " Kirk AUoway was iliawiiig nigli, AVhere ghaists and houlcts niglilly cry, — By this time he was cross tlie ford, Where in the snaw the chapman smoorcd ; And past the birks and meikle stane Where drunken Charley brak 's neck-banc. And through the whins, and by the cairn Where hunters found the murdered bairn ; And near tlie thorn aboon the well Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel." The whins, the birks were gone : all was now one scene of richesb cultivation ; but in the midst of a cottager's garden still projected the " meikle stane " fi'om the ground in a potato bed. To this, by permission of the cottager, we advanced, and from this spot my guide pointed out the traditionary course of Tarn on that awful night when — " Before him Doon pours all his floods ; The doublin' storm roars through the woods, And lightnings Hash from pole to pole." Some of these scenes lay yet far before us ; as the well " Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel ; " which is just on the banks of the Doon itself. Anon we reached the cottage in which Burns was born. This stands on the right-hand side of the road, about a quarter of a mile from Kirk AUoway and the Brig o' Doon. It is a genuine Scotch cottage of two rooms on the ground floor, thatched and whitewashed. It is now, and has been long, a little public-house. It stands close to the road, and over the door is a portrait of Burns, an evident copy from the portrait by Na.-mytli, and under it, in large and 242 ncRXS. noticeable letters—" JiouKiir EoRNS, the Avrshiiie Poet, avas corn rXDER THIS ROOF, THE 2r)TH JaN. A. D. 1759. DiED A. D. 1796, AGED 37^ YEARS." It i.s well known to most readers that this house was bnilt by Burus's father, and that about a week after Robert, his iirst child, was born, the roof fell in during a tempest at midnight, and that mother and child had to be carried forth in a hurry through the storm and darkness, to a cottage, which still remains, not far off, ou the opposite side of the road. Robert Burns was born in what is now the kitchen, in one of those recess beds so common in Scotch cottages. This is still shown to visitors by the occupiers of the liouse. The better room, in which the guests are entertained, that nearest to the t(^wn of Ayr, bears abundant marks of the zeal of these visitors. The walls are well written over with names, but not in that extraordinary manner that the walls of Shakspeare's birth-place at Stratford are. The rage here has taken another turn, Ihat of cutting the names into the furnitvire. There are two j^lanc- tree tables, which are cut and carved in the most singular complete- ness. There does not seem to be left space, neither on the top, the sides, nor the legs, even for another initial. There were formerly three of these tables, but one of them was sold some years ago. There is a cupboard and chairs all cut over, the chairs having been obliged to be renewed, but the fresh ones are now as much cut as ever. We were informed by Mrs. Goudie, the widow of the old miller, John Goudie, of Doonside mill, who had lived in the house nearly forty years, that the lease of the jiroperty had been bought of Burns's father, by the Shoemakers' Company of Ayr, for one hundred and sixty guineas ; but that the property now let for £45 a year ; and that the said Shoemakers' Company wishing again to raise the rent, the widow was going to quit at Michaelmas next and that another person had taken the house, and a small piece of ground adjoining, at a rental of X60 a year. jNIrs. Goudie said that she had been once bid £15 for one of the tables, but had refused it ; that, however, being now about to quit the premises, she had sold the chairs and tables to a broker at Glasgow, who was announ- cing them as the actual furniture of Burns; though it was well known that when Burns's father left this liouse for Mount Oliphant, a few miles off, when Robert Burns was not seven years of age, he took all his furniture with him. Conspicuous amongst the carved names in this room was that of an ambitious Peter Jones, of Great Bear Lake, North America. Burns's father, who was, when he lived here, gardener to Mr. Ferguson, of Doonholm, was a man of an excitable temperament but of a most upright disposition ; and his mother, like the mothers of most remarkable men, was a woman of clear, clever, and superior mind, of a winning address, and full of ballads and traditions. From l)oth sides the son drew the elements of a poet ; and we can well nnagine him sitting by the humble fireside of this cottage, and receiving into his childish heart, from the piety of the father, and the imaginative tales of the mother, tliose images of genuine Scottish BURNS. 243 life, which poured themseh-es forth, as well in Tam o' Shaiitcr, a.s in the grave and the beautiful Cotter's Saturday Night. Having insisted on luy worthy guide getting some refreshment, we again sallied forth to make a more thorough exploration of tho youthful haunts of the poet. And now, indeed, we were surrounded by mementos of him, and of his fame, on all hands. The cottage stands on a pleasant plain ; and about a quarter of a mile onward you see, on the left-hand of the road, the monument erected to his memory — a dome, surmounted with a lyre and the significant wine- cup, and supported on Corinthian pillars. On the oiijiosite, that is, on the right-hand side of the road, is the old Kirk of AUoway ; beyond, away to the right, is heard the sea ; while the airy range of the Carrick hills stretches across, closing the landscape before you. At their feet a mass of trees marks the course of the Boon ; but, before you reach any of these objects, you joass on your left the largo iipeu field in which was held the Burns festival, on the 6th of August, 1844. The place where the wall had been broken down to admit tho procession was plainly discernible by its new mortar ; and a fine crop of corn was now waving where such thousands had, but a year before, met in honour of the immortal exciseman. Of this festival copious particulars are to be found in all tho newspapers of the day ; but in none so complete and accurate as " The Full Report," published by Mr. Maxwell Dick, the worth}- l)ublisher of the Ayrshire News Letter at Irvine, one of the most enthusiastic admirers of the genius of Burns, and of genius in general. By this report it appears that the procession, forming on the Low Green of Ayr, near the county buildings, met at ten o'clock iii the morning, and consisted of the magistrates of the town, public bodies, farmers, numerous freemasons' lodges, societies of gardeners, archers, and odd-fellows. King Crispin in his most imposing style, with Souter Johnny in character, accompanied by attendants witli banners floating, and bands playing music of Burns's songs. In this l)rocession were seen gentlemen and noblemen, and literary men of the highest distinction, from all parts of the empire. It reached a mile along the high road, three abreast. The whole number of I)ersons present — that is, in the procession and on the ground — was calculated at eighty thousand. A splendid triumphal arch was erected at the cottage where the poet was born ; and, as the pro- cession drew near it, the band played " There was a lad was born in Kyle ; " the vast multitude uncovered at once, and the flags were lowered as they passed the humble but much respected spot. Plat- forms were erected in various places, so that people could get a coitp-d'oeil of the procession. As it approached Kirk AUoway, the old bell, which still occupies the belfiy, was set a-ringing, and con- tinued so while the procession marched imder the triumj^hal arch along the new bridge. Deploying round towards the old bridge of Doon, tho circling lino, partially obscured by the houses and trees, had a truly picturesque effect ; the waving banners, the music of the bands, mellowed and echoed by "the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," were deeply impressive. On reaching the Auld Brig, over 241 BURNS. ■whiuh was thrown a tiiumplial arch, the bancl .struck up " Welcome, Royal Charlie," while the procession, uncovering and lowering their flags, passed over in front of the platform, on which stood the three sons of Burns, his sister Mrs. Begg, her son, and two daughters. The procession occupied at least an hour in coming from the new bridge to tlie held, on entering which the band played "Duncan Gray," followed by "The Birks of Aberfeldy." A large circle was then formed round the i^latform for the musicians in the field ; and the whole company, led b}^ professional vocalists, joined in singing " Ye banks and braes o' bonnio Doon," and " Auld lang syne." The bands were then stationed in various parts of the field ; the Eegimental and Glasgow St. Andrew's bands, in the centre of the field ; the Kilwinning and Cumnock bands at the cottage, and the bagpipers played at a dis- tance from the pavilion. There were two enclosures for dancing ; one near the head of the field, and the other on the brow, overlooking tlie Doon. Immediately after the procession was over, the crowd were astonished by the sudden appearance of Tarn o' Shanter, " well mounted on his grey mare Meg," and a flight of witches in full pur- suit of her, till he reached and passed the keystone of the arch of the Auld Brig. At two, the Earl of Eglinton took the chair at the banquet in the pavilion, w^ith Professor Wilson as croupier. To the I'ight of the chairman sat Robert Burns, Esq., the eldest son of the poet ; Major Burns, his youngest son ; on the left. Colonel Burns, second son of the poet ; Mrs. Begg, Burns's sister ; and right and left, other members of the family, and many noble and distinguished persons ;' as Mrs. Thomson, of Dumfries, the Jessie Lewars of the ]ioet ; Sir John M'i^eill, late plenipotentiary to the court of Persia ; the Lord Justice-General, the Countess of Eglinton, Alison, the historian, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Robert Chambers, of Edinburgh, Douglas Jerrold, William Thorn, the poet of Inverury, etc. etc. The chairs of the chairman and croupier were made of oaken rafters from Kirk Alloway, and many mementos of the poet decoi-ated the table. The scene in the pavilion is described as splendid, and like one of fairyland ; and the most enthusiastic speeches were made in honour < 'f the poet, especially by the noble chairman and the eloquent John Wilson. ' ' It will be seen by those acquainted with the ground, that the procession had thus taken a course contrived to include every object of interest connected with Burns here. It had passed the cottage of his birth ; passed between Kirk Alloway and his monument ; cros.sed by the new bridge over the Doon, to the side of the river, and returned over the old bridge, so as to see all " the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon," and so entered the field of the festival, having entirely encircled the monument. There, in fuU view of all these objects, the cottage, the old ruins of the kirk, the mo- imment, and the banks of Doon, they celebrated, — eighty thousand persons, — the festival of his honour, amid the music of his own enchanting songs, amongst which were — "A man's a inan for a' that ;" " This is na my ain house ;" " Green grow the rashes O ;" " My love she's but a lassie yet ;" " Wat ye wha's in you toun." BUKXS. -'i.'J This stirring iind tumultuous expression of a imtioivs veueratiou was gone by ; silence had again fallen, as it were, with a luusiug sense of the poet's glory on the scene ; and witli my worthy guide I went over the same ground leisurely, noting all its beauties and characteristics. First, we turned into the grave-yard of Kirk fUloway. Here stood the roofless old kirk, just such a plain, simple rdn as you see in a hundred places in Ireland. One of the hrst objects that arrests your attention is the bell in the little belfry, with a rope hanging outside, only sufficiently low for the sexton, on any occasion of funeral, to reach it with a hooked pole, and thus to prevent any idle person ringing it at other times. This bell, when the parishes of Alloway and Ayr were joined, was attempted to be carried away by the authorities of Ayr, by no means to their honour, but the crofters of Alloway manfully rose and resisted successfully the removal. There are plenty of open windows, where Tarn o' Shanter could take a full view of the unsonsie dancing party ; and " the winnock bunker in the east," a small window, " where sat auld Nick in shape of beast" as tiddler, is conspicuous enough. The interior of the kirk is divided by a wall. The west end division is the burial-place of the Cathcarts, which is kept very neat. The other end, where the witch-dance met Tarn's astonished eyes, is now full of briars and nettles, bearing sufhcient evidence of no recent displays of the kind. The kirk-yard is crowded with tombs, and the lirst memorial of the dead which meets your eye, is the headstone of the poet's father, just before you as you enter by the stile, with this inscription : — " Sacred to the memory of Wilham Burns, farmer in Lochlea, who died Feb. 1784, in the 63d year of his age ; and of Agnes Browne, his spouse, who died the 14th of Jan. 1820, in the 88th year of her age. She was interred in Bolton Churchyard, East Lothian. O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, hravr near with pious reverence, and attend! Here lie tlie loving husband's dear remains, The tender father, and the fjenerous friend. The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; The dauntless heart that feared no human pride ; The friend of man, to vice alone a foe ; ' For ev'n his failings leaned to virtue's side.'" This epitaph was written expressly for this tomb by Burns ; the last line being quoted from Goldsmith. Advancing now to the new bridge, you stand between two remark- able monuments of the ijoet. On your right hand, close on the banks of the Doon, and adjoining the bridge, stands a handsome villa, iu beautiful grounds which occupy part of "the banks and braes." This is the house of Mr. Auld, the enterprising hairdresser of Ayr, who was the fii'st to recognise the genius of Thorn the sculptor, then a poor stonemason of Ayr. Thorn, seeing a picture of Tam o' Shanter in Auld's window, requested the loan of it for a few days. Being asked by Auld what ho wanted it for, he said he had a notion that he could make a ligure from it. It was lent, and iu a few davs he returned with a model of Tarn in clay. Mr. Auld 21G BURNS. %v;i.s SO struck with the genius displayed iu it, that he suggested to Tlioui to coaiplote the group by adding Souter Johnny. That was soon done ; and then, by the assistance of Mr. Auld, the weIl-kno\vii group was cut in stone. Tlie enterprising hairdresser now j^n-epared to set out on a tour of exhibition of this group, the proceeds of which, I understand, were agreed to be equally divided between Auld, Thorn, and a conuuittee for a monument to Burns, near his birth- place. Such was the success of the scheme, that Thom, I am told, received ^^4,000 as his share of the proceeds, which, however, ho .soon contrived to lose by taking stone-quarries, and entering on building schemes. Having lost his money, he retired to America. Auld. more careful, quitted the wig-block and lather-brush, and building himself a house, sat down as a country gentleman opposite to the monument, which seems to be in his keeping. It has been said, that the monument committee never received anything like a tliird of the proceeds of the exhibition, or the monument might now be opened free of cost to the public. That, however, is a point which the committee and Mr. Auld must be best informed about. One thing is certain, that Mr. Auld's present residence is a gi'and K[)ecimen of the effect of the united genius of Burns, Thom, and Auld ; an exciseman, a stone mason, and a barber. To the left hand of the road, opposite to this monument, stands, in a pleasant garden, the other monument of Burns, as already described, and which also, it seems, partly owed its existence to the same bold enterprise of this l^arbcr of Ayr, who seems actually to have had the art of "cut- ting blocks with a razor." In this monument is no statue of Burns, Init merely a framed copy of that admirable coloured print of Burns, jmblished by Mr. Maxwell Dick, of Irvine, from Nasmyth's picture ; luid on the table iu the centre, the Bible and Testament given by Burns to his Mary at their last parting near Montgomerie castle. These are two separate volumes, and are displayed at the beginning of each, where Burns has placed a masonic sign, and written his name, now nearly obliterated ; adding the ■:S''/ two texts, — Leviticus xix. 12 ; Matthew v. 3.3 : which are, " Ye shall not swear by my name falsely ; I am the Lord ;" and " Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths." These precious volumes were known to be in the possession of the sister of Burns's " Mary," in America ; and a society of young men, ardent admirers of Burns, resolved to regain them, i f possible, for the public. This, after great trouble and expense, they finally effected ; and here they are, objects certainly of the deepest interest. In a separate and small building in the same garden stands the celebrated group by Thom, of Tarn and Souter Johnny. This, how- ever, being Sunday, was by an order of the au£horities of Ayr not allowed to be seen, though the monument was. I asked the youth who .showed the monument, if he could explain to me why it was a sin to show the grou}), and not a sin to show the monument on a Sunday ; but the lad very properly replied that he did not pretend to a metaphysical sagacity so profound ; his business w^as to show BUiiNS. 247 tlie monument, and not to shorn either the group or t^e reason why for that he referred me to the superior hair-splitting piety and acumen of the corporate authorities of Ayr. Quitting this garden, you encounter, at the foot of the new bridge, a new inn, called Burns's Inn and Hotel, with a line painted sign, of a blackbird singing upon a bough, with a crook and a house, and an >ak in the centre of a shield laid on branches of olive and oak ; and ovor it the words — " Better a small bush than nae bield." The Auld Brig is some little distance up the stream ; and the view from it is very beautiful. You are surrounded by " the banks and braes o' bonnie Doou," steep, hung with orchards and fine woodland trees. At some little distance still farther up the stream, you descry the old mill of Alloway, half buried in umbrageous trees, and all round rise sweet woodland fields at the feet of the hills. The bridge is well carved over with names, and overgrown with masses of ivy. Standing on this remarkable C)ld grey bridge, my companion exhi- bited a trait of delicate and genuine feeling, which no man of the most polished education in the school of politeness could have sur- l^assed. Gathering a sprig of ivy, he said, presenting it, — " May be ,-e would like to send this to your leddy in England ; it's gathered jUst frae the keystane." I accepted it with the liveliest pleasure, and it is now carefully preserved where the good man wished it. We then returned to Ayr, talking of Burns, his history, his poetry, and his fine qualities all the way ; and after one of the pleasantest rambles I ever made in any comiiany, I bade my old friend good-bye at his door, leaving in his hand a trifle to mend his Sunday supper. " But," said he, as I was going away, " might I request the favour of vour name, that I may know who it was that I had the honour of a walk with to Bui'ns's monument, when I am thinking of it ? " I told him ; his face passed from its usual paleness to a deep flush ; and he exclaimed, — "Eh, Sir! I ken yer name, and that o' yer leddy too, right weel ! " Depend upon it, the recollection of that walk has Ix'oii as pleasant to my old friend as to myself. The next day, with a driver well acquainted with the country, I issued forth in a gig, to visit all the various residences of Burns between Ayr and Mauchline. Burns in his life seemed like a bird leaving its nest. He took two or three short flights, till he flew quite away to Dumfries. At every move he got farther from Ayr. He was like an emigrant, still going on and on in one direction, and his course was south-east. First, he went, that is, with his father, to Mount Oliphant, a farm about four miles from Alloway, where he lived from his sixth to his twelfth year. This form has nothing par- ticular about it. It lies on a bare ridge of hill, an ordinary little Scotch farm-steading, with bare and treeless fields Then he went on to another farm — to Lochlea, still fixrther out on this long, high, and bleak tract of country, near Tarbolton. This farm ruined his father, and there he died. Lochlea is a neat farm-house, lying in a hollow more sheltered than IMount Oliphant, but still possessing no pic- turesque features. In fact, the family was seeking not the picturesque, but a livelihood. At Lochlea, Burns lived till he was twenty-foui-, 248 BURNS. and here lie attended the masonic lodge at the Cross-keys, at I'ai- liolton, which still remains. Thei*e he became acquainted with Mc David Sillar, the schoolmaster of Tarbolton, and addressed to him liis Epistle to Davie. It was about three miles from Tarbolton, but that was nothing to Buiuis, full of life and poetry. The Bachelor's Society, whicli, Avith David Sillar and other young men, he formed there, had infinite charms for him. Humble were tliese companions ; in Davitl Sillar's words — " Of birth and Wood we do not boast, No gentry does our club afl'ord, But ploughmen and meclianics we In nature's simple dress record ; " liut they were men after Burns's own heart. He judged of men as his father had taught him : — *' My father was a farmer upon the Carrick Border, And carefully he bred me up in decency and order ; He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing. For without au honest manly heart no man was worth regarding." It was during his abode here that he wrote John Barleycorn ; Corn- riggs are bonnie ; Winter, a Dirge ; the Death of Poor Mailie ; Maihe's Elegy ; and Now Whistling Winds, etc. But the love affairs he was at this time continually getting into, and the dissipations that he be- came acquainted with at Kirkoswald and Irvine, at which places he spent some months, rendered his poetical growth far less than it otherwise might have been there. One incident in his life, and one of his most beautiful poems consequent on it, however, arose out of au attachment, which, though said to be formed at Mauchline, was certainly cultivated here. Just below Tarbolton lies Montgomerie castle, beautifully situated amidst its woods on the banks of the Faile, where he fell in love with Mary Campbell. Here, near the house, it was, according to his own beautiful poem, that he used to meet, and here that he finally took leave of her. She was dairymaid iu the house then belonging to Colonel Hugh Montgomerie, afterwards Earl of EghntoU; and grandfather of the present earl. " Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle of Montgomerie, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie ; There summer first unfauld her robes, And there the longest tarry, For there I took my last farewell Of my sweet Highland Mary." There is a story mentioned in the Lives of Burns, of this parting being on the banks of Ayr, and Cromek repeats it, adding thtit " the lovers stood on eacli side of a small purUng brook— they laved their liands in the limpid stream, and holding a Bible between them, pro- nounced their vows to be faithful to each other." All this may be true, for they took a day to this final solitary en- joyment of each other's society in the woods before parting. They niiglit wander by the Ayr, and so on up to the Faile, and at some sniaU rivulet on the way perform this simple and affecting ceremony. Mary was going to the Western Highlands, to see her friends before BURNS. 249 she married Robert Burns, but she died on her way back, and they never met again. This Bible, as we have seen, has been recovered and is deposited in the monument at Alloway. Wherever this ceremony took place, the parting assuredly took place here. Burnfi savs, uot only that " there I took my last farewell," but also " II-'w sweetly bloomed the Ray green Iiirk, Kow rich the hawthorn's blossom. A«. underneath their fragrant shade, i clasped her to my bosom I "' There stiU .stands the thorn, called by all the countrv, " Highland Mary's Thorn." The house and park are sold or leased by the Earl of Eglinton to a soUcitor in Ayr. ]\Iy driver appeared afraid of going into the park, saying " the writer," that is, the solicitor, was a queer fellow, and would not let anybody go to the thorn, and certainly a large board at each park gate, warning all persons to avoid those hallowed precincts, appeared to confirm the man's opinion ; but, having come so far, I did not mean to pass without a glance at the parting scene of Burns and Highland Mary. I bade him drive down to the house, where I was speedily assured by the servants about that I was quite at liberty to go to the tree. " How shall I know it 1" " Oh ! a child may know it — it is all hacked and the twigs broken, by people who carry away some of it to keep." By these signs I readily recognised tlie tree. It is not far from the house, close to the carriage-drive, and on the top of the slope that descends to the Faile, which murmurs un beneath its sweet woodland shade.