J 

 
 ;
 
 CONVERSATIONS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 My eyes are filled with childish tears, 
 
 My heart is idly stirr'd ; 
 And the same sounds are m my ears, 
 
 Which in those days I heard! — Wordsworth. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JOHN W. PARKER, WEST STRAND. 
 
 M.DCCC.XXXVI.
 
 iJJMVEikSiS'i' k 'i-.j^' i;A!iFORNIA 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 CAMBRIDGE FRIENDS 
 
 THIS VOLUME 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Although from its very nature this volume may 
 appear somewhat fragmentary, it will be found to 
 be animated, it is hoped, by an unity of spirit and 
 intention. Its chief object is to inculcate the 
 necessity of purifying the intellectual faculties, by 
 elevating them above the sordid pursuits of the 
 world ; and to impress upon the youthful mind, in 
 particular, the inestimable value of learning when 
 Christianized by devotion and humility of temper, 
 and sought after and beloved for itself alone. 
 Should any reader be induced by these persuasions 
 to cultivate an acquaintance with those neglected 
 treasures of eloquence and erudition, which con- 
 stitute the true and abiding Classics of our Litera- 
 ture, I shall feel myself abundantly rewarded. In 
 advancing my own humbler sentiments in the com- 
 pany of men whose names will perish only with 
 their land's language, the motive may at least
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 mitigate the presumption; and in attempting to 
 preserve so much of their discourses, as various 
 opportunities have enabled me to collect, I have 
 only to request that all the defects may be charged 
 upon the relater; that all the merits may be 
 assigned to them. 
 
 Cambridge, 
 March 8lh, 1836. -
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 S. T. Coleridge at Trinity; with Specimens of his 
 
 Table-Talk 1 
 
 The Remains of a late Sizar of Queen's . . 37 
 
 KiRKE White AND the Johnians; with some Account 
 
 of his Last Days . . .... 47 
 
 Cowley and his Friend, William Hervey . . 67 
 
 The History of a Lost Student. Taken down 
 
 from his own Lips ...... 88 
 
 A Garland for A White Forehead . . . . 106 
 
 Sidney Walker and John Moultrie . . . 110 
 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay; with Records of the 
 
 Union 130 
 
 Edward Lytton Bulwer and T. M. . . . 145 
 
 Gray and Mason. A Summer Day with the Muses . 160 
 
 The Destucttves in 1643. Henry More and 
 
 Joseph Beaumont ...... 219 
 
 The Poet Wordsworth and Professor Smythe 235 
 
 One Hour with Henry Martyn, and a Glance at 
 the present State of Religious Feeling in the Uni- 
 versity . 253 
 
 Praed and his Chansons . . . . . . 263 
 
 A Word with Professor Sedgwick, on the Studies 
 
 of the University 270 
 
 Notes . . ' 290
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY, 
 
 SPECIMENS OF HIS TABLE-TALK. 
 
 Mr. Coleridge \'isited Cambridge upon occasion of the Scientific 
 Meeting there, in June, 1833. " My emotions at visiting 
 the university," he said, " were at first overwhelming. I 
 could not speak for an hour; yet my feelings were upon 
 the whole very pleasurable, and I have not passed, of late 
 years at least, three days of such great enjoyment and 
 healthful excitement of mind and body." — Note to the 
 T able-Talk. 
 
 Thou who rewardest but with popular breath. 
 And that, too, after death. Cowley. 
 
 He is gone from amongst us ! After a painful 
 and dreary voyage, though cheered by one Star, 
 which no tempest can overcloud, the Ancient 
 Mariner hath reached the haven where he would 
 be. He is gone from amongst us ! but never let it 
 be said, that the place thereof knows him no 
 more. The old man, eloquent still, haunts the 
 courts of " dear, dear Jesus ;" his rooms are still to 
 be seen by the gateway of the College, and to 
 many a youthful heart in those academic bowers 
 will long be consecrated by his virtue, his piety, and 
 his learning.
 
 Zi S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 To one, who, like myself, has been an attentive 
 observer of our literature during the last thirty 
 years, the history of Coleridge offers no flattering 
 testimony of popular taste. Throughout a life 
 which, if intellectually considered, was certainly 
 characterized by unwearied diligence and activity, he 
 was, in the common sense of the term, an unsuccess- 
 ful author, as he pleasantly observed, better known 
 to his bookseller than to the public. The eloquence 
 of his prose, the music of his poetry, fell equally 
 unheeded on the national ear. The humblest 
 hurdy-gurdy that ever called forth an execration, 
 obtained a more generous reward than the dulcimer 
 of " the Abyssinian Maid.*" A change seems now 
 gradually coming over the spirit of the dream. His 
 poems are selling, the crumbs are gathered from 
 his table, and an edition of his Remains announced 
 to be in preparation, under the superintendence of 
 one whose taste can discover their beauties, and 
 whose eloquence can defend them. 
 
 But I am wandering from Coleridge's visit to 
 Cambridge, — and who that was present will ever 
 forget that evening, under the clock at Trinity*, 
 which witnessed a symposium from which Plato 
 himself might have carried something away .'* The 
 remembrance even now creeps over the mind like a 
 Summer Nighfs Dream. 
 
 • Mr. Tliirlwall's Rooms.
 
 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. .5 
 
 While lingering the other day over the recently 
 published specimens of Coleridge's Table -Talk, it 
 occurred to me, that I might also be able to con- 
 tribute something to that heap of treasure, though 
 the fragments would be far less pure and precious. 
 They only who have been in the society of the poet, 
 can make adequate allowances for the deficiencies 
 of his reporter. Of all the eminent men with 
 whom it has been my fortune to be associated, his 
 conversations were the most difficult to preserve. 
 You went away with a few links, and thought you 
 had the chain. Conversations, indeed, become a 
 misnomer when applied to Coleridge. They were 
 rather a series of monologues ; episodes delivered 
 before an audience. Yet, who would wish to 
 ' punctuate,' by a single question, that rich and 
 musical discourse, or interrupt the stream of varie- 
 gated thoughts which flowed from that Mouth of 
 Gold ? What appeared to the common or inattentive 
 listener to be tedious and useless digressions, were, 
 in reality, only so many winding steps to the wide 
 and comprehensive view of the subject ; and who, 
 that has climbed with this venerable guide to the 
 summit of his lofty arguments, ever regretted the 
 weariness of the ascent, or did not think the labour 
 amply repaid by the glorious prospect spread out 
 before him ? 
 
 Boswell would have found his occupation gone at 
 
 B 2
 
 4 S. T. rOLERIDGK AT TKTNITy. 
 
 Iligligate. The genius of Coleridge very rarely 
 broke out in those flashes of poignant satire and 
 eloquence, that taught men to tremble before the 
 Lion of Bolt-court. It is true of a sentence, as of a 
 serpent, — the shorter it is the shai-per its sting. 
 Coleridge, from the poetical and peculiar turn of 
 his mind, was accustomed to run into prolixity, and 
 hence his argument often grew weak at the point. 
 For this reason I never regarded him, notwith- 
 standing his skill in logic, as a successful disputant; 
 he fought well at a distance, but seemed to shrink 
 from close combat, and to think more of the splen- 
 dour of his weapons than of their temper. He 
 would have stood little chance with Warburton's 
 club. 
 
 The poefs editor and kinsman has met this 
 objection with great spirit, in his affectionate pre- 
 face ; and, in fact, it only amounts to saying, — that 
 Coleridge was not Johnson. He was equally ad- 
 mirable, in a different manner. There is nothing 
 in Boswell finer than the comparison of Kean's 
 unequal acting to reading Shakspeare by flashes of 
 lightning. It is a magnificent simile. 
 
 The following specimens were written down while 
 the voice of the poet was ringing in my ears ; and 
 some snatches of the original melody are therefore, 
 I hope, retained in the transcription.
 
 MILTON, NEWTON, AND HALE. 
 
 How the lieart opens at the magic name of Milton ! 
 yet who shall, in our day, hang another garland 
 upon his tomb ? Eloquence has exhausted its 
 treasures in his praise, and men of genius have 
 rivalled each other in the splendour of their offer- 
 ings at the shrine of the Bard. He has long ago 
 taken his seat with Homer and with Shakspeare, 
 one of the Poets of the W orld. 
 
 It belongs only to the noblest intellect thus to 
 identify itself with all nations, and to find country- 
 men wherever the spirit of humanity dwells. Into 
 the remotest seclusion of the civilized world, the 
 voice of the "old man eloquent" has penetrated. 
 Even the lone Icelander, placed 
 
 Far amid the melancholy main, 
 has listened in his own tongue to the Story of 
 Paradise. As a poet, his genius was universal. 
 He has left us models of excellence in every branch 
 of his art. In the sublime epic, the noble drama, 
 the picturesque mask, the graceful elegy, the vigor- 
 ous sonnet, — in all he is equally great, equally 
 beyond the reach of rivalry. His genius ripened 
 with his years ; and every poem he wrote was a 
 step of purer gold to his Temple of Fame. His 
 element was sublimity, — but he possessed, in an
 
 6 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 eminent degree, the opposite qualities of tenderness 
 and gi-ace. He who, with the power of heroic 
 song, could stir the soul, as with the sound of a 
 trumpet, knew also the "tender stops'" of the 
 pastoral flute; and the same hand that armed the 
 rebellious legions, and built up the radiant domes 
 of Pandemonium, mingled also the cup of enchant- 
 ment in Cotnus, and strewed the flowers on the 
 hearse of Lycidas. 
 
 But to Milton, far higher praise is due than mere 
 genius, however mighty, can demand. He has 
 brought the Muse to the aid of piety, and confuted, 
 in every line of his noble epics, the assertion of 
 Gibbon, that his powers were " cramped by the 
 system of our Religion, and never appeared to so 
 great advantage as when he shook it a little oif."^ 
 We may well glory, that 
 
 Piety has found 
 
 Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer 
 Has flowed from lips wet with Castalian dews. 
 
 The Task. 
 
 We can recall with delight, that "child-hke 
 Sage*,"" who baptized philosophy in the Fountains 
 of Peace, and that Judge t, who waited in humble 
 hope for the summons to a higher tribunal, and 
 that illustrious Bard 
 
 .... Whose genius had angelic wings, 
 . And fed on manna. 
 
 • Newton. -f Hale.
 
 BLACKMORE AND NAT. LEE. 
 
 It may be assumed, as a critical axiom, that no 
 man who, during his life-time has obtained a very 
 large share of applause, is deserving of total ob- 
 livion. This is emphatically true of Cowley, of 
 Herbert, of Crashaw, and even of Blackmore, who 
 though, in general, writing quite bad enough for a 
 physician, has, in one or two places, in defiance, as 
 it were, of his nature, risen into true poetry. You 
 will see my meaning in the description of Satan's 
 
 journey : — 
 
 From afar 
 
 I did with wondrous joy descry at last 
 Some streaks of light Avhich darted on the waste, 
 Pale beams that on the face of chaos lay; 
 Moimting this way, I reached the hghtsome sky, 
 And saw the beauteous Avorld before me lie. 
 The fresh creation looked all charming, mild, 
 And all the jlow cry face of Nature smiled. 
 What odours, such as heavenly zephyrs blow, 
 From the sweet mouth of the infant world did flow! 
 
 So again, we perceive a very uncommon inge- 
 nuity and beauty in the application of the legendary 
 invasion of heaven by the giants, to the fervent 
 and unceasing prayers of penitence, which are 
 
 called, — 
 
 The only giants that assail 
 
 The throne of heaven, and in the end prevail.
 
 8 BLACK.MORE AND NAT. LEE. 
 
 How charming is this metaphor of the unhappy 
 Lee ; a name not to be mentioned without calling 
 the tears to our eyes, — 
 
 .... Speech is morning to the mind; 
 It spreads the beauteous images abroad, 
 Which else lie furled and clouded in the soul. 
 
 Duke of Guise. 
 
 MILTON AND DR. BAINBRIDGE. 
 
 It seems to me that a very probable explanation of 
 Milton*'s disagreement with the master of his col- 
 lege, is contained in the following passage from the 
 ' Apology for Smectymnus', It alludes, you per- 
 ceive, to some of those academic performances Avhich 
 were not at that time thought unbecoming the 
 gravity of a university. " There, while they acted 
 and overacted, among other scholars I was a spec- 
 tator; they thought themselves gallant men, and 
 I thought them fools; they made sport, and I 
 laughed ; they mispronounced, and I misliked ; 
 and to make up the Atticism, they were out, and I 
 hissed.'''' It is not the least singular circumstance 
 connected with this passage, (which has wo/, I 
 think, been quoted by any of the poet's biogra- 
 phers,) that it is almost a translation from Demos- 
 thenes'' celebrated oration, De Corona.
 
 HENRY SMYTH, the Silver-Tongued Preacher. 
 
 If the critical canon be adopted which defines 
 eloquence to consist in a continuous flow of clear 
 and beautiful thoughts, in harmonious and care- 
 fully arranged language, the divines of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, would, perhaps, 
 be deemed inferior to their successors. They very 
 rarely present us with a perfect whole. Their 
 compositions are marked by the liveliest expression, 
 but are often destitute of symmetry. Their power 
 comes out in vivid bursts of sublimity, in flashes 
 of indignant satire, in exhortations of overpowering 
 enthusiasm. You will observe, also, a dramatic 
 spirit and liveliness of painting. Their sermons 
 abound in, what we may call, effective situations. 
 For examples of all these qualities, I would 
 send you to the works of a writer who flourished 
 in the Elizabethan reign ; and who, for his elo- 
 quence, obtained the appellation of the silver- 
 tongued preacher. Two or three passages occur 
 to me, which seem to be worthy of the highest 
 reputation. The first is taken from a sermon, 
 bearing the singular title of The Trumpet of the 
 Soul sounding to Judgment; and refers to the 
 few brief years in which wickedness is permitted to 
 triumph — " When Iniquity hath played her part.
 
 10 S. T. COI.KUIDCK AT THIXITY. 
 
 Vengeance leaps upon the stage. The black 
 guard shall attend upon you, you shall eat at the 
 table of Sorrow, and the crown of Death shall be 
 upon your heads, and many glittering faces shall 
 be looking upon you.'" He has here dashed out 
 with a few strokes of his pen, a picture of almost 
 Miltonic grandeur. The next is of a different 
 character : — " AVhen God seeth an hypocrite, he 
 will pull his vizard from his face, as Adam was 
 stript of his fig-leaves, and show the anatomy of 
 his heart, as thougli his life were written in his 
 forehead."" Who has expressed the weakness of 
 the flesh in stronger terms than these : — " The king- 
 dome of heaven is caught by violence ; so soon as 
 we rise in the morning, we go forth to fight with 
 two mighty giants, the World and the Devil, and 
 whom do we take with us but a traitor* V 
 
 PLATO. 
 
 It has been well said, that if Plato had attempted 
 to enforce the laws of his proposed republic, he 
 must have begun by banishing himself. Deeply 
 was his mind imbued with the elements of the 
 truest poetry ; and no one delighted more in the 
 
 * See Smyth's Sermons, 1593.
 
 PLATO. 11 
 
 scenes of nature, the shadow of the trees, or the 
 soothing murmur of the fountain. And here I 
 may notice, what I think has not always been 
 sufficiently admired, the peculiar beauty and trans- 
 parency of his language. His imagination is as 
 clear as it is deep ; you see every particle of gold 
 at the bottom. Nor let this be accounted a slight 
 advantage; for 'I am acquainted with no Greek 
 writer to whom the same charm belongs. 
 
 LOGIC OR GEOMETRY NECESSARY FOR A POET. 
 
 Logic, for every general purpose, is, in my opinion, 
 infinitely more useful than geometry, and furnishes 
 a more healthful regimen for the mind ; and I say 
 this without in any way undervaluing the import- 
 ance of mathematics ; for I, too, have — 
 
 . . . Mused on Granta's willowy strand, 
 The sage of Alexandria in my hand, 
 And marked his mystic symbols ; the severe 
 And cogent truths dwell in my reason's ear*. 
 
 Nor have I forgotten the words of that illustrious 
 man, by whom Sciexce was married to Poetry, 
 and in whose writings she always appears in the 
 
 * Pursuits of Literature.
 
 12 LOGIC OK CKOMKTllY l"OU A POET. 
 
 company of the Graces. Need I mention Lord 
 Bacon .? " If the wit be too dull," said he, " they 
 sharpen it ; if too wandering, they fix it ; if too 
 inherent in the sense, they abstract it." This great 
 principle ought to be kept constantly in sight. 
 Geometry is a means to an end — a series of steps 
 to a temple ; many, I fear, there are who never get 
 beyond the steps. The admirable Fuller, of whom 
 Queen's ought to be almost as proud as of Erasmus, 
 has placed the matter in a very clear and proper 
 light, in his character of a learned and accomplished 
 person. " Mathematics," he says, " he moderately 
 studieth to his great contentment, using it as bal- 
 last for his soul ; yet to fix it, not to stall it, nor 
 suffers it to be so unmannerly as to jostle out other 
 arts." A mere mathematician, made up of unknown 
 quantities, is a dreary and melancholy spectacle — a 
 tree without leaves. 
 
 I am aware that poets, and persons in whom 
 the imaginative faculties are very fully developed, 
 often regard the severer sciences as unconnected 
 with their pursuits. I have known more than one 
 young and ardent writer of this description, to whom 
 my advice has always been couched in the words of 
 a writer competent to speak: — Season your studies 
 with more hard atid knotty inquiries ; and let the 
 mind he daily employed upon some subjects from 
 which it is averse. Such aids, if they do not im-
 
 LOGIC OR GEOMETRY FOR A POET. 13 
 
 prove the blossom of the budding tree, will prop 
 and strengthen the stem : at least half the mental 
 deformity abounding in the world is caused by the 
 want of such a support. For let it be remembered, 
 that after the tree has attained a certain growth, its 
 position cannot be altered ; — it is crooked for life. 
 Nothing can be more absurd than this belief of the 
 necessary opposition of poetry to science. In all 
 great poets the reverse is manifest. You see it in 
 Homer, in Dante, and, above all, in Milton. Per- 
 haps I ought rather to say, that you feel its in- 
 fluence, in shaping the conceptions of the poet, and 
 preserving those fine proportions whose combination 
 makes the harmony of a structure. What can be 
 more ridiculous than the poetical architecture in 
 fashion among the moderns ? A magnificent portal 
 leads to a mud hovel ; you ascend a marble stair- 
 case, and arrive at a garret. 
 