* The last abode of Burns in Ayrshire was at Mossgiel. This is some four miles beyond Tarbolton, and close to Mauchline, which is merely a large village. IMossgiel farm lies, as it were, at the end of that long, high, barren ridge of hills, which extends almost all the way from Ayr thither, and on which Bui-ns's father had sought a poor Hving, and found ruin. It stands near the line of the slope which descends into Mauchhne, and overlooks a large extent of bleak and bare country, and distant bare hills. In the vales of the country, however, lie many scenes of great beauty and classic fame. .Such are the banks of the Ayr, which winds on deep between its braes and woods, hke the Nith, the Doon. and the higher Clyde. ►Such are Stair, Logan, Crtikerne, Catrine, Dugald Stewart's place, and many others. The farm of Mossgiel, which consists of about 118 acres, lies, as observed, high, and as Gilbert, the brother of Burns, described it, '■' on a cold, wet bottom." The farms occupied by the Burns family in this part of the country were all of a thankless and ungenial kind; in fact, they lacked the means to command better. The two brothers, ■» I am still, liowever, ai'raid that it is. too true tliat the country people are not allowed to visit " Mary's Thorn," though held in such high honour by them. Not only the boards at the park gates, but other information, confirmed this fact; and my passing the lioiise to tlie tree brought all the family to the window, servants as well as gentlemen, ladies, and children, and no few in number, as if some extraordinary circumstance had uucurred. 250 BUKNS. Robert and Gilbert, had taken this farm some time before their father's death, iu the hope of assisting the family in that poverty which came still after them, like an armed man, spite of the most laborious exertion, and which was weighing their father to the grave At his death they removed altogether from Lochlea, and with their mother and sisters becanae here one household. Here Burns made the firmest resolves of steadiness, industry, and thriving ; but the seasons were against him, and he soon became mixed wp with all the dissipations of Mauchline, where he established a club after the fashion of that at Tarbolton. Very soon, too, he plunged into the midst of church disputes, in which his friend Gavin Hamilton, a lawyer of the place, was personally embroiled. Here he wrote The Holy Tuilzie, Holy Fair, Holy Willie's Prayer, The Ordination, The Kirk's Alarm : — those scalping poems, in which he lays bare to the skull bone, bigotry, hypocrisy, and all sanctimonious bitterness in religion. Here he fell in love with Jean Armour, the daughter of a stonemason of Mauchline, who, after many troubles, and nnicb opposition on the part of the family, became afterwards his wife. Here he wrote the greater part of his poems, and of his very finest ones ; and here he broke forth uj^on the world like a new-risen sun, his poems, which were first published at Kilmarnock, attracting such extraordinary attention, that he was called to Edinburgh, and a new and more complete edition there pubhshed, while he himself was introduced as a sort of miracle to the highest circles of aristocracy and literature. The four years which he lived hei'e, though they were sinking him in a pecuniary point of view into such a slough of despair, that he seriously resolved to emigrate to the West Indies, and only published his poems to raise the means, were, as regarded his fame, glorious and most interesting years. It was here that he might be said, more expressly than anywhere else — " To walk in ftlorv- and in jo)-, l-'ollowing his plough along the mountain side ; " for, spite of the iron destiny which seemed to pm'sue him, and iu an ungenial soil and the most untoward seasons, to endeavour to crush him with " carking care," he was full of life and vigour, and often rose in the entrancement of his spirit above all sense of eartli and its darkness. By the testimony of his cotemporaries, in all the operations of the farm,— in mowing, reaping, binding after the reapers, thrashing, or loading, — there were few who could compete with him. He stood five feet ten in height, and was of singular strength and activity. He prided himself on the straightness of the furrow that he drew, and the skill with which he threw his corn iu .sowing. On one occasion, a man having succeeded in a hard strife in setting up as many shocks in a given time, said, " There, I am not far behind this time ;" to which Burns replied, " In one thing, John, you are still behind ; I made a song while I was stooking " Allan Cunningham says that his father, who was steward to Miller of Dalswinton, Bums's landlord, and lived just opposite to him ai BURNS. 251 hiiisiand, declared that " he had the handsomest cast of the hand ic sowing corn that he ever saw on a furrowed field." It was here, then, at Mossgiel, that, young, vigorous, and full of desire to advance in worldly matters, he worked assiduously with his brother Gilbert in the fields, undivided in his attentions by the duties of the Excise. But poetry, si^ite of all resolves to the con- trary, came over him like a flood. As his hand worked, his heai-t was full of inspiration, and as Gilbert held the plough, Robert would come and walk beside him, and repeat what he had just composed ; or, as they went with the cart to carry out corn or bring home coals, he would astonish him with some such display. " The verses to the Mouse and the Mountain Daisy," says Gilbert, "were composed on these occasions, and while the author was holding the plough. I could point out the spot where each was composed. Holding the plough was a favourite situation with Eobert for poetic composition, and some of his best verses were produced while he was at that exercise." With what interest, then, do we look over the fields at Mossgiel, scarcely an inch of which has not been strode over by Burns, while engaged at once in turning up the soil, sowing or gathering its crops, and in working out in the depth of his mind those compositions which were to remain for all time, the watch- words of liberty and of noble thought ! Besides the polemic poems already spoken of, here he wrote Hallowe'en ; Address to the Deil ; Death and Dr. Hornbook, a satire on the poor schoolmaster and self- appointed apothecary, Wilson of Tarbolton, which drove him from the place, but only to thrive in Glasgow ; The Jolly Beggars ; Man was made to mourn ; The Vision ; The Cotter's Saturday Night, which he very appropriately repeated to Gilbert during a Sunday afternoon walk. The very interesting scene of the creation of these exquisite poems, lies on the left hand of the road proceeding from Tarbolton to Mauchline. The house stands at a field's distance from the road. It is a thatched house with but and ben, just as it was, and th« buildings behind it forming two wings exactly as he built his house at Ellisland. To the north-west the house is well sheltered with tine, full-grown trees. A handsome young mother, the farmer's wife, worthy for her comely and intelligent look to have been celebrated by Bums, told me that great numbers of people came to see the place, and that it was very much as Burns left it. There were the barn, the byre, the garden near, in all which the j)oet had laboured like any other son of earth for his daily bread, and on the yearly allowance — for every one of the family had a specific allowance for clothes and pocket-money — of seven pounds, which, says his brother, he never exceeded ! Veiy extravagant he could not have been. You see the ingle where he sate and composed some of his most pathetic and most humorous pieces. It is said to be in the spence, a better room, which has a boarded floor and the recess beds so common in Scotland, that he chiefly wrote. Who can contemplate this humble room, and recal the image of the young poet with a heart of melancholy here inditing, — Man was made to mourn, ot his K iiJ^, BURNS. Vision, -without the liveliest emotion ? There is uo feeling of utt« 2G0 BURNS- and greatest poet of his country ! In the hour of his death, the soul of his country awoke with one gi-eat throb to the consciousness of who and what he was : what a pity that the revelation did not come a little sooner ! And this I say not to taunt his covmtry with it. The sense of the national treatment of Robert Burns has been expressed with such manly eloquence by his countrymen, Lockhart, Wilson, and Allan Cunningham, that it needs not us English to cast a single stone, who have the memory of Chattertou amongst us. All great nations have similar sins to answer for. Scotland does not stand alone ; but there is something so peculiarly strange in the fate of Burns, and which comes over us as we tread the ground that he had chosen for his home, and the floor of the house that he built, that it has forced me involuntarily to follow my own feelings, instead of my descriptions. The farm, as I have said, is a very pleasant one. Burns is sup- posed to have chosen the particular situation of his house not only for its fine situation on the banks of the river, and overlooking the vale and country round, but on account of a beautiful spring which gushes from the slope just below the house. The ground plan of his house is very much like that of most Scotch farms. The build- ings form three sides of a quadrangle. The house and buildings are only one storj^high, white, and altogether a genuine Scotch steading. The house is on the lowei' side, next to the river. Burns's bed-room has yet two beds in it, of that sort of cupboard- fashion, with check curtains, which are so often seen in Scotch farm-houses. The humble rooms are much as they were in his time. Near the house, and running parallel with the river, is a good large garden, which he planted. The side of the farm-yard opposite to the house is pleasantly planted off with trees. The farm is just as it was, about one hundred acres. By places it exhibits that stony soil which made Burns call it " the riddlings of creation," and say that when a ploughed field was rolled it looked like a paved street ; but still it carries good crops. Burns had it for oO/. a-year, or ten shillings an acre. I sup- Eose the present tenant pays three times the sum, and is proud of is bargain. He observed it was an ill wind that blew nobody any profit. " Mr. Burns," said he, " had the farm on lease for ninety years, and had he not thrown it up, I should not have been here now." The farmer seemed a very sensible man, and though he was just mouating his gig to go on business to Dumfries, he stopped, und would go over the farm and house, and point out everything to me. He said what Lockhart and Cunningham say, that Burns had so many servants that they ate and drank all that came oft" the farm. " The maids baked new bread, and the men ate it hot with ale." But it is said, too, on the spot, that most of these servants were relatives, and that presents of whisky and other good things were sent from far and near to Burns, and that while he was absent on his excise rounds, they sat in the house and drank, and ate to it, instead of being at work. Burns once observed to his neighbour, the next farmer, that he wondered how it was that the farm left no surplus for rent ; and the farmer said, " Why, i\Tr. Burns, it would BURNS. 2G1 bo a wonder if it did, for your servants cannot eat it and leave it for rent too." It is said, also, that being once invited to dinner at Dalswinton House, and not coming, the guests asked how he was getting on. Mr. Miller said he hoped very well, " for," added he, "I think I have set him up." This being repeated to Burns, is said to have hurt his proud feelings extremely, and to have induced him to i-emark that he did not like to live on the estate of a man who thought he had set him up. Long he did not live there, more's the pity. The goodwill of his haughty landlord had gone before. It was here, too, that the story is told of his being found by two Englishmen fishing in the Nith. "On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a man angling. He had a cap of fox.skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt, from which hung an enormous Highland broadsword : it was Burns." The .story is likely enough. The banks of the Nith here are steep, and full of wild thickets ; and one may very well imagine Burns not being over-particular in his toilet v/hile pursuing his amusement in this solitude. It was one of his delights to range along these steep river bank.s, and it was along them, between the house and the fence at the Ijottom of the field down the river, that he paced to and fro as he composed Tam o' Shanter. Mrs. Burns relates, " that, observing Kobert walking with long swinging strides, and apparently mut- tering as he went, she let him alone for some time. At' length she took the children with her and went forth to meet him. He seemed not to observe her, but continued his walk. On this," said she, " I stept aside with the bairns aiuong the broom, and past us he came, his brow flushed and his eyes shining ; he was reciting these lines : — ' Now Tam, O Tam ! liad time Ijeen queans A' plump an' sirapping, i' their teens; Their sarks, instead o' ereeshie flannen, Been snaw-white seventeen Iiunder linncii I Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o' f,'ude blue hair, I wad hae f,'i'en them aff my hurdles, Por ae blink o' tlie bonnie burdies.' 1. wish ye had but seen him ! He was in such ecstasy that the teara were happing down his cheeks." He -had taken writing materials with him, and leaning on a turf fence which commanded a view down the river, he committed the poem to paper, walked home, and read it in great triumph at the fireside. The remains of this turf fence may be seen to this day in the shape of a green bank, close- alcove the river, under the shade of a narrow plantation of larches which bounds the field. The farmer said that Professor Wilson, when he visited the spot, rolled himself on the bank, saying it was ^TOl•th while trying to catch any remains of genius and humour that liurns might have left there. The farmer said, what indeed Allan Cunningham states, that when Burns came the farm was all open, " there were no dykes,"— walls ind fences. That he introduced the first dairy of Ayrshire cows, all 2G2 BURKS. Bplendid cattle, some of them beiug presents from such friends as the Dimlops, &c. Presents or no presents, poor Burns laid out on the farm in his first year all the proceeds of the Edinburgh edition of his poems, and never saw them again. The view from the house is very charming. The river runs clear and lleet below, broad as the Thames at Hampton Court, or the Trent at Nottingham, and its dark trees hang far along it over its waters. Beyond the stream lie the broad rich meadows and house of Dalswin- ton, a handsome mansion of red freestone aloft amid its woods, and still beyond, and higher up the rivei-, rise still bolder hills. The very next residence upwards on the same side of the river is Friar's-Carse, the seat of Burns's friend Mr. Riddell, into whose grounds he had a private key, so that he could enjoy all the beauty and sohtude of his woods at pleasure, or take the nearest cut to the house. Up the valley, about two miles or so, is the farm-house belonging to his friend Nicol of the High School, where " Willie brewed a peck o' malt, And Rob and Allan cam to see." Friar's-Carse deserves a few more words, before we shift to the last sad scene, Dumfries. It is a beautiful estate which you enter from the Glasgow road by a neat lodge, and advance a quarter of a mile, perhaps, along a carriage drive, one side of which is planted with shrubs and Howers, and the other consists of the steep wild bank of a fine wood. The way winds on, and here and there you have an old stone grey cross, or old picturesque saint, or such thing, which has a good effect. At last, you emerge in an open meadow suiTounded by fine hills and woods, and at the head of which, on a green and graceful esplanade, stands a good, though not a very large house. In the meadows, which are of great extent, roves a numerous herd of as fine cattle as ever roamed the meads of Asphodel, and much finer, I suspect, for they are Ayrshire cows of the most splendid description ; and some very fine trees rear their heads to beautify the ground. As you approach the house, it is along the foot of a beautiful slope enriched by noble old trees. Behind the house there is a green and airy sort of table-land, on which flower-stands of rustic work filled with roses and geraniums stand, and down which moneywort with all its golden blossoms streams, and then the ground sinks rapidly into a deep dell full of tall trees, and containing a garden of the old pleached walk kind, and which through the latticed gate gives you such a peep at its beauties as enchants you. In this house used to live Mr. Riddell and his wife, the beautiful and accomplished Maria Riddell ; but who was of a capricious temper, and to whom Burns, as they violently quarrelled or were again reconciled, addressed some of his most flattering and his most severe verses. Here the Whistle was caroused for, and here the original copy of Burns's poem on the subject is kept still. Pity it was that the lady of the house, a young widow, Mrs. Crichton, was just bowling out at her lodge gates as I walked in, or I would have called and requested the favour of a sight of this paper. But the BUHXS. 263 butler assured mc tnat there it was ; and in the pine wood on the Bide by which you enter, the remains of the hermitage where Burns wrote the well-known lines on the window. The iDine wood has grown ; there are silver firs that may claim kindred with those of the Black Forest, but the hermitage is gone. A single gable, a few scattered stones, and a mass of laurels that have grown high and hidden it, are all that remain of the hermitage, which I only found by dint of long traversing the dusky wood. But Bm-ns is gone ; Miller of Dalswintou is gone ; the Riddells of Friar's-Carse are gone ; their estates are in other families ; and it is to be hoped that the exciseman's guagiug-stick is gone too. I do not see it hung aloft in any hall. I dare say the sons of Burns have not preserved it, as the walking-stick of Sir Walter Scott now hangs aloft in the study at Abbotsford. But the memory of the poet and his friends lives all over these walks, and meadows, and woods,_more livingly than ever. It is the quick spirit of the place. Poetry is not dead here. It is the soul and haunting shadow of these fair and solemn scenes, and a thousand years hence will startle young and beating hearts as the wood-pigeon dashes out through the magic hush of the forest, and the streamlet leaps down the mossy stone, and laughs and glitters in the joyous glance of the sun. The exciseman's stick is turned into the magic wand of nature, and there will be bitter satire, and deep melancholy, and wonder and love, as it waves a thousand times self-multiplied in the bough of the pine-tree, and the bent of the grass, wliile the heart of man can suffer or enjoy. You see that already in everything. Burns no longer walks on one side of tlie market-place of Dumfries, solitary and despised, while the great and gay crowd and flutter on the other ; but as the daily coach rolls on its way, the coachman pointing with his whip, says softly — " That is the fai'm of Ellisland ! " And every man and woman, every trade- ti-aveller and servant-maid says—" Where ? " And all rise up, and look, and there is a deep silence. For that silence, and the thoughts that live in it, who would not have lived, and suffered, and been despised 1 It is the triumph of genius and the soul of greatness over the freaks of fortune, and even over its own sins and failings. It is something to have walked over the farm of Ellisland : it is still more to have stood on the spot in his farm-yard where the heart of Burns rose up in a flame of hal- lowed aS'ection to Mary in heaven — a more glorious shrine than the mausoleum of Dumfries. The neighbourhood of Dumfries, to which the last scene of our subject leads us, is very charming. The town is just a quiet country town ; but the Nith is a fine river, and runs through it, and makes both town and country very agreeable. The scenery is not wild and rocky, but the vale of the Nith is rich, and beautiful in its richness. The river runs in the finest sweeps imaginable ; it seems to disdain to go straight, but makes a circle for a mile, perhaps, at a time, as clean and perfect as if struck with compasses, and then away in another direction ; while on its lofty banks alders and oaks hang richly over the water, and fine herds of cattle arc grouped in those L'Gl nrnxs. deep meadows, aud salmon fishers spread their nets aud arc busy mending them on the broad expanse of gravel that covers here and there the bends of the river ; while, high above the lapsing waters, your eye wanders over a broad extent of fresh, rich meadow country, with scattereil masses of trees and goodly farms ; and far around arc liigh aud airy hills, cultivated to the top. A more lovely pastoral country, more retired aud poetical, you cannot well find. This is the scenery to which Burns, during his abode in Dumfries, loved to resort. " When he lived in Dumfries," says Allan Cunningham, " he had three favourite walks, — on the dock-green by the river-side, among the ruins of Lineludeu College, and towards the Martingam l^ord on the north side of the river. The latter place was secluded, commanded a view of the distant hills and the romantic towers or Lincluden, and afforded soft greensward banks to rest upon, aud the .sight aud sound of the stream. As soon as he was heard to hum to himself, his wife saw that he had something in his mind, and wan (|uite prepared to see him snatch up his hat and set off silently for his musing-ground." About three miles up the river we come upon the beautiful ruins of the abbey of Lincluden, standing on an elevated mound, over- looking the junction of the Cluden and the Nith, and overlooked by a sort of large tumulus covered with larches, where the monks are said to have sate to contemplate the country, aud where the country people still resort to loiter or read on Sundays. A profound tran- quillity reigns over all the scene, a charm indescribable, which Burns, of all men, must have felt. For myself, I knew not where to stop. I advanced up the left bank of the liver, opposite to the ruins, now treading the soft turf of the Nith's margin, now pent in a narrow- track close on the brink of the stream amongst the alders, now emerging into a lofty fir clump, and now into a solemn grove of neech overhanging the stream. Farther on lay the broad old mea- dows again, the fisher watching in his wooden hut the ascent of the salmon, the little herdboy tending his black cattle in the solitary field, old woods casting a deep gloom on the hurrying water, grey old halls standing ori fine slopes above the Nith, amid trees of mag- nificent size and altitude. The mood of mind which comes over you here is that of unwritten poetry. When one thinks of Burns wandering amid this congenial nature where the young now wander and sing his songs, one is apt to forget that he bore with him a sad heart and a sinking frame. When wo see his house in Dumfries, we are reminded pretty forcibly of these things. We have to dive at once into a back street in the lower part of the town, and turn and wind from one such hidden and poor street to another, till, having passed through a sufficient stench of tan-yards, which seem to abound in that neighbourhood, we come to a Uttle street with all the character of the abode of the poor, which is honoured with the name of Burns Street. The house is the first you come to on the left hand. There was an old thatched one oi i the opposite side, and I set it down at once to be the poet's ; but no, at a regularly formal poor man's house, of a dingy whitewash, with BURNS. 