 Poetry is, I think, the only art which is thought 
 to require no preparatory education. Chaucer, 
 somewhere, very happily calls it a Rock of Ice; 
 and the only safe mode of climbing it, is by cutting 
 our steps carefully as we advance. We may thus, 
 with patience, labour, and a strong heart, reach the 
 top at last. A rash and foolish attempt to scale it 
 at a run, will inevitably terminate in overthrow and 
 disgrace. A rhymer in our day thinks less of 
 Parnassus than a Swiss peasant of his mountains,
 
 14 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 for he does carry a staff' with him. To return, for 
 a moment, to my original aroument. It will be 
 understood that I attribute very little efficacy to 
 the demonstration of a proposition per se ; but to 
 the devotion and absorption of mind which the 
 operation requires ; not so much to the actual show- 
 ing, upon paper, that " Solid Parallelepipeds, which 
 have the same altitude, are to one another as their 
 bases," as the few minutes required to prove it. If 
 the mind wanders, the steps must be retraced : 
 thus by perseverance we acquire the power of keep- 
 ing the mental eye fixed, without wavering, upon 
 any object ; an acquisition, by the way, of infinite 
 importance. 
 
 A DISTINCTION. 
 
 Yet the qualities we have been condemning in 
 
 are not so much positive vices, as what we may 
 
 call, with Butler, virtues, degenerated and grown 
 wild for want of culture. You discover the beauty 
 of the flower even in the weed.
 
 15 
 
 LANGHORNE AND DONNE. 
 
 I THINK you will find the original of Langhorne's 
 celebrated line — 
 
 The child of misery baptized in tears, 
 
 in Donne"'s Sermon on the First Epistle to the 
 Thessalonians. The prose works of this admirable 
 Divine, are Armouries for the Christian Soldier. 
 Such a depth of intellect, such a nervousness of 
 style, such a variety of illustration, such a power 
 of argument, are to be looked for only in the 
 writings of that race of Giants. Donne's poetry 
 must be sought in his prose ; yet some of his verses 
 breathe an uncommon fervency of spirit, and when 
 he looked in his heart and wrote, his manner is 
 delightful. The following poem, for sweetness and 
 tenderness of expression, chastened by a religious 
 thoughtfulness and faith, is, I think, almost perfect. 
 It is, you see, the address of a lover, or friend, 
 to one whom he leaves behind ; — mark the exqui- 
 site allusion in the conclusion of the second and 
 fourth stanzas : 
 
 Sweetest love, I do not go 
 For weariness of thee, 
 Nor in hope the world can show 
 A fitter love for me ;
 
 16 l.AXGllOnNE AND DONNE. 
 
 But since that I 
 Must die at last, 'tis best 
 Thus to use myself in jest, 
 
 By feigned death to die. 
 
 Yesternight the Sun went hence, 
 
 And yet is here to-day ; 
 He hath, no desire nor sense, 
 
 Nor half so short a way : 
 
 Then fear not me, 
 But believe that I shall make 
 Hastier joumies, since I take 
 
 ]\Iore wings and spurs than he. 
 
 O! how feeble is man's poAver, 
 
 Tliat if good fortune fall, 
 Cannot add another hour. 
 
 Nor a lost hour recall ! 
 
 But come bad chance. 
 And we join to it our strength, 
 And we teach it art and length, 
 
 Itself on us t' advance. 
 
 Let not thy divining heart 
 
 Forethink me any ill : 
 Destiny may take thy part, 
 
 And may thy fears fulfil ; 
 
 But think that Ave 
 Are but laid aside to sleep ; 
 They who one another keep 
 
 Alive, ne'er parted be.
 
 17 
 
 HERODOTUS AND THUCYDIDES. 
 
 The style of Herodotus is full of sweetness, and 
 shines with a mild and pellucid lustre ; but the 
 stream is shallow, and you may dive a hundred 
 times without bringing up a single pearl. No 
 author of equal reputation was ever so deficient in 
 beauty of sentiment, or weight and dignity of 
 reflection. But he possesses the art of story- telling, 
 he is an admirable raconteur. He abounds also 
 in splendid and animating shows, and there is un- 
 doubtedly something very striking and impressive 
 in the long array and picturesque pomp of his 
 history. His merits, indeed, seem to be essentially 
 poetical ; and there is force in Mr. Thirl wall's 
 remark*, that in the unity of his subject, Herodotus 
 resembles the epic poets ; so much so, indeed, that 
 he may be supposed to have formed his plan from 
 the Homeric writings. 
 
 The unity of the Iliad and the History you will 
 observe, consists in the predominance of one great 
 thought : in the one, Achilles ; in the other, the 
 Persian power. You do not find this unity in 
 
 • Alluding to a previous observation of Mr. Thirlwall, who 
 had been speaking of Herodotus. 
 
 C
 
 18 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 Thucydicles, a writer in whom I see realized the 
 saying of JMirabeau, " that words are tlnngs.'" But 
 his power is not the result of melo-dramatic art. 
 He is, indeed, vehement, but then it is the vehe- 
 mence of truth ; his diction copious, yet well chosen; 
 his thoughts impetuous, yet always advancing in 
 close order. Read his famous description of the 
 Pestilence at Athens : the author is swallowed up 
 in his subject, — the painter chained before his own 
 picture. 
 
 BOLINGBROKE AND HIS PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I KNOW too well the danger and injustice of hastily 
 judging any eminent individual. The faintest 
 breath clouds the glass through which we con- 
 template their actions. There is a proposition in 
 Newton's Optics which has always appeared to me 
 very happily illustrative of this subject. " If the 
 eye-glass be tinted faintly with the smoke of a 
 lamp or torch to obscure the light of the star, the 
 fainter light in the circumference of the star ceases 
 to be visible, and the star (if the glass be suffi- 
 ciently soiled with smoke,) appears something more 
 like a mathematical point."" It loses, in fact, to 
 our eye, that particular character which by nature 
 belongs to it. So it is with the conduct of those
 
 BOLIXGBROKF. AXD HIS PHILOSOPHY. 19 
 
 great men who have played the first part on the 
 world's stage. God knows, smoke is never wanting 
 to obscure the lioht of the noblest actions : of Boling- 
 broke''s political character, therefore, I will say 
 nothing, but of his literary pretensions, I should 
 be rejoiced to see a fair and liberal estimate. His 
 philosophical writings have been characterized by 
 Warburton with 'great severity, as containing the 
 rankness of South, without his force, and the 
 malignity of Marvell, without his wit. For the 
 erection of his own system, he thought it necessary 
 to ridicule or demolish every other. Not satisfied 
 with occupying a vacant spot, of which several are 
 to be found in philosophy and metaphysics, he set 
 about clearing the whole region. His hand is 
 against every man. The wise and thoughtful Cud- 
 worth becomes only a nonsensical paraphraser of 
 nonsense ; Wollaston is fit for an asylum ; Clarke 
 is a presumptuous rhapsodist ; the venerable Sher- 
 lock is beaten down with a sneer. Yet he himself 
 was, after all, the victim of what he calls the 
 delirium of metaphysical theology. I should like 
 to see the valuable parts of his works threshed out 
 from the chaff that covers them ; for, with all his 
 errors and imperfections, Bolingbroke was an extra- 
 ordinary individual : the influence he attained over 
 the most celebrated of his contemporaries, proves 
 that. " I really think," said Pope, " there is some- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 thino: in that jjrcat man Avhich looks as if he was 
 placed here by mistake." To me, the philosopher 
 never appears in so attractive an attitude as when 
 leaning in tears over the chair of the suffering 
 poet*. 
 
 A HINT FROM THE CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury calls the Rules of Art the 
 Philosophical Sea Cards, by which the adven- 
 turous Intellects of the age are wont to steer. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR, THE SPENSER OF PROSE. 
 
 And why should I not call Taylor a poet ? Is not 
 The Holy Living and Dying, a sacred and didactic 
 poem, in almost as wide a sense of the word as the 
 Commedia of Dante.'' What Bard of ancient or 
 modern times has surpassed, in richness of language, 
 in fertility of fancy, in majesty of sentiment, in 
 grace of imagery,^ this Spenser of English prose ? 
 
 To Taylor belonged the "believing mind" of 
 Collins. With the romance of the early chroniclers 
 he was deeply imbued. The spirit of discovery 
 had then made little progress ; and the knowledge 
 actually acquired only served to kindle the darkness 
 
 " See Spence's Anecdotes.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 21 
 
 into a faint and uncertain twilight that magnified 
 every object. In the " Lion-haunted Inland" was 
 still supposed to lie 
 
 A mystic city, goal of high emprise. — Chapman. 
 
 And its golden towers often flashed through the 
 waking dreams of the poetical enthusiast. Nor think 
 me too ardent in my admiration of this glory of our 
 Church. 
 
 Only take one or two specimens from the best 
 known of his works, and say in what they are 
 inferior to the sublimest poetry. The following is 
 a picture : — 
 
 "All the succession of time, all the changes in 
 nature, all the varieties of light and darkness ; the 
 thousand thousand accidents in the world, and 
 every contingency to every man and to every 
 creature, doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls 
 us to look how the old sexton. Time, throws up the 
 earth and digs a grave, where we must lay our sins 
 or our sorrows, and sow our bodies till they rise 
 again in a fair or an intolerable eternity." 
 
 The next might have been copied from the note- 
 book of Spenser. The " full eyes of cliildhood" is 
 one of the finest images in the language. 
 
 " Reckon but from the spritefulness of youth, 
 and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood, to 
 the loathsomeness and horror of a three days'
 
 22 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRIXITY. 
 
 burial. For so have I seen a rose newly springing- 
 from the clefts of its hood ; at first it was fair as 
 the morning, and full with the dew of heaven as a 
 lamb's fleece ; but when a ruder breath had forced 
 open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too 
 youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on 
 darkness, and decline to softness and the symptoms 
 of a sickly age ; it bowed the head, and broke the 
 stalk, and at night, having lost some of its leaves 
 and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds 
 and outworn faces."" 
 
 What pen has uttered sweeter things on children, 
 or the delights of the domestic hearth. His sermon 
 on the jMarriage-Ring is more beautiful than any 
 pastoral. 
 
 " No man can tell but he that loves his children, 
 how many delicious accents make a man's heart to 
 dance in the pretty conversation of those dear 
 pledges ; — their childishness, — their stammering, — 
 their little angers, — their innocence, — their imper- 
 fections, — their necessities, — are so many little ema- 
 nations of joy and comfort to him that delights in 
 their persons and society.**' 
 
 He looked out upon nature with the eye and 
 heart of a poet, and in the following passage seems 
 to have anticipated Thomson in one of the most 
 beautiful stanzas of the Castle of Indolence. 
 
 " I am fallen into the hands of publicans and
 
 JEREMY TAYLOK. 23 
 
 sequestrators, and they have taken all from me. 
 What now ? Let me look about me. They have 
 left me sun, and moon, and fire, and water; a 
 loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some 
 to relieve ; and I can still discourse, and unless I 
 list, they have not taken away my merry counte- 
 nance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; 
 they have still left me the providence of God, 
 and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, 
 and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them 
 too; and still I sleep, and digest, and eat, and 
 drink ; I read and meditate ; I can walk in my 
 neighbours' pleasant fields, and see the varieties of 
 natural beauties, and delight in all that in which 
 God delights ; that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the 
 whole creation, and in God himself." 
 
 Thomson has all the fervour of the poet, without 
 the chastened submission of the Christian : — 
 
 I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; 
 
 You cannot rob me of free nature's grace, 
 You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 
 
 Through which Aurora shows her brightening face. 
 You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
 
 The woods and la^vns, by living streams, at eve ; 
 Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
 
 And I their toys to the great children leave : 
 
 Of fancy, reason, virtue, — nought can me bereave. 
 
 How pleasant would it be to go on thus, if my
 
 24 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 memory would enable me, gathering choice specimens 
 of his sublimity, pathos, and picturesque truth ; col- 
 lecting the precious stones of which his charms are 
 strung ; for even his ornaments are never chosen for 
 their lustre alone; and in the most gorgeous festivals 
 and riotous enjoyments of his imagination, a Hand 
 is perceived writing on the wall. His learning and 
 fancy are only the handmaids and attendants of his 
 piety; and those precious essences which he ex- 
 tracts from the Tree of Knowledge, are all poured 
 over the feet of his Divine Master. 
 
 It is only when he shackles his fancy with rhyme, 
 that his vein of poetry ceases to flow. He is a poet 
 everywhere except in verse. Yet how acutely 
 sensitive was his ear to all sweet sounds. Not even 
 Milton, in the bright and happy days of his youth, 
 when he wrote V Allegro and // Penseroso, 
 breathed a more passionate love of the pealing 
 organ, or more deeply lamented the " drowsy dul- 
 ness in devotion,"" brought in by the Puritans, or 
 prayed with greater ardour for the " solemn melody 
 and the raptures of warbling sweet voices out of 
 cathedral choirs," which Taylor said were wont to 
 raise the spirit, and as it were, carry it up into 
 heaven *. 
 
 • I am surprised to find this opinion discountenanced by 
 Bishop Heber, who observes in his Life of Taylor, " that while 
 from many passages of his writings he appears to have been
 
 JEREMY TAYLOll. 25 
 
 The inferiority of his verses may, indeed, have 
 resulted from want of practice and study; for, even 
 in the noblest works of the Muse, much of the 
 credit is due to the ingenuity and skill of the 
 architect. His poems are few, but I remember 
 one or two passages which appear to possess con- 
 siderable merit. 
 
 That bright eternity 
 Where the Great King's transparent throne 
 Is of an entire jasper-stone ; 
 
 There the eye 
 
 O' the chrysolite, 
 
 And a sky 
 Of diamonds, rubies, clirysophrase, 
 And above all, Thy holy face, 
 
 Make an eternal clarity : 
 When Thou thy jewels dost bind up, that day 
 
 Remember us, we pray, 
 ITiat where the beryl lies. 
 And the crystal 'bove the skies, 
 There Thou may'st appoint us place 
 Within the brightness of Thy face. 
 
 And our soul 
 
 In the scroll 
 Of life and blissfulness enrol. 
 That we may praise Thee to eternity. 
 
 fond of chanting and psalmody, it may, nevertheless, be sus- 
 pected, that he had no ear for music. It is singular," he adds, 
 " to compare the reluctant permission which he gives to the 
 use of organs in churches, with the glow of feeling which their 
 majestic tones excited in the breast of Milton. "
 
 26 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRIXITY. 
 
 Full of mercy, full of love, 
 
 Look upon us from above, 
 
 Tliou who tauijlit'.st the blind, man's nijilit 
 
 To entertain a double light, 
 
 Thine and the day's (and that thine too). 
 
 The lame away his crutches threw ; 
 
 The parched crust of leprosy 
 
 Returned into its infancy. 
 
 The dumb amazed was to hear 
 
 His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear. 
 
 O let thy love our pattern be, — 
 
 Let thy mercy teach one brother 
 
 To forgive and love another, 
 
 That coppng thy mercy here, 
 
 Thy goodness may hereafter rear 
 
 Our souls into thy glory, when 
 
 Oiu* dust shall cease to be with men. 
 
 It is very astonishing, that among the eighteen 
 prose authors, whom Pope selected as authorities 
 for an English Dictionary, the name of Taylor is 
 not found. Forgotten it could not be, for we are 
 expressly told by Spence, that the " list was talked 
 over several times, and quite settled."" Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, it is said, was rejected twice, as being too 
 affected. Had the poet ever perused the con- 
 cluding chapter of the History of the World ? 
 For the omission of Taylor I can assign no reason. 
 Certainly from no other writer could be gathered 
 such stores of dignified and impressive words.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 2"] 
 
 No path of ancient or modern learning, however 
 sequestered or untrodden, was unknown to him. 
 His memory brought up treasures from the hidden 
 deep; and never did a soldier of the Holy Cross 
 issue forth in a more gorgeous equipment to fight 
 for the Sepulchre of Christ. But the resplendent 
 sword was of celestial temper, and that costly 
 armour was mighty against the dart of the enemy 
 as any coat of iron mail ; — it protected while it 
 shone*. 
 
 PULPIT ELOQUENCE.— NORRIS OF BEMERTON. 
 
 In the pulpit, as in the economy of private life, I 
 consider gentleness and persuasion more efficacious 
 than their contraries. For this reason I think the 
 Sermons of Norris, upon the Beatitudes of our 
 Saviour, models of exhortations to a village con- 
 gregation. A minister should try to make his 
 hearers in love with the Gospel. I have never 
 known much good done by those who preach with 
 the sword in their hand. 
 
 • FuUer.
 
 28 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 A MERE LINGUIST. 
 
 I NEVER regarded the character of a mere linguist 
 with any admiration. Butler has hit it off with great 
 spirit. He that has many languages to express his 
 thoughts, and none worth expressing, he compares 
 to one that can write all hands, but never the better 
 sense; or can cast any sum of money, but has 
 none. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY.— SOUTHEY. 
 
 Clearness and simplicity of manner, diligence 
 and impartiality in the collection and statement of 
 facts, constitute the great and distinguishing merits 
 of a biographer. Some histories are nothing but 
 triumphal processions, where the author leads the 
 way, scattering flowers. These are not lives, but 
 panegyrics. To prove this proposition by its con- 
 verse, look at Southey. How delightful it is to 
 read his poetical criticisms ; and what a loss has 
 literature sustained in his once promised History of 
 English Poetry. It would, indeed, have been a 
 jtT»)/Aa £j «£». With more than Warton's learning, 
 he possesses an eloquence and refinement of imagina- 
 tion to which that amiable writer has no preten-
 
 BIOGRAPHY. SOUTHEY. 29 
 
 sions. His style, like some noble river, glides softly 
 on at " its own sweet will," — deep and clear. His 
 fancy, always warms and cheers without oppressing. 
 His biographical sketches have the felicity and 
 freedom of Goldsmith ; they are tombs cut in 
 crystal. 
 
 SPENSER AND THE FAERIE QUEEN. 
 
 I HAVE never been able to understand what people 
 mean by the tediousness of the Faerie Queen ; for, 
 to me, those winding and protracted paths always 
 seem, to borrow a phrase from Davenant's Preface 
 to Gondibert, as pleasant as a Summer passage on a 
 crooked river, where going about and turning back 
 is as delightful as the delays of parting lovers. 
 There is, moreover, a peculiar and delicious charm 
 even in the occasional dimness and obscurity of his 
 pictures. The rich and solemn strain of his Muse 
 still enchants the ear, though her features only 
 glimmer faintly upon the eye. It is like the be- 
 loved one singing to you in the twUight. Pope 
 makes a distinction between softness and sweetness 
 of versification ; placing one in Ovid and Dryden, 
 the other in Virgil and Waller, — but you find both 
 in Spenser.
 
 30 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TlilXITY. 
 
 TITHES, WITH AN ILLUSTRATION FllOir 
 BURTON. 
 