2f>5 its stone door and window frames painted of a diugy blue, a bare- legged girl, very dirty, was washing the floors, and went from the bucket and showed me the house. On the right hand of the door was the kitchen, in which the girl informed me that there was nothing left belonging to the Burnses, except two bells which she pointed out, and a gas pipe which Mr. Burns had put in. On the left hand was the sitting-room, furnished very well for a poor man, with a carpet on the floor. The girl said her father was an under- taker ; but when I asked where was his shop, she said he was au undertaker of jobs on railroads and embankments. Up stairs there was a good large chamber unfurnished, which she said was the one occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Burns, and where both of them died. Out of the other chamber a little closet was taken, including one front window, and here, she said, Bm-ns Avi'ote, or it was always said so. There were two garrets ; and that was the poet's, or rather the exciseman's house. It was just about suited to the income of an ordinary exciseman, and had no attribute of the -poefs home about it. Mr. Robert Chambers, in his Picture of Scotland, calls it a neat little house. Unfortunately, at my visit it was anything but neat or clean, and its situation in this miserable quarter, and amid the odour of tan-yards, m.ust give to any foreigner who visits it an odd idea of the abodes of British poets. I wonder that in some improvement the Dumfriesians don't contrive to pull it down. From this abode of the living poet, I adjourned to that of the dead one. This is situated in St. Michael's churchyard, not far from the house, but on an eminence, and on the outside of the town. The lane in which the house is, is just one of the v:orst. It looks as though it were only inhabited by keepers of lodging-houses for tramps, and 1 believe mainly is so. It is a sort of Tinker's-lane. The church- yard, though not more than two hundred j-ards off, is one of the most respectable, and the poet's house there is the very grandest. One naturally thinks how mxich easier it is to maintain a dead poet than a living one. A churchyard in this part of the country has a singular aspect to an English eye. As you approach the Scottish border, you see the headstones getting taller and taller, and the altar-tombs more and more massive. At Carlisle, the headstones had attained the height of six or seven feet at least, and were deeply carved with coats of arms, &c. near the top, but here the whole church j^ard is a wildernes* of huge and ponderous monuments. Pediments and entablatures, Grecian, Gothic, and nondescript ; pillars and obelisks, some of them at least twenty feet high — I use no exaggeration in this account — stand thick and on all sides. To our eyes, accustomed to suchadifferent size and character of churchyard tombs, they are perfectly astonish- ing. I imagine there is stone enough in the funeral monuments of this churchyard to build a tolerable street of houses. You would think that all the giants, and indeed all the gmd people of all sorts that Scotland had ever produced, had here chosen their .sepulture. Such ambitious and gigantic structures of freestone, some red, some white, for dyers, ironmongers, gardeners, slaters, glaziers, and the 2G6 BURNS. like, are, I imagine, nowhere else to be seen. There are vintner.? who have tombs and obelisks fit for genuine Egyptian Pharaohs ; and slaters and carpenters, who were accustomed to cUmb high when alive, have left monuments significant of their soaring character. These far outvie and overlook those of generals, writers to the signet, esquires, and bailiffs of the city. Your first view of this churchyard strikes you by the strange aspect of these ponderous monuments. A row of very ancient ones, in fact, stands on the wall next to the street. Two of them, most dilapi- dated, and of deep red stone, have a very singular look. They have Latin inscriptions, which are equally dilapidated. One to J^^rancis Irving fairly exhausts the Latin tongue with his host of virtues, and then takes to English, thus : — " King James the First me Balive named; Dumfries oft since me Provost claimed ; (Jod has for me a crown reserved, Tor king and country have I served." Burns's mausoleum occupies, as nearly as possible, the centre of the farther end of the churchyard opjjosite to the entrance, and a broad walk Isads up to it. It stands, as it should do, overlooking the pleasant fields in the outskirts of the town, and seems, like the poet himself, to belong half to man and half to nature. It is a sort of little temple, which at a distance catches the eye as you approach that side of the town, and reminds you of that of Garrick at Hampton. It is open on three sides, except for iron gates, the upper border of which consists of alternating Scottish thistles and spear-heads. A couple of Ionic pillars at each corner support a pro- jecting cornice, and above this rises an octagon superstructure with arche.s, across the bottom of which again run thistle-heads, one over ;3ach gateway, and is surmounted by a dome. The basement of the mausoleum is of granite. The building is enclosed by an iron railing, and the little gate in front of the area is left unlocked, so that you may approach and view the monument through the iron gates. The area is planted appropriately with various kinds of ever- greens, and on each side of the gate stands conspicuously the Scottish thistle. In the centre of the mausoleum floor, a large flag with four iron rings in it, marks the entrance to the vault below. At the back stands Turnarelli's monument of the poet. It consists of a figure of Burns, of the size of life, in white marble, at the j^lough, and Coila, his muse, appearing to him. This is a female figure in alto-relievo on the wall, somewhat above and in front of him. She is in the act of throwing her mantle, embroidered with Scotch thistles, over him, according to his own word.s — "The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me." Burns stands with his left hand on one of the plough stilts, and with the other holds his bonnet to his breast, while, with an air of surprise and devotion, he gazes on the muse or genius of his poetry. He appears in a short coat, knee breeches, and short gaiters. The esecutiou is so-so. BUKXS. 2G7 The likeness of the poet is by no means conformable to the best portraits of him ; and Nature, as if resenting the wretched cari- cature of her favourite son, has already began to deface and corrode it. The left hand on the plough is much decayed, and the right hand holding the bonnet is somewhat so too. At his feet lies what I suppose was the slab of his former tomb, with this inscrip- tion : " In memory of Kobert Burns, who died the 21st of July, 1796, in the 37th year of his age. And Maxwell Burns, who died the 25th of April, 1799, aged 2 years and 9 months. Francis Wallace Burns, who died the 9th of June, 1808, aged 14 years His sons. The remains of Burns received into the vault below 1 9th of September, 1815. And his two sons. Also, the remains of Jean Armour, relict of the Poet, born Feb. 1765, died 26th of March. 1834." The long Latin inscription mentioned by his biographers, a manifest absurdity on the tomb of a man like Burns, and whose epitaph ought to be intelligible to all his countrymen, is, I suppose, removed, for I did not observe it ; and the above English in- scription, of the elegance of which, however, nothing can be said, substituted. The gates of the mausoleum itself are kept locked, and the monu- ment again enclosed within a plain railing. Some countrymen were just standing at the gate with their plaids on their shoulders making their observations as I arrived at it. I stood and listened to them. 1st Man. — " Ay, there stands Robin, still holding the plough, but the worst of it is, he has got no horses to it." 2i? Man. — " Ay, that is childish. It is just like a boy on a Sunday who sets himself to the plough, and fancies he is a ploughing when it never moves. It would have been a deal better if you could but have seen even the horses' tails." ud Man. — " Ay, or if he had been sitting on his plough, as I have seen him sometimes in a picture." \st Man. — " But Coila is well drawn, is not she ? That arm whicb .she holds up the mantle with, is very well executed." 2c? Man. — " It's a pity though that the sculptor did not look at his own coat before he put the only button on that is to be seen." Zd Man.—'' Why, where is the button ? " 2 No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not, the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of ago. One song employs all nations, and all cry, • Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us \ ' The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and tlie mountain tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy : Till nation after nation taught the strain. Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise filled ; See Salem built, the labour of a God ! Bright as a sun tlie sacred city shines ; AH kingdoms, and all princes of the earth Flock to that light ; the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy. And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there; Praise is in all her gates : upon her walls And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest West ; And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand. And worships. Her report has travelled forth Into all lands. From every clime they come To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, O Sion '. an assembly such as earth Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see. Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restored. So God has greatly purposed." — The Tash, book vi COWPER. 271 Such was the lofty and all-embracing spirit of that man whom hard dogmatists could yet terrify and chill into utterest woe. Shrinking from the world, he yet dared to lash this world from which he shrunk, with the force of a giant, and the justice of more than an Aristides. Of the church, he yet satirized severely its errors, and the follies of its ministers ; in political opinion he was free and indignant against oppression. The negro warmed his blood into a sympathy that produced the most effective strains on his behalf — the worm beneath his feet shared in his tenderness. Thus he walked through life, shuiniiug its tumults and its highways, ono of its mightiest labourers. In his poetry there was found no fear, no complaining ; often thoroughly insane, nothing can surpass the sound mind of his compositions ; haunted by delusions even to the attempt at suicide, there is no delusion in his page. All there is bright, clear, and consistent. Like his Divine Master, he may truly be said to have been bruised for our sakes. As a man, nervous terrors could vanquish him, and unfit him for active life ; but as a poet he rose above all nerves, all terrors, into the noblest heroism, and fitted and will continue to fit others for life, so long as just and vigorous thought, the most beautiful piety, and the truest human sympathies command the homage of mankind. There is no writer who surpasses Cowper as a moral and religious poet. Full of powei and feehng, he often equals in solemn dignity Milton himself. He is as impressive as Young without his epigrammatic smartness ; he is as fervently Christian as Montgomery, and in intense love of nature there is not one of our august band of illustrious writers who surpasses him. He shows the secret of his deep and untiring p,ttach- ment to natui-e, in the love of Him who made it. " He is the Freeman, wlioni the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts il oft' With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field Of Nature, and though poor perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight.. Calls the delightful scenery all his own. ills are the mountains, and the valleys his. And the resplendent rivers. — His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, but who with filial confidence inspired Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say — ' My Father made them all ! ' Are they not his by a peculiar right, And by an emphasis of interest his, Whose eye tliey fill with tears of holy joy. Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mii.il With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love That planned, and built, and still upholds a wT^rt So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man ? Yes— ye may fill your gamers, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot ; but ye will not find In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who unimpeached Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And haj s, richer use of yours than ye. 272 COWPER. jf c is indeed a Freeman : free by uirth or no mean city, planned or ere tlie liills AVere built, tbe fountains ojjened, or tlie sea AVith r.ll his roaring multitude of ■waves/' — The Task, Look v. The writings of Cowper testify everywhere to that grand sermon M-nicli is eternally preaching in the open air ; to that Gospel of the field and the forest", w^hicli, like the Gospel of Christ, is the voice of that love which overflows the universe ; which puts down all sectarian bitterness iu hira who listens to it ; which, being perfect, " casts out all fear," against which the gloom of bigots and the terrors of fanatics cannot stand. It was this which healed his wounded spirit beneath the boughs of Yardly Chase, and came fanning his temj^les with a soothing freshness in the dells of Weston. When we follow his footsteps there, we somewhat wonder that scenes so unambitious could so enrapture him ; but the glory came from within, and out of the materials of an ordinary walk he could raise a brilliant superstructure for eternity. William Cowper was born in the parsonage of Great Berkhamp- stead. The Birmingham railway whirls you now past the spot, or you may, if you please, alight and survey that house hallowed by the love of a mother such as he has described, and by the record of it in those inimitable verses of the son on receiving her picture. " WHiere once we dwelt our name is lieard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener llobin, day by "day, Drew me to school along the public way. Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped. "J'is now become«a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our oun.'' Cowi)er Avas at school at Market-street, Hertfordshire, then at Westminster ; after w-hich he was articled for three vears to Mr. Jhapman, a solicitor. After quitting Mr. Chapman, he" entered the Inner Temple, as a regular law student ; where his associates were Thurlow, afterwards the well-known Lord Chancellor, Bonnel Thorn- ton, and Colman. Cowper's family w-as well connected, both on the father's and mother's side, and he had every prospect of advance- ment ; but this the sensitiveness of his nature prevented. Being successively appointed to the offices of Beading Clerk, Clerk of the Private Committees in the House of Lords, and Clerk of the Jour- nals, he vvas so overwhelmed by being unexpectedly called on to discharge his duty publicly before the House, that it unsettled his mind, his prospects of a v/orldly nature were for ever over, and in a state of the most settled melancholy he was committed to the care of Dr. Cotton of St. Alban's. In the summer of 1765 he quitted St. Alban',s, and retired to private lodgings in the town of Huntingdon. There he was, as by a direct act of Providence, led to the acquaintance of the family of the Rev. Mr. Unwin, one of the clergymen of the place. Cowper had attended his church ; and his interesting appearance having attracted the attention of his son William Cawthorne Unwin, he followed him in his solitarv walk, COWPER. . 2 1?, and inti'oduced himself to him. This simple fact decided, as by the very finger of heaven, the whole destiny of the poet, and probably secui-ed him as a poet to the world. "With this family he entered into the most affectionate intimacy. They wei-e people after his own heart, pious, intelligent, and most amiable. The father was, how- ever, soon after killed by a fall from his horse, the son was himself become a minister, and the widow, the ever-to-be-loved Mary Unwin, retired with the suffering poet to Olney, at the invitation of the Eev. John Newton, the clergyman there, where she watched over him with the tender solicitude of a mother. To her, in all pro- bability, we owe all that we possess in the poetry of Cowper. With his life here we are made familiar by his poetry and letter.'^, and the biography of Hayley. His long returns of melancholy, the writing of poetry, which Mrs. Unwin suggested to him to divert his thoughts, his gardening, his v/alks, his tame hares, his successive acquaintances with Lady Austen, Lady Hesketh, and the like, all this we know. What particularly concerns us is, the present state and appearances of his homes and haunts here. To these the access is now easy. From the Wolverton station, on the North-western rail- way, an omnibus sets you down, after a run of nine miles, at the iSull inn, in the spacious, still, and triangular market-place of Olney. Here, again, prints have made us most accurately acquainted with the place. The house occupied by Cowi)er stands near the eastern corner, loftily overtopping all the rest. There are the other quiet, cottage-like houses sti-etching away right and left, the tall elm-tree, the pump, the old octagon stone lock-up house. The house which was Cowper's makes an imposing appearance in a picture, and in reality is a building of considerable size ; but it must always have l)een internally an ill-finished house. He himself, and his friends, compared it to a prison. It had no charms whatever of location. Opposite to it came crowding uji some common dwellings, behind lay the garden, on a dead flat, and therefore with no attractions but .such as art and a poet's imagination gave it. It was, for some years after he quitted it, inhabited by a surgeon. He had, in his "turn, long left it ; and it now was divided into three tenements. One was a little grocer's shop, the other part in front was an infant school, and the back part a workshop of some kind. The house was altogether dingy and desolate, and bore no marks of having at any time been finished in a superior style. That which was once the garden was now divided into a back-yard and a small garden surrounded by a high stone wall. They show an apple-tree in it, which they say (Jowper planted. The other and main portion of the garden was cut off by the stone wall, and the access to it was from a distcsit part of tlie town. This garden was now in the possession of Mi. Morris, a master bootmaker, Avho, with a genuine feeling of respect for the poet's memory, not only retained it as much as possible in the state in which it was in Cowper's time, but had the most good-natured pleasure in allowing strangers to see it. The moment I presented myself at his door, he came out, anticipating my object, with the key, and profiered his own guidance. In tlie garden, abovt the 274 COWPER. centre, still stands Cowper's summer-house. It is a little square tenement, (as Cowper describes it himself, in one of his letters,) not much bigger than a sedan-chair. It is of timber, framed and plas- tered, and the roof of old red tiles. It has a wooden door on the side next to his own house, and a glass one, serving as window, exactly- opposite, and looking across the next orchard to the parsonage. There is a bench on each side, and the ceiling is so low that a man of moderate stature cannot stand upright in it. Except in hot weather, it must have been a regular wind-trap. It is, of course, written all over with verses, and inscribed with names. Around it stand evergreens, and in the garden remain various old fruit-trees, which were there in Cowper's time, and some of them, no doubt, jjlanted by him. The back of some low cottages, with their windows level with the very earth, forms part of the boundary wall ; and the orchard, in front of the summer-house, remains as in Cowper's time. It will be recollected that, in order to save himself the trouble of going round through the town, Cowper had a gate put out into this orchard, and another into the orchard of the Eectory, in which lived his friend Mr. Newton. He paid a pound a year for thus crossing his neighbour's orchard, but had, by this means, not only a very near cut to the Parsonage opened to him, but a whole quiet territory of orchards. This still remains. A considerable extent of orchards, bounded, for the most part, by the backs of the town houses, pre- sents a little quiet region, in which the poet could ramble and muse at his own pleasure. The Parsonage, a plain, modern, and not large building, is not very distant from the front of the summer-house, and over it peeps the church spire. One cannot help reflecting how often the jjoet and his friends used to go to and fro there. Newton, with his genuine friendship for Cowper, but with his severe and pre- destinarian religion, which to Cowper's grieving spirit was terrifying and pi'ostrating ; then, a happy change, the lively and affectionate and witty Lady Austen, to whom we owe John Gilpin and The Task. Too lively, indeed, was this lady, charming as she was, for the nerves nnd the occupations of the poet. She went, and then came that delightful and true-souled cousin, Lady Hesketh, a sister as Mary Unwin was a mother to the poet. She had lived much abroad, from the days in which Cowper and herself, merry companions, had laughed and loved each other dearly as cousins. The fame of him whom she had gone away deploring, as blighted and lost for ever, met her on her return to her native land, a widow ; and, with a heart and a purse equally open, she hastened to renew the intercourse of her youth, and to make the poet's life as happy as such hearts only could make him. There is nothing more delightful than to see how the bursting-forth fame of Cowper brought around him at once all his oldest and best friends — his kith and kin, who had deemed him a wreck, and found him a gallant bark, sailing on the brightest sea of glory to a sacred immortality. Lady Hesketh, active in her kindness as she was beautiful in person and in spirit, a true sisterly soul, lost no time in removing Cowper to a more suitable house and neighbourhood. Of the housw C0^VPER. 275 we liave spoken. The situation of Olney is on the flat, near the river Ouse, and subject to its fogs. The town was dull. It is much now as it was then ; one of those places that are the links between towns and villages. Its present population is only 2,300. In such a place, therefore, every man knew all his neighbours' concerns. It was too exposed a place for a man of Cowjjer's shy disposition, and yet had none of that bustle which gives a stimulus to get out of it into the country. Removing from it to the country was but passing from stillness to stillness. The country around Olney, moreover, is by no means striking in its features. It is like a thousand other parts of England, somewhat flat, yet somewhat undulating, and rather naked of trees. AVeston, to which he now removed, was about a mile west- ward of Olney. It lies on higher gi-ound, overlooking the valley of the Ouse. It is a small village, consisting of a few detached houses on each side of the road. The Hall stood at this end, and the neat httle church at the other. Trees grew along the street, and Cowper pronounced it one of the prettiest villages of England. Luckily he had neither seen all the villages of England, nor the finest scenery of this or other countries. To him, therefore, the country was all that he imagined of lovely, and all that he desired. It never tired, it never lost its hold upon his fancy and his heart. " Scenes must be beautiful, which daily viewed Please daily, and where novelty survives Long knowledge, and the scrutiny of years. Praise justly due to those that I describe." This he said of this scenery around Weston ; and in setting out fur that village from Olney, we take the track which, even before ho went to live there, was his daily and peculiarly favourite walk. Advancing out of Olney street, we are at once on an open ascent on the highway. At a mile's distance before us lie AVeston and its woods ; its little church-tower overlooking the valley of the Ouse. Beliind us lies Olney, its tall church spire rising nobly into the sky ; and close beneath it the Ouse emerges into sight, sweeping round the water-mills which figure in the poet's works, and then goes in several different streams, as he says, lazily along a fine stretch of green meadows, in which the scenes of The Dog and Water-lily, and The Poplar Field occur. On this eminence stood Cowper often, with Mary Unwin on his arm ; and thus he addresses her, as he describes most vividly the view : — " And witness, dear companion of my walks, Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive Fast locked in mine, with pleasure sucli as love. Confirmed by long experience of tliy worth And well-tried virtues could alone inspire — Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long. Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjured up To serve occssions of poetic pomp, But genuine, and art partner of tliem all. How oft upon yon eminence our pace Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, While admiration, feeding at the eye, And still unsated dwelt upon the scene! Thence with what pleasure we have just disterned 27o COWl'ER. Tlio distant plough slow moving, and beside His labouring team, that swerved not from the trace, The sturdy swain diminished to a boy ; Here Ouso slow winding through a level plain Of spacious mead, with cattle sprinkled o'er, Conducts the eye along his sinuous course Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms, That screen the herdsman's solitary hut ; While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, The sloping land recedes into the clouds ; Displaying on its varied side the grace Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, 1'all spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells Just undulates upon the listening ear. Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote." We sliould not omit to notice that behind us, over Olney, shows itself the church tower and hall of Clifton, the attempt to walk to which forms the subject of Cowper's very humorous poem, The Distressed Travellers. Before us, as we advance, — the Ouse meadows below on our left, and plain, naked farm-lands, on our right, — the park of Weston displays its lawns, and slopes, and fine masses of trees. It will be recollected by all lovers of Cowper that here lived Sir John and Lady Throckmorton, Cowper's kind and cordial friends, who, even before they knew him, threw oi>en their park and all their domains to him ; and who, when they did know him, did all that generous people of wealth and intelligence could do to contribute to his happiness. The village and estate here wholly belonged to them, and the hall was a second home to Cowper, always open to him with a warm welcome, and an easy, unassuming spirit of genuine friend- .ship ; Lady Throckmorton herself voluntarily becoming the tran- scriber of his Homer, when his young friend, Rose, left him. In the whole of our literature there is no more beautiful instance of the intercourse of the literary man and his wealthy neighbours, than that of Cowper and the Throckmortons. Their reward was the pleasure they conferred ; and still more, the fame they have thus won. The Throckmortons having other and extensive estates, the suc- cessors of Cowper's friends have deserted this. The house is pulled down, a wall is built across the bottom of the court-yard, which cuts off from view what was the garden. Grass grows thickly in the court, the entrance to which is still marked by the pillars of a gate- way bearing vases. Across the court arc erected a priest's house and Catholic chapel, — the Throckmortons were and are Catholic, — and beyond these still stand the stables, coach-house, &c., bearing a clock- tower, and showing that this was once a gentleman's residence. At the end of the old thatched outbuilding you see the word school painted ; it is the village school — Catholic, of course, as are all, or nearly all, the inhabitants. A pair of gateway pillars, like those Avhich led to the house, mark the entrance to the village a little beyond the house. On the opposite side of the road to the house is the park, and, directly opposite to the house, being taken out of the park, is the woodland wilderness in which Cowper so much delighted to ramble. COWPER. 