 My anger and disgust at the malevolent and dis- 
 graceful attacks levelled daily against the Church 
 are absolutely without bounds. I am weary of 
 looking out and crying, Watchman, what of the 
 mght ? In reading the Anatomy of Mehitirholy 
 the otlier morning, I was amused at the wrath 
 which calumnies of a similar character had kindled 
 in the breast of the learned scholar of Christchurch. 
 The passage is worth quoting. He is inveighing 
 against the ignorance of these malevolent anta- 
 gonists, and he continues, " But though they should 
 read, it would be to small purpose, — dames, licet, 
 et mare ccelo confimdas ; thunder, lighten, preach 
 hell and damnation, tell them 'tis a sin, they will 
 not believe it : denounce and terrify ; they have 
 cauterized consciences ; they do not attend ; as the 
 enchanted adder, they stop their ears: call them base, 
 irreligious, profane, barbarous. Pagans, Atheists, 
 epicures (as some of them surely are), they cry, 
 Euge! opthne* ; and applaud themselves with that 
 miser, simiil ac niimmos coiitempJor in area : say 
 what you will, as a dog barks at the moon, to no 
 
 " Ayre Rectified, Pt. ii.. Sec. 2.
 
 TITHES. 31 
 
 purpose are your sayings ; take your heaven, let 
 them have money, — a base, profane, epicurean, 
 hypocritical rout. For my part, let them pretend 
 what they will, counterfeit religion, blear the world's 
 eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their great- 
 ness with church spoils, shine like so many pea- 
 cocks, so cold is my charity, so defective in 
 
 their behalf, that' I shall never think better of 
 them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones 
 are full of epicurean hypocrisy and atheistical 
 marrow." 
 
 Does not this smack of what Cowper called the 
 Diabolical Dictionary. One fancies that when the 
 author broke into so violent an invective, he must 
 have forgotten to sweeten his rooms with juniper, 
 which he says was in great request at Oxford for 
 that purpose. Let me say a word in praise of this 
 admirable book, which could draw Johnson from 
 his bed two hours before he was willing to rise. 
 The quaintness of his style, sometimes rising into 
 strains of wonderful dignity and eloquence, — the 
 fertility of his invention, the extent of his learning, 
 the multitude of his illustrations, — all contribute to 
 render the Anatomy of Melancholy one of the most 
 entertaining books in the language. The indepen- 
 dence of his character, I confess, offers an addi- 
 tional attraction to me.
 
 32 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 GRECIAN LOVE-POETRY. 
 
 Apollonius Rhodius, Anacreon; Beaumont and 
 Fletcher. 
 
 A DELICIOUS paper might be written on Grecian 
 Love-poetry. Not to speak of the Homeric Re- 
 mains, the works of Apollonius Rhodius, Theo- 
 critus, and above all, the Anthology, would furnish 
 exquisite specimens. The sixth Idyll of Theocritus 
 contains some touches of tenderness equal to any- 
 thing in the Faithful Shepherdess. The lover 
 showing his mistress where the sweetest hyacinths 
 were to be gathered, and the invitation to his cavern 
 are of this number. Whence comes it that Apol- 
 lonius is so little read, even by scholars.'' He 
 seems to me the only poet of ancient times who 
 studied the Picturesque, or who (supposing an ade- 
 quate acquaintance with the language and man- 
 ners,) would have admired the Fairy Queen. I 
 have said nothing of Anacreon, for he is known and 
 admired by all. His joyousness of heart, his fes- 
 tivity of fancy, his grace and richness of expression, 
 slow with an oriental fervour. His oarments 
 breathe of myrrh, as if he had been made glad in 
 ivory palaces. He has no unmeaning expletives 
 to swell out a halting line. Every word, like the
 
 GRECIAN LOVE-POETRY. 33 
 
 flowers of an Eastern love-letter, is a symbol of 
 some tender and romantic sentiment. You will 
 meet with much of this picturesque beauty in those 
 " dainty devices," which abounded in the early part 
 of the seventeenth century. Shakspeare, too, who 
 combined the highest strains of the Muse with the 
 humblest, enjoyed this delightful vein. But the 
 most charming passage with which my memory 
 furnishes me, occurs in the Noble Kinsmen, of 
 Beaumont and Fletcher. The lover is indulging 
 in one of those bursts of enthusiasm to which lovers 
 in all ages have been prone. 
 
 Blessed garden, 
 
 And fruit and flowers more blessed, that still blossom 
 
 As her bright eyes shine on ye! would I were, 
 
 For all the fortune of my life hereafter, 
 
 Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricot, 
 
 How I would spread, andjling my wanton arms 
 
 In at her wi?ido?v. I would bring her fruit, 
 
 Fit for the gods to feed on. Youth and pleasure, 
 
 Still as she tasted, should be doubled on her. 
 
 LITERATURE AS A PROFESSION. 
 
 What a fearful insanity, and alas ! becoming 
 every day, I fear, more general, is this devotion of 
 the mind to literature as a profession. It is a 
 species of suicide — a throwing oneself upon the
 
 34 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 very spear of Fortune. Burton said of poets, more 
 than two hundred years ago, " tliat tliey are like 
 the grasshoppers; sing they must in the Summer, 
 and pine in tlie Winter." He might have added, 
 that many never know a Summer at all. Poverty 
 and suffering are tlie parents of adulation. Head 
 Dryden"'s Dedications, and understand how quickly 
 this pernicious habit becomes natural ; how soon 
 the poison is absorbed into the moral circulation : 
 of that depravity, or weakness of mind, which in- 
 duces a writer to honour vice and " daub iniquity," 
 contempt too unmitigated cannot be expressed — yet 
 who can refrain from pity at the spectacle of Genius 
 bartering its birth-right for a mess of pottage; 
 like the untutored Indian, who exchanges a bar of 
 gold for a cracked looking-glass.* 
 
 WORTHIES OF TRINITY. 
 
 Sidney, and his friend Brooke; Newton, etc. 
 
 Surely, if the Religio Loci dwell anywhere, it 
 must be within these courts, every spot of which is 
 hallowed by the feet of Piety and Genius. While 
 passing under the gateway, the form of Newton 
 seemed to rise before me, and I turned round to 
 
 * See this subject treated at greater length in the Biographiu 
 Literaria,
 
 WORTHIES OF TRINITY. 35 
 
 look, at that window where he so often stood, de- 
 composing the rays of morning. There was some- 
 thing inexpressibly delightful in the fancy. Nor 
 was he absent from my mind, whose life has been 
 so happily described, as poetry put into action. I 
 mean Sir Philip Sidney, who, although he was 
 entered of Christ Church, appears, according to the 
 fashion of the age, to have stvidied' also in this 
 College. Never has one individual united so many* 
 suffrages in his favour; never have the Graces 
 bound so many garlands on any other grave. Alike 
 honoured and beloved by statesman and by poet ; 
 the contemporary of Shakspeare ; the patron and 
 friend of Spenser. It was happily said, in allusion 
 to his political sagacity, that he started into man- 
 liood without passing through youth. Spenser, in 
 some very touching and affectionate verses, has 
 recorded — the gentle benignity of his countenance — 
 those lineaments of gospel-books — which formed 
 the correct index of his temper. Nature had 
 showered her blessings upon him. His voice was 
 so sweet and agreeable, that by one of his contem- 
 poraries he is styled, nectar-tongued Sidney. Can 
 we be surprised at the enthusiastic admiration of 
 his friends .'* His tutor at Oxford wished it to be 
 written upon his grave that he had been the in- 
 structor of Sir Philip Sidney; and Lord Brooke 
 thought his highest claim to future distinction con- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 S. T. COLERIDGE AT TRINITY. 
 
 sisted, not in liaving been the servant of Elizabethy 
 or the councillor of James, but the bosom friend of 
 the author of the Arcadia. Of such a man we are 
 not to judge by those productions which oppor- 
 tunity allowed him to bring forth. He never, we 
 are told by one most competent to speak, wrote 
 anything for fame; his chief object was to improve 
 the life of himself and others. But he did not 
 labour without his reward. His apology for poetry 
 appeared at a most dark and inauspicious season; 
 yet that stream of sweetly-uttered knowledge, to 
 employ his own words, did not flow in vain ; those 
 high-erected thoughts found echoes in other hearts. 
 Of the dignified and Christian strain of his elo- 
 quence, you have only to open his Defence to be 
 convinced. The harp of Sion has never been 
 lauded in a more glowing or beautiful eulogium. 
 
 The highest compliment I can bestow upon the 
 poetry of his friend, Lord Brooke, is, that it has 
 obtained the praise of Southey. Their history has 
 the romance of poetry. They were born, I think, 
 in the same year, educated at the same school, and 
 grew up together in the most affectionate intercourse. 
 Tradition still points out the terrace near Sir Fulke's 
 seat in Warwickshire, where the friends were wont 
 to take their morning walks.
 
 37 
 
 THE 
 
 REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAR OF QUEEN'S. 
 
 Lighted by that dim torch om* sorrow bears, 
 
 We sadly trace thy coflSn with our tears Henry King. 
 
 The Author of the following verses is equally 
 beyond the reach of praise or of censure; he is 
 deaf to the voice of the charmer, charm she never 
 so wisely. Death, that constant and tender friend 
 of the forsaken, has at length rocked the sufferer 
 asleep upon his cold pillow. Yet it would have 
 poured some consolation into his wounded and 
 bruised spirit, to have known, that the harp-string 
 to which he had intrusted his name, should win 
 some hearts to its music ; that liis memory should 
 survive in a few pure and aifectionate bosoms. 
 
 The following poems, with many others, were 
 the amusement of his leisure hours. What he 
 might have accomplished under a kinder fortune, 
 and in a happier condition of mind, it will not 
 benefit him to inquire; but it cheered him to 
 reflect, when all worldly hopes had faded from his 
 heart, that he had written no line which, for its 
 moral tendency, he would " wish to blot." At that' 
 awful hour, he felt this assurance to be better than 
 fame.
 
 38 THE REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAR. 
 
 TO A CHILD IN PRAYER. 
 
 Fold thy little hands in prayer, 
 Bow doAvn at thy mother's knee ; 
 
 Now thy sunny face is fair, 
 
 Shining through thy golden hair, 
 Thine eyes are passion-free ; 
 
 And pleasant thoughts, like garlands, bind thee 
 
 Unto thy home, yet grief may find thee — 
 Then pray, child, pray! 
 
 Now thy young heart, like a bird, 
 
 Singeth in its Summer-nest ; 
 No evil thought, no unkind word. 
 No chilling Autumn-wind hath stirr'd 
 
 The beauty of thy rest : 
 But AVinter cometh, and decay 
 Shall waste thy verdant home away — 
 Then pray, child, pray! 
 
 Thy bosom is a house of glee. 
 
 And gladness hai-peth at the door ; 
 
 While ever with a joyful shout, 
 
 Hope, the May-queen, danceth out. 
 Her lips with music running o'er: 
 
 But Time those strings of joy will sever, 
 
 And Hope wiYL not dance on for ever — 
 Then pray, child, pray !
 
 TO A CHILD IN PRAYER. 39 
 
 Now thy mother's voice abideth 
 
 Round thy pillow in the night ; 
 And loving feet creep to thy bed, 
 And o'er thy quiet face is shed 
 
 The taper's shaded light: 
 But that sweet voice will fade away; 
 By thee no more those feet will stay — 
 Then pray, child, pray! 
 
 THE LAND OF THORNS. 
 
 I beheld a strong city in the mountains, in which abode the 
 wise, raising their heads in silence towards heaven, but 
 nobles and servants descended from the city into the plain, 
 and came into the Land of Thorns. And, lo ! on a sudden 
 there was a loud cry ; fire had broken forth, and great 
 terror had seized the hearts of all. That city, said Zal, 
 is the House of Continuance, the Land of Thorns, the 
 abode of evil here below, where joy and delight, and pain 
 and sori'ow, are mingled together ; in yonder tower, are 
 numbered the respirations of thy bosom. A storm cometh 
 thence ; an earthquake rocks the gi'ound ; loud sounds 
 ascend from the deep ; but all evil remains in the Land of 
 
 Thorns, and man goeth to the City in the Clouds. 
 
 Atkinson's Abridgment of the Shah JVamehof Ferdausi. 
 
 We have left the blue imclouded sky, 
 
 Its ever-radiant moms, 
 With weary step and weeping eye, 
 
 To wander in the Land op Thorns !
 
 40 THE REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAE. 
 
 We "will not sorroTv or repine, 
 
 Though lone and drear our journey be, 
 
 For still thine eyes of mercy shine ; 
 Father of love ! we still hare Thee ! 
 
 We still have Thee ! the pilgrim's sighs, 
 By Thee are number'd, Lord of all ; 
 
 And not a tear from our sad eyes, 
 Unseen by Thee doth fall. 
 
 And in the night-time, round our bed, 
 T^Tien old familiar friends are flown. 
 
 Thy arm uplifts our aching head, 
 
 Our half-breathed words to Thee are known. 
 
 We grieve not that in former years — 
 Poor players on sin's flowery brink — 
 
 Thou gavest us the bread of tears, 
 And sorrow's bitter cup to drink. 
 
 The Persian poet fondly thought. 
 
 That when the storms of life were past, 
 
 Into a bower of beauty brought, 
 His happy soul would rest at last. 
 
 To us a brighter hope is given, 
 
 A\Tien death this mortal frame unshrouds : 
 We have our Garden — in the Heaven, 
 
 Our City — in the clouds !
 
 41 
 
 A SERMON FOUND IN A BROOK. 
 
 And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books iii the running brook, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 
 
 Shakspeare- 
 
 LisTEN to yon merry bird, 
 
 Warbling in the apple-tree ; 
 Taught by the sunny day to pour 
 
 Its gladness into melody. 
 
 When the djdng yellow leaf 
 
 Flutters in the Autumn air, 
 Its drooping spirit chilled with grief 
 
 Will not carol there. 
 
 But a pure and guileless heart 
 In sunshine singeth all day long, 
 
 Nor doth Summer e'er depart 
 From its quiet home of song. : 
 
 Through the shady alders look, 
 
 Where the moonlight gilds the ground, 
 
 See the limpid village brook, 
 
 Journeying on with pleasant sound. 
 
 In the cloudiest Winter night, 
 
 It floweth, though unseen; 
 We trace its course at morning light 
 
 By a brighter hue of green.
 
 42 THE REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAll. 
 
 Such thy gentle life should be, 
 
 Ever peaceful and serene; 
 That each joyful eye may see 
 
 Where thy freshening path hath been. 
 
 THE FIEST-BORN. 
 
 EuRiPiD. Frag. Danaat. 
 
 Beautiful, O woman ! the sun on flower and tree, 
 And beautiful the balmy wind that di-eameth on the 
 
 sea; 
 And softly soundeth in thine ear the song of peasants 
 
 reaping. 
 The dove's low chant among the leaves, its twilight 
 
 vigil keeping. 
 
 And beautiful the hushing of the linnet in her nest, 
 "With her young beneath her wings, the sunset on her 
 
 breast ; 
 While hid among the flowers, where the drowsy bee is 
 
 flitting. 
 Singing unto its own glad heart, the \-illage child is 
 
 sitting.
 
 THE FIRST-BORN. 43 
 
 And beautiful unto tliy soul, at summer time to wait 
 Till Moonlight with her sweet pale feet comes glidino- 
 
 to thy gate ; 
 Thy trusting eyes upturned imto thy love mth timid 
 
 grace, 
 He feels thine arm about his neck, thy kisses on his 
 
 face ! 
 
 Beautiful, O gentle girl ! these pleasant thoughts to 
 
 thee. 
 These golden sheaves, long harvested within thy 
 
 memory ! 
 But when thy face grows dim with weariness and care, 
 And thy heart, forgetting all its songs, awaketh but to 
 
 prayer,— 
 
 Thou lookest for a gleeful face, thine opening eyes to 
 
 greet, 
 While Winter gathers on thy breast, the shadow round 
 
 thy feet : 
 Beautiful, O woman ! the green earth and the flowers 
 
 may be, — 
 But sweeter far the voice of thy first-born child to 
 
 thee!
 
 44! THE BEMAINS OF A LATE SIZAR. 
 
 AN IMITATION OF A GREEK EPIGRAM. 
 
 One morning in the grassy lane 
 
 A lily fair I spied; 
 The linnet's meek and tender strain 
 
 Rose sweetly by its side. 
 
 But in the soft declining eve, 
 Again I passed that quiet spot ; 
 
 How could r choose but stand and grieve, 
 To find the simple flower was not ? 
 
 And in the fate of that fair thing, 
 An emblem of my hope I found; 
 
 The morning saw it flourishing ; 
 
 The evening, ^vithered on the ground ! 
 
 A FOUNTAIN IN THE WOODS REVISITED. 
 
 No spirit of an antique stream 
 Haunted a dwelling more divine, 
 
 More worthy of the poet's dream, 
 Than this green mossy shrine. 
 
 Dear wood, how well to me are known 
 Thy boughs by Summer -breezes fanned ; 
 
 The dark nest where the dove hath floivn. 
 The water ruffled by my hand.
 
 A FOUNTAFN TN THE WOODS. 45 
 
 And here, beneath these solemn bowers, 
 Where Silence loves to pitch her tent, 
 
 I watched the white feet of the Hours 
 Silver the stainless element. 
 
 Till Moonlight o'er the glimmering lawn, 
 Meek Ghost of Darkness, glided by ; 
 
 While Evening, like a weary favm, 
 Slept in the gardens of the sky. 
 
 For then life's sun its flush of light 
 
 Through every gathering vapour rolled : 
 
 Alas ! how soon the wind of night 
 Scattered those clouds of gold. 
 
 And Fancy's face, no more to shine, 
 From her fair cave of beauty fled ; 
 
 Her eyes forgot to beam on mine. 
 Her feet forgot my bed. 
 
 Grief found me then, and through my breast 
 
 The storm began to sweep ; 
 Again I sought the green wood's rest. 
 
 But then, sweet fount, I came to weep. 
 
 Nor thoughtless do I sit and gaze 
 
 On thee as on an idle book ; 
 Taught by the Lyre of other days, 
 
 I read a sermon in a brook*. 
 
 Alluding to Shakspeare.
 
 46 THE REMAINS OF A LATE SIZAK. 
 
 Thou guidest me us by the hand 
 
 Of some meek spirit, linked in mine, 
 
 Into an ever-blooming land, 
 
 A land of sweeter streams than thine. 
 
 And every sparkling drop that falls. 
 Dear charmer of the sylvan green, 
 
 Unto my musing heart recalls 
 The Omnipotent — Unseen. 
 
 Through dreary wood and withered lea 
 
 Thy lucid water flows ; 
 Cheering the faint heart of the tree, 
 
 AVaking the eyelids of the rose. 
 
 So in the Christian's panting breast 
 The springs of li\'ing water rise, 
 
 JMurmm-ing of the Land of Rest, 
 Of greener woods, of brighter skies. 
 
 Mourn not, my heart, the idle hours 
 That I these pleasant paths have trod, 
 
 Musing among the peaceful bowers. 
 Where Nature leads me up to God !
 
 4/7 
 KIRKE WHITE AND THE JOHNIANS, 
 
 WITH 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS LAST DAYS. 
 
 Unhappy Wliite ! while life was in its spring, 
 And thy young Muse just waved liei- joyous wing, 
 The sijoiler came ; and all thy promise fair 
 Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there. 
 Oh ! what a noble heart was here undone, 
 When Science' self destroyed her favourite son ! 
 Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pursuit. 
 She sowed the seeds, but death has reaped the fruit. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 AvQeoc^ xxi (7£ v£ov Ma; £^tA»)0"6 /xaTijc. 
 
 Walpole. 
 
 Even while I am writing these lines, news has 
 been brought to me of another mind become dark, 
 of another victim at the shrine of Science. Surely 
 there can be no introduction more solemn or affect- 
 ingly appropriate to a memorial of Kirke White 
 than this tolling, as it were, over another departed 
 intellect. It is to be deeply lamented that Mr. 
 Southey, in that memoir in which he has embalmed 
 the virtues of the youthful scholar, should, either 
 from tenderness to the living, or any other motive,
 
 48 KIRKE WHITE AKD THE JOHNIAXS. 
 
 have neglected to expose the fearful results of that 
 high-pressure system, under which the faculties of 
 White were crushed and annihilated. Were I to 
 consult my own feelings, I too should indulge in a 
 similar silence ; but the alarming and increasing 
 magnitude of the evil imperatively demands atten- 
 tion. The accusing voice ascends not alone from 
 07ie grave; the cry of lamentation is not confined to 
 a single hearth ; it is not one mother who calls in 
 vain for her absent son ! The academical life of 
 Kirke White, even viewed through the affectionate 
 narrative of his biographer, was only a prolonged 
 preparation for a sacrifice. The Death's Head is 
 always visible under the mask. Anything more 
 heart-rending than the sufferings of this gifted 
 Martyr is not to be found in the pages of romance. 
 We read, " of dreadful palpitations, of nights of 
 sleeplessness; so that he went from one acquaintance 
 to another, imploring society, even as a starving 
 begffar entreats for food." Alas ! that we should 
 have his o^vn authority for adding, that he sought 
 for it in vain. In another letter he says, " While I 
 am here I am wretched ; the slightest application 
 makes me faint." And again, " I am not an in- 
 valid ; my mind preys upon itself.'''' But through- 
 out this season of mental torture the mistaken 
 kindness of his friends was urging him forward ; 
 the worn-out energies were stimulated into a mo-
 
 KIUKK WHITE AND THE JOHNIANS. 49 
 
 mentary and unnatural brightness, the fire was 
 blown into a vivid but quickly-dying flame. He, 
 too, as if deceived by the anticipations of others, 
 began to dream of a " quiet parsonage," where his 
 mother might pass the summer months with him. 
 She, alas, knew not of his sufferings ; for true love 
 in its own afflictions is always dumb. Yet during 
 all this period, Death was, we may say, sitting with 
 him in his chamber ; and every morning that broke 
 upon his weary spirit, found him nearer the end of 
 his journey. Melancholy as was the issue of his 
 unhappy career, it would have been incalculably 
 more Avretched if he had survived. The intellect 
 was perfectly exhausted, — the very waters of the 
 mental life were dried up ; and this creature of 
 lofty impulses, of rare and poetical genius, of the 
 tenderest sensibilities, of the most disinterested 
 piety, would have dragged out an existence of 
 dreary barrenness, — a tree in its early May, dead at 
 the top ! 
 
 I condemn no individual : my attack is upon the 
 system. Hitherto, the name of Kirke White has 
 been employed only to adorn a tale; let it now 
 fulfil the more important service of pointing a 
 moral. Let parents consider the value of those 
 honours for which their children too often pay 
 down the price of blood ; and let those to whom are 
 intrusted the hopes of a thousand families, remember 
 
 £
 
 50 KIRKE WHITE 
 
 that learning profits the mind only so far as it 
 nourishes and strengthens it, and not when, like a 
 worm, it gnaws up the very root. Oh ! if they 
 could see, as I have seen, the bleeding spirit, the 
 shattered nerves, the decayed energies, the palpi- 
 tating heart, the darkened eye, the bewildered 
 brain, and a series of calamities, the remem- 
 brance of which alone calls the tears into the 
 eyes ; — if, I say, they could see these things, they 
 would urge the young aspirant to pause for a space 
 in his triumphant course. A mind once beaten 
 down, riseth not again ; this temple, once over- 
 thrown, cannot be rebuilt. If he who perished on 
 his road to glory had but abandoned for a little 
 year the scene of his labours, he might now have 
 been an eloquent, a fruitful, and a beloved ser- 
 vant of his Divine Master, blessing, and blest by 
 thousands. With such a reward, the Christian 
 could well have spared the first place in the Senate- 
 House. 
 
 For the following recollections of one who has 
 awakened sympathy in so many hearts, I am in- 
 debted to a friend of the poet and of myself, who 
 desires to be distinguished only by the name of 
 Seymour.
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. 51 
 
 My acquaintance with Kirke White commenced in 
 the lecture-room of St. John's, towards the end of 
 the October Term of 1805. His constitutional deaf- 
 ness, and the distance at which he sat from the 
 lecturer, rendered a neighbour with sharper ears of 
 some benefit to him ; and there was an air of humi- 
 lity and patience in his countenance, which never 
 failed to interest a stranger. An acquaintance thus 
 casually begun, ripened into a friendship, which I 
 enjoyed only long enough to deplore with a deeper 
 sorrow its abrupt and melancholy termination. The 
 first morning I called upon him is now fresh in 
 my remembrance. He kept, as you know, in the 
 corner of the further court of St. John's ; and I 
 never pass the spot, ev^n after a lapse of thirty 
 years, without a melancholy reflection upon his 
 fate. 
 
 He came to meet me with an open letter in his 
 hand. The tears were in his eyes, and grasping 
 my hand with great earnestness, he said, " I have 
 just heard from my mother, and all the recollec- 
 tions of home and home-scenes are thronging into 
 my mind. Alas ! it will be long before I take root 
 in this place. The first morning I awoke, I seemed 
 to be in a dream. My eyes involuntarily turned to 
 the spot where my little book-stand used to hang, 
 
 E 2
 
 KIKKK WHITE 
 
 and that table on which I wrote so many of my 
 early poems, during the few hours of my release 
 from the drudgery of an attorney's office. I 
 listened for the sounds which were wont to ffreet 
 my ears ; the lingering step at the chamber-door ; 
 the creeping of feet, interrupted by frequent pauses, 
 to my bed-side ; the partial unfolding of a shutter, 
 and then the anxious and half-doubting scrutiny, 
 while I perchance lay in feigned slumber with my 
 arm across my eyes, pleased with bewildering love 
 for a minute. 
 
 SEYMOUR. 
 
 " It is pleasant to reflect that, with very few ex- 
 ceptions, the domestic feelings have exercised the 
 greatest influence on those men at whose feet we 
 should be most anxious to receive instruction. — 
 Literature is not degraded by many Sternes. 
 Gi'ay*'s Epitaph on his IMother is more affecting 
 than anything in his poetry. How the heart 
 rejoices with the mother of Richard Hooker, when 
 the schoolmaster came to tell his parents of the 
 genius and virtues of their son, and to urge them 
 to abandon their intention of apprenticing him to a 
 trade. How sincerely we fall upon our knees with 
 her, making hourly prayers for the sick student at 
 Oxford; and set out with him, on his recovery, to 
 visit his paternal home in Exeter, a poor pilgrim,
 
 AND THE JOHXIANS. 53 
 
 on foot ! and who can refrain from joining in his 
 beautiful and touching prayer, ' that he might 
 never live to occasion any sorrow to so good a 
 mother, whom,"* he would often say, ' he loved so 
 dearly, that he would endeavour to be good as 
 much for her sake as his own."" Such feelings re- 
 flect a lustre upon the works of a man, and even 
 the Ecclesiastical Polity seems to brighten in the 
 recollection. After all, there is no eloquence like 
 this visible rhetoric *. 
 
 " Sanderson, also, in after-life was fond of remem- 
 bering the early instruction of his father, whose 
 praisewortljy practice it was to season his pleasant 
 stories with short and virtuous apothegms — teaching 
 and amusing at the same time. It was of this 
 amiable prelate that Charles the First observed — 
 ' I carry my ears to hear other preachers, but I 
 carry my heart to hear Sanderson, and act accord- 
 ingly.^" 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 " An interesting essay might be composed upon 
 the home-feelinos of eminent men. Addison would 
 
 * A phrase of Hooker. A similar sentiment occurs in 
 Bishop Taylor's Great Exemplar (Considerations ujion the 
 preaching of .John) : " For the good example of the preacher 
 is always the most prevailing homily: his life is his best 
 .sermon."
 
 54 KIRKK WHITE 
 
 have written it delightfully. Think of Herbert's 
 visits to his mother at Chelsea, respecting the 
 church he was desirous of repairing; and his 
 humble hope that, at the age of thirty-three, she 
 would suffer him to become a disobedient son. 
 It was a consolation to the departing spirit of 
 Donne, that in the hour of depression and decay he 
 had been able to nousirh and protect her who had 
 watched over his own helplessness. Our future 
 life often takes its colour from the instructions we 
 gather at a mother"'s knees. The mother of Sir 
 Henry Wotton was his first tutor; so I believe 
 was Sir Philip Sidney's. To the diligence and 
 care of his parent, Lorenzo de Medici probably 
 owed that taste for poetry and learning, which ob- 
 tained for him the title of the Magnificent; and 
 the mother of Dante, by promoting the growth 
 of her child's genius, assisted in realizing the 
 vision in which she beheld him nourished by the 
 fruit of the laurel, and quenching his thirst in the 
 fountains of song. The philosopher Bacon, and 
 the poet Thomson, imbibed wisdom and poetry 
 from this guide. I have embodied my feelings of 
 affection towards a mother (to whose love I am 
 indeed beyond measure indebted), in a sonnet, 
 which I fear has nothing but truth to recom- 
 mend it.
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. 55 
 
 And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think 
 
 Tliat we, thy children, when okl age shall shed 
 Its hlanching honours on thy weary head, 
 
 Could from our best of duties ever shrink ? 
 
 Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink, 
 Than we ungrateful leave thee in that day, 
 To pine in solitude thy life away; 
 
 Or shun thee tottering on the grave's cold brink. 
 
 Banish the thought ! where'er our steps may roam, 
 O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree, 
 Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, 
 
 And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home ; 
 
 While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage, 
 
 And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age. 
 
 SEYMOUR. 
 
 " From our mother often flows to us the love 
 of reading, — that better and sweeter milk which 
 nourishes our minds. I remember, as though it 
 were yesterday, the hours I have sat at my 
 mother's feet, listening with an almost breathless 
 delight to some story of human suffering and 
 trial, ever and anon rising from my little stool 
 to peep under the leaves, and count the pages that 
 remained. What an affliction the interruption of 
 a visitor was then regarded, and how I lamented 
 that the charm should ever be broken. I dwell 
 upon these remembrances with peculiar satisfac-
 
 56 KIIIKK WHITK 
 
 tion, aiul with a humble gratitude to God, who 
 has bestowed upon me so rich a blessing. For no 
 fortune in the power of our friends to heap vip for 
 us can equal in value the love of study and con- 
 templation. Riches make to themselves wings and 
 flee away, but these qualities abide witli us at all 
 seasons, and under every dispensation. They are 
 fountains which Winter cannot harden, nor Sum- 
 mer dry up ; be it our care that no hostile hand 
 poisons the purity of their waters. This senti- 
 ment, indeed, I am proud to share with men who 
 make the fame of their country. Boyle, than 
 whom a purer or a nobler spirit never adorned our 
 literature, declared that he valued life only for the 
 improvement of knowledge and the exercise of 
 piety. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at 
 Leyden, used to say, that, in closing the door of 
 that beloved chamber, he seemed to release himself 
 from ambition, avarice, and every other vice, and 
 to be admitted into the company of the greatest 
 intellects.'" 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 " I remember no poet in whom the sentiments we 
 have been admiring were so lively as in Cowper. 
 His verses on the receipt of his mother"'s picture, 
 have always appeared to me some of the most 
 pathetic in the language. With him, the love of
 
 AND THE JOHXIAKS. S] 
 
 home was a passion. Like a flower transplanted 
 from its native bed, his delicate and fragile spirit 
 (h'ooped and pined away the moment it was removed 
 out of that atmosphere. His severer strains always 
 grate upon my ear. This gentle bird, whose voice 
 of gratitude ascends so beautifully to Heaven"'s 
 gate, loses its charm when it takes up the harsh 
 note of satiric softg. We soon weary of its croak- 
 ing round the venerable walls of Westminster*, and 
 long to follow it into the pleasant garden and the 
 boughs of the green-wood tree. 
 
 " It was a saying of Thomas a Kempis, that he 
 had sought for rest in all places, and had found it 
 only in seclusion and among books — /w angulis 
 e.f. in Uhellis. Sir Thomas More delighted to 
 return from the tumult of active life to the con- 
 versation of his wife and the endearments of his 
 children. His own words convey a livelier picture. 
 Nempe reverso domum cum uxore fahulandum 
 est, garriendum cum liheris. His friend Erasmus 
 lias left a charming sketch of his house at Chelsea, 
 within the walls of which dwelt his son and his wife, 
 his three daughters and their three husbands, beside 
 grandchildren. The sweet intercourse of such a 
 family, combined with other causes to postpone the 
 appearance of the Utopia. Our own history fur- 
 
 * Alluding to his Satire on Public Schools, and particularly 
 on Westminster, where he was educated.
 
 58 KIRKE WHITE 
 
 nishes several examples of this patriarchal mode of 
 life, which still flourishes in Italy, where the travel- 
 ler is frequently gratified by the delightful spectacle 
 of a numerous family dwelling together in unity. 
 But, alas ! a change has come over our manners. 
 No Lord Chancellor will ever more seek his father's 
 blessing before he ascends the woolsack. There is 
 something very touching in the declaration of an 
 illustrious Roman over the dead body of his 
 mother, that during seventy years he had never 
 been reconciled to her, — ^because they had never 
 disagreed. The frequent dissensions among rela- 
 tions may, I think, often be traced to a want of 
 mutual courtesy and forbearance. It was very 
 wisely remarked by a writer, in our day little 
 known. Dr. Henry King, that 
 
 It is the common fate 
 
 Of greatest duties to evaporate 
 In silent meaning. 
 
 " We satisfy our consciences with good inten- 
 tions, without remembering, that of all theories 
 that of affection is the idlest. The most trivial 
 action of our life may be sanctified by a spirit of 
 piety, and recommended by its considerate tender- 
 ness. There is a wide difference between tact and 
 sensibility,— owe is of the head, the other of the 
 heart.
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. 59 
 
 " I have met with a beautiful little apologue in 
 an Eastern poet, which carries with it an affecting 
 moral. Attracted by the fragrance of a clod of 
 earth, he asics, ' Art thou musk ?' < No."" ' Art thou 
 amber?" It replied, 'I am but common earth, 
 but the rose grew from me; its beneficent virtue 
 penetrated my nature. Were it not for the rose, I 
 should be but common earth.'' So it is with us. 
 The heart which never glows with a desire to 
 relieve the sufferings or cheer the sorrov/s of a 
 brother or sister, is but common earth ; but every 
 pure feeling, every thought of disinterested love, 
 every sentiment of charity, is a rose growing from 
 the bosom, and penetrating our nature with its 
 delicious and healthful perfume.'' 
 
 My intercourse with Kirke White was, I grieve 
 to say, soon interrupted by the illness of a near and 
 dear relation, by whose bed-side I was detained for 
 several months, until at length it pleased Him who 
 tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, to put the seal 
 upon his eyes. When I returned to Cambridge^ 
 the melancholy decline of my friend broke upon 
 me, and I saw that death had laid his wand upon 
 another object of my regard. Yet, even at that 
 eleventh hour, there might have been hope. 
 
 For some weeks before the student was gathered 
 to his rest, the slightest glance at the pallid and
 
 60 
 
 KIRKE WHITE 
 
 worn expression of his face would have sufficed to 
 convince any one that without some prompt altera- 
 tion of his pursuits, the days of the youthful 
 scholar were numbered ; and, at one period, I had 
 actually formed the determination of writing to his 
 friends, and stating in distinct terms the horror of 
 his situation. Would that I had done so ! He 
 himself was perfectly conscious of his peril, and 
 seemed every hour to detach himself more and more 
 from the bonds of the world, and to prepare for his 
 journey into a far country. Not a word of repining, 
 not a murmur escaped his lips. He looked upon 
 his past sufferings, his early struggles, and his pre- 
 sent afflictions, as so many merciful indications of 
 the love of his Heavenly Father. 
 
 "At best," he said to me one evening, "our journey 
 is along a rough and dangerous road ; but it should 
 cheer us to remember that every evening brings us 
 nearer to our Father's House, which ever stands 
 open to his prodigal and repentant children. The 
 world is a harsh mistress, but consider how soon 
 Death fetches us home from school. Every new 
 affliction is, to the sincere Christian, only another 
 friendly blow upon the fetters which bind him to 
 his earthly servitude. Oh, happy hour ! when the 
 prison-chamber shall brighten with the presence of 
 the angelic minister, and the chains shall fall from 
 our limbs, and the doors open before us. Whom
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. (jl 
 
 He loveth, He chasteneth. The stones must be 
 beaten by the liamnier before they are fit for the 
 temple. Who would not hasten to the Supper of 
 the Lamb, though he be summoned by a fierce 
 messenger? who would not go to heaven v/itli 
 Elijah, ' though it Avere in a whirlwind 'f Let 
 us, my friend, remember these things in the morn- 
 ing ; alas ! the night cometh quickly, in which no 
 man shall work. Let not the famine come upon 
 us, not having a single sheaf in the garner ; let us 
 not be running about for oil when our lamps should 
 be trimmed and burning."" 
 
 I gazed upon his trembling and attenuated form, 
 and thought that upon one of us, at least, the night 
 was already descending. Of all the disguises under 
 which death approaches us, consumption, in its 
 external appearance, is the least repulsive. The 
 Sun is beautiful in its setting. How White re- 
 garded the advances of that mournful calamity, 
 which has laid so many beloved flowers in the dust, 
 may be known from his affecting sonnet 
 
 TO CONSUMPTION. 
 
 Gently, most gently, on thy victim's head, 
 
 Consumption, lay thine hand ! let me decay 
 Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away, 
 
 And softly go to slumber with the dead.
 
 C2 * KIRKK WHITE 
 
 And if 'tis true, wliat liolj men have said, 
 Tliut strains angelic oft foretell the day 
 Of death to those good men who fall thy prey, 
 
 O let the aerial music round my bed, 
 
 Dissolving sad in dying sym2)hony, 
 
 Whisper the solemn Avarning in mine ear : 
 
 That I may bid my weeping friends good bye, 
 Ere I depart upon my journey drear; 
 
 And smiling faintly on the painful past, 
 
 Compose my decent head, and breathe my last. 
 