277 The house of Cowper, Wcstou Lodge, stands ou the right hand, about the centre of the village, adjoining a picturesque old orchard. The trees, which in his time stood in the street opposite, however, have been felled. A few doors on this side of the Lodge is a public- house, with the Yardly Oak upon its sign, and bearing the name of Cowper's Oak. The Lodge is a good and pleasant, but not large house. The vignette at the head of this article represents the tree opposite as still standing, which is not the fact. The room on the right hand was Cowper's study. In his bedroom, which is at the back of the house overlooking the garden, still remain two lines, which he wrote when about to leave VVeston for Norfolk, where he died. As his farewell to this place, the happiest of his life, when his own health, and that of his dear and venerable friend, ]\Irs. Unwin, were both failing, and gloomy feelings haunted him, these lines possess a deep interest. They are written on the bevel of a panel of one of the window shutters, near the top right-hand corner ; and when the shutter has been repainted, this part has been carefully excepted. " Farewell, deav scenes, for ever closed to me! Oh for what sorrow must I now exchaiiire you ? Julv 22. — — even here 28 \ 1795 July 22 J 1795." The words and dates stand just as here given, and mark his recur- i-ence to these lines, and his restless state of mind, repeating the tlate of both month and year. From this room Cowper used to have a view of his favourite shrubbery, and beyond it, up the hill, pleasant crofts. The shrubbery was generally admired, being a dehghtful little labyrinth, composed of flowering shrubs, with gravel walks, and seats placed at appro- I)riate distances. He gave a humorous account to Hayley of the erection of one of these arbours. " I said to Sam, ' Sam, build me a shed in the garden with anything you can find, and make it rude and rough, like one of those at Eartham.' ' Yes, sir,' says Sam ; and straightway laying his own noddle and the carpenter's togethei-, has built me a thing fit for Stowe gardens. Is not this vexatious ? I threaten to inscribe it thus : — Beware of building ! I intended Rough logs and thatch, and thus it ended." All this garden has now been altered. A yard has been made behind, with outbuildings, and the garden cut oft" with a brick wall. Not far from this house a narrow lane turns up, enclosed on one side by the park wall. Through this old stone wall, now well crowned with masses of ivy, there used to be a door, of which Cowper had a key, which let him at once into the wilderness. In this wilderness, which is a wood grown full of underwood, through which walks are cut winding in all directions, you come upon what is called the Temple. This is an open Gothic alcove, having in front an open .space, scattci-ed with some trees, amongst them a fine old acacia, and closed in by the thick wood. Here Cowper used to sit 278 COWPER. much, delighted with the perfect and deep seclusion. The t-emplo is now fast falling to decay. Through a short windiug walk to the left you come out to the park, which is separated from the wilder- ness by a sunk fence. A broad grass walk runs along the head of this fosse, between it and the wilderness, and here you find the two urns luider the trees, which mark the grave of two favourite dogs of the Throckmortons, for which Cowper condescended to write epitaphs, which still remain, and may be found in his poems. There is also a figure of a lion, couchant, on a pedestal, bearing thi.s inscription : "Mortuo Leone etiam Lepores insultant, 1815." From this point also runs out the tine lime avenue, of at least a quarter of a mile long, terminated by the alcove. Every scene, and every spot of ground which pi-esents itself here, is to be found in Cowper's poetry, particularly in the first book of his Task — The Sofa. The Sofa was but a hook to hang his theme upon ; his real theme is his walk through this park and its neighbourhood, jjarticu- larly this fine avenue, closing its boughs above with all the solemn and insi)iring grace of a Gothic cathedral aisle. To the right the park descends in a verdant slope, scattered with noble trees. There, in the valley, near the road to Olney, is the Spinny, with its rustic moss-house, haunted by Cowper ; and where he wrote those verses full of the deepest, saddest melancholy which ever oppressed a guilt- less heart, beginning, — " Oh, happy shades, to me unhlest! Friendly to peace, but not to me! How ill the scene that offers rest. And heart, that cannot rest, agree ! " There, too, in the valley, but where it has freed itself from the wood, is the rustic bridge, equally celebrated by him ; and beyond it in the fields, the Peasant's Nest, now grown from a labourer's cottage, shrouded in trees, to a considerable farm-house, with its ricks and buildings, conspicuous on an open eminence. Still beyond are the woods of Yardly Chase, including those of Kilwick and Dinglebury, well known to the readers of Cowper ; and this old chase stretches away for four or five miles towards Castle Ashby. In traversing the park to reach the woods and Yardly Oak, we come into a genuinely agricultural region, where a sort of peopled solitude is enjoyed. Swelling, rounded eminences, with little valleys winding between them ; here and there a farm-house of the most rustic description ; the plough and its whistling follower turning up the ruddy soil ; and the park, displaying from its hills and dells its contrast of nobly umbrageous trees, showed where Cowper had often delighted himself, and whence he had drawn much of his imagery. " Now roves the eye ; And posted on tliis speculative height Exults in its command. The sheepfold here Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe. At first, progressive as a stream, they seek The middle field ; but scattered by degrees. Each to his choice, soon whitens all the land. There from the sun-burnt hay-field homeward creeps COWPER. 279 • The loaded wain ; while, lightened of its charge. The wain that meets it passes swiftly by ; The boorish driver leaning o'er his team, ■Vociferous, and impatient of delay. Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, Diversified with trees of every growth, Alike, yet various. How the grey, smooth trunks Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine Within the twiliglit of their distant shades : There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs." Tlie Task, book i. At this point of view you find the poet's praises of the scenery more fully justified than anywhere else. The park here has a solemn, solitary, splendidly wooded air, and spreads its green slopes, and gives hints of its secluded dells, that are piquant to the imagination. And still the walk, of a mile or more, to the ancient chase is equally impressive. The vast extent of the forest which stretches before you gives a deep feeling of silence and ancient repose. You descend into a valley, and Ejlwick's echoing wood spreads itself before you on the upland. You pass through it, and come out opposite to a lonely farm-house, where, in the opening of the forest, you see the remains of very ancient oaks standing here and there. You feel that you are on a spot that has maintained its connexion with the world of a thousand years ago ; and amid these venerable trees, you .soon see the one which by its bulk, its hollow trunk, and its lopped and dilapidated crown, needs not to be pointed out as the Yardly Oak. Here Cowper was fond of sitting within the hollow boll for liours ; ai'ound him stretching the old woods, with their solitude and the cries of woodland birds. The fame which he has conferred on this tree has nearly proved its destruction. Whole arms and great pieces of its trunk have been cut away with knife, and axe, and saw, to prepare different articles from. The Marquis of Northampton, to whom the chase belongs, has had multitudes of nails driven in to stop the progress of this destraction, but finding that not sufficient, has affixed a board bearing this inscription : — " Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of Northampton is l)articularly desirous of preserving this oak. Notice is hereby given, that any person defacing, or otherwise injuring it, will be prosecuted according to law." In stepping round the Yardly oak, it appeared to me to be, at the foot, about thirteen yards in circumference. Every 5tep here shows you some picture sketched by Cowper, " I see a column of slow rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there cat Their miserable meal. A kettle slung Ketween two poles upon a stick transverse. Receives the morsel — flesh obscene of dog. Or vermin, or at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race ! They pick their fuel out of every hedge, AVhich kindled with dry leaves just saves unquenched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The yc'Jura of the pedigree they claim." 280 COWPER. Wo aro now upon ■' " The grassy sward, close cropped by nibbling sheep, And skirted thick vith intennixture firm or tlioniy boughs." Tlic (ikl wild chase opens its glades, discovers its heaths, startles 113 with its abrupt cries of birds, or plunges us into the gloom of thick overshadowing oaks. It is a fit haunt of the poet. Such arc the haunts of Cowper in this neighbourhood. Amid these, his was a secluded but an active and most important existence. How many of those who bustle along in the front of public life can boast of a ten -thousandth jjart of the benefit to their fellow-men which was conferred, and for ages will be conferred, by the loiterer of these woods and fields ? In no man was his own doctrine ever made more ""anifest, that " God gives to every man Tlie virtue, teinper, understanding, taste, That lifts him into life, and lets him fall Just in the niche he was ordained to fill." He says of himself — " I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I joined by one, who had himself Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. With gentle force soliciting the darts. He drew them forth, and healed, and baVie me live. Since then, with few associates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene, With few associates, and not wishing more." Thus he began ; but, soothed by the sweet freshness of nature, .strengthened by liar peace, enlightened to the pitch of true wisdom by her daily converse, spite of all his griefs and fears, he ended by describing himself, in one of the noblest passages of modern poetry, as the happy man. Quitting these scenes in quest of health, both the poet and his dear friend Mary Unwin died at Dereham, in Norfolk ; she in 1796, and he in 1800. '' They were lovely in their lives, and in death ihay ire not divided," MRS. TIGHE, THE AUTHOR OF PSYCHE. i"'iiRHAPS uo writer of merit has been more ueglected by her OuJi fi lends than Mrs. Tighe. With everj means of giving to the public a good memoir of her, 1 believe no such is in existence ; at all events, 1 have not been able to find one. The following brief particulars have been furnished by a private hand : " Mrs. Tighe was born in Ijublin, in 1774. Her father, the Eev. WiUiam Blachford, was Hbrariau oJ Marsh's hbrary, St. Sepulchre, in that city. Her mother, Theo- d'jsia Tighe, was one of a family whose seat has been, and is, Eosanna, ccunty Wicklow. In 179:3, Miss Blachford, then but nineteen, mar- ried her cousin, Henry Tighe, of "Woodstock, M.P. for Kilkenny in the Irish Parliament, and author of a County History of Kilkenny. Consumption was hereditary in Mrs. Tighe's family, and its fatal seeds ripened with her womanhood. She was constantly afflicted with its attendants, languor, depression, and want of appetite. With the profits of Psyche, which ran through four editions previous to her death, she built an addition to the Oi-phan Asylum in Wicklow, thence called the Psyche ward. She died on the 24th of March, 1810, and was buried at Woodstock, in Kilkenny, beneath a monument by riaxman, from the finest marble of Italj'. ]\Lrs. Hemans, Banim, and Moore, h&ve done homage to her genius, or lamented over its eclipse North, in the ' Noctes Ambrosiantc,' with the assistance of Mr. Timothy Tickler, has paid her a very high compliment. But her abilities, her beauty, and her virtue, have not, as yet, been adequately lectured in any biographical notice of her that I have seen. The 1813 edition of Psyche contains some aft'ecting allusions to her, in the preface written Ijy her husband, who soon after followed her to the grave." How little is known of Mrs. Tighe, when so short an account is the best that a countryman of hers can furnish ! and even in that there are serious errors. So far from her monument being of the; finest marble of Italy, it is of a stone not finer than Portland stone, if so fine. So far from her husband soon following her to the gravc', Mrs. Tighe died in 1810, and her husband was living at the time of Mrs. Hemans's visit to Woodstock in 1831. He must have survived :iS2 SIRS. TIGHE. her above twenty years. In Mrs. Hemans'a own account of her visit to Woodstock, she speaks of it as the place where " Mrs. Tigho passed the latest years of her Hfe, and near where she is buried ;" yet in the same vohime with Psyche, (1811 edition, p. 306,) there is a " Sonnet, written at Woodstock, in the county of Kilkenny, the seat of AVilliam Tiglie, June 30, 1809," i.e. only nine months before her death. For myself, I confess my ignorance of the facts which might connect these strangely clashing accounts of a popular poetess, of a wealthy family, and who died little more than forty years ago. I hoped to gain the necessary information on the spot, which I rnade a long journey purposely to visit. Why I did not, remains to tell. The puem of Psyche was one which charmed me intensely at an early age. There was a tone of deep and tender feeling pervading it, which touched the youthful heart, and took possession of every sensibility. There was a tone of melancholy music in it, which seemed the regretful expression of the consciousness of a not far-off death. It was now well known that the young and beautiful poetess ■iras dead. The life which she lived — crowned with every good and grace that God confers on the bright ones of the earth, on those who are to be living revelations of the heaven to which w^e are called, and to which they are hastening, youth, beauty, fortune, all glorified by the emanations of a transcendent mind — was snatched away, and there was a sad fascination thrown over both her fate and her work. The delicacy, the pathos, the subdued and purified, yet intense passion of the poem, were all calculated to seize on the kindred spirit of youth, luid to make you in love with the writer. She came before the imagination in the combined witchery of brilliant genius, and the pure loveliness of a seraph, which had but touched upon the earth on some celestial mission, and was gone for ever. Her own Psyche, in the depth of her saddest hour, yearning for the restoration of the lost heaven and the lost heart, was not more tenderly beautiful to the imagination than herself. Such was the effect of the Psyche on the glowing, sensitive, ye't immature mind. How much of this effect has in many cases been the result of the quick feelings and magnifying fancy of youth itself ! We have returned to our idol in later years, and found it clay. But this is not the case with Psyche. After the lapse of many years, after the disenchanting effects of experience, after the enjoyment of a vast quantity of new poetry of a splendour and power such as no one age of the world ever before witnessed, we return to the poem of Mrs. Tighe, and still find it full of beauty. There is a graceful fluency of diction, a rich and deep harmony, that are the fitting vehicle of a story full of interest, and scenery full of enchantment. Spite of the incongruity of engrafting on a Grecian fable the knight- errantry of the ]\Iiddle Ages, and the allegory of still later days, we follow the deeply-tried Psyche through all her ordeals with unabat- ing zest. The radiant Island of Pleasure, the more radiant Divinity of Love, the fatal curiosity, the weeping and outcast Psyche wander- ing on through the forests and wildernesses of her eartiily penance. MRS. TIGIIE. 283 the myaterious kuight, the intrepid squire of the starry brow, are all sketched with the genuine pencil of poetry, and we follow the fortunes of the wanderers with ever-deepening entrancement. None but Spenser himself has excelled Mrs. Tighe in the field of allegory. Passion in the form of the lion subdued by the Knight ; Psyche betrayed by Vanity and Flattery to Ambition ; the Bower of Loose Delight ; the attacks of Slander ; the Castle of Suspicion ; the Court of Spleen ; the drear Island of Indifierence ; and the final triumph and apotheosis of the gentle soul, — are all vigorously con- ceived, and executed with a living distinctness. The pleasm-e with which she pursued her task is expressed in the graceful opening stanzas of the fifth canto. " Delightful visions of my lonely hours! Cliarm of my life and solace of my care! Oh ! would the muse but lend proportioned powers, And give me language equal to declare The wonders which she bids my fancy share, Vi'hen wrapt in her to other worlds I lly ; See angel forms unutterably fair, And hear the inexpressive harmony That seems to lloat in air, and warble through the sky. " Might I the swiftly-glancing scenes recall ! Bright as the roseate clouds of summer eve. The dreams which hold my soul in willing thrall. And h.ilf my visionary days deceive, C"ommunicai)le shape might then receive, And other hearts be ravished with the strain ; But scarce I seek the airy threads to weave. When quick confusion mocks the fruitless j.ain, And all the airy forms are vanished from my brain. " Fond dreamer! meditate thine idle song! But let thine idle song remain unknown ; Tlie verse which cheers thy solitude, prolong ; What though it charm no moments but thy own. Though thy loved Psyche smile for thee alone, Still shall it yield thee pleasure, if not fame ; And when, escaped from tumult, thou hast flown To tliy dear silent hearth's enlivening llama. Then shall the tranquil muse her happy votary claim ! " Moore has recorded his admiration of Psyche in a lyric of which these stanzas are not the least expressive. •' Tell me the witching tale again, For never has my heart or ear Hung on so sweet, so pure a strain, So pure to feel, so sweet to hear. " Say, Love ! in all thy spring of fame, When the high Heaven itself was thine, When piety confessed the flame. And even thy errors were divine! " Did ever muse's hand so fair A glory round thy temple spread 1 Did ever life's ambrosial air Such perfume o'er thine altars shed.'" Mrs. Hemans had always been much struck with the poetry of ^Mrs. Tighe. She imagined a similarity between the destiny of this pen- .sive poetess and her own. She had her in her imagination when she wrote The Grave of a Poetess ; and the concluding stanzas ara particularly descriptive of Mra. Tighe's spirit. h 5^84 MRS. TIGHE. " Thou hast left sorrow in thy song, A voice not loud but deep! Tiie ^'loiious howcrs of cartli amonir, How often didst tliou weep ! " Wliere couldst thou fix on mortal .cround, Thy tender thouglits and liifrh ? Now peace tlie woman's lieart liath foinul, And joy the poet's eye ! " ' It was certaiuly among earth's glorious bowers that !Mrs. Tighe passed her days. Eosanna, in Wicklow, is snid to have been her principal residence after her marriage. The whole country round is extremely beautiful, and calculated to call forth the poetic faculty Avhcre it exists. All the way from Dublin to Eosanna is through a rich and lovely district. It is a gold district, much gold being found in its streams upwards of thirty years ago, the getting of which was put a stop to by Government. As you approach Eosanna the hills become higher, and your way lies through the most beautifully wooded valleys. At the inn at Ashford-bridge you have the celebrated Devil's-glen on one hand, and Eosanna on the other. This glen lies a mile or more from the inn, and is about a mile and a half through. It is narrow, the hills on either hand are lofty, bold, craggy, and finely wooded ; and along the bottom runs, deep and dark over its rocky bed, the river Vartree. Tliis river runs down and crosses the road near the inn, and then takes its way by Eosanna. Eosanna is perhaps a mile down the valley from the inn. The house is a plain old brick house, fit for a country squire. It lies low in the meadow near the river, and around it, on both sides of the water, the slopes arc dotted with the most beautiful and luxuriant trees. The park at Eosanna is indeed eminently beautiful with its wood. The trees are thickly scattered, and a great proportion of them are lime, the soft delicate foliage of Avhich gives a peculiar character to the scenery. The highway, for the whole length of the park as you proceed towards Eathdrum, is completely arched over with magnificent beeches, presenting a fine iiatural arcade. On the right, the ground ascends for a mile or more, covered with rich masses of wood. In fact, whichever way you turn, towards the distant hills, or pursuing your way down the_ valley, all is one fairy land of beauty and richness. It is a region worthy of the author of Psyche, worthy to inspire her beau- tiful mind ; and we rejoice that so fair, and gentle, and good a spirit had there her lot cast. In her poems she addresses one to the Vartree : — " Sweet are thy banks, O Vartree ! when at morn Their velvet verdure glistens with the dew; AVhcn fragrant gales, by softest zephyrs borne, Unfold the flowers, and ope their petals new. " And sweet thy shade, at noon's more fervid hours, When faint we quit the upland gayer lawn. To seek the freshness of tliy sheltering bowers. Thy chestnut glooms, where day can scarcely dawn. " Beneath the fragrant lime, or spreading beech. The bleating flocks in panting crowds repose; Their voice alone my dark retreat can reacli. While peace and silence all my soul compose." MRS. TIGHE, 285 In her sonnets, too, sbe alludes to lier favourite Rosanna, and to her " chestnut bower," which, I behave, still remains. Indeed Rosanna will always be interesting to the lovers of gentle female virtue and pure genius, because here Psyche was written ; here the author of Psycho lived, loved, and suffered. Woodstock, where she died, lies, I suppose, forty or fifty mile« distant, in Kilkenny. It is equally beautiful, though in a different style. It lies on a high, round, swelling hill, — a good modern man- sion. You see it afar off" as you drive over a country less beautiful than that about Rosanna. There is a fine valley, along which the river Nore runs, amid splendid masses of wood, two miles in length, and meadows of the deepest green ; and beyond swells up the steep round hill, covered also with fine timber to the top, eight hundred feet in elevation. The whole is bold, ample, and impressive. To reach the house, you pass through the village of Innerstiogue, at the foot of the hill, and then begin the long and steep ascent. A con- siderable way up you are ai-rested by smart lodge gates, and there enter a fine and well kept park, in which the neatness of the carriage roads, which are daily swept, and the skilfully dispersed masses of line trees, speak of wealth, and a pride in it. On the top of the hill stands the house, commanding noble views down into the superb vale below, and over a wide extent of country. In travelling between these two estates, a mind like that of Mrs. Tighe would find scenery not inferior to that immediately lying around both of them. In one direction she might traverse the cele- In-ated district of Glendalough, or the vale of the Seven Churches ; in another she might descend the vale of Avoca, and cross some of Ihe finest parts of Carlow to Kilkenny. I took this latter route. i\u part of England is m.o.re beautiful, or more richly cultivated than much of this : thick woods, fertile fields, well-to-do villages, and gentlemen's houses abounded. From the little town of Rathdrum wo began to descend rapidly into the vale of Avoca, and passed the ^Meeting of the Waters just before dark. The vale, so far, had a very different character to what I expected. I imagined it to be a mile or two long, soft, flowing, and verdant. On the contrary, it is eight miles in length, and has to me a character of greatness and exten- siveness about it. It is what the Germans call ^^ grosmriig^'' — we want the word. You descend down and down, and feel that a deeper comitry is