 " There is something even beautiful," he said, 
 " in dying thus ; it is the death of a poet. The eye 
 still bright ; the lieart undismayed ; the fancy un- 
 clouded. Sickness presents the cup, and Hope 
 crowns it with flovvers. The dark chamber is 
 cheered by music ; the pillow gilded by sun- 
 shine. The victim goes down to the grave with a 
 lantern in his hand. But," he continued in a sadder 
 tone, while the tears filled his languid eyes, " I fear 
 that a severer trial is in store for me ;" putting his 
 hand to his forehead — " I feel death here .'"' 
 
 The latter days of Kirke White afford a ver}' 
 melancholy theme for the memoi'y ; and the few 
 recollections I am now weaving together, are asso- 
 ciated in my mind with the mournful spectacle of 
 a youthful scholar prematurely withering away. 
 In such a state of bodily debility, the mind could 
 not be expected to take a lofty flight. Yet still 
 the occasional gleams that broke in upon his suf-
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. 63 
 
 ferings, served to cheer his spirit. Once, when a 
 tranquil night had recruited his powers, he received 
 me with the following verses from the poems of 
 one, who, like himself, was early transplanted into 
 an immortal Garden. 
 
 I bud again — 
 
 After so many deaths, I live and write ; 
 I once more smell the dew and rain, 
 
 And relish versing. O my only Light, 
 It cannot be 
 That I am he, 
 On whom thy tempests fell all night. 
 
 These are thy wonders, Lord of Love ! 
 
 To make us see we are but flowers that glide, 
 Which when we once can find and prove, 
 Thou hast a Garden for us where to bide. 
 Who would be more. 
 Swelling through store, 
 Forfeit their Paradise by their pride. 
 
 He talked of the sceptical writers of the age 
 with great sorrow and indignation. " If God," he 
 said, " demanded of Cain — Where is thy brother .^ 
 will He not also inquire of the self-destroyer — 
 Where is thy soul ? The world has no sight more 
 terrible or affecting to a Christian eye, than 
 intellect thus degraded and misapplied. The 
 Temple of the Holy Ghost converted into a den 
 of thieves; desecrated by the worship of a false
 
 64 KIllKE WHITE 
 
 divinity. Learning, alas! has too many sons thus 
 loving darkness rather than light." 
 
 I was lamenting the feebleness of modern Chris- 
 tianity. — "How weak," he exclaimed, with much 
 fervour, " is the faith even of the most sincere ! 
 Jonas taken from the sea, Lazarus from the grave, 
 Jeremy from his dungeon, Daniel from the lion's 
 den : are not these instances of the Divine pro- 
 tection sufficient to inspire us with confidence? 
 But we are still bowed by every wind. Our faith 
 is dead and powerless; nothing starts into life 
 beneath its embrace. Yet the Arm is not shortened 
 that it cannot save. He who walked in the flames 
 with the Hebrew brethren, was also present with 
 Latimer and Ridley. And wherever two or three 
 are gathered together in the name of Jesus Christ, 
 there will He be in the midst of them. Oh, let us 
 trust in Him ; and in our darkest and dreariest 
 path walk on with cheerful hope, fearing nothing, 
 since the great Shepherd is always nigh at hand, 
 with his rod and staff ready to comfort and protect 
 us." 
 
 He spoke with affectionate kindness of Henry 
 Martyn, and mentioned a remark he had made to 
 him, of the influence of religion even upon the 
 accomplishments of literature. " Poetry itself," 
 he observed, " grew more sweet and beautiful 
 when read by the light of the Star of Bethlehem."
 
 AND THE JOHNIANS. 65 
 
 On commencing his residence at Cambridge, 
 Henry had, by the advice of his friends, relin- 
 quished his poetical pursuits ; but he occasionally 
 indulged his fancy in writing verses, some of which 
 were hastily scrawled on his mathematical papers. 
 This, he told me, was like refreshing his senses 
 now and then with a nosegay. Brief and imperfect 
 as these fragments are, they are enough to fill us 
 with regret that the harvest was never reaped. He 
 had made some progress in a sacred poem, which 
 he called The Christiad. The two following 
 stanzas, says Mr. Southey, affected me strangely ; 
 and who can read them without experiencing the 
 same sensations ! 
 
 Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme, 
 
 With self-rewarding toil thus far have sung 
 Of Godlike deeds, far loftier than beseem 
 
 The lyre which I in early days have strung ; 
 
 And own my spirits faint, and I have Inuig 
 The shell that solaced me in saddest hour 
 
 On the dark cypress : and the strings which rung 
 With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er, 
 Or, when the breeze comes by, moan and are heard no 
 more. 
 
 And must the harp of Judah sleep again ? 
 
 Shall I no more reanimate the lay? 
 Oh ! thou who visitest the sons of men, 
 
 Thou who dost listen when the humble pray,
 
 66 KTRKK WHITE. 
 
 One little space prolong my mournful day ! 
 One little lapse suspend tliy last decree ! 
 I am a youtliful traveller in tlie "way, 
 And this slight boon would consecrate to thee, 
 Ere I with Death shake hands, and smile that I am 
 free! 
 
 The mournful close of Kirke White's history is 
 too familiar to the memories of us all to require any 
 further mention. What I could add would only 
 deepen the melancholy of the story. The " youth- 
 ful traveller'" has reached that Home, where no 
 harp hangs upon the cypress !
 
 67 
 
 COWLEY, 
 AND HIS FRIEND WILLIAM HERVEY, 
 
 He was my friend, the truest friend on earth ; 
 A strong and mighty influence joined our birth. 
 Nor did we envy the most sounding name 
 
 By friendship given of old to Fame — 
 None but liis bretliren he, and sisters knew 
 
 Whom the kind youth preferred to me ; 
 
 And even in that we did agree, 
 For much above myself I loved them too. 
 
 Coivley on the death of Hervey. 
 
 Complaints of the dreariness of Cambridge are 
 as old as Milton. In our own days it was said, 
 with some exaggeration, to have driven Robert 
 Hall mad. " When I look upon a tree,"" he re- 
 marked, " it seems like Nature putting out signals 
 of distress." Yet there is one walk behind the 
 colleges which Meditation might love to haunt ; 
 and here we know that Cowley delighted to 
 wander, or muse by the river side, as he has told 
 us in his own beautiful verses : — 
 
 . . . Cum me tranquilla mente sedentem, 
 Vidisti in ripa, Came serene, tua. 
 
 The very name of Cowley has a peculiar charm. 
 The sunshine of his temper diffused a warmth and 
 
 r 2
 
 68 COWLEY, AXl) 
 
 beauty over a cold and melancholy fortune. John- 
 son has ridiculed his love of the country, yet his 
 writings amply prove it to have been sincere. He 
 said finely, that he always went with delight out 
 of the world, as it was man's, into the world, as it 
 was Nature's, and as it was God's. And in another 
 place, 
 
 God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain. 
 
 A line in which we have the probable original of 
 Cowper's celebrated verse — 
 
 God made the country, and man made the town. 
 
 Cowley's sojourn at Trinity forms the pleasantest 
 passage in his history. Cambridge, although 
 reckoning our greatest poets among her children, 
 has no cause to boast of their gratitude or affec- 
 tion. Milton's hostility and hatred are, alas, too 
 well remembered ; Spenser, indeed, has mentioned 
 the University in terms of regard, but of his own 
 college not a single notice any where occurs ; while 
 Dryden's preference of " Athens in his riper age," 
 shows how freshly he bore in mind the fortnight's 
 confinement within the college walls, &c. But 
 with Cowley, his college seems to have possessed 
 all the charm of a home, and he pours out his 
 love for it, as for a mother. We hear of no
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 69 
 
 scholastical bur sticking in the throat, no voice 
 cracked with metaphysical gargarisms*; all is dear 
 within and without ; every tree partakes his affec- 
 tion. How his heart beats, if we may employ the 
 metaphor, in the dedication of his poems to Alma 
 Mater ! 
 
 O mihi jucundum Grantse super omnia nomen ! 
 
 O penitus toto corde receptus amor ! 
 O pulchrae sine luxu sedes, vitaeque beatse, 
 
 Splendida paupertas, ingenuusque decor, 
 O chara ante alias, magnorum nomine regum 
 
 Digna Domus ! Trini nomine digna Dei ! 
 O Sacri Fontes ! et sacrse vatibus umbrae, 
 
 Quas recreant avium Pieridumque chori. 
 O Camus ! Phcebo nullus quo gratior amnis ! 
 
 Amnibus auriferis invidiosus inops ! 
 Ah milii si vestrae reddat bona gaudia sedis, 
 
 Det que Deus docta posse quiete frui, 
 Qualis eram cum me tranquilld mente sedentem, 
 
 Vidisti in ripa, Came serene, tua. 
 
 What a delightful picture have we of the poet 
 in the last couplet, sitting in the golden quiet of 
 his studious youth, with a tranquil and thoughtful 
 mind, on the grassy bank of the Cam, bending 
 over his own shadow in the unruffled water. We 
 see him on the warm eve of some lone: Summer 
 
 * Milton,
 
 yO COWLEY, AND 
 
 day, reclined by the side of his friend Hervey — 
 the Lycidas of Cowley — with half-closed eye watch- 
 ing the sunbeams through the leaves; while the 
 Muse perhaps stood before him — 
 
 Bodied, arrayed, and seen by an internal light. 
 
 The Complaint. 
 
 Our poetical biography contains no episode more 
 beautiful or touching than the friendship of these 
 affectionate companions ; both students of Trinity, 
 both youths of genius, both eager in the pursuit of 
 knowledge. Of Hervey, indeed, we know nothing, 
 except from the tender elegy in which his sor- 
 rowful friend has enshrined his virtues and his 
 talents. 
 
 No passage of that poem which Milton conse- 
 crated to the memory of Edward King, contains a 
 thought so affecting, as the sudden tolling of the 
 funeral bell in the following- stanza: — 
 
 It was a dismal and a fearful night. 
 
 Scarce could the moon drive on the immlling Hght, 
 
 When sleep. Death's image, left my troubled breast. 
 By something liker death possest. 
 
 My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow. 
 And on my soul hung the dull weight 
 Of some intolerable fate — ; 
 
 What bell was that ? ah, me ! too well I know !
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 'Jl 
 
 Of his piety we have a delightful testimony in 
 these lines : — 
 
 With as much zeal, devotion, piety, 
 
 He always lived, as other saints do die. 
 
 Still with his soul severe account he kept, 
 Weeping all debts out ere he slept. 
 
 Then down in peace and innocence he lay, 
 Like the sun's laborious light 
 Which still in winter sets at night, 
 
 Unsullied mth his journey of the day. 
 
 The ear of Cowley was tuned to verse by the 
 works of Spenser, which by a fortunate accident 
 used to lie in his mother's parlour. How many 
 poets have drawn the first milk of song from the 
 bosom of the Fairy Queen.'' Milton, More, 
 Fletcher, Pope, and Thomson, will at once recur 
 to the memory. But in Cowley we find little that 
 breathes of his great Master. He never intoxicates 
 the imagination with those dreams which Spenser 
 brought from Italy and the East. His fancy is 
 seldom rapt into — 
 
 The golden Indies in the air. 
 
 He carries us to no enchanted castles, whose case- 
 ments open — 
 
 On the foam of perilous seas. 
 No gentle Una glides by with her milk-white lamb.
 
 72 COWLEY, AND 
 
 AVe catch no green visions of Elysian solitude, no 
 Bowers of Beauty, no glimpses through trees of 
 Paradise. His imagination was put into chains, 
 ere it had reached its maturity. He followed in 
 the train of Donne, and sought for distinction by 
 the same arts: but nature sometimes prevailed over 
 habit, and the language of his heart broke out in 
 all its original simplicity and grace. His pensive 
 morality, his vigour of expression, his force and 
 novelty of sentiment, are more than enough to 
 rescue his remains from oblivion. Let the reader 
 who wishes fully to understand the acquirements 
 of Cowley when a young student at Cambridge, 
 read with care the notes upon the Davideis. 
 
 The following conversation is supposed to occur 
 on Cowley ""s return to Trinity after an absence of 
 two months, during which time he had waited in 
 vain for any communication from his friend, — 
 whom he affectionately and playfully upbraids for 
 his silence. 
 
 " Fie, Will ! shall I sit down and pelt thee with 
 a hundred choice sentences stolen out of the grave 
 Seneca, or his elder brethren, the Grecian Dra- 
 matists ? Dost thou not merit them ? Verily thou 
 didst wait for the Greek Kalends to give thee a pen ! 
 Methinks, you might have been wandering along 
 the reedy shores of Acheron, or strewing flowers
 
 HIS FRIEND IIEllVEY. 'JS 
 
 before the silver seat of Proserpine*, or quarrelling 
 with Charon about a bad obolus, for aught that I, 
 your ancient companion on the banks of the Cam, 
 knew of your employment. Yet I did not forget 
 thee, William ! and often, often, during the last 
 two months, have the quiet grassy courts of Trinity 
 risen before me, with those shady walks — the true 
 bowers of the Pierian birds — and those beloved 
 trees, which have in so many dewy hours beheld 
 us breaking the moonlight shadows with our feet, 
 beneath their umbrageous branches*!*. 
 
 " Cambridge I think can boast of more poets than 
 trees — but to us every one is known. From that 
 yew-tree at Trinity Hall, where tradition tells us 
 the conceited Harvey — Spenser''s friend — loved to 
 display his Italian hose, to the quiet garden of 
 Pembroke, and the spot still hallowed as " Ridley's 
 Walk." What richer blessings can fortune have 
 in store for us, than those she has already showered 
 
 * See The Fairy Queen, 
 
 ■y So in the Elegy on Hervey. 
 
 Ye fields of Cambridjre, our deai- Cambridge, say 
 
 Have ye not seen us walking every day ? 
 
 Was there a tree about which did not know 
 The love betwixt us two ? 
 
 Henceforth ye gentle trees for ever fade, 
 Or your sad branches thicker join. 
 And into darksome shades combine. 
 
 Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid.
 
 74 COWLEY, AND 
 
 from her o-oklen horn. She has given us a home 
 where Genius and Learning have so long abode. 
 The green paths we tread have been trodden by 
 Spenser. Our foot cannot fall upon a spot which 
 learning has not ennobled, or poetry endeared, or 
 piety made holy ground. Bacon goes before us 
 through the gate of Trinity; the shade of Chaucer 
 brightens the courts of Clare ; the martyr who 
 suffered and died with Latimer, consecrates the 
 very stones of Pembroke. 
 
 " But these glorious influences are vain, unless 
 they kindle in us the desire of the same excellence. 
 The trophies of triumphant Genius charm the soul 
 to no purpose, if they stir us not up, as with the 
 voice of a trumpet, to go forth and conquer. 
 Those sublime poems, those eloquent exhortations, 
 those beautiful strains of fervent and religious 
 hope, are unprofitable as the light down on the 
 road-side thistle, if they fail to inspire us with a 
 - passionate craving to be numbered with them who 
 being dead, yet speak ; whose voices live through 
 the world, while their bodies moulder in the earth. 
 A purer voice, indeed, than ever broke from mortal 
 lips, has commanded us to work while it is day ; nor 
 is this sacred injunction limited to our religious 
 duties, albeit to them doth its peculiar application 
 belona". The arm that hurled the stone into the 
 brain of the Philistine had not been hardened
 
 HIS FUIEND HERVEY. 'J5 
 
 by twenty Summers. My friend! let us follow the 
 example of the son of Jesse. When, indeed, 
 should we toil, if not now, when, by the mercy of 
 God ! we have friendly eyes to watch over us, 
 friendly hands to protect us, the love and anxieties 
 of a whole household bound up in our welfare ! 
 Be sure that not a single hour returns to heaven, 
 from the time when the sun looks into the linnef s 
 nest, till it sends the lamb to its grassy cradle, 
 without carrying some prayer for us to our 
 heavenly Father : 
 
 " The hasty scrawling of our name upon an old 
 book, or an angling-rod, or a theorbo* long silent, 
 recalls the absent one to the memory ; and then, 
 perchance, the tears creep into the glistening eyes 
 of a fond sister, or a little brother, whose wooden 
 stool hath ofttimes been betwixt our knees. And 
 ' What is William doing, or where is he now ?'' 
 rises to the lips. But when the pale brother of 
 sleep hath rocked into quietness the graver friend, 
 whom some of us have not known long enough to 
 
 * Theorbo, an improvement of the French lute, from the 
 Italian Tiorba. See an engraving of one in Hawkins's 
 History of Music, Vol. iv., p. 110.
 
 7^) COWLEY, AND 
 
 love* — how much more sharply doth care dwell in 
 the heart of her who hath only God for her hus- 
 band ! How painful the reflection in future years 
 of having driven sleep from her eyes, or planted a 
 thorn in her pillow !" 
 
 HERVEY. 
 
 " Thou, at least, hast never moistened that pillow 
 with a tear." 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 " God forbid that I should wake a grief in that 
 bosom, on w^hich my childish heart hath so often 
 forgot its owTi. But surely, if we had no better 
 incitement, we ouo-ht to seek after knowledge for 
 our own sake ; for what is it but sowing the grain 
 whose harvest we are to reap ; planting the vine- 
 yard whose grapes we are to gather ; rearing the 
 
 • This allusion to the poet's father will go to the hearts of 
 many. It may not be uninteresting to quote a passage from 
 Loves Riddle, where the shepherd Alupis, in reply to the 
 question of Calidora, how he happened to know so much of 
 city life, says, Why, I'll tell you, Sir, — 
 
 My father died, (you force me to remember 
 A grief that deserves tears,) and left me young. 
 
 Tlie father of Cowley, indeed, died before the bu-th of his 
 son, and the application of the passage, therefore, is not direct ; 
 but in the mind of the thoughtful scholar of Westminster 
 School, the loss of a parent was likely to be a subject of 
 meditation.
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 77 
 
 fig-tree under whose shadow we are to repose ? 
 Let not the spring-time depart without its seed. 
 O happy, and thrice happy he, who can bear a 
 cluster of fruit to them who have nourished him ; 
 fruit, sweeter to their lips, who for us have borne 
 the heat and burden of the day, than ever swelled 
 with purple wine in the gardens of Engaddi. The 
 countenance of Wisdom — the celestial Venus — is 
 always beautiful; not the morning or evening- 
 star is fairer — Kat w? ovte to-Trego?, ovTE suQi; ovru xaA*.* 
 
 But never does she dawn upon the beholder with so 
 sweet and golden a lustre, as in the early morning- 
 time of our youth. Tlie race, of a truth, is not 
 always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ; 
 but as the defeated candidate for the Garland de- 
 parted not from the Palaestra without some increase 
 of skill — some new grip which may ensure to him 
 a future victory; so we, though driven down by a 
 more nervous arm, or entangled in the meshes of a 
 more cunninar embrace, shall not have been fiehtin^ 
 like one that beateth the air. Even our vanquish- 
 ment will become the mother of victory. For so, in 
 the public games of Greece, they chose the palm 
 as the sign and prize of the triumph, because it is 
 the nature of that plant to thrive and flourish under 
 pressure."'' 
 