still below you. To me it had a feeling as if descending from the Alps into a champaign country. Long ranges of hills on either hand ever and anon terminated, as if to admit of a way into the country beyond, and then began again, with the river wandering on still far below us ; and here and there stupendous masses of lofty rock, open meadows, and bold, high woods. These were the features of this striking and great valley. At the bridge, where the first meeting of the waters takes place, that is, the meeting of the two streams, Avonbeg and Avonmore, which thence become the Avoca, the driver of the car said — " Perhaps your honour knows that this is the Meeting of the Waters. It wa< Iiere that Moore made his speech ! " 28G MRS. IIGHK. But the most striking meeting to us was a meeting with i great number of one-horse carts, those of miners, with whom this vale abounds. They were coming up from a market at Avoca, just below, and they took no more notice of being all exactly in our way than if we were not there. The driver shouted, but in vain ; and it was only by using his whip over them till he broke oft" the lash that he could get a passage. When they did draw out of the way, it was always purposely to the wrong side. The fact is, they were all drunk, and seemed to have a very animal doggedness of disposition about them. The Wooden Bridge inn, at the bottom of the vale, and at the commencement of the vale of Arklow, and the place of the second meeting of the waters, is the great resort of travellers. The scene here has much softness. A bend of the valley, an opening of rich meadow, surrounded by hills thickly clothed with foliage, and the rivers running on to their meeting, give a feeling of great and quiet seclusion. Hei-e I posted, as I have said, across Carlow to Kilk(?nny, and to Woodstock. But at Rosanna and at Woodstock, my hope of obtaining some in- formation regarding Mrs. Tighe, of seeing some iiaintiug, or other object connected with her, was, with one exception, thoroughly frustrated. Mrs. Tighe was an angel ;— of her successors I have somewhat more to say. In all my visits to remarkable places in England, I have received the utmost courtesy from the proprietors of those houses and scenes which it was my object to see. In those where I was anxious to obtain sight of relics of celebrated persons of antiquity not ordinarily shown to the public, I have written to the owner to request opportunity of examining them. In such cases, noblemen of the highest rank have not, in a single instance, shown the slightest reluctance to contribute to that information which was for the public. In some cases they have themselves gone down into the country to give me the meeting, and thrown open private cabinets, and the like depositories of rare objects, with the most active liberality. In every other case, so invariably have I found the most obligmg facilities given for the prosecution of my inquiries, that I have long ceased to carry a letter of introduction ; my name alone being considered warranty enough. I found it equally so in Ireland, except with the Tighes. At Rosanna, Mr. Dan Tighe, as the people familiarly call him, cer- tainly not Dante, was pointed out to me by a woikman, walking in the meadow before his house, handling his bullocks which grazed there. On asking the servant who came to the door whether Mr. Tighe was at home, he first, as a perfect tactician, requested my name, and he would see. I gave him my card ; and though he could see his master as well as 1 could in the meadow, to whom I directed his attention, he very solemnly marched into the house, and returnetl, Baying he was not in. A self-evident truth. I inquired if Mrs. Tighe was at home, explaining that I had come from England, and for what object. He said, " Yes, but she was lymg in, and could see no one." I then inquired when ]\Ir. Tighe might be expected in, as I should much regret losing the opportunity of learning from him any parti- MRS. TIGHE. 287 culars couuccttJ with my present iuquiiy. " He could not say ; — most likely at six o'clock, his dinner hour." I promised to call on my way towards Avoca, about half-an-hour before that time, that I might not interfere with Mr. Tighe's dinner hour. I did so. Mr. Tighe was now standing in his field, not a hundred yards from his house. As soon as the servant appeared, he assured me Mr. Tighc was not at home ; he could not tell where he was. I immediately directed his attention to where he stood looking at some men at work. The man did not choose to see him ; and, under the circum- stances, it was not for me to advance and address him. It was evident that the man had his cue ; the master did not choose to be seen. I therefore mounted my car, and ordered the driver to drive off. The spirit of the place was palpable. A willing master makes a willing man. Well, as Mr. Tighe was walkuu/ out, and ]\Irs. Tighc was li/bir/ in, I bade adieu to Rosanna, not much wiser for my visit ; • — but then there was Woodstock. 1 drove fifty miles across the country, and found myself at the door of Woodstock. Woodstock is a show house ; and here, there- fore, I anticipated no difficulty of at least obtaining a sight of the portrait or .statue of the late charming poetess. But unfortunately, — what in England would have been most fortunate, — ]\Ir. Tighe was at home, and the servant on opening the door at once informed mo that the house was never shown when the family was there. Having written on my card what was my object, that I had made the journey from England for it, and added the name of a gentleman well known to Mr. Tighe, who had wished me to do so, I requested the servant to present it to Mr. Tighe. He did so ; and returned saying, " Mr. Tighe said I was at liberty to see the ground.?, but not the house ; and he had nothing further to say ! " My astoni.shment may be imagined. The servant seemed a very decent, modest sort of fellow, and I said — " Good heavens ! does Mr. Tighe think I am come all the way from England to see his grounds when ten thousand country squires could show much finer ? AVas there no picture of Mrs. Tighe, the poetess, that I might be allowed to see ? " " He thought not ; he did not know." " Was there no statue ? " " He thought not ! he never heard of any." How long had he been there ? " " Five years." " And never heard of a statue or a monument to Mrs. Tighe, the poetess ? " " No, never ! He had never heard Mrs. Tighe the poetess spoken of in the family ! But if there were any monument, it must be at tho church at Innerstiogue ! " I thanked him for his intelligence, the only glimpse of information I had got at Rosanna, or Woodstock, and drove off. The matter was now clear. The very servants who had lived years in the family had never heard the name of Mrs. Tighe, the poetess, mentioned ! These present Tighes had been mari-ying the daughters of lords — this a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and Dan Tighe, n daughter of Lord Crofton. They were ashamed, probably, that any of their name should have degraded herself by writing poetry, which a man or woman without an acre may do. When I reached tha 288 MRS. TIQHE. cLui'i.h at luucrsitiogue, the matter received a most strikiiig coii- tirmatiou. There, sure enough, was the monumeut, in a small mausoleum in the churchyard. It is a recumbent figure, laid on a granite altar-shaped basement. The ligure is of a freestone resembling Portland stone, and is lying on its side as on a sofa, being said, by the person Avho showed it, to be the position in which she died, on coming in from a walk. The execution of the whole is very ordinary, and if really by Flaxman, displays none of his genius. I have seen much better things by a common stonemason. There is a httle angel sitting at the head, but this has never been fastened down by cement. The monument was, no doubt, erected by the widower of the poetess, who was a man of classical taste, and, I believe, much attached to hei-. There was no inscription yet put upon the tomb, though one, said to be written by her husband, had long been cut in stone for the purpose. In the wall at the back of the monument, aloft, there was an oblong-square hole left for this inscrip- tion, which I understood was lying about at the house, but no single effort had been made to put it up, though it would not require an liour's work, and though ISIrs. Tighe had been then dead six and thirty years ! This was decisive! If these two gentlemen, nephews of the poetess, who are enjoying the two splendid estates of the family, Woodstock and Rosanna, show thus little respect to the only one of their name that ever lifted it above the mob, it is not to be expected that they will show much courtesy to strangers. AVell is it that Mrs. Tighe raised her own monument, that of immortal verse, and •UTote her own epitaph, in the hearts of all the pure and loving, not on a stone which sordid relatives, still fonder of earth than stone, may consign to the oblivion of a lumber-room. That these nephews of the poetess do look after the earth which her husband left behind him, though not after the stone, I learned while waiting in the village for the sexton. I fell into conversation with the woman at the cottage by which I stood. It was a^ foUows: — . ^g//:_«Well, your landlord has a tine estate here, i hope he is good to you." J, TFoman.—" Well, your honour, very good, very good. ^ Self.—" Very good ? What do you call very good ? I tind Lnghsli and Irish notions of goodness don't always agree." JFoimn.—" Well, your honour, wo may say he is mixed ; mixed, your honour." Self.—" How mixed ? " Woman. — " Why, your honour, you sec I can't say that he was very good to me." &//:—" How was that ?" . Woman. — "Why, your honour, we were backward in our rent, and tlje squire sent for my husband, and told him that if he did not pay all next quarter, be would sell us up. ]\Iy husbaud begged he would MRS. i'lUHE. 2SS) give hiin a little more time, as a neighbour said lie r.'ad some money left liim, and would take part of our land at a good rent, and then ■we should be able to pay ; but now we got little, and the children were many, and it was hard to meet and tie. ' Oh ! ' said the squire, * if you are going to get all that money, j^ou will be able to pay more I'ent. I must have two pounds a-ycar more ! ' " ,%//:_« But, surely, he did no such thing?" Womc'd. — " 13ut he did it, your honour. The neighbom* had no money — it was a hum ; he never took the field of us at all ; we never were able to get a penny more from any one than we gave ; but when my husband went to pay the rent at the next rent-day, the steward would not take it. He said he had orders to have two pounds a-year more ; and from that day we have had it regularly to pay." What a fall out of the poetry of Psyche to the iron realities of Ireland ! Since the publication of the first edition, I have received a little information respecting Mrs. Tighe. Mrs. Ehnor Ward, of Southamp- ton, who states herself to be the daughter of the first cousin to Mrs. Henry Tighe, who was brought up as a sister with her, has kindly forwarded the following particulars. The Rev. William Blachford, the father of Mrs. Tighe, she says, was not only librarian of Marsh's library, but rector of St. Werburgh's church, in Dublin. That he died of a fever, leaving a family of ten young children. Mrs. Ward asserts that consumption was not in the Blachford family ; and that Mrs. Tighe's works were not published till after her death, and that the proceeds of the sale went to the fimds for the support of an institution founded and established by her mother, Mrs. Blachford, in Dublin, and called " The House of Eefuge," intended for a home for female servants out of place, and educating them for service. This is totally at variance with the account already given ; yet it should be correct, for Mrs. Ward adds — " When I said ]\Irs. Tighe' .s works were not published till after her death, I should have excepted twelve copies of 'Psyche,' which she had printed herself for her nearest and dearest friends, of whom my mother was one. I have the little volume now in my possession, with my mother's name written by Mrs. Tighe, and a portrait of her, given by Mrs. Blach- ford as the highest token of affection to my mother, her niece ; and ]\Irs. Blachford considered it the best that had been taken of her daughter." As to the mode of her death, Mrs. Ward says — " For many years previous to her death, Mrs. Tighe had lost all power of movement in her legs and feet, and was carried from room to room. She could iiot, therefore, have died on her return from a walk ; nor did she die in the attitude represented in the monument erected to her memory at Woodstock. She died in the position in which, for some time before her death, she had been accustomed to sleep, — sitting on a low stool, leaning back in the easy-chair in which she used to sit occasionally." The Eev. C. Bathurst Woodman has also very kindly forwarded to me a mamisci-ipt letter of the Eev, S. Pierce, who si>ent some time ir 2!»() MKS. TIGHK. tho family at Rosaniia, aud was particularly struck with Mrs. Henry Ti'^hc, the author of rsvclie. The whole account is highly interest- in° and perhaps contains more information respecting the family than the public is likely to obtain. The letter is addressed by tlie reverend gentleman to his wife. It is dated July, 1796 : — _ " I had heard nuich of the county of Wicklow, as containing the most romantic views and enchanting scenes in Ireland, and especially iui estate called Eosanna, where a very opulent family reside of the name of Tighe, and where every external pleasure oifered itself to the various senses of the happy visitants. " You may suppose that I was not without a wish to see this Eden of delights, and little thought of realizing my desires ; when, to my pleasing astonishment, I received a letter of invitation from Dr. M'Dowall, written at I\Irs. Tighe's request, to spend some days at liosanna. '•' I went down last Monday, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Kelly ; the former a son of Judge Kelly, the latter a daughter of Mrs. Tighe. I tarried there till yesterday morning ; but oh, the enrapturing I)lace ! It is impossible for me to describe it. Never did my ima- gination paint Paradise itself so full of Nature's sweets. Everything that could gratify the most delicate taste abounds there ; the ear, the eye, the smell, all were charmed at once. Nature in her richest fohage, her most varied beauty, her truest dignity, and amid her sweetest perfumes, literally displayed herself in this charming demesne ; while the combined family produced tlie same effect upon the heart within doors, that Nature does upon the senses without. " Mrs. Tighe is a widow lady of about forty-five years of age, of strong sense, friendly manners, and, above all, with a heart warmly devoted to religion. She has three sons : one has a seat in the House of Parliament ; the youngest lives with her ; another, Mr. Henry Tighe, having lately married, is building himself a house near his mother's. Of all the men I ever saw, I never was so much interested at the glance of a moment as when my eyes first fell on him. I fancied I perceived all the dignity and frankness of a Koman in his countenance and bearing ; nor was I disappointed. I found him the idol of all his acquaintance. One thing alone he wants — oh, that Heaven would bless him with it ! — the one thing needful. His lady is young, lovely, and of sweet manners, united with as sweet a form. She entered the room, soon after I came to Rosanna, with a chaplet of roses about her head. * Where,' I thought, * were the beauties of the garden and the parlour so united before V Indeed, 1 felt myself as on enchanted ground, amused with a pleasing dream, too romantic to be true. " Three ladies besides form the female division of the family ; the eldest is ilrs. Kelly. She is not distinguished by the regularity of her features, nor the delicacy of her complexion ; but her mind is enriched with such stores of grammatical, classical, philosophical, and historical knowledge, as I never met with in one of her sex before. She paints admirably. I do not pretend to be a connoisseur in painting ; but, as well as 1 could judge, she unites the boldness of MRS. TIGHE. 291 Reyuolds with the iuiagiuatiou and delicacy of a Cypriani, and the flowing pencil of a Kubeus. I noticed a Jewish high-priest, whom I saw in the synagogue last year, and two other gentlemen of London, who had sat at her request. With all these accomplishments, she dis- covers a modesty and humiUty which, united with a strong under- standing and a devout heart, set her as far above the common level of mortals as the summit of the Alps rises superior to the vale* below. " Miss Caroline is remarkable for nothing but an amazing vivacity and continual flow of spirits, imless it be those accomplishments which are common to the family— a fluency in the French language, and an elegant touch of the harpsichord and organ. The third female is a cousin ; but I was not enough in her company to ascei'- taiu much of her character. The last thing she talked to me about was the wish she had to enter a nunnery, and take the veil. Her ilisposition seems naturally recluse, though not unamiable." To this pleasing insight into the family of the Tighes, in which the poetess, with the roses in her hair, and her husband, with his noble Koman aspect, constitute the chief figures, Mr. Pierce adds a mention uf the private tutor of the youngest son, and the curate of the parish, who had a house in the corner of the orchard. He also informs ua of the benevolence of the elder Mrs. Tighe, her schools for poor children, and of her pressing desire that he should come and settl? uear Rosanna. *»s JOHN KEATS. We come now to one whose home and hamits on the earth wero brief, — " Who sparkled, was exhaled, and v.'eiit to heaven." John Keats was one of those sweet and glorious spirits who descend hke the angel messengers of old, to discharge some divine command, not to dwell here. I'ure, ethereal, glowing with the fervency of inward life, the bodily vehicle appears but assumed for the occasion, and as a mist, as a shadow, is ready to dissolve the instant that occasion is served. They speak and pass away into the higher hght from wdience they came ; but their words remain — themselves life, and spirit, and power — like the electric element in the veins of the earth, quickening and vitalizing the souls of men to the end of time. They become part and parcel of our nature ; they are as essential to the aliment and the progress of our intellectual being as the light, the morning dew of summer, the morning and the evening star, or any of those great components of nature, the sky, the sea, or the mountain, from which we draw the daily spirit of beauty ; and live! — live, not as mere material machines; not as animal existences, as brutes — " Which giaza the uiountaiii-top witli faces prone, And eyes intent upon tlie scanty lierb It yields them ; or, recumbent on its brow, Ruminate heedless of the scene outspread Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away From inland regions to tlie distant mahij" — Cowveu. KKAXS. 293 nut lucre men of the world, laouey-gettiug, liouse-buildiiig, land- purehasing creatures, but souls of God and of eternity. "Man lives not by bread alone, but by every word \vliicli proceeds out of the mouth of God," and which descends to earth by his prophets, whether of prose or of poetry. It is by the mediation of such pure and seraphic intelligences, that our true psychological frame and i.-onstitution are built up. For, created to take our places in the great future of the universe, amid the spiritual revelation of all things spiritual, we must be raised substantially from the mere germ of immortahty within us into "spirits of just men made perfect." ^Ye must be composed of the spiritual elements of beauty, thought, sensation and seizure of all intellectual things, growing by the daily absorption of divine essences into spiritual bodies, incorporate of love, of light, of lofty aspirations and teuderest desires ; of thoughts that comprehend the world, and hearts that embrace it with a divino eapacity of aflection. As we walk on our daily way, and along the muddiest paths of hfe, amid our own cares and loneliness, we do not and cannot walk unblest. The shower of God's benedictions falls on us ; the sunshine of his ceaseless gifts surrounds us. From his own appointed men, whether living or dead, " the refreshments from his presence" reach us, melt into us, and sustain us. Words spoken thousands of years ago steal, like the whisper of a breeze, into our bosoms, and become bright guests there ; music, full of deep movings, heard but yesterday from the lips of the inspired, touches the spring of happiness within us. The thoughts and sentiments of poets and philosophers, " beautiful exceedingly," stand around us like the trees and the flowers of our wayside ; and from every point of heaven and earth are reflected, upon us the flowing waters, the cool forest shades, the bright and glittering stars of that mind, which has been poured through a myriad of vehicles and a host of ages down upon us here. The light and colour and warmth which mature our very corn aud fruits come from the sun. They are no more inherent in this nether earth than our own life is. All that wo have and enjoy must come from other worlds to us. Our material aliments are sustained by the strength and life issuing from the infinite heavens ; and thence too descend, in still more ethereal actuality, all that our souls are made of. Of the class of swift but resplendent messengers by \vhom these ministrations are performed, neither om-s nor any other history can ftu'nish a specimen more beautiful than John Keats. He was of feeling and "imagination all compact." His nature was one pure mass of the living light of poetry. On this world and its concerns he could take no hold, and they could take none on him. The worldly and the worldly wise could not comprehend him, could not sympa- thise with him. To them his vivid orgasm of the intellect was madness ; his exuberance of celestial gifts was extravagance ; his unworldlincss was effeminacy ; his love of the universal man, and not of gross distinctions of pride and party, was treason. As of the liighest and divinest of God's messengers to earth, they cried "Away vrith him, he is not fit to live ; " and the body, that mere mist-hke, 2:1 I KEATS. Ihiit mere ^iliadow-likc body, already failing before tlic ferveucy of liis spiritvial fuuetions^ fell, '* foded away, dissolved," and disappeared before the bitter frost-wind of base criticism. It was a dark and wretched time when Keats made his appearanco amongst us. War, and i)arty, and peculation on the one side, and resentment and discontent on the other ; the necessity for the gainer maintaining his craft at all costs, and the equal necessity for the loser dragging this ruinous craft to the ground, had infused into literature an atrocious spirit. From this foul spirit, genius, in every fresh incarnation, suffered the most ruthless and inhuman assaults. The stronger possessor of it stood ; the weaker or more sensitive fell. Keats was one of the latter. He had soul enough for anything, but \\\^ phi/siqiie was feeble, and sunk. It will be one of the "damning spots " which will for ever cling, not to the country, but to the age. But it is to the everlasting honour of Leigh Hunt, that, himself a critic as well as a poet, he never dipped his hand in the blood of the innocents. He never slew one of those martyrs whose glorious tombs we now build with adamantine stones of admiration, temper- ing the cement with the tears of our love. Himself assailed, and shot at, and cruelly wounded by the archers, he not only turned and manfully defended himself, but spread the shield of his heart to protect those who were rising up to become formidable rivals in the public regard. It is a glory that is peculiar, and peculiarly beautiful, that amid that iron age of a murderous criticism, he was for ever found in close union and communion with the morning stars of ■[loetry. They truly " sang together." They seemed by an instinct of life to flock to him, and by an instinct equally sure and unselfish he felt at once their claims, and with open hand and lieart maintained thcui. It was in the pages of the Examiner that, amid specimens of young poets, I first made acquaintance with the magnificent sonnet of Keats on reading Chapman's Homer, and with Shelley's Hymii to Intellectual Beauty. From that hour there could be no (juestion but that great men were come amongst us ; those men who, in fact, " turn the world upside down," and by which turning upside down, the only process, the asps and scorpions of malice are shook out of it, and all its strong-rooted fabrics of prejudice and pride are toppled into the dust. Till death, the souls of these men never ceased to maintain that brave union thus begun, but amid abuse, misrepresentation, and the vilest onslaughts from the army of the aliens, went on blessing the world with those emanations of splendid and unshackled thought, which are now recognised as amongst the most precious of the national property. Who in future days will not pray that he might have been as one of these 1 It is to the account by Leigh Hunt, in his " Byron and some of his Contemporaries," that we owe almost all that we know of the hfe and haunts of Keats. From this we learn that " Mr. Keats's origin was of the humblest description. He was born October 29, 1796, at a Itvery stables in Moorfields, of which his grandfather was pro- prietor. He never spoke of it— perhaps out of a personal soreness vvliich the world had exasperated. After receiving the rudiments of KEATS. £f>o a classical education at Mr. Clarke's school at Enfield, he was bound 'xppreutice to ]\Ir. Hammond, a surgeon, in Church-street, Edmonton j and his enemies having made a jest even of this, he did not like to be reminded of it ; at once disdaining them for their meanness, and himself for being weak enough to be moved by them. Mr. Clarke, jun., his schoolmaster's son, a reader of genuine discernment, had encouraged with great warmth the genius that he saw in the young poet ; and it was to Mr. Clarke I was indebted for my acquaintance with him." Mr. Hunt, in his warm-hearted way, lost no time in introducing his poetry to the best judges of poetry, amongst them to Godwin, Hazlitt, Basil Montagu, Charles Lamb, and others. He read to them, amongst others, that tine sonnet already mentioned, — " ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S irOMER. " Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen, Round many western islands have I been, AVhich hards in fealty to Apollo hold ; Oft of one wide expanse had I been told, That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne ; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I lieard Chapman speak out loud and hold. Tlien felt I like some watcher of the skies. When a new planet swims into his ken. Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific— and all his men Looked at each other witli a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien." The two poets became speedily familiar and almost inseparable. They read, walked, and talked together continually ; and Mr. Hunt gives us various particulars of Keats's haunts at this period which are nowhere else to be obtained. " The volume containing the above sonnet," he says, " was pubhshed in 1817, when the author was in his twenty-first year. The poem with which it begins was suggested to him by a delightful summer day, as he stood beside the gate that leads from the battery on Hampstead Heath into a field by Caen Wood ; and the last poem, the one on Sleep and Poetry, was occa- sioned by his sleeping in one of the cottages in the Vale of Health, the first" one that fronts to the valley, beginning from the same quarter. I mention these things, which now look trivial, because his readers will not think them so twenty years hence. It was in the beautiful lane running from the road between Hampstead and High- gate to the foot of Highgate Hill, that meeting me one day he first gave me the volume. If the admirer of Mr. Keats's poetry does not know the lane in question, he ought to become acquainted with it, both on his author's account and its own. It has been also paced by Mr. Lamb and IMr. Hazlitt, and frequently, like the rest of the Ijeautiful neighbourhood, by Mr. Coleridge ; so that instead of Millfield-Iane, whiclt is the name it is known by ' on eartb,' it has sometimes been called Poet's-lane, which is an appellation it richly deserves. It divides the grounds of Lords ]\Iansfield and South- ampton, running thi-ough trees and sloping meadows, and being rich 206 KEATS. ill Iho botauy for which this part of the neighbourhood of London lias al\vaj-s been celobratcd." 'Mv. Ilnnt was at this time Hving at Hampstead, in the Vale of llcalth, and the house at which it is said Keats wrote the beautiful poem on Sleep and Poetry was his. There is another fact in thi.s iccouut that deserves attention, and that is, the date of the pubh- oation of Keats's first small volume. This was 1817 ; in 1818 lie published his Endjmion ; on the 26th of June, 1820, his third volume, Lamia and other Poems, was published ; and on the 27th of December of the same year he died at Rome. Thus the whole of his poetical life, from the issue of his first small volume to his death, was but about three years. During the greater part of that period he felt his disease, consumption, was mortal. Yet what progress in the development of his powers, and the maturing of his judgment and feeling of art, was manifested in that short space and under those circumstances ! The first volume was a volume of immature fancies and unsettled style, but with things which denoted the glorious dawn of a short but illustrious (lay. The Endymion had much extravagance. It was a poetical oft'ervescence. The mind of the writer was haunted by crowds of imaginations, and scenes of wonder, and dreams of beauty, chiefly irom the old mythological world, but mingled with the passion for living nature, and the warmest feelings of youth. It brought for- wai'd the deities of Greece, and invested them with the passions and tenderness of men, and all the youthful glow which then reigned in the poet's heart. The mind was j)ouriug over from intense fer- mentation, but amid the luscious foam rose streams of the richest wine of poetry which ever came from the vintage of this world. The next volume. Lamia, Isabella, &c. showed how the heady liquor liad cleared itself, and become spirit bright and strong. There was an aim, a settled plan and purpose, in each composition, and a steady power of judgment growing up amid all the vivid impulses of the brain that still remained vivid as ever. The style was wonderfully condensed, and the descriptive as well as conceptive faculty hail assumed a vigour and acumen which was not, and is not, and pro- bably never v;ill be, surpassed by any other poet. For proofs to justify these high terms, it is only necessary to open the little volume, and open it almost anywhere. How powerful and tender is the narrative of Isabella: how rich and gorgeous and chaste and well weighed is the whole of St. Agnes' Eve : how full of the soul of poetry is the Ode to the Nightingale ! Pei'haps there is no poet, living or dead, except Shakspeare, who can pretend to anything like the felicity of epithet which characterises Keats. One word or phrase is the essence of a whole description or sentiment. It is like the dull substance of the earth struck through by electric fires and converted into veins of gold and diamonds. For a piece of perfect and inventive description, that pas.sage from Lamia, where— Lyci us gone to bid the guests to his wedding — Lamia in her uneasy excite- ment employs herself and her demon powers in adorning her palace, is unrivalled. KEATS. 297 " It was the custom then to bring away The hride frotn liome at blushing shut of day. Veiled, in a chariot, heralded along Uy strewn flowers, torches, and a niaiTiage sonff. With other pageants ; but this fair unknown Had not a friend. So being left alone — Lycius was gone to summon all his kin— And knowing surely she could never win His foolish heart from its mad pompousness, She set herself, liigh-thoughted, how to dress The misery in fit magnificence. She did so ; but 'tis doubtful how and whence Came, and who were her subtle servitors. About the halls, and to and from the doors. There was a noise of wings, till in short space The glaring banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace. A haunting music, sole, perhaps, and lone Kupportress of the fairy roof, made moan Throughout, as fearful tl.e whole charm might fide. Fresh carved cedar mimicking a glade Of palm and plantain, met from either side High in the midst, in honour of the bride, Two palms, and then two plantains, and so on, From either side their stems branched one to one All down the aisled place; and beneath all There ran a stream of lamps straiglit on from wall to v.all. .So canopied lay an untasted feast Teeming ^Yitb odours. Lamia, regal drest, Silently paced about, and as she went. In pale contented sort of discontent, Missioned her viewless servants to enrich The fretted splendour of each nook and niche : lietween the tree-stems, marbled plain at first. Came jasper panels ; then, anon there burst Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees. And with the larger -wove in small intricacies. -Approving all, she faded at self-will. And shut the chamber up, close, hushed, and still, Complete and ready for tlie revels rude, AVhen dreadful giiests would come to spoil her solitude." The description of Lamia undergoing the metamorpho.sis l)y which she escaped from the form of a serpent to that of a h.eautiful woman, is mavvpllous for its power and precision of language. " Left to herself, the serpent nov/ began To change : her elfin blood in madness ran. Her mouth foamed, and the grass, therewith bespent. Withered at dew so sweet and virulent. Her eyes in torture fixed, and anguish drear. Hot, glazed, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, Flashed phosphor and sharp sparks, -witliout one cooling tear. The colours all inflamed throughout her train. She writhed about convulsed with scarlet pain : A deep, volcanian yellow took the place Of all lier milder mooned body's grace ; And as the lava ravishes the mead, Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede ; jSIade gloom of all her frecklings, streaks, and bars, F.clipsed her crescents, and licked up her stars : So that in moments few she was undrest Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst, And rubious argent; of all these bereft, Nothing but pain and ugliness was left. Still shone her crown ; that vanished, also she Melted and disappeared as suddenly ; And in the air her new voice luting soft Cried ' Lycius, gentle Lycius ! ' — Borne aloft With the bright mists about the mountains hoar These words dissolved ; Crete's fore;,ts heard no more." 4)1)5 KEATS. Tlio most magnificent trophy of his genius, however, is the fragment (.f llviurion. On tliis poem, which has something vast, colossa'. and dreamy about it, giving you a conception of the unfoldings of an ahiiost infinite scope of " the vision and the faculty divine ' in this extraordinary youth, he was employed when the progress of his com- plaint and the savage treatment of the critics, sunk his heart, and he abandoned the task, and went forth to die. How touching under the circumstances is the short preface affixed to this volume by the publishers ! — " If any apology be thought necessary for the appear- ance of the unfinished poem of Hyperion, the pubHshers beg to state that they alone are responsible, as it was printed at their particular request, and contrary to the wish of the author. The poem was intended to have been of equal length with Endymiox, but the reception given to that work discouraged the author from l)roceeding." Can a critic even read the passage without some com- punction 1 and who shall again repeat the stale sophism that unkinil criticism never extinguished genuine poetry ? ]\Ir. Hunt says of Keats, that "he enjoyed the usual privileges of greatness with all whom he knew, rendering it delightful to be obliged by him, and an equal, but not a greater, to oblige. It was a pleasure to his friends to have him in their houses, and he did not grudge it." He was sometimes a regular inmate with Mr. Hunt at Kentish Town, and used to ramble about the sweet walks of Hampstead and Ilighgate to his heart's content. "When Endymion was published, he was living at Hampstead with his friend Charles Brown, who at- tended him most affectionately through a long and severe illness, and with whom, to their great mutual enjoyment, he had taken a journey into Scotland. The lakes and mountains of the North delighted him exceedingly. He beheld them with an epic eye. Afterwards he went into the South, and luxuriated in the Isle of Wight." He was, also, in Devonshire. The preface to his Endymion is dated from Teignmouth. On Mr. Brown's leaving England a second time, " Mr. Keats," says Leigh Hunt, " was too ill to accompany him. and came to reside with rae, when his last and best volume of poems appeared, containing Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St, Agnes, and the noble fragment of Hyperion. I remember Charles Lamb's delight and admiration on reading this work ; how j^leased he was with the designation of Mercury as ' the star of Lethe,' rising, as it were, and glittering when he came upon that pale region ; with the fine daring anticipation in that passage of the second poem, — ' So the two brothers anil l/uir murdered man It ode past fair Florence ; ' and with the description, at once delicate and gorgeous, of Agues praying beneath the painted window," This must have been immediately before the young poet quitted England in the vain quest of health. There is a very affecting passage in ^Ir. Hunt's brief meraoir of him, which shows what was KEATS. 299 the state of mind of this fine young poet at this crisis. The huntei liad stricken him, death was busy with him, and the pain of affec- tions unassured of a return was helping his other enemies to pull him down. " Seeing him once," says Mr. Hunt, " change countenance in a manner more alarming than usual, as he stood silently eyeing the country out of the window, I pressed him to let me know how he felt, in order that he might enable me to do what I could for him ; upon which he said, that his feelings were almost more than he could bear, and that he feared for his senses. 1 proposed that we should take a coach and ride about the country together, to vary, if possible, the immediate impression, which was sometimes all that was formidable, and would come to nothing. He acquiesced, and was restored to himself. It was, nevertheless, on the same day, sitting on the bench in Well-walk, at Hampstead, nearest the heath, that he told me, with unaccustomed tears in his ej'es, that ' his heart was breaking.' A doubt, however, was upon him at that time, which he afterwards had reason to know was groundless ; and during his residence at the last house that he occupied before he went abroad, he was at times more than tranquil." This house, it appears, was in Wentworth-pkce, Downshire-hill, Hampstead, by Pond-street ; and at the next door lived the young lady to whom he was engaged. Mr. Hunt accompanied Keats and this young lady to the j^lace of embarkation in a coach, and saw them part. It was a most trying moment. Neither of them enter- tained a hope to see each other again in life, yet each endeavoured to subdue the feelings of such a moment to the retention of outward composure. Keats was accompanied on his voyage by that excellent artist, Mr. Severn, and who, to quote again the same competent au- thority, possessed all that could recommend him for a companion ; — old aciiuaintanceship, great animal spiriCs, active tenderness, and a mind capable of appreciating that of a poet. They first went to Naples, and afterwards to Rome, where they occupied the same house, at the corner of the Piazza di Spagna. Mr. Severn made several sketches of Keats, both on the voyage and at Rome, and while there finished a portrait of him for the late Lord JeftVey, who had spoken handsomely of him in the Edinburgh Review. At Rome, on the 27th of December, 1S20, as already stated, John Keats died in the arms of his friend, completely worn out, at the age of twenty- four, and longing for release. How the circumstances of this life- weariness reminds us of his longing for death in his inimitable Odo to the Nightingale ! " oil for a (Irauglit of vintage that liatli been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tastinj? of l-'lora and the country green ; Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth ! Oh for a beaker full of the warm south, I'ull of tlie true, the blushful llippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim ; — SOI KEAfS. '' Fiuio f:.r auay, dissolve, r.nd finite forget Wliat thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret, irerc, -where men sit and licar each other groan; Wliere palsy shakes a few, sad, last Rrey hairs; ■Where youth grows pale, and spectre tliin, and dies; ■Wlicre but to think is to be full of sorrow, And leaden-eyed despairs : AVhcre beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. Or new love pine at them beyond to-niorrow." "A little before lie died, he said tli.at lie 'felt the daisies growing f>ver him.' But he made a still more touching remark respecting Ins epitaph. 'If any,' said he, 'were put over him, he wished it to i-onsist of nothing but these words :— Here lies one whose name was writ in water ;'— so little did he think of the more than promise he liad given ; of the fine and lasting things he had added to the stock of poetr}'. The physicians expressed their astonishment that he had held out so long ; the lungs timiing out, on inspection, to have been almost obliterated. They said he must have lived upon the mere strength of the spirit within him. He was interred in the English burying-gi-ound at Rome, near the monument of Caius Cestius, Avhere his friend and poetical mourner, Mr. Shelley, was shortly to join him." Such is the brief but deeply interesting account of John Keats, drawr mostly from the written narrative, and partly from the con- versation of his true friend and fellow-poet. It is not possible to close it in more just or appropriate words than those of this admiring but discriminating friend : — "So much for the mortal life of as true a man of genius as these latter times have seen ; one of those who are too genuine and too original to be properly appreciated at first, but whose time for applause will infallibly arrive with the many, and has already begun in all poctictil quarters." ^^fg^^S^'^;- PERCY r.YSSHJ"] SHKLLEY. Keats was tlic martyr of poetry, but Shelley was the martyr of opinion. Keats dared to write in a new vein, to disregard all the old canons of criticism, to pour out his heart, and all his fancies, in iliat way only which seemed naturall}' to belong to them ; and this was cause enough to bring down upon him the vengeance of all the rule-and-linc men of literature. But, besides this, Keats kept sus- picious company'. Hunt and Shelley were notorious radicals ; and Hunt and Shelley were his friends. " Tell me what company you keep, and I will tell you what you are," is an old proverb, and was iu John Keats's case most promptly applied. But Shelley was perliaps the most daring as he was the most splendid offender of modern times. Born of a good family, educated in the highest schools of orthodox}^, it was to the public, which looked for a new chamjiion of the old state of things, a most exasperating circumstance that, in Ids very teens, he should set all these expectations, and all the pros- pects of his own worldly advantage, at defiance, and boldly avow himself the champion of atheism. The fact is ever}' way to be deplored. It became the source of blight and misery to himself through his whole life. It alienated his friends and family ; it occa- sioned an excitement of fiery bigotry and party wrath, which, in their united virulence, were poured upon liis head, and destroying ;;,12 SHKLLKT. the s.ilc of his works, greatly dispirited hiiu, and so diminished tho amount, and perhaps in no shght degree the joyous and buoyant. Hiirit of what lie diil write. Who shall say, wonderful as are the works of Shellev all accomplished amid ill-health and the bitterest persecutions, before the age of thirty, and most of them before the acre of twenty-six, what he would have produced, had he written with the encouraging feeling of a generous public with him i And when we regard the whole affair impartially, it was the pubhc which was really the greatest oflender after all. On the part of Shelley, it was a rash and boyish action. It was the act of a really fine and noble spirit led away, and so far led wrong, by its impetuous indig- nation against popular delusions and impositions. He was not the tirst man, nor will he bo the last, whom the spirit of a virtuous zeal precipitates into an offence against virtue itself. In him it was meant to be no sucli thing. He was honest as he was zealous, and the world ought to have respected his honesty if it could not his opinions. It should have endeavoured to show him by calm and sound reason, that he was wrong as to the existence of a God, and by its charity and forbearance, that Christianity was true. There can be little doubt what effect a wise conduct like this would have had on a nature like his. As it was, spite of all the outrageous cries of infidel, blasphemer, and atheistic wretch, ^yith which he was pursued; time showed a wonderful change in his opinions on these matters. . The world should have recollected that it professed to be a Cluis- tian world, and it should not have let the spirit and conduct of the infidel put it to shame by its superior liberahty and goodness. Our Saviour nowhere preached or commanded persecution, but to bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us and despite- fuliy use us. The world did not do thus ; it left poor Shelley to show this conduct to it. Christ left a glorious example to all time— why is the Christian world blind to it? He declared a glorious doctrine on the treatment of unbelievers— why is the world deaf to it ? He declared that he was come to seek and save that which was lost, and to die for the conversion of those who mocked and denied him. He nowhere left us the whip, the gag, or the sword of extermination. He brought no such things with him out of heaven, but the great corrector— patience, the great weapon — charity. When his disciples ran and called upon him to silence those who performed miracles, and yet did not follow him, he gave a reply which never should be forgotten while the sun rises_ and sets ;— " Let them alone ; ye know not what manner of spirit ye .ire of." It was Shelley who showed the spirit of the Christian, and the so-called Christian world tlie spirit of the infidel. Shelley, indeed, was a good and noble creature. He had, spite of his scepticism, clearly and luminously stamped on his front the highest marks of a Christian ; for the grand distinction appointed liy Chi-ist was — love. Shelley was a Christian spite of himself. Wo learn from all whc snew him that the Bible was his most favouiite SHELLEY. .3(>3 I)Ook. He; veueratcil the character ofChriMt, and no man more fully carried out his precepts. His dehght was to do good, to comfort and assist the poor. It was his zeal for truth and for the good of man- kind, which led him, in his indignation against those who oppressed thenx and imposed upon them, to leap too far in his attack on those enemies, and pass the borders which divide truth from error. For his conscientious opinion he sacrificed ease, honour, the world's esteem, fortune, and friendship. Never was there so generous a friend, so truly and purely poetical a nature. Others ai'e poets in their books and closets ; the j^oet's soul in him was the si:)irit of all hours and all occasions. His conduct to his friend Hunt was a mag- nificent example of this. ]\Ii'. Hunt himself tells us that he at once presented him with fourteen hundred pounds to free him from em- barrassments, and he meant to do more, an intention which his son has nobly remembered. Where are the censorious zealots who can show like deeds 1 " He was," says Mr. Hunt, " pious towards nature, towai'ds his friends, towards the whole human race, towards the meanest insect of the forest. He did himself an injustice with the public in using the popular name of the Supreme Being inconsider- ately. He identified it solely with the vulgar and tyrannical notions of a God, made after the worst human fashion, and did not suffi- ciently reflect that it was often used by a juster devotion to express a sense of the great Mover of the universe." The same generous, enthusiastic spirit was the living and glowing l)rinciple of his poetry. With an imagination capable of soaring into the highest and most ethereal regions, and di'awing thence most gorgeous colours, and most sublime, spiritual, and beautiful imagery, lie preached love and tenderness to the whole family of man, except to tyrants and impostors. For liberty of every kind he was ready to die. For knowledge, and truth, and kindness, he desired only to live. He Avas a rare instance of the union of the finest moral nature and the finest genius. If he erred, the world took ample vengeance upon him for it ; while he conferred in return his amplest blessing on the world. It was long a species of heresy to mention his name in society — that is passing fast away. It was next said that he never could become popular, and therefore the mischief he could do was limited. He is become popular, and the good that he is likely to do will be unlimited. The people read him ; though we may wonder at it, they comprehend him, — at least so far as the principles of freedom and progress are concerned ; and in these ho will not lead them astray. He is the herald of advance, and every year must fix him more widely and firmly in men's hearts. How truly does he describe himself and his mission in Laon, the poet of the lievolt of Islam : — " Yes, from the records of my youthful state, And from the lore of bards and sapes ohl, From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create. Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold, Have I collected language to unfold Truth to my countrymen ; from shore to shore Doctrines of human power my words have told ; They have been heard, and men aspire to more ''^iian they have ever gained, or ever lo!