 * Plotinns.
 
 78 COWLEY, AND 
 
 HERVEY. 
 
 " A very pretty flourish of fancy, methinks, 
 wherewitli to disband that array of grave authorities 
 which thou hast brought to the charge. But 
 wlierefore such a shower of saws and instances? 
 For do I not love learning almost as much as I love 
 thee ? and though my silence, perchance, may have 
 spoken an oblivious mind, yet wer't thou never 
 absent from my heart, during the long eight weeks 
 of thy wanderings. I missed thee in all our accus- 
 tomed haunts. The Cam reflected only one shadow; 
 the warm grass was darkened only by one figure. 
 But, most of all, the coming on of evening awoke a 
 longing for my lost companion. I waited for thee, 
 though in vain, in my solitary chamber, where so 
 oft the moonlight hath crept in upon our book at 
 the window, where we stood with eyes straining in 
 the shadowy light over some page of mild Spenser, 
 or ever-youthful Chaucer, or earlier bard of Greece 
 or Latium."* 
 
 * Cowley lias tenderly recorded these Evenings : — 
 
 Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, 
 How oft imwearied have we spent the Nights, 
 Till the Ledsean stars, so famed for love, 
 
 Wondered at us from above. 
 We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine. 
 
 But search of deep philosophy. 
 
 Wit, eloquence, and poetry; 
 Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine !
 
 HIS FEIEND HERVEr. 79 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 " How I long to renew those happy evenings ! to 
 
 dwell again with the mighty and noble of the earth. 
 
 A memory enriched by study is the real enchanter ; 
 
 no blast from the enemy''s trumpet can dissolve into 
 
 air the stately fabrics which she buildeth. The 
 
 true scholar, whose mind is nourished by poetry 
 
 and philosophy, carries a magic ring upon his finger. 
 
 By a mere act of volition he is transported in the 
 
 arms of Genii, over stormy seas and trackless 
 
 deserts ; he becomes a denizen of every clime ; a 
 
 citizen of every polity. His chamber brightens 
 
 with the footsteps of Juliet ; the woods echo with 
 
 the trumpets of Fontarabia. He throws a bridge 
 
 over the darkness of years, and mingles with the 
 
 rush before the judgment seat of Appius ; or floats 
 
 with Cleopatra down the Cydnus in her burnished 
 
 galley; or is borne with the rejoicing multitude to 
 
 the crowning of Petrarch in the Capitol. Let us 
 
 sit down here, where the sun chequers the grass 
 
 with this tremulous dance of light, and the soft air 
 
 creeps pleasantly through the leaves over head. 
 
 The melody that sighs through the verses of 
 
 Moschus is not sweeter.* 
 
 * Cowley has himself very happily described a similar feeling 
 in the lines attached to the Essay on Solitude: 
 
 Here let me, careless and unthoughtful, lying, 
 Hear the soft winds above me flying, 
 With all their wanton boughs dispute. 
 
 And the more tuneful birds to both replying, 
 Nor be myself too mute.
 
 80 COWLEY, AXD 
 
 " Heaven preserve me from the Babcl-roar of 
 busy life. Quid Romce faciam ? mentiri Jiescio. 
 Before the even-song was heard I should pine to 
 flee away from the City of Crime into some little 
 Zoar, where I might, as Maro sings, studus fiorere 
 ignohUis otii. How should the poet listen to the 
 Charmer in such a tumult ? Could Spenser have 
 written in the hum of a great town those lovely 
 verses which the Muse brought to him on the banks 
 ofMulla?" 
 
 HERVEY. 
 
 " Nay, but was it not in London that Juliet 
 dawned upon the fancy of sweet Shakspeare, and 
 Fletcher courted his Faithful Shepherdess, and 
 the soft Hero charmed the memory of poor Kit 
 Marlowe? Surely the Muse doth appear to her 
 children, albeit under a cloud, even in the busiest 
 streets. The stranger seeth her not ; but they 
 know, by the ambrosial beauty of the air, that a 
 celestial visitant hath alighted in the midst of them. 
 And beside this, doth not a poetic heart carry all 
 the delights of the seasons with it t So Shakspeare 
 saw the moonlight sleeping on the bank, while 
 walking, perchance, along the Blackfriars ; and t lie 
 Nightingale, which Sappho calls 
 
 • Which Ben Jonson has charmingly translated : — 
 The dear good Angel of the Spring.
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 81 
 
 sprang up beneath his feet in the stir of Cheapside. 
 Think you that he thought of flowery hedge or 
 sunny grass then, or rather was it not all May-time 
 in his heart ? 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 " Who pelts now, Will ? But granting that thy 
 arguments hit the mark, I cannot turn from my 
 early love. A small house, a pleasant garden 
 decked out with flowers and healthful fruits, with 
 one fair face to smile upon me and brighten at my 
 happiness, and store of precious books for Summer 
 and Winter hours ; — in such a hermitage, and with 
 such companions, how inaudibly the hours would 
 glide away*. Our calendar would be marked only 
 
 * Cowley in several of liis poems has sketched, in charming 
 colours, his scheme of rural retirement. 
 
 Yet ere I descend to the grave, 
 May I a small house and large garden have, 
 And a few friends, and many books, both true : 
 
 Both wise, and both delightful too. 
 
 And since Love ne'er will from me flee, 
 A mistress moderately fair. 
 And good, as guardian angels are. 
 
 Only beloved, and loving me ! 
 
 In his Essay ' Of Greatness,' he speaks of a " convenient brick 
 house with decent wainscot, and pretty forest-work hangings." 
 " Lastly, (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with 
 that which I love most in both conditions), not whole woods 
 
 G
 
 82 COWLEY, AND 
 
 by wliite stones ; and vet liow the multitude clings 
 to the world, until some affliction is sent in mercy, 
 to wean the child by making bitter the breasts of 
 its adopted mother ; and even then it longs to re- 
 turn to her arms. The love of the world is the 
 universal passion. How many stones have been 
 flung at its head ; yet the Giant lives ! Preachers 
 have thundered at it, poets have whipped it, philo- 
 sophers have laughed at it. What do men go out 
 into the wilderness to see ? Vice predominant, learn- 
 ing despised, religion trampled under foot. Each 
 folly jangling its bells, — each tinkling cymbal col- 
 lecting its swarm of proselytes. What can a good 
 man hope for in the whirl and noise of company ; 
 how can he listen to the music of his own thouglits, 
 or nourish those young and tender imaginings whicli 
 are only reared into mature stature and beauty by 
 the milk of a purer and better time. This seques- 
 terment is not, indeed, a ladder for the ambitious 
 spirit to mount ; yet how often it leads to heaven ! 
 " The amusements of the city weary and satiate 
 us ; but Nature, like a tender mother, has alwavs 
 some new present for her children ; nor ever sends 
 
 cut in walks, nor vast parks, nor fountains, nor cascade gardens ; 
 but herb, and flower, and fruit gardens, which are more useful, 
 and the water every whit as clear and wholesome as if it 
 darted from the breasts of a marble nymph, or the urn of a 
 river god."
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 83 
 
 them from her lap without a blessing. Doth not 
 Contentment more often pitch her tent beside the 
 woodland spring, or in the warmth of a sheltered 
 glen, than by the gate of princes? Every walk in 
 the garden, or the fields, refreshes and delights the 
 soul with that visible eloquence which our heavenly 
 Father hath diffused over all his works. Every 
 blade of grass, ev'ery blossom on the bough, every 
 carol among the leaves, is only another letter in the 
 alphabet of the religion taught by Nature. 
 
 " Can we wonder that the seeds of faith and 
 purity shoot up and flourish in this genial atmo- 
 sphere? Alas! how soon they perish in those un- 
 watered hearts which are hardened by the pursuits 
 of ambition and wealth ! Even the qualities which 
 have already blossomed into beauty and fragrance, 
 are often neglected and trodden down, for our hands 
 are far too busy in Mammon's service to tie up the 
 drooping flower. Yet men still persevere in seek- 
 ing, with their miserable sophistries, to entangle our 
 judgments; preaching up the value of dignities, 
 the importance of power, the glory of palaces. 
 They still continue to boast of their servitude to 
 that Moloch, whose dissonant music drowns the 
 voice of reflection and wisdom. Oh, fools ! not to 
 perceive their chains, though the iron be cased in 
 gold. Armatorum trecentce P^rithoam cohihent
 
 84 COWLEY, AND 
 
 catencB*. Miserable deceptions! The gossamer 
 thread on yonder leaf is not more fragile. The 
 feeble wings of a fly in Autumn would break 
 through such a cobweb. No ! here would I set up 
 my tabernacle, — here would I leave my Pillar of 
 Memorial. The place has a sanctity for me, — the 
 faces are familiar to me : I love even the trees 
 around us. Here let me remain." 
 
 HERVEY. 
 
 " And me, too, while I have thee, Cowley. But 
 sometimes, at least, we may go into the world to 
 study man, as a surgeon visits the abodes of the 
 sick, to search into their diseases. How can we 
 
 * "Wliy are not the Essays of Cowley printed in a separate 
 foi-m for general circulation ? Every lover of English litera- 
 ture has their beauties by heart ; but I cannot refrain from 
 quoting one brief passage from the ' Essay on Liberty,' as a 
 most admirable commentary on the preceding remark. He is 
 speaking of the gi-eat rich man. " He's guarded with crowds, 
 and shackled with fonnalities. The half hat, the whole hat, the 
 half smile, the whole smile, the nod, the embrace, the positive 
 parting with a little bow ; the comparative at the middle of 
 the room, the superlative at the door : and if the person be 
 pan huper sepastus, there's a huper-superlative ceremony then 
 of conducting him to the bottom of the staii-s, or to the very 
 gate ; as if there were such rules set to these Le^aathans, as 
 are to the sea : Hitherto shall thou go, and no further.'''' 
 
 To understand the full meaning and force of these polite 
 ceremonies, a man must be a scholar and poor.
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 85 
 
 hope to heal the wounded spirit, if we know not its 
 anatomy ; if we have not examined those fine and 
 delicate sympathies which constitute the nervous 
 system of the mind. The philosopher may have 
 store of simples, but what will they avail if the 
 skill to apply them be wanting. Cannot we carry 
 our poetry and love of the country with us into the 
 world, as we do the love of our homes and of pur 
 mothers ? Can " 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 " Stop, William ! All thou seekest can be found 
 here ; let us carefully explore our own hearts, and 
 the great heart of Humanity will be as open before 
 us, as though Nature had shaped a living man in 
 crystal to aid our studies*. Once more, — Why 
 should we set out on this perilous journey.'* Why 
 barter our health, our innocence, and our peace, for 
 a few splendid feathers, or coloured beads ? Why 
 venture our hands into the lion's mouth, for the 
 little honey in his jaws.-^ Dost thou thirst after 
 glory.'' then sit here and gather it. Fame can 
 translate thy works into all tongues, and carry thy 
 name to the corners of the earth. Oh, happy 
 student — 
 
 • See Cowley's Ode to Dr. Scarborough.
 
 86 COWLEY, AND 
 
 Whose brow is ■wreathed witli the silver croAvn 
 Of clear content*. 
 
 So, when thou art sleeping in the dust, reverential 
 feet shall tread the floor of thy chamber, and the 
 books marked by thy finger, the paper traced by 
 thy pen, yea, the very table that hath been the 
 mute companion of thy toil, shall become, as it were, 
 sainted relics."" 
 
 When Cowley uttered these words he was Avriting 
 his Davideis ; and an anticipation of his own 
 future distinction may have crossed his mind, for 
 Genius is often blest with the prophet's eye. How 
 gladly, in his own case and that of others, would 
 we realize his affectionate aspiration ; and tread that 
 chamber where, with Hervey, he spent the night 
 
 In search of deep philosophy, 
 Wit, eloquence, and poetry. 
 
 Or sit down in the room where the Muse brought 
 flowers to Milton, to strew over the grave of his 
 sisters child : 
 
 Soft silken primrose fading timelessly ; 
 
 Or look out from the window through which the 
 sun shone on the learned visions of Spenser. Pem- 
 
 • Marston.
 
 HIS FRIEND HERVEY. 87 
 
 broke has undergone so few alterations during the 
 last three hundred years, that the rooms once occu- 
 pied by the noblest and purest spirit that ever 
 hallowed the walls, are still in existence, and are 
 supposed to be those now inhabited by the Tutor 
 of the College. In the Combination Room hangs 
 his portrait, almost as delicious to look upon as his 
 own pictures.
 
 88 
 
 THE HISTORY OF A LOST STUDENT; 
 TAKEN DOWN FROM HIS OWN LIPS. 
 
 If there be any Hell in this world, they wliich feel the worm 
 of conscience gnawing at theii- hearts, may truly say, that 
 they have felt the torments of Hell. Who can express 
 that man's hoiTors but liimself ! Sorrows are met in his 
 soul as at a Feast. Fear, Thought, and Anguish, 
 divide his soid between them. AU the Furies of Hell 
 leap upon his heart like a stage. Thought calls to Fear, 
 Fear whistleth to Hon'or, Horror beckoneth to Despair, 
 and saith, ' Come and help me to torment this sinner f — The 
 Betraying of Christ, 1592. 
 
 My first curacy was a parish in Cambridge, which, 
 perhaps, more than any other in the county, 
 requires the constant and unwearied solicitude of 
 the pastor. An older minister would have regarded 
 such a cure with apprehension; but I, with the 
 ardour of youth, only congratulated myself upon 
 the wide field that lay open for the employment of 
 my religious energies. I began to enumerate the 
 wanderers I should reclaim, the wavering I should 
 confirm, the pious I should establish. How far 
 these sanguine anticipations were realized is imma- 
 terial to the present narrative.
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 89 
 
 I was sitting alone on a dreary evening in 
 November, fatigued with the labours of the day, 
 and thinking upon that great account of our flocks, 
 which we shall one day have to render to the 
 Shepherd of Souls, when a note was brought to 
 me, the writing of which, though evidently traced 
 by an agitated hand, immediately recalled to my 
 memory a dear frielid of my youth, of whom I had 
 been unable for several years to gain any intelligence. 
 It merely stated his severe illness, and requested my 
 earliest attendance. Such a summons allowed of no 
 hesitation, and I determined to set out instantly with 
 the messenger. Mournful were the thoughts which 
 came trooping up in that melancholy walk. Every 
 scene of my college life rose to my eyes with vivid 
 reality ; and intimately connected with each was 
 the sick student. 
 
 It was nine o'clock when I reached the place of 
 my friends sojourn. By the dim light of the lantern 
 which my companion carried, I succeeded in picking 
 my way along a winding grass-covered path, leading 
 to one of tlie most desolate cottages I had ever 
 seen. I could not resist the impulse to stop for a 
 minute and look around ; but the darkness of the 
 night was increased by a thick fog, which rendered 
 it impossible to distinguish any object out of the 
 small circle of faint shadow cast by the lantern. 
 Tlip cottage stood alone, and at a considerablo
 
 90 TlIK T,OST STUDENT. 
 
 distance f'rojii any other habitation: no sound, save 
 the barking of a dog in a neighbouring farm-yard, 
 and the rattle of wheels along the distant road, 
 broke the silence of the hour. Sick of the melan- 
 choly scene, I walked up to the door, and gently 
 lifted the latch. The spectacle that presented 
 itself to my eyes I can never forget. The sick 
 man lay upon a bed in the corner of the room, 
 with his face turned to the wall, and from the deep 
 groans that continually broke from him, he was 
 evidently in great suffering. INIy entrance had not 
 aroused him, and I lingered at the door to survey 
 the place. The chamber was not more than ten or 
 twelve feet square ; and from the green patches of 
 damp along the walls and ceiling, appeared to have 
 been for some time uninhabited. The furniture, 
 if I may employ the term, consisted of one or 
 two broken chairs, and an old deal table, on which 
 was placed a rush-light inserted in the neck of a 
 bottle. On the hearth, a few embers sent up an 
 occasional glimmer, serving only to display the 
 gloom of the place. I shuddered while I contem- 
 plated this picture of misery, and stooping over 
 the bed, in a low voice whispered " Sydney .'" The 
 sound seemed to blend with his meditations, for he 
 continued muttering to himself, while his fingers 
 w-andered listlessly over the shadowy wall. — " Yes; 
 I did not shed her blood, but I murdered her ! "
 
 THE LOST STUDKXT. 91 
 
 Although gathering his words very indistinctly, I 
 felt naturally somewhat alarmed, and touching his 
 arm softly with my hand, I exclaimed in a louder 
 tone — " Sydney — my friend Sydney !" 
 
 He turned immediately, and uttering a piercing 
 shrieii, closed his eyes, and relapsed into his former 
 manner. Alone, and destitute of every assistance, 
 for even my guide' had departed, I was doubtful 
 what course to follow. Sitting down upon tlie 
 bed, I took his hand in mine, and waited for his 
 revival with painful anxiety As I gazed upon his 
 pale and emaciated features, I sought in vain for 
 the beautiful expression of peace and religious 
 hope, which used to breathe such a charm over his 
 countenance. His eyes were sunken, and his cheeks 
 worn into hard furrows. I mused in uncertainty 
 upon the melancholy change. In a few minutes he 
 opened his eyes, and looking up into my face, 
 whispered almost inaudibly, " Seymour! what Sey- 
 mour!" The tone in which he pronounced these 
 words, and the look which accompanied them, were 
 so pathetic, that I could not restrain my feelings, 
 and we wept together. 
 
 I wrapped the clothes around him, and folding 
 myself up in my cloak, for the fire had died out, 
 and the night grew chilly, prepared to pass the 
 dreary hours until morning. Sydney slept sweetly; 
 and if it had not been for an occasional start, I
 
 92 THE LOST STUDENT. 
 
 might have imagined that his malady was de- 
 parting. After trying in vain to compose myself 
 to rest, I drew the rush-light to me, and taking a 
 copy of the Orestes of Euripides from my pocket, 
 I soon forgot my own sorrows in those of the 
 Grecian orphans. I was lingering over the touching 
 picture of Electra sitting by her sick brother's 
 bed — the most pathetic scene in the Athenian 
 Drama — when I was suddenly aroused from my 
 dream by a shriek from Sydney. I turned round, 
 but he still slumbered ; in a moment he cried out 
 again, and sprang up with convulsive energy. I 
 threw my arms around his neck, and endeavoured 
 to restrain him ; but my embrace only heightened 
 his terror. " Away there, away !" he exclaimed 
 with feai'ful vehemence, as he wrestled in my arms. 
 " Away ! you are Satan ; and you press upon me 
 thus, that you may crush down my soul to Tar- 
 tarus !" I still strove to keep him down, but he 
 shook me from him as a giant would toss away a 
 cedar bough. I gazed upon him with horror, not 
 without some fears for my own safety. As he sat 
 upright in the bed, his long black hair scattered 
 from his wild and glaring eyes, and his lips covered 
 with foam, I could not but compare him to Orestes 
 tormented by the Furies, where the poet represents- 
 him dashing aside his fond and watching sister, 
 and leaping out to rush upon the avenging spirits.
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 93 
 
 The violence of the paroxysm gradually abated ; 
 and on my approaching the bed, he stretched out 
 his hand, saying " Come nearer ;" and laying his 
 head upon my shoulder, he added, " I have had 
 such a dream, Seymour ! I have seen my mother, 
 
 and she ." Here his voice faltered ; and while 
 
 I supported his head on one arm, and smoothed his 
 pillow with the othdr, he fell into a tranquil sleep, 
 which lasted until the morning. 
 
 With the early dawn, I hastened to the nearest 
 farm-house, and returned with a gig to convey my 
 unfortunate friend to my own dwelling ; and gladly 
 did I hail tlie spire of my little church, as it rose 
 over the lime-trees. I had previously taken care 
 to have my own room prepared for his reception, 
 and I felt a burden taken off my heart, when I 
 beheld him lying on that bed, and watched over 
 with all the tenderness of my good housekeeper. 
 Poor Mary Lawrence ! thou art gone to thy last 
 home, and the grass is flourishing upon thy grave, 
 
 in the burial-ground of A ; but a heart more 
 
 open to melting charity, or more lowly or contented 
 in its desires, never returned to the God who 
 gave it. 
 
 I lost no time in sending to a physician, who 
 resided in the adjoining town, and of whose know- 
 ledge and experience I had reason to form a very 
 high opinion. Dr. L rode over the same
 
 9-i THE LOST STl JENT. 
 
 evening. Sydney was reading tlie Holy Llinng 
 and Dying of Jeremy Taylor when we entered the 
 
 apartment. Dr. L , who was not only a man 
 
 of high talent, but a Christian, sat down by the 
 bed, and taking Sydney's hand in his own, inquired, 
 with great tenderness, into the nature of his symp- 
 toms. I know nothing more distressing to the suf- 
 ferer, or his friends, than an analytical history of 
 every pain and sensation. Sydney''s complaint was 
 dorsal consumption, in its most decided and afflict- 
 ing form. I watched the countenance of Dr. L 
 
 with earnestness, as he listened, in melanclioly 
 silence, to the Student's narrative of his sufferings ; 
 and I felt confident that my friend's sojourn would 
 not be long upon earth. " You may give him any- 
 thing he likes," said the doctor, when we had left 
 the room ; " the powers of medicine can effect 
 nothing for him ; the Physician who can alone aid 
 him in this hour of nature's sorrow, is our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ." I answered not, for my heart v.as 
 too full for uttei-ance. "It was kind of you," said 
 Sydney, when I returned to his chamber, " to pro- 
 cure a physician for me, but it is vain to lull my 
 conscience asleep with idle hopes of recovery, for I 
 know too well by these tokens, (placing his hands 
 on his temples, which throbbed with a burning 
 i^ain,) that I cannot long survive ; but before I go 
 hence, I would explain to you one or two of the
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 95 
 
 causes wliich have brought me to my present con- 
 dition. I have struggled with my pride, and have 
 obtained the mastery. When we are within a few 
 hours'' journey of the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death, it behoves us to put off the purple garments, 
 and to unbind the garland from our head, like 
 guests who have departed from a costly banquet, 
 and are preparing to lie down and take their rest. 
 
 " When I bade you farewell under the portal of 
 Trinity, ten years ago, I thought not that so many 
 years, — and such years ! — would roll by ere we 
 should meet again. I arrived in London in time 
 for the Norwich mail, which passed within six or 
 seven miles of my father''s house. I had written to 
 announce my return, and when the mail drove up 
 to the inn at I agastric, John, who in my infancy 
 drew me to school, was waiting with the pony- 
 chaise. When was pleasure seen without its shadow.-^ 
 My happiness in the present instance was sadly 
 diminished by the news of my father's declining- 
 health. ' His strength is going, sir,' said the old 
 man, and he rubbed a tear from his cheek as he 
 spoke. ' Master, you know, sir, was always walk- 
 ing about the fields, and breathing the blessed air ; 
 but now he does not leave the house for days. At 
 the last harvest-home, he left us before the second 
 song was ended.' ]\Iy faithful companion would 
 have continued the discourse, but I had heard
 
 90 THK LOST STUDENT. 
 
 enough to alarm me, and pushed on with greater 
 ra})i(Hty, up the green lane leading to our house. 
 
 " My father and mother had heard the sound of 
 the wheels, and notwithstanding the lateness of the 
 hour, were at the gate to receive me. You, my 
 dear friend, are blessed with affectionate parents, 
 and can enter into my feelings, as I felt myself 
 alternately pressed in their arms. My mother 
 parted the hair on my forehead, and discovered a 
 fresher colour on my cheek ; and my father put his 
 hand upon my shoulder, and congratulated me on the 
 increasing width of my chest, and manliness of my 
 bearing. When the excitement of our first meeting 
 had subsided, I had time to notice the alarming 
 alteration in his appearance ; even then the hand of 
 death was upon him, and in ten days from that 
 evening, I was sitting by his pillow, reading extracts 
 from those books, few but excellent, which com. 
 prised his unpretending course of divinity. Why 
 should I detain you with records of a sick chamber ? 
 It is sufficient to say that my beloved parent was 
 taken away before that son, in whom he had trea- 
 sured up all his hopes, could bring down his gray 
 hairs in sorrow to the grave. 
 
 " My father''s death was attended by no particular 
 suffering ; it resembled the placid slumber of a weary 
 man, more than the parting of an immortal soul. 
 On the evening; which terminated his mortal career.
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 97 
 
 I was sitting by his bed ; my mother having retired 
 to take a little rest. Suddenly he turned to me, 
 saying, in a very clear but faint voice, ' Harry, I am 
 dying.'' ' Oh, say not so, my father — there is hope 
 yet ;"" and throwing my arms around his neck, I hid 
 my face in his bosom. I placed his weak and 
 trembling hand upon my head, and I felt that he 
 was praying. I wished to call my mother, but he 
 would not : ' Let her sleep !' For a few minutes 
 he was again silent. At length he said, ' Give me 
 thy hand, my son."* He took it, and pressing it 
 gently, added, in the words of that great Lady 
 Russell, for whose virtues he entertained the deepest 
 veneration, ' Live virtuously, my dear boy, and you 
 cannot live too long, or die too soon.' These were 
 the last words he spoke : I found the pressure of 
 his hand growing fainter and fainter ; but several 
 minutes had elapsed before I discovered that another 
 innocent and guileless spirit had flown to the bosom 
 of its Creator. Oh, Seymour ! how a Christian 
 dies ! It seemed as if my father ""s tree of Hfe had 
 been softly shaken, and the yellow leaves dropped 
 from the boughs inaudibly." 
 
 Sydney's voice faltered, and I too was deeply 
 affected, for the simplicity and earnestness of his 
 manner went to the heart. " Ten days,"" he con- 
 tinued, " after this dreadful event, I followed my 
 father's body to the grave. The church was only 
 
 H
 
 98 THE LOST STUDENT. 
 
 distant a Imndrcd yards from the parsonage, and 
 was remarkable for the peculiar beauty of the sur- 
 rounding scenery. I had declined the offers of the 
 neighbouring gentry to attend the funeral ; for I 
 do not honour the fashion that bows a man into his 
 sepulchre. 
 
 " It was a delicious day in June ; and as I felt 
 my feet sink into the green turf, glowing with 
 flowers, and beheld the shadow thrown by the pall 
 upon the grass, and heard the bees humming their 
 sleepy music amid the wild flowers, my heart 
 within me was desolate. The little gate of the 
 churchyard closed behind us with a melancholy 
 sound. It would not shut after him any more ! 
 
 " When we came out of the church, and gathered 
 in a circle round the grave, I think a dry eye was 
 not to be found. Two orphan children, brother 
 and sister, for whom my father had provided, crept 
 noiselessly up to my side, and stood hand in hand, 
 silently gazing, while the field-flowers dropt, for- 
 gotten, from their hands. Amid the group of 
 villagers, either led by afffection or curiosity to 
 witness the mournful ceremony, was a young and 
 lovely girl, who, with a most tender patience and 
 solicitude, supported an aged and infirm woman, 
 whom I well remembered as an object of my father's 
 bounty. My heart was, indeed, at that moment 
 too much overwhelmed by sorrow for him on whose
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 99 
 
 coffin the earth was falling, to think of her beauty ; 
 but who shall say that even in that melancholy hour 
 the liand of one great Enemy might not have 
 dropped into my heart the seed of that accursed 
 passion, which was so soon to overshadow and destroy 
 myself, and all that was dear to me ! By degrees 
 the violence of my grief began to abate, and I 
 resumed my accustomed walks in the neighbourhood, 
 and my intercouse with the villagers, among Avhom 
 I was always a welcome guest. Oh, that one cottage 
 had never known the sound of my footsteps ! My 
 first visits to the aged object of my father's charity 
 were actuated only by benevolent motives ; but who 
 could gaze long on Mary Gray, without yielding to 
 those eyes radiant with tenderness; that sweet, 
 serious, religious, smile ; that voice of simple, but 
 melting pathos ! Sorrow and love could not exist 
 together. The closed shutters, the silent garden, 
 the desolate house, faded every day more and more 
 from my mind. Guard, oh, guard against the first 
 temptation that may solicit you. When the evil 
 Spirit has entered the soul, the Sacred Fire will 
 be quickly extinguished, and the Vestals of the 
 heart forsake it, to return no more ! 
 
 " You shrink from the recital ; but hear me to the 
 end. We used to amuse ourselves at Cambridge 
 with comparing and analysing the various systems 
 of Philosophy ; the wisdom of Socrates, — the beau- 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE LOST STUDENT. 
 
 tiful mysticism of Plato. Out upon them all ! 
 They define Virtue until we are acquainted with 
 every lineament. Virtue, saith Aristotle, is a na- 
 tural impulse towards good actions, transformed 
 by prudence into a habit. Virtue, affirms Plato, 
 proceeds from God. I will prove Reason to be 
 Virtue, swears Diogenes. They weave a silver veil 
 before our eyes, which the first breath of passion 
 scatters to the winds. There is one Book, indeed, 
 whose philosophy never deceives the sincere in- 
 quirer, but I wanted the humility to consult it. If 
 I were to publish these records of my life, how the 
 voice of criticism would be raised against the ex- 
 travagance, the exaggeration of my narrative. Alas ! 
 how can one, turning over the pages of a history in 
 the quiet of his chamber, with his thoughts undis- 
 turbed, his evil appetites unawakened, comprehend 
 the feelings of a man tossed in the tempest of a 
 terrible temptation, and beholding, with affrighted 
 eye, every bulwark with which he had surrounded 
 the virtuous principles of his soul beaten down 
 before the rush of new-born desires."" 
 
 Sydney's agitation and suffering had become so 
 intense, that, overcome as I was by his melancholy 
 story, I urgently entreated him to relinquish the 
 recital. " Nay," said he, with vehemence, " let me 
 go on rending open these gashes in my memory, 
 which time shall never heal. I will, however," he
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 101 
 
 added with a mournful smile, " hasten along my 
 road to ruin. My moral nature underwent a tem- 
 porary change. The poison spread through every 
 vein, until all the healthy energies of the mind were 
 infected. Thus it is that one sin always calls in 
 another, and each conqueror rivets fresh irons upon 
 the Soul. How can I proceed.'' I was eloquent 
 — Mary was weak : we fled to London ! Thus did 
 I triumph in my guilt ; but the avenger was at our 
 heels : the sword was already over our heads. In 
 three short months Mary was taken from me by a 
 malignant fever, in which I also lay for several 
 weeks upon the borders of the grave. 
 
 " When reason returned, the first object that met 
 my eyes was the pale, grief-stricken countenance 
 of my deserted parent. Oh, Edward ! the ocean 
 hath a limit to its billows ; but who shall set bounds 
 to a mother's love ? who shall say to it, Thus far 
 shall thou come, and no further. Let the night 
 rest upon my penitence, — upon her forgiveness ! 
 Certainly my repentance was sincere : I can bear 
 to reflect upon that. My mother's income had died 
 with my father, and my desertion had plunged her 
 into deeper difficulties. We now took a humble 
 lodging in the neighbourhood of Finsbury-Square, 
 and I devoted all my heart to her comfort and sup- 
 port. I wrote in Newspapers and Magazines, and 
 described the entire circle of literary wretchedness.
 
 102 THE LOST STUDENT. 
 
 I laboured hard, but I gained little. How vividly 
 are tlie sufferings of that period graven on my 
 memory. But my misery had not reached its 
 height. The Cup was not yet quite mixed. The 
 illness of my mother filled it to the brim. 
 
 " It was on a Saturday — I had been writing in- 
 cessantly the whole day, and was leaning over the 
 neai'ly extinguished fire — when the mistress of the 
 house sent me a note, enclosing a notice to quit on 
 the following Saturday. Edward, can any crime, 
 hardly the most heinous of all, equal the crime of 
 being poor ? Wealth is the standard of excellence : 
 a man is honest, and clever, and amiable, in pro- 
 portion to the plenitude of its endowment ; riches 
 confer on him power, and beauty, and virtue, and 
 intellect : Poverty gives him scorn, and ignorance, 
 and impotence, and disgrace. That night I did 
 not sleep. The morning was delightful, and I 
 wandered along until I reached Oxford-Street. It 
 was Easter-Sunday, and the streets swarmed with 
 crowds of cheerful idlers. 
 
 " I rambled on until I came to Hyde Park; and, 
 overcome by the violence of my mental conflicts, I 
 sat down upon a bench, and gazed around me. 
 Having rested a little while, I rose to depart, when 
 I perceived at a short distance, a fellow-student of 
 mine at Cambridge, who was of my own year, and 
 on terms of peculiar intimacy. There is no con-
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 103 
 
 vulsion of the mind more terrible than that caused 
 by the struggle of pride with filial affection : but 
 my mother,* pale, sick, and soon to be homeless, — 
 and through me ! — arose to my heart, and I ac- 
 costed him : I stifled every emotion, I stooped to 
 supplication, I asked him for money. He was 
 rejoiced to meet me, — he was most sorry that his 
 account was overdrawn ; he refused me ! The day 
 went by, and I could not procure the money. I 
 will not attempt to delineate my sensations as I 
 returned to our humble dwelling. The evening 
 was cold and foggy; the black mist and the red 
 light of a few straggling lamps composed a melan- 
 choly picture. I arrived at our lodging weary and 
 exhausted. The nurse met me on the landing- 
 place ; I knew directly from her manner that some- 
 thing dreadful had come to pass. My mother had 
 been unwell, though not dangerously so, for some 
 days previous ; but the excitement of the day had 
 brought on paralysis, and I returned only in time 
 to hear that she was now lying upon the bed of 
 death. The mistress of the house had neglected to 
 procure a surgeon, and the nurse was afraid to leave 
 the bed-side. I hardly understood the purport of 
 her words. ' O my God !' I cried, as I rushed 
 down stairs. 
 
 " In our days of prosperity, we had been known 
 to a physician of eminence in Saville-Row, and
 
 10 i THE LOST STUDENT. 
 
 thougli I was then a cliild, I remembered his name. 
 Thither I hastened. When I came to that part of 
 Regent-Street fronting Conduit-Street, I was de- 
 tained by a crowd of people and carriages: the 
 blood rushed to my brain as I dashed here and 
 there to find a crossing. The faces around me 
 were apparently joyful and happy. I heard voices 
 behind full of laughter and merry thoughts, and 
 hopes of coming delights ; and at the same moment 
 I turned and beheld a face which wore a most 
 remarkable likeness to my mother. The thought 
 was fire to me ; I almost flung myself beneath the 
 wheels of a cabriolet, as I sprang across the street. 
 Dr. Mornington was out of town. I had one 
 resource yet remaining, — a gentleman residing in 
 Russel-Square, who had attended me in a very 
 severe illness ; he was at home, and came with me 
 instantly. We entered the chamber together; it 
 was miserably furnished; and a rushlight, which 
 tbe nurse held in her hand, cast a sickly and yellow 
 light over the soiled dimity curtains. My mother 
 lay quite motionless, with one arm covering her 
 eyes. I took her hand in mine, but for once it did 
 not return the pressure ; it was very cold. I called 
 upon her — she answered not : I had no mother ! 
 I did not shed a tear; but I folded my hands 
 together, and knelt down by the bed-side." 
 
 I felt that this painful story would overpower his
 
 THE LOST STUDENT. 105 
 
 exhausted frame ; and my anticipations were, alas, 
 too soon realized. Starting up with frantic energy, 
 he cried out, in a voice that thrilled the very heart, 
 " Oh ! my God ! if, in my days of innocence, 
 when thy secret was ' upon my tabernacle,"* I 
 ever offered a sincere prayer at thy shrine, or 
 breathed the thankfulness of a lowly heart, for 
 mercies vouchsafed to me, look down upon me, 
 O blessed Father, and take thy erring child to thy 
 bosom."" 
 
 Never did I behold so heart-rending a spectacle. 
 He had thrown himself upon his knees, his wasted 
 hands were rigidly clasped in supplication, and his 
 eyes turned upwards in fearful earnestness. As 
 he thus knelt upright in bed, the ravages of sorrow 
 and sickness upon his once noble frame became 
 apparent. I looked in silent grief, until every 
 gleeful hour we had passed together, and all our 
 sweet interchanges of affection came back upon my 
 heart, and the tears rushed into my eyes. Gra- 
 dually the paroxysm passed away, and as he sank 
 upon the pillow, a placid expression, like that of 
 his earlier days, crept softly over his features. By 
 the light of the moon, which shone mildly into the 
 chamber, I stooped over him. He was quite still 
 — the pulse had ceased to beat — the Lost Student 
 was with his mother !
 
 lOG 
 
 A GARLAND FOR A WHITE FOREHEAD. 
 
 Now if Time knows 
 
 That her whose radiant brows 
 
 Weave them a Garland of my vows ; 
 
 Her whose just bays 
 
 My future hopes can raise, 
 
 A trophy to her present praise ; 
 
 Her that dares be 
 
 What these lines wish to see ; — 
 
 I seek no further, it is she ! 
 
 Crashaw. 
 
 The spirit of mine eyes is faint 
 
 Witli gazing on thy light; 
 I close my eyelids, but within 
 
 Still thou art shining bright. 
 Glowing softly through the gloom, 
 
 Like a flower-bird at night." 
 
 Thy Beauty walketh by my side 
 
 In pleasant bower and lea; 
 I hear thee in the bird that sings 
 
 Upon the orange-tree; 
 Thy face from every crystal stream 
 
 Is looking up to me. 
 
 How delicious were those lines of Cowley : — 
 Love in her sunny eyes does basking play ; 
 Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair.
 
 DANCING. SLEEPING BEAUTY. 107 
 
 Moonlight sleeps on wood and flower ! 
 