^t of yorii 804 SHELLKY. ■• 111 secret diaiiibers parents read, and weep, IMy writings to their babes, no longer blind ; And young men gather vlien their tyrants sleep, And vows of faith each to the.other bind ; And marriageable nuiidens, who liavo pined With love, till life seemed melting through their look, A warmer zeal, a nobler hope now lind ; And every bosom tlius is rapt and shook, I, ike autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain brook. " Kind thoughts, and mighty ho))es, and gentle deeds, Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law Of mild equality and peace succeeds 'i'o faiths which long have held the world in awe, Bloody, .and false, and cold :— as whirlpools draw AH wrecks of ocean to their chasm, the sway Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw This hope, conij-els all spirits to obey, Mhich round tiiy secret strength now throng in wide array." This extraordinary man, and the most purely poetic genius of hin age, scarcely excepting Keats ; this great and fearless, and yet benign apostle of freedom, whose intiuence on succeeding ages it is impos- sible to calculate, mixed, it is true, witli a sceptical leaven deei^ly to be deplored, was a descendant of a true poetic line, that of Sir Philip Sidney. He was born at Field-place, in Sussex, on the 4th of August, 1792. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart., of Castle- Goring in that county ; and his son, Percy Florence Shelley, now bears the fiimily title. His family connexions belonged to the Whig aristocrats of the House of Commons ; and Mr. Hunt has, in the circum^auces of such birth and connexion, hit perhaps upon the fact which solves the mystery of a mind like Shelley's rushing into the extreme course he did. "To a man of genius," he observes, " endowed with a metaphysical acuteness to discern truth and false- hood, and a strong sensibility to give way to his sense of it, such an origin, however respectable in the ordinary point of view, was not the very luckiest that could have happened for the purpose of keei^ing him within ordinary bounds. AVith what feelings is truth to open its eyes u])on this world, amongst the most respectable of our mere party gentry 1 Among licensed contradictions of all sorts 1 Among the Christian's doctrines and tlie worldly practices 1 Among fox- liunters and their chaplains 1 Among beneficed loungers, noli-epis« copalian bishops, rakish old gentlemen, and more startling young ones, who are old in the folly of kaoiDhigMss ? In short, among all those professed demands of what is right and noble, mixed with real inculcations of what is wrong and full of hypocrisy ? * * * Mr. Shelley began to think at a very early age, and to think too of these anomalies. He saw that at every step in life some compromise was expected between the truth which he was told he w^as not to violate, and a colouring and a double meaning of it, which forced him upon the violation." This is, no doubt, the great secret of both the noble resolve of Shelley to burst at once loose from this conventional labyrinth, and of the length to wliich the impetus of his effort carried him. He' saw that truth and falsehood were so intimately mixed in all the education, hfe, and purposes of the class by which he was surrounded, SHELLEY. 305 that he suspected the same mixture iu everything ; and the very eflort necessary to clear himself of this state of things, plunged him into the natural result of rejecting indiscriminately, in the case of Christianity, the grain with the chaflF. At every school to which he was sent, he found the same system existing. Education was moulded to a gi-eat national plan, to a future support of a church and a party. The noble heart of the boy rebelled against this sacrifice of truth to interest, and I believe at every school to which he went, showed a Hrm resolve never to bend to it. He was brought np for the first seven or eight years in the retirement of Field-place with his sisters, receiving the same education as they ; and hence, it is stated, he never showed the least taste for the sports or amusements of boys. Captain Medwin, who is a relative, teUs lis that it was not Eton, but Sion House, Brentford, to which he alludes in his introductory .stanzas to the Revolt of Islam. Medwin was Shelley's school-fellow there, and says, " this place was a perfect hell to Shelley. His puro and virgin mind was shocked by the language and manners of liis new companions ; but though forced to be wit/i them, he was not cf them." "Tyranny," continues he, " generally produces tyranny in common minds, — not so with Shelley. Doubtless much of his hatred of oppression may be attributed to what he saw and suffered at this school ; and so odious was the recollection of the place to both ol us, that we never made it a subject of conversation in after life. Ho was, as a schoolboy, exceedingly shy, bashful, and reserved ; indeed, though peculiarly gentle and elegant and refined in his manners, ho never entirely got rid of his diffidence — and who would have wished he should ? With the character of true genins, he was ever modest, humble, and prepared to acknowledge merit wherever he found it, without any desire to shine himself by making a foil of others." Yet it was this gentle and shy boy, who had so early resolved to be "just, and free, and mild," that was roused by his sense of truth, and his abhorrence of oppression, to make the most bold and deter- mined stand against majust and degrading customs, however sanc- tioned by time, place, or persons. At Eton, whither he went at the. age of thirteen, he rose up stoutly in opposition to the system of fagging. He organized a conspiracy against it, and for a time com- pelled it to pause. While thus resisting school tyranny, he was reading deeply German romances and poetry ; and to Burger's Leonora, and the ghost stories and legends of the Black Forest, has been traced his fondness for the romantic, the marvellous, and the mystic. His mind was rapidly unfolding, and to the high pitch of his moral nature and aims, these stanzas from the dedication to the Itevolt of Islam bear touching testimony : — " Tlioufilits of great deeds were mine, dear friend, -wlien first The clouds tliat wrap this world from youth did pass. T do remember ■well the hour which hurst My spirit'a sleep : a fresh May-dawn it was When I walked forth upon the glittering grass And wept, I knew not why; until there rose From the near school-room, voices, that, alas I Were but one echo from a world of woes, The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 30r, SHELI-ET. •' And then I clasped iiiy lianils, and looked around— Kut none was near to mark my strcamins eyes. Which poured their warm drops on t!ie sunny ground,— So without shame I spake, ' 1 will be wise, And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power; for I grow weary to behold Tlie selfish and the strong still tyrannize Without reproach or check.' I then controlled Sfy tears ; my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bohl. " And from that hour did I with earnest thought. Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore ; Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn ; but from that secret store ■Wrought linked armour for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind." This war began in earnest at Oxford. He had left Eton, it_ is nn- derstood, before the usual time, and in consequence of his resistance to the practices which he there found inconsistent with his ideas of self-respect : what was to be hoped from Oxford 1 The contest into which he soon fell with the Principal of University College, on theo- logical and metaphysical questions, quickly led to bis expulsion. No circumstance in his history has made so much noise as this ; on it turned the whole character of his destiny. He was expelled on a charge of atheism. In the New IMonthly Magazine for 1833 is given "The History of Shelley's Expulsion from Oxford." From this account, nothing could have been more unfeeling and tyrannical than the conduct of the Principal on this occasion. It appears that Shelley and some of his companions had indulged themselves in puzzling the logicians. They liad made a careful analysis of Locke on the Human Understanding, and Hume's Essays, particularly the latter, as was t;ustomary with those who read the Ethics, and other treatises of Aristotle,"^ for their degrees. They printed a syllabus of these, and challenged, not only the heads of houses, but others to answer theni . " It was," says tlie writer, " never offered for sale ; it was not ad- dressed to the general reader, but to the metaphysician alone ; and it was so short, that it only designed to point out the line of argu- ment. It was, in truth, a general issue ; a compendious denial of every allegation, in order to put the whole case in proof. It was a formal mode of saying, — you offer so and so, then prove it ; and thus it was under.stood by his more candid and intelligent cor- respondents. As it was shorter, so it was plainer, and perhaps, in order to provoke discussion, a little bolder than Hume's Essays, a book which occupies a conspicuous place in the library of every student. The doctrine, if it deserve the name, was precisely similar ; the necessary and inevitable consequence of Locke's philosophy, and of the theory that all knowledge is from without. I will not admit your conclusions, his opponent might say ; then you must deny those of Hume ; I deny them ; but you must deny those of Locke also ; and we will go back together to Plato. Such was the usual course of argument ; sometimes, however, he rested on mere denial, holding his adversary to strict proof, and deriving strength from his weak- ness. The yotmg Platonist argued thus negatively through the love of nrgument, and because he founil a nol)le joy in the fierce shock of SHELLEY. 307 coiiteudiiig iiiiuds. He loved truth, and sought it everywliore, and at all hazards, frankly and boldly, like a man who deserved to find it ; but he also deai'ly loved victory iu debate, and warm debate for its own sake. Never was there a more unexceptionable disputant. He was eager beyond the most ardent, but never angry and never personal ; he was the only arguer I ever knew who drew every argu- ment from the nature of the thing, and who never could be provoked to descend to personal contentions." — F. 2.5 of Part 11. This is a very different thing to the foul and offensive statement put forth to the world, that Shelley avowedly, with his name, jDut forth a pamphlet on atheism, challenging the whole bench of bishops to refute it, for the sake and from the mere love of atheism. Not less disgraceful was the manner of his expulsion. He was suspected of this pamphlet ; it i.s said that " a pert, meddling tutor of a college of inferior note, a man of an insalubrious and inauspicious aspect," had secretly denounced him to the master as the author of it ; anil that for this piece of treason, he was, as he hoped, speedily enriched with the most splendid benefices, and finally made a bishop ! The master himself is described by a third party, as a man possessing neither intellect nor erudition. " I thank God," he adds, " that I have never seen that man since ; he is gone to his bed, and there let him sleep. While he lived he ate freel}' of the scholar's bread, and drank I'reely of his cup ; and he was sustained throughout the whole term of his existence, wholly and most nobly, by those sacred funds that were consecrated by our pious forefathers to the advancement of learning. If the vengeance of the all-patient and long-contemned God can ever be roused, it will surely be by some such sacrilege ! "^ But let us see in what manner this swollen Eosotian ox dealt with this ardent yet gentle stripling of seventeen — for let it be remem- bered he was only of that age, — and let ixs see what was the condition of the university at that time, in which it was made a mortal offence in a young and zealous spirit to dispute metaphysical points. " Whether such disputations," says the writer in the New Monthly, " were decorous or profitable may be perhaps doubtful ; there can be no doubt, however, since the sweet gentleness of Shelley was easily and instantly swayed by the mild influences of friendly admo- nition, that had even the least dignified of his elders suggested the propriety of pursuing his metaphysical inquiries with less ardour, his obedience would have been prompt and perfect. Not only had all salutary studies been long neglected at Oxford at that time, and all wholesome discipline fallen into decay, but the splendid endow- ments of the vuiiversity were grossly abused. The resident autho- rities of the college were, too often, men of the lowest origin ; or mean and sordid souls ; destitute of every literary attainment, except that brief and narrow course of reading by which the degree was attained ; the vulgar sons of vulgar fathers ; without liberality, and wanting the manners and sympathies of gentlemen. A total neglect of all learning, an im.seemly turbulence, the most monstrous irregu- larities, open and habitual drunkenness, vice, and violence, were tolerated or encouraged with the basest sycophancy, ihat the prospect SOS SHELLEY. of perpetual liociitiuutincsis might fill the .colleges with youiig men of fortune. Whciicvci' the riirely-exeveised power of coercion was ex- ercised, it demonstrated the utter incapacity of our unworthy rulers, by coarseness, ignorance, and injustice. If a few gentlemen were ailniitted to fellowships, they were always absent ; they were not persons of literary pretensions, or distinguished by scholarship, and they had no share in the government of the college." — P. 26. It is fitting that the Avoiid should know how and by whom Shelley Wiis expelled from Oxford. Let us see the manner in which it was done. *' As the term was drawing to a close, and a great part of the books we were reading together still remained unfinished, we had agreed to increase our exertions, and to meet at an early hour. It was a fine spring morning on Lady-day in the year 1811, when I went to Shelley's rooms : ho was absent ; l)ut before I had collected mir books he rushed in. He was terribly agitated. I anxiously inquired what had happened. 'lam expelled,' he said, as soon as he had recovered himself a little. ' I am expelled ; I was sent for suddenly a few minutes ago ; I went to the common room, where ] found our master, and two or three of the fellows. The master i)roduced a copy of the little syllabus, and asked me if I were tho author of it. ITe spoke in a rude, abrupt, and insolent tone. 1 begged to be informed for what purpose he put the question. No answer was given ; but the master loudly and angrily repeated^ '• ^Vre you the author of this book 1 " " If I can judge from your manner," I said, " you are resolved to punish me, if I should acknow- ledge that it is my work. If you can prove that it is, produce your evidence; it is neither just nor lawful to interrogate me in such a case and for such a purpose. Such proceedings would become a court of inquisitors, but not free men in a free country." "Do you choose to deny that this is your composition 1" the master reiterated, in the same rude and angry voice.' "Shelley comi)lained much of his violent and ungentlemaulikc dejiortment, saying, ' I have experienced tyranny and injustice before, and I well know what vulgar insolence is ; but I never met with such imworthy treatment. 1 told him calmly, but firmly, that I was resolved not to answer any questions respecting the publi- cation on the table.' ' Then,' said he, furiously, ' you are expelled ; and I desire you will quit the college early to-morrow morning at the latest.' " A regular sentence of expulsion, ready drawn up in due form, was handed to him, under the seal of the college. So monstrous and illegal did the outrage seem to one of Shelley's fellow-students, that he immediately wrote a remonstrance to the master and fellows against it, declaring that he himself, or any one else in that college, might just as well be treated in tho same manner. The consequence was that he iras immediately treated in the same manner. He was called before this tribunal. "The angry and troubled air," he says, in a statement communicated to the writer of the article, "of men assembled to commit injustir^ according to established forms, w^.3 SHELLEY. 30'.) uew to me ; but a native iuisthict told mc, as soon as I entered tho room, that it was an afiair of party ; that whatever could conciliate the favour of patrons was to be done without scruple ; and what- ever could tend to pievent preferment was to be brushed away without remorse." The same question was put to him, he refused to answer it. and he was also expelled with the same summary violence. Thus were Shelley and another youth of eighteen expelled and branded for life with the stigma of atheism. They were exi^elletl simply because they refused to criminate themselves, and the boast of a virtuous zeal against atheism was trumpeted abroad, which soon raised one man to a bishopric, and others, no doubt, to what they wanted. So are sacrificed the rare sj)irits of the earth for tho worldly benefit of the hogs of Epicurus. If all youths were treated thus brutally at that age when doubts beset almost every man, and more especially the earnest and inquiring, what would become of our finest and noblest characters ! When men begin to study the grounds of theology, they must study, too, what is advanced by the uj^posers. The consequence is at once, that all that has been re- ceived as fact by unquestioning boyhood falls to the ground, and they have to begin again, and test through doubts and anxieties, and amid the menaces of despaii", all the evidence on which our faith is built. Seize on any one of these inquii-ers at this peculiar crisis, and expel him for atheism, and, if he be a man of cpiick feelings, and a high spirit, you will pretty certainly make him that for which you have stigmatized him. His pride will unite with his doubts to fix him, to petrify him, as it were, into incurable unbelief. It would be a brutal and murderous procedure. Such procedure hail the worst effect on Shelley. The consequences were a sort of re- pudiation of him by his father and family, who had built the highest worldly hopes on his talents. There was a fierce hue aud cry set up after him in the world, and the very next year saw him Bit down aud write Queen Mab. The actions of this portion of his life are the least defensible of any portion of it. He seemed restless, unhappy, and put into a more antagouistic temperament by his public expulsion from college, which he felt more deeply than was natural to him, or could have arisen, had he been treated differently. At this period he made his first unfortunate marriage, with a young woman of humble station, and, as it proved, of very uncon- genial mind. They separated, and in her distress she, some time afterwards, drowned herself. Differing as I do most widely from Shelley, both in his ideas regarding Christianity and marriage, it is l)ut just to say that they who knew him best, aud his second wife, tlie celebrated daughter of celebrated parents, Godwin and Mary Wolstancroft, most emphatically assert th«ir assurances that "in all he did, at the time of doing it, he believed himself justified to his conscience, while the various ills of poverty, and tlie loss cf friends, l>rought home to him tho sad realities of life."' For hi.i errors at this period, the direct fruits of the desolating outrages on his sen- 310 SHELLET. Kitivc luiluro, abuvu .slated, he suft'ereJ deeply and severely. One of lii.s biographers say.s, "Nobody could lauieut the catastrophe of his wife's death more bitterly than he did. For a time it tore his being to pieces." For about two years after his wife's death lie seemed to be wan- dering about in quest of rest, and not finding it. He was at one time at the Lakes on a pilgrimage to Southey, of which, when Coleridge heai'd, he said, " A\^hy did he not come to me ? I should have understood him." Most true. He was in London, and 90, Great llussell-street, oddly enough kept by a person named Godwin, and a corner house in Mabledon-place, next to Hastings-street, are known as lodgings of his. He was also in Dublin, and in North Wales, where, in the absence of his landlord, Mr. Maddocks, an extraordinary tide menacing his embankment against the sea, IShelley put his name at the head of a subscription paper for ^500, and, carrying it round the neighbourhood, raised a sum sufficient to prevent this truly Roman work being destroyed. In 1814 he made a tour on the con- tinent, visiting France, Switzerland, the Ileuss, and the Rhine, the magnificeut scenery of which produced the most striking effects on his mind. In 1815 he made a tour along the southern coast of De- vonshire, and then renting a house on Bishopsgate heath, on the borders of Windsor forest, he spent the summer months in rumi- nating over the scenes he had visited, and produced there his poem of Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude. The next year he again visited the continent. He was now married to Mary Wolstancroft Godwin, who accompanied him. They fixed their residence for a time on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. Here Shelley and Lord Byron first met ; they had corresponded before, but here began that friendship which contributed so palpably to the purification and elevation of tone in the higher poetry of Byron. They seemed equally pleased with each other. Byi'on was occupying the Villa Diodati ; a name connected with Milton, and perhaps one of the noble poet's reasons for choosing it as a re- sidence. Shelley engaged one just below it, in a most sequestered spot. There was no access to it in a carriage, it stood only separated from the lake by a small garden, much overgrown by trees, and a patliway through the vineyard of Diodati communicated with it. The two poets entered deeply into poetical disquisition. Nothing could be more opposite than their natures, and their poetic ten- dencies. Shelley was all imagination ; Byron had a strong tendency to the actual, or to that which must tell upon the general mind : Shelley was purely spiritual ; Byron had much of the world in him : Shelley was all generosity ; Byron, with a great show of it, had a tremendous dash of the selfish. Still, they had many things in com- mon. They were fond of boating and pistol shooting ; they were persecuted by public opinion ; they had broken from all bonds of ordinary faith, and were free in discussion and .speculation as the bird.s were in their fliglit over their heads. They rowed together round the lake, and were very near being lost in a storm upon it. They visited together I\lci]lerie and Clarens; and the effect of the scenery SHELLEY. 311 on Shelley, •ivith the Xouvelle Heloise in his hand, was enlrancing. He visited also Lausanne, and while walking in the acacia walk belonging to Gibbon's house, he could not help saying, " Gibbon had a cold and unimpassioned spirit. I never felt more inclination to i-ail at the prejudices which clung to such a thing, than now that Julie and Clarens, Lausanne and the Roman Empire, compel me to a contrast between Rousseau and Gibbon." His lines on the Bridge of Arve and his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty were written at this time. The poets and Mrs. Shelley were constantly together, out in the air, amid that sublime scenery, in fine weather, and in the evenings at each other's houses ; and, during a week of rain, they horrified themselves with German ghost stories, and gave a mutual cliallengc to write each one of their own. To this we owe the Vampire, which was, on its first appearance, attributed to Lord Byron ; but was in reality written by his vain satellite of a physician, Polidori. Byron wrote a story called The Marriage of Belphegor, which was to narrate the circumstances of his own, — as he was now smarting imder the recent refusal of his wife to live with him ; but, on hearing from England that Lady Byron was ill, with an impulse that did him honour, he thrust it into the fire. What Shelley wrote does not appear, but the production of Mrs. Shelley was Frankenstein. On his return to England, in the autumn of that year, he had to endure the misery of his two children being taken from him by the Court of Chancer}', on the ground of his disbelief in revealed religion, and the authorship of Queen Mab, a work published without his consent. It was at this period that he went to live at Great Mar- lowe, in Buckinghamshire. Mrs. Shelley says : — " Shelley's choice of abode was fixed chiefly by this town being at no great distance from London, and its neighbourhood to the Thames. The poem of the Revolt of Islam was written in his boat, as it floated under the beech groves of Bisham, or during wanderings in the neighbouring country, which is distinguished for its peculiar beauty. The chalk hills break into cliff's that overhang the Thames, or form valleys clothed with beech. The wilder portion of the country is rendered beautiful by exuberant vegetation ; and the cultivated part is parti- cularly fertile. With all this wealth of nature, which, either in the form of gentlemen's parks, or soil dedicated to agriculture, flourishes around, Marlowe was inhabited— I hope it is altered now — by a very poor population. The women are lace-makers, and lose their health by sedentary labour, for which they are very ill paid. The pCor-laws ground to the dust not only the paupers, but those who had risen just above that state, and were obliged to pay poor-iates. The change produced by peace following a long war, and a bad harvest, brought with thom the most heart-rending evils to the poor. Shelley afforded what alleviation he could. In winter, while bringing out his poem, he had a severe attack of ophthalmia, caught while visiting the cottages. I mention these things, for this minute and active sympathy with his fellow-creatures gives a thousand-fold interest to his speculations, and stamps with reality his pleadings for ilie human race." 312 SHELLEY. Shelley docs not seem to have had any acqiuiutauce at Mavlowe, or in the neighbourhood, — it was simply the charm of the country and the river here -which attracted him ; but his friend Mr. Peacock, author of Headlong Hall, was residing there at the time, either drawn there by Shelley, or Shelley by him. Marlowe stands in a fine open valley, on the banks of the Thames. The river here is beautiful, running bankful through the most beautiful meadows, level as a bowling-green, of the richest verdure, and of a fine, ample, airy extent. Beyond the river, these meadows are bounded by steep hills clothed with noble woods ; and a more charming scene for boating cannot be imagined. The grass and flowers on the river margin overhang and dip lovingly into the waters, which, from running over a chalk bottom, are as transparent nearly as the air itself ; and at the various turns of the river new features of beauty salute you — • impending woods, which invite you to land and stroll away into them ; solitary valleys, where house or man is not seen ; and then, again, cultivated farms, and hills covered with flocks. No wonder tliat Shelley was all summer floating upon this fine river, and luxuriating in the composition of his splendid poem. A httle below the town stands the village of Little JMarlowe, with its grey church, and old manor-house, called Bisham Abbey, amid its fine trees ; and around, a lovely scene of the softly flowing, beautiful rive)-, the level meads, and the hills and woods. On the other side of the town, the country is of that clear, bright aspect, with its tillage farms and isolated clumps of beech on swelling hills, which always marks a chalk district. The town itself is small, and intensely quiet. The lioases are low and clean looking, as if no smoke ever fell on them from the pure diaphanous aii-. It consists of three principal streets, something in the shape of the letter T, with some smaller ones. In passing along it, you would not suspect it of that intense poverty which Mrs. Shelley speaks of, though, from the wretched depression of the hand-lace-weaving, it may exist. The houses have a neat miniature look, and the people look cheerful, healthy, and the women of a very agreeable expression of countenance. Such was the spot where Shelley resided, eight-and-thirty years ago. His house was in the main street— a long stuccoed dwelling, of that species of nondescript architecture which once was thought Gothic, because it had pointed windows, and battlements. It must have been then a spacious and a very pleasant residence ; it is now, as IS the lot of most places in which poets have lived, desolated and desecrated. It is divided into three tenements, a school, a private house, and a pothouse. I entered the latter, and with a strange feeling In a large room with a boarded floor, and which had pro- bably been Shelley's dining-room, was a sort of bar partitioned off", and a number of visitors were drinking on benches along the walls, which still bore traces, amid disfigurement and stains, of former taste. The garden behind had evidently been extensive, and very pleasant There were remains of fine evergreen trees, and of a mound on which gi-ew some deciduous cypresses, where had evidently stood a summer-house. This was gono. The garden was divided into as SHELLEY. 313 many portions as there were now tenants, and all evidences of care had vanished from it. Along the side of it, however, lay a fine open meadow, and the eye ran across this to some sweetly-wooded hills. It was a melancholy thing to go back to the time when Shelley, and liis wife and friends, walked in this garden, enjoying it and its sur- rounding quiet scenerj^, and to reflect what had been the subsequent fate both of it and him. Amongst the poor of the town the remembrance of his bene- volence and unassuming kindness had still chroniclers ; but from the other classes little could bo learned, and that not what the memory of such a man deserves. One old sho2:»keeper, not for from his house, remembered him, and " hoped his children did not take after him." " Why ? " " Oh ! he was a very bad man ! " " Indeed ! what bad actions did he do ? " " Oh ! I beg your jmrdon ! he did no bad actions that I ever heard of, but, on the contrary, he was un- commonly gjod to the poor ; but then — " " But then, what 1 " " Why, he did not believe in the devil ! " Such are the fruits of bigot teaching. In vain has Christ said, " By their //■mis shall ye know them." I begged the poor man, of whom I found Shelley l)ought no groceries, at least to leave him to the judgment of his God, and of Christ, who came to seek and to save all that were lost ; and to believe those great assurances of the gospel, that the prodigal, when he had committed all kind of crimes, foimd not only a pacified l)ut a fond father ; that he that hath not charity is as a sounding Ijrass and a tinkling cymbal ; and that he that loveth intensely, though he may think erroneously, will stand a very fair chance with tlie Father of love himself. " But pray what has become of this Mr. Shelley, then ? " asked the man's wife, who had come from an inner room. " He was drowned," T replied. " Oh ! that's just what one might have expected. Drowned ! Lud-a-mercy ! ay, just what we might ha' said he'd come to. He was always on the water, — always boating, boating, — never easy but when he was in that boat. Do you know what a trick was iilayed him by some wag ? " " No." " He called his boat ' Faffa,' and one morning he found the name lengthened, by a piece of chalk, with the word '■ bomV — Vagabond. There are clever fellows here, as well as in London, mind you. But Mr. Shelley was not offended. He only laughed ; for, you see, he did not believe in a devil, and so he thought there could be nothing wrong. He used to say, when he heard of wickedness, ' Ah, poor people ! it's only ignorance ; if they knew better, they'd do better ! ' Oh ; what darkness and heathenry ! to excuse sin, and feel no godly jealousy against wickedness ! " I found that the crabbed creedsman had been there too long before me. My hint about charity was thrown away, and I moved off, lest I myself for faith in Jesus Christ, who would not condemn even the adulteress at the desire of the vengeful and the sensual, should be found wanting in holy indignation too. It was in vain that I inquired amongst the class of little gentry in the place for information about Shelley — they knew nothing of any such person. At length, after much reseai'ch, and the running .•514 SHEI.LET. to and fro of waiters from the inn, I was directed to an ancient .surgeon who liad attended ahnost everybody for the last half-century. I fo^uul him an old man of nearly ninety. He recf)llected Shelley ; had attended him, but knew little about him. He was a very uu- f;ocial man, he said ; kept no company but I\rr. Peacock's, and that of his boat, and was never seen in the town but he had a book in his hand, and was reading as he went along. The old gentleman, however, kindly sent his servant to point out Shelley's house to me, and as I returned up the street, I saw him standing bare-headed on the pavement before his door, in active discourse with various neighbours. My inquiries had evidently aroused the Marlowean curio.sity. On coming up, the old gentleman inquired eagerly if I wanted to learn more yet about Mr. Shelley. — I had learned little or nothing. I replied that I should be very happy. " Then," said he, " come in. Sir, for I have sent for a gentleman w^ho knows all about him." 1 entered, and found a tall, well-dressed man, with a very solemn aspect. "It is the squire of the place," said I to myself. With a very solemn bow he ai'ose, and with very solemn bows wo sat down opposite to each other. " I am happy to hear," I said, "that 3'ou knew Mr. Shelley, and can give me some particulars regarding his residence here." " I can, Sir," he replied, with another solemn bow. I waited to hear news — but I waited in vain. That I^Ir. Shelley had lived there, and that he had long left there, and that his house was down the street, and that he was a very extraordinary man — he knew, and I knew ; but that was all : not a word of his doings or his sayings at Marlowe came out of the solemn brain of that large solemn man. But at length a degree of interest appeared to gather in his cheeks and brighten in his eyes. " Thank God ! " I exclaimed, inwardly. " The man is slow, but it is coming now." His mouth opened, and he said, " But pray, Sir, what became of that Mr. Shelley ? " " What, did you never hear 1 " I exclaimed. " Did it never reach Marlowe — but thirty miles from London — that sad story of his death, which created a sensation throughout the civilized world ? " No, the thing had never penetrated into the Boeotian denseness of that place ! I rose up, and now bowed solemnly too. "And pray what family might he leave 1 " asked the solemn personage, as I was liasting away. " You will learn that," I said, still going away, " in the Baronetage, if such a book ever reaches Marlowe." I hastened to the inn where my chaise was standing ready for my departure, and was just in the act of entering it, when 1 heard a sort of outcry, perceived a sort of bustle behind me, and turning my head, saw tlie tall and solemn man hasting with huge and anxious strides after me. " You'll excuse me. Sir ; you'll excuse me, I think ; but I cottld relate to you a fact, and I think I will venture to relate to you a fact connected with the late Mr. Shelley." " Do," said I. " I think I Kill," replied the tall stout man, heaving a deep sigh, and erecting himself to his full height, far above my head, and casting a m.ost awful glance at the sky. " I i/iink I will,— I ///iit/,- I may venture.'' SHELLEY. 315 " It is certainly something very sad and agonizing," I said to myself; " but I wish he would only bring it out." " Well, then," continued he, with another heave of his capacious chest, and another great glance at the distant horizon, " I certainly will mention it. It was this. When Mr. Shelley left Marlowe, he ordered all his bills to be paid, most honourably, certainly, most honourably; and they were paid — all — except — mine ! There, Sir ! it is out ; excuse it — excuse it ; but I am glad it is out." " What ! a bill ! " I exclaimed, in profoundest astonishment, " a bill .'—was that all ? " " All, Sir ! all ! everything of the sort ; every shilling, I assure you, has been paid, but my little account ; and it was my fault ; 1 don't know how in the world I forgot to send it in." " What," said I, " are you not the squire here ? What are you V " Oh, Lord ! no, Sir ! I am no squire here ! I am a tradesman i I am — in the general way ! " " Drive on ! " I said, springing into the carriage, " drive Hke thcj Dragon of Wantley out of this place— Shelley is remembered in Marlowe because there was one bill left unpaid ! " There again is fame. It would be a curious thing if the man who deems himself most thoroughly and universally famous, and walks about in the comfortable persuasion of it, could see his fame mapped upon the country. What an odd figure it would make ! A few feeble rays shooting here and there, but all around what vast patches of unvisited country, what unilluminated regions, what deserts of oblivion of his name ! Shelley lived, and suffered, and spent himself for mankind, and in the place where he last hved in England, within thirty miles of the great metropolis of genius and knowledge, he is nnly remembered by a bad joke on his boat, by his disbelief of the devil, and by a forgotten bill. Were it not forgotten, he had been so ! £/ieu ! jam satis. On the 12th of March, 1818, Shelley quitted England once more. He was never to return. His own fate and that of Byron wero wonderfully alike. The two greatest, most original, most powerful, and influential poets of the age, were driven into exile by the pubHo feeling of their country. They could not bring themselves to think on political questions with a large party, nor on religious ones with a stiU larger ; and every species of vituperation and insult was let loose upon them. As if charity and forbearance had been heathen (qualities, and wrath and calumny (jhri.stian virtues, the British pubUc most loftily resolved not to do as Christ required them — to love those who hated them and despitefully used them, but to hate those who loved them, and had noble virtues, though they liad their errors. Their errors should have been lamented, and their doctrines refuted as much as possible ; but there is no law, human or divine, that can release us from the law of love, and the command of seventy times seven forgiveness of injuries. Both these great men died in their exile of hatred — the world had its will for T.he time, and the spirits of these dead outcasts must now have their wiU, in their deathless volumes, to the end of time. 316 SHELLEY, If any one would know what sort of a man this moral monster, Shelley, was, let liim read the eloquent account of him and his life at Oxford, in the New Monthly Magazine for 1832, written by ono who was his friend and companion, and who, Mrs. Shelley says, has described hin^ most faithfully. There we find him full of zeal for learning ; most zealous in accumulating knowledge ; overflowing in kindness ; indignant against all oppression to man or to animals. Never failing to rush in on witnessing any cruelty, or hearing of any calamity, to stop the one, and alleviate the other. Full of gaiety and fun as a child, sailing his paper boats on every pool and stream, or rambling far and wide over the country in earnest talk and deep love of all nature. He was ready to caress children, to smile even on gipsies and beggars, to run for refreshment for starving people by the wayside, pledging even his flivourite microscope, his daily means of recreation, to assist a poor old man. Such was the dreadful crea- ture that must be expelled from colleges, have his children torn from him to prevent the contamination of his virtues, and to be hooted out of his native land. Yet amid all the anguish that this inflicted on him, he was ever ready still to do a sublime good, or enter with the most boyiish relish into the merest joke. Nothing can convey a more vivid idea of the latter disposition — which is not that of a man systematically malicious, which is the true spirit of wickedness — than to quote a joke related to him by the writer of these articles, and see the manner in which it was enjoyed. " I was walking one afternoon, in the summer, on the v/estern side of that short street leading from Long-acre to Co vent-garden, where the passenger is earnestly invited, as a personal favour to the de- mandant, to proceed straightway to Highgate or Kentish town, and which is called, I think, James-street. I was about to enter Covent- garden, when an Irish labourer, whom I met bearing an empty hod, accosted me somewhat roughly, and asked why I had run against him J. told him briefly that he was mistaken. Whether somebody had actually pushed the man, or he only sought to quarrel, and although he, doubtless, attended a weekly row regularly, and the week was already drawing to a close, he was unable to w^ait till Sunday for a broken head, I know not, but he discoursed for some time with tho vehemence of a man who considers himself injured or insulted, and he concluded, being emboldened by my long silence, with a cordial invitation just to push him again. Several persons, not very unlike in costume, had gathered round him, and appeared to regard him with sympathy. When he paused, I addressed to him, slowly and quietly, and it should seem with great gravity, these words, as nearly as I can recollect them : — ' I have put my hand into the hamper ; I have looked upon the sacred barley ; I have eaten out of the drum ! I have drunk, and was well j^leased ; I have said, koj^ ofina^, and it is finished ! ' 'Have you. Sir?' inquired the astonished Irishman ; and his ragged friends instantly pressed round him with, — ' Where is the hamper, Paddy ? '— ' AVhat barley ? ' and the like. And ladies from his own country, that is to say, the basket-women, suddenly began to interrogate him :— ' Now, I say, Pat, where have you been SHELLEY. 317 drinking ? — What iiave you had ? ' I turned, therefore, to the right, leaving the astounded neophyte, whom I had thus planted, to ex- pound the mystic words of initiation as he could to his inquisitive companions. As I walked slowly under the piazzas, and through the streets and courts towards the West, I marvelled at the ingenuity of Orpheus, — if he were indeed the inventor of the Eleusinian mysteries ; that he was able to devise words that, imperfectly as I had repeated them, and in the tattered fragment that has reached us, were able to soothe people so savage and barbarous as those to whom I had ad- dressed them, and which, as the .ajjologists for those venerable rites affirm, were manifestly well adapted to incite persons who hear them for the first time, however rude they may be, to ask questions. Words that can awaken curiosity even in the sluggish intellect of a wild man, and can open the inlet of knowledge ! " " Konx ompax ; and it is finished ! " exclaimed Shelley, crowing with enthusiastic delight at my whimsical adventure. A thousand times, as he strode about the hovise, and in his rambles out of doors, would he stop and repeat the mystic words of initiation, but always with an energy of manner, and a vehemence of tone and gesture, that would have prevented the ready acceptance which a calm, passionless delivery had once procured for them. How often would he throw down his book, clasp his hands, and starting from his seat, cry suddenly, with a thrilling voice, " I have said, Konx ompax ; and it is finished ! " This child-like, this great, and greatly kind, and if men would have let him, this light-hearted man, thus then quitted England. Like Byron, he sought a home in Italy. He lived in various cities, and wrote there his very finest works, amongst them Prometheus Unbound ; The Cenci ; Hellas ; part of Rosalind and Helen ; his Ode to Liberty, perhaps the very finest ode in the language, and certainly in its description of Athens never excelled in any piece of description in any language ; Adonais, an elegy on the death of Keats, and those very melancholy verses written in the Bay of Naples. He was drowned, as is well known, by the sinking of his boat in a squall, in the Gulf of Spezia, in the summer of 1822, at the age of thirty. Shelley would have enjoyed this portion of his life beyond all others, had he been in health and spirits. He was united to a woman worthy of him, and who could partake of all his intellectual plea- sures. Children were growing around him, and he Avas living in that beautiful country, surrounded by the remains of former art and history, and under that fine sky, pouring out from heart and brain, glorious, and impassioned, and immortal works. But his health foiled him, and the darts of calumny were rankling in his bosom, depressing his spirits, and sapping his constitution. I can only allow myself a few passing glances at his homes in Italy, of which Mrs. Shelley has given us such delightful sketches in the notes to her edition of her husband's ]iocms. They went direct to Milan, and visited the Lake of Como ; then proceeding to Pisa, Leghorn, the baths of Lucca, Venice, Este, Rome, 31 S SHELLEY. Naples, and back to Rome for the winter. There he chiefly wroto his Prometheus. In 1818, they were at the Baths of Lucca, whero Shelley linishcd Kosalind and tfelen. Thence he visited Venice, and occupied a liouse lent him by Lord Byron, at Este. " I Capucini was !i vilia built on the site of a Capuchin convent, demohshed when the I'-rench suppressed rehgious houses. It was situated on the very overhanging brow of a low hill, at the foot of a range of higher ones. The house was cheerful and pleasant ; a vine-trellised walk, or per- gola, as it is called in Italian, led from the hall-door to a summei-- house at the end of the garden, which Shelley made his study, and in which he began the Pi-ometheus ; and here also, as he mentioned in a letter, he wrote Julian and Maddalo. A slight ravine, with a wood in its depth, divided the garden from the hill, on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este, whose dark massive wall gave forth an echo, and from whose ivied crevices owls and bats flitted forth at night, as the crescent moon sunk behind the black and heavy battlements. "We looked from the garden over the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines ; while to the east, the horizon was lo.st in misty distance. After the pic- turesque but limited view of mountain, ravine, and chestnut wood at the Baths of Lucca, there was something infinitely gratifying to the eye in the wide range of pi'ospect commanded by our new abode." Here they lost a little girl, and quitting the neighbourhood of Venice, they proceeded southward. Shelley was delighted beyond expression with the scenery and antiquities of Italy. " The aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its majestic streams, the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the noble marble-built cities, en- chanted him. The first entrance to Rome opened to him a scene of remains of ancient grandeur that far surpassed his expectations ; and the uus[)eakable beauty of Naples and its environs added to the impression he received of the, ti'anscendent and glorious beauty of Italy." The winter was spent at Naples, where they lived in utter solitude, yet greatly enjoyed their excursions along its sunny sea, or into its beautiful environs. From Naples they returned to Rome, where they arrived in March, 1819. Here they had the old MS. account of the story of the Cenci put into their hands, and visited the Doria and Colonna palaces, where the portraits of Beatrice were to be found. Her beauty cast the reflection of its grace over her apj^alliug story, and Shelley conceived the subject of his masterly drama. In Rome they lost their eldest child, a very lovely and engaging boy ; and, quitting the eternal city, took the villa, Valsovano, between Leghorn and Monte Nero, where they resided during the summer. " Our villa," says Mrs. Shelley, " was situated in the midst of a podere ; the peasants sang as they worked beneath our windows, during the heat of a very hot season ; and in the evening the water-wheel creaked as the progress of irrigation went on, and the fire-flies flashed nmoug the myrtle hedges ; nature was bright, sunshiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of a majestic terror, sucb as we had nevet before witnessed. SHELLEY. 319 " At the top of tlie house there was a sort of terrace. There is often such in Italy, generally roofed. This one was very small, yet not only roofed, but glazed. This Shelley made his study ; it looked out on a wide prospect of fertile country, and commanded a view of the near sea. The storms that sometimes varied our day, showed themselves most picturesquely as they were driven across the ocean. Sometimes the dark, lurid clouds dipped towards the waves, and became water-spouts, that churned up the waters beneath, as they were chased onwards, and scattered by the tempest. At other times the dazzling sunlight and heat made it almost intolerable to every other ; but Shelley basked in both, and his health and spirits revived under then- influence. In this airy cell he wrote the principal part of the Cenci." They spent part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed several hours daily in the Gallery, studying the works of art, and making notes. The summer of 1820 was spent chiefly at the Baths of GuiHano, near Pisa, where Shelley made a solitary journey on foot, during some of the hottest weather of the season, to the summit of Monte San Pelegrino,— a mountain on which stands a pilgrimage chapel, much frequented : and during this expedition he conceived the idea of The Witch of Atlas ; and immediately on hi.s return sate down and wrote it in three days. An overflowing of the Serchio inundated the house, and cau-sed them to quit San Guiliano : they returned to Pisa. In 1821, the Spanish revolution excited throughout Italy a similar spirit. In Naples, Genoa, Piedmont, almost everywhere, the spirit of revolt showed itself; and Shelley, still at Pisa, sympathised enthusiastically with these movements. Then came the news of the Greek insurrection, and the battle of Navarino, which put the climax to his joy ; and in this exultation he wrote Hellas. These circumstances seem to have given a new life to him. He had now his new boat, and was sailing it on the Arno. It was a pleasant summer, says Mrs. Shelley, bright in all but Shelley's health ; yet he enjoyed himself greatly. He was in high anticipation of the arrival of Leigh Hunt ; and at this juncture, the now happy poet and his family made their last remove. Let us give the deeply interesting picture of Shelley's last home, in the words of his gifted wife. " The bay of Spezia is of considerable extent, and is divided by a rocky promontory into a larger and a smaller one. The town of J.irici is situated on the eastern point, and in the depth of the .smaller bay, which bears the name of this town, is the village of Sant Arenzo. Our house, Casa Magni, was close to this village ; the sea came up to the door, a steep hill sheltered it behind. The pro- prietor of the estate was insane ; he had begun to erect a large house at the summit of the hill behind, but his malady prevented its being iinished, and it was falling into ruin. He had, and this to the Italian.s seemed a glaring symptom of decided madness, rooted up the olives