 From me thy Beauty will not part. 
 Within my weary lids it dwells, 
 
 Beloved ! that thou art. 
 The sweet breath of thine eyes doth fall * 
 
 Like odour on my heart. 
 
 DANCING. 
 
 Oh, Beautiful ! when Venus sprung, 
 Eve of the waters, into sight, 
 
 And round her breast her tresses clung, 
 A garland of delight: 
 
 With lip, and cheek, and eye like thine, 
 And motion breathing music sweet, 
 
 She made the purple sea her shrine, 
 
 The white foam, lilies for her feet ! 
 
 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 Softly tread ! Cythera keeps 
 Vigil o'er her while she sleeps ; 
 Voices from Elysium lull 
 The slumber of the Beautiful ! 
 
 * This was a favourite conceit of Philostratus ; and luis 
 certainly something to recommend it.
 
 108 A GAKI.AM) I'OR A WHITE FOUEHEAD. 
 
 See ! the dimpled pillow glows 
 With her odorous breath of rose ; 
 Like the orient IMay, doth break 
 The love-light from her cheek ! 
 
 Wake her not ! enchanted dreams 
 A charm upon the sleeper shed ! 
 Stir not the Garland of sweet Dreams 
 Which sleep hath bound upon her head ! 
 
 WAITING FOR THE BELOVED IN MAY. 
 
 May's red lips are breathed apart 
 By the music of her heart, 
 Ever softly stealing thro', 
 When the silvery morning dew 
 Hangs upon the garden tree, 
 Like precious pearls of Araby. 
 
 Gladness from her Cave of Cloud 
 Upon the brightening earth hath bow'd ; 
 Riches flow on bower and lea. 
 But I am poor in wanting thee, 
 Sweetest May-Queen, Emily! 
 
 Hark! along the covert green, 
 The softly shaken leaves between, 
 I hear thy voice of pleasure ring. 
 Thou dear good Angel of the Spring* ! 
 Richest perfumes, every mom 
 Plenty scatters from thy horn.
 
 WAITING FOR THE BELOVED IN MAY. 109 
 
 All things dost tliou bring with thee, — 
 Merry dances, songs of glee ; 
 Sweet airs to the aching head, 
 Early flowers to tlie dead. 
 
 Then why, fair May, am I forgot ? 
 And why dost thou regard me not ? 
 Shall every garden happy be, 
 And my sweet Flower not come to me ! 
 
 * The Nightingale.
 
 no 
 
 SIDNEY WALKER AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 
 
 Tempora nam licet hie placidis dare libera Musis, 
 Et totum rapiunt me, mea vita, libri. 
 
 Milton ad Carolum Deodatum. 
 
 Let my lamp, at midnight hour, 
 
 Be seen on some high lonely tower, 
 Wliere I may oft outwatch the Bear, 
 With thrice great Hermes, or imsphere 
 
 The spirit of Plato 
 
 Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy 
 
 In sceptred pall come sweeping by, 
 
 Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line. 
 
 Or the tale of Troy divine ! // Penseroso. 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 How delightful it is in this busy and tumultuous 
 age — this carnival of politics and commerce — to 
 have a Cave to retire into ; an Eugeria from whose 
 lips to gather strains of serene beauty and wisdom, 
 — there we can cool that fever of the spirits, which 
 the excitement of the world so often occasions. 
 Every step we take out of the narrow boundaries of 
 the time we live in carries us into a purer atmo- 
 sphere ; and while the sweet air and the unclouded 
 sky of Athens charm our senses into peace, the 
 hoarse contention of this actual life dies away be-
 
 WALKER AND MOULTRIE. Ill 
 
 hind us. We forget the Present in the Past ; the 
 Poets, the Philosophers, the Orators of the golden 
 age, arise in all their lustre, and we hang upon the 
 lips of Socrates, or wander through the enchanted 
 Garden of Plato. 
 
 What a light has the antique Muse poured into 
 the most desolate chambers. How many hearts has 
 she cheered with her music ; how many consoled 
 by her eloquence and truth ! Various are the 
 ministerings of this gentle spirit. Who has for- 
 gotten Ascham's visit to Lady Jane Grey at Brode- 
 gate in Leicestershire, where he found her alone 
 reading the Phcedo of Plato ? 
 
 Though tlie horn was blown, 
 
 And every ear, and every heart was won. 
 And all m green array were chasing down the sun ! 
 
 Rogers. 
 
 ' I wist all their sport in the park,' she said, 
 ' is but a shadow to that pleasure which I find in 
 Plato.' Thus does the Muse brighten even the 
 cheek of innocence and fortune ; but most lovely is 
 she when bringing flowers to the pillow of the sick 
 and suffering scholar. She loves her children best 
 in the hour of affliction. 
 
 When a cloud had fallen upon the eyes of 
 Milton, this faithful Guide, who had known and 
 watched over him in the bowers of Christ's, was
 
 112 SIDNEY WALKER 
 
 Still at his side to lead hiui through all the flowery 
 valleys of Arcady, and into the glorious assembly 
 in the Academe. He could still sit with Bion 
 under a spreading plane; or listen to the heavy 
 breathings of slumbering Pan ; or hear the nightin- 
 gales, as they sang to Sophocles, among the ivy and 
 violets of Colonos ! 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 The drama of Greece, unlike our own, did not 
 ascend to excellence by slow steps. In tracing the 
 annals of the Enghsh Stage, many names arise to 
 the memory before the series closes in Shakspeare. 
 Greene, from one of whose tracts came the Win- 
 ter's Tale ; the tender and harmonious Peele ; the 
 extravagant, but picturesque Marlow ; Lodge, who 
 excelled in touches of pastoral tenderness and 
 beauty, and to whom we probably owe the charm- 
 ing Rosalind of As You Like It ; not to mention 
 Lyly, Avho, though deficient in fancy and taste, 
 became the leader of a very popular sect ; Kyd, 
 the writer of a tragedy which acquired considerable 
 reputation ; and Nash, who, destitute as he was of 
 vigour and scholarship, yet exercised some influ- 
 ence upon the literature of his day. These, with 
 others, had trodden the path of dramatic poetry 
 before the appearance of Shakspeare. But vEschy- 
 lus stood alone ; a sculptor working without a
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 113 
 
 drawing or a model. What could he pick up from 
 the cart of Thespis ? 
 
 The drama of Greece was essentially national, 
 ^schylus formed the noble design of shaping some 
 of the terrific legends of liis country into tragedies 
 of stately argument; and his greatest work, the 
 Agamem7ion, is reared in the faintest twilight of 
 romantic history. The prevailing characteristics 
 of his mind were a daring grandeur and force of 
 sentiment. He delighted in the stern, the lofty, 
 and the terrible. His imagination was wild and 
 stormy. Who would have expected to behold 
 Bkauty rising from such a sea.'' Yet over his 
 darkest pictures clouds of gold float along. The 
 story of Iphigenia is told with a sweetness of pathos 
 and a picturesque grace, worthy the pen of Sopho- 
 cles ; and the picture of Helen glows with all the 
 richness of her voluptuous charms. 
 
 Now as she stood, and her descending veil. 
 Let down in clouds of safixon, touch'd the ground, 
 The priests and all the sacrificers round. 
 All felt the melting beams that came 
 With sofest pity wing'd, shot from her lovely eyes. 
 Like some imagined pictured maid she stood. 
 So beauteous look'd she, seeming as she would 
 Speak, yet still mute ; tho' oft her father's halls 
 Magnificent among, 
 She, now so mute, had simg
 
 114 SIDNEY WALKED 
 
 Full many a lovely air, 
 In maiden beauty fresh and fair; 
 And wth the warbled music of her voice 
 ]\Iade all liis joyous bowers still more rejoice. 
 
 Symmoks. 
 
 moultrie. 
 
 You remember that animated account of the 
 Fire-signals, by which Agamemnon had promised 
 to announce to Clytemnestra the capture of Troy. 
 The watchman, after so many vigils passed in vain 
 expectation, in the midst of a complaining soliloquy, 
 beholds the long-looked-for beacon darting up into 
 the sky. Vossius observes, that without being able 
 to prove the historical truth of this account, such is 
 the geographical accuracy of the poet, that criti- 
 cism cannot charge him with fiction. If the signals 
 were twt lighted they might have been. 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 Poetry contains few pictures equal in liveliness 
 and graphic truth to this description. We watch 
 the course of the fire through aU its journey — and 
 almost fancy we hear the hissing sound of that 
 ' beard of flame,' rushing up from the dry heather. 
 These signals are of great antiquity. They are 
 frequently noticed in Scripture. Fires are still 
 lighted along the mountains in view of Cosseir on 
 the Red Sea, to announce the approach of the;
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 115 
 
 Caravans, travelling from the Nile. Jeremiah, 
 while warning the children of Benjamin to flee from 
 Jerusalem, commands them to Blow the trumpet in 
 Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem. 
 Burning torches were employed by the Greeks and 
 Romans as telegraphs. Chateaubriand has a plea- 
 sant allusion to the beacon-fires, as kindled in 
 Greece at the present day. On arriving at the house 
 of an Albanian, an acquaintance of M. Fauvet, he 
 hastened to an eminence east of the village, to gain 
 a view of the Austrian ship. In the evening a fire 
 was lighted of myrtle and heather, the epntr) of 
 iEschylus, and a goatherd stationed on the road to 
 inform him without delay of the arrival of the boats 
 from Zea. 
 
 I have attempted a translation of this narrative; 
 at least as literal as any of its metrical predeces- 
 
 The God of Fire *, on Ida's steep, 
 
 Sent forth the living flame: 
 From watch to watch with giant leaj) 
 
 Along the mountain tops it came, 
 
 Unto Lemnos' hill of fame. 
 Up Athos, where the Spirit dwells t, 
 
 t AiTToi Z)j»of. The modern name of Athos is Tpotyiov Opo? ; 
 by the European inhabitants of Turkey it is called Monte 
 Santo. 
 
 12
 
 IIG SIDNEY WALKER 
 
 The torcli of fire doth spring, 
 IHashing from its lofty track 
 Along dark Ocean's mighty back, 
 
 The red-light of its journeying. 
 Golden-beaming, like the Sun, 
 
 It rushes on its path-way still. 
 Flashing upon the lifted eyes 
 
 Of the watchman on Macistus' hill. 
 Brief time, I ween, the fire they kept, 
 Not one upon the watch-tower slept, 
 On the blazing Signal leapt. 
 Away, away, the Herald darted, 
 
 On clear Euripus' streams it fell : 
 The night-guard on Messapius started, 
 
 He knew the Beacon well. 
 The Fire knoweth not decay, — 
 
 A heap of mountain-heather dry 
 
 Casteth up the flame on high, 
 And it speedeth on its way. 
 Waxing fiercer in its might, 
 
 O'er Asopus' meadows leaping, 
 Like the radiant moon at night 
 
 To Cithaeron's ridges sweeping. 
 It waketh another herald-light, — 
 And now Gorgopis' lake grew bright; 
 
 And, lo! from heather gathered round 
 
 Up rusheth, Avith a hissing sound, 
 A mighty beard of flame ! 
 ^^^lere the rocks with cloudy frown 
 On the Saronic Gulf look down.
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 117 
 
 The Signal-fire went by; 
 
 Bounding to the watcher's eye 
 Through the darkness, till it came 
 
 Unto the Argive Mountain's crest 
 Beside the city, there the flame, 
 
 On Agamemnon's roof had rest. 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 Potter lost muchj of the spirit of these lines ; 
 his version has a very considerable infusion of the 
 Prosaic. Johnson's opinion of his translation of 
 jEschylus is perhaps a little too severe; but never 
 were the features of a great poet reflected more 
 imperfectly than in the poetry of Potter. The 
 Rambler's criticism is very characteristic. After 
 wandering about, says Boswell, I got into a corner 
 with Johnson, Garrick, and Harris. Garrick to 
 Harris — ' Pray sir, have you read Potter's iEschy- 
 lus ?' Harris — < Yes ; and think it pretty.' Gar- 
 rick to Johnson — ' And what think you, sir, of it .'*' 
 Johnson — ' I thought what I read of it verbiage ; 
 but upon Mr. Harris's recommendation, I will 
 read a play. {To Mr. Harris) — Don't prescribe 
 two.' 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 When I read the Orestes and Hecuba I cease 
 to wonder why the Greeks called Euripides the 
 most tragic of poets; they display a pathos of
 
 118 SIDNEY WALKER 
 
 sentiment, a domestic interest of situation, and a 
 dignity of affectionate endurance, which remind me 
 of the tenderest scenes in Massinger or Heywood. 
 The character of Electra is drawn with all the 
 sweetness of those powerful pencils. Her watchings, 
 her sorrows, her unwearied love, her desire to share 
 the guilt with her brother, are affecting and natural 
 features. The scene in wliich we behold her sitting 
 by the bed of her afflicted brother, is one of the 
 most beautiful in the whole range of dramatic 
 poetry. The following translation is only a frag- 
 ment. You see the Chorus approaching with gentle 
 step to the couch of the mourner, who has fallen 
 into repose ; while Electra, alarmed at the slightest 
 sound, entreats them to tread lightly. Does not 
 this remind you of that charming verse in The 
 Tempest. 
 
 Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may not 
 Hear a foot fall. 
 
 Electra. Softly! Softly! fall the sound 
 Of thy footstep on the ground ! 
 Gently! gently! like the breath 
 Of a lute song in its death; 
 Like the sighing of a reed, 
 Faintly mxu-muring to be freed. 
 So softly let thy whispers flow. 
 
 Chorus. Listen, Dear! how meek and low!
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 119 
 
 Electra. Blessings on thy quiet feet! 
 
 Hush thy breathing, trembling, sweet ! 
 
 Come near to me, tell me why 
 
 Damsels, ye are lingering by? 
 
 Long hath sorrow torn his breast, 
 
 Now his weary eyes have rest. 
 Chorus. How fares it with him? dearest, say. 
 Electra. Sad and tearful is my lay. 
 
 Breathing on his couch he lieth, 
 
 StiU he suffers, still he sigheth ! 
 Chorus. What say'st thou, mourner ? 
 Electra. Woe to thee, 
 
 If the dewy slumber flee, 
 
 That raineth o'er the weeper's eye 
 
 The beauty of a calmer sky. 
 Chorus. See, the clothes his body shaketh ; 
 
 Electra, look ! thy brother waketh ! 
 Electra. Curses on thee, dark and deep ! 
 
 Thou hast stirred the charm of sleep, 
 
 Never more thy voice shall swell — 
 Chorus. Hush ! he sleeps I 
 Electra. Thou sayest well. 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 Young has very happily described the hushing 
 silence of a footstep : 
 
 More like a murderer than friend I crept. 
 With soft suspended step. 
 
 The interest of the play concentrates around 
 Electra. She is the star of that stormy night.
 
 120 SIDNEY WALKEK 
 
 Orestes is only interesting from his deep attachment 
 to his sister, and the entire trustfulness with which 
 he rests upon her arms of love. Beaten down and 
 tormented by the avenging spirits, the orphan feels 
 that only one support remains to him ; only one 
 friend to comfort him. Hence his pathetic request 
 to Electra to retire, and recruit her exhausted 
 frame. 
 
 Why dost thou weep my sister, folding thus 
 Thine eye of tears beneath thy garment? 
 I am ashamed to cover thy young heart 
 With thy sick brother's grief. Unveil thy face, 
 Yea, come forth from thy weeping, sister dear ! 
 For w^hen my spirit doth grow dark, thy arm 
 Must be around me, and thy gentle voice 
 Speak comfort to me. Let thy tender song 
 Dwell round my pillow in the gloom, and now 
 Go close thy weary eyes. If I lose thee, 
 What other voice "will talk to me at night? 
 I am an orphan! 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 Euripides in this beautiful drama has combined 
 all the elements of dramatic poetry. The scene 
 where 
 
 Staring Orestes flies 
 
 With eyes flung back upon his mother's ghost — 
 
 might have been struck out by the fiery mind of 
 ^Eschylus. As a whole the Drama is inferior to
 
 AMI) JOHN MOULTRIE. 121 
 
 the Hecuba; and the model of friendship which the 
 writer holds up in the characters of Pylades and 
 Orestes, is defaced by the circumstance of their 
 being bad men. But with all its defects it was a 
 wonderful production for a man in his sixty-eighth 
 year. The Hecuba abounds in passages of touching 
 interest; I indulged my fancy, the other day, in 
 what I suppose I must call a paraphrase of that 
 tender scene, in which the captive queen bewails 
 her degraded condition, and anticipates fresh mis- 
 fortunes to her children. Although not strictly 
 literal, the tone and manner are, I hope, retained. 
 
 Lead me, damsels, to the door, 
 A captive now, a queen no more ! 
 With you linked in the bond of sliame ; 
 Uplift, support, my tottering frame! 
 • Maiden, link thy hand in mine, 
 Let my weak arm lean on thine ! 
 And I with staff of age will guide 
 My trembling footsteps at your side. 
 Fire of heaven ; sable Night ! 
 Wherefore in the shadoAvy light, 
 Do visions, like the stormy gleams 
 Of Horror, break upon my dreams ! 
 It was, it was, my daughter fair, — 
 I knew her face, her golden hair — 
 Ah, me! whose shriek rings on the air? 
 Powers of Earth ! be reconciled ! 
 The mother prayeth for her child !
 
 122 SIDNEY WALKER 
 
 For him — ^tlie apple of her eye — 
 
 Who dwelleth 'neath the Thracian sky, 
 
 The anchor of his family ! 
 
 Ah me ! a Avccping voice to-morrow 
 
 Will come unto the child of sorrow ; 
 
 My heart Avith boding fears doth swell, 
 
 It knows the voice of grief too well ! 
 
 Oh, that my heavy eyes could trace 
 
 The future on Cassandra's face. 
 
 I saw a white fawn dappled o'er, 
 
 But its breast was stained with gore; 
 
 It flew for shelter unto me — 
 
 The red- wolf tore it from my knee! 
 
 The Phantom -warrior on his tomb* 
 
 Hath cried aloud. Oh, voice of doom ! 
 
 Terrible the whisper ran, 
 
 From lip to lip, from man to man. 
 
 The cry of blood comes deep and wild — 
 
 Father of Heaven ! my child! my child! 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 Scaliger was willing to surrender for Ennius 
 alone, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, et tons ces 
 gar^ons-ld t. I should be very happy to exchange 
 them all for the lost works of Simonides, who seems 
 to have carried Elegiac poetry to perfection. In 
 simplicity, pathos, and purity of style, his remains 
 testify that he was admirable. Take his affecting 
 poem on the Vanity of Life, — which, following your 
 
 * Achilles. -f Prima Scaligerana.
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 123 
 
 example, I have thus overturned into English, with 
 great freedom. 
 
 Nothing long with man abideth, — 
 
 Thus the Chian prophet sung; 
 Like the leaves upon a tree, 
 Green and faded, so is he, 
 
 Withered soon as he hath sprung. 
 
 Who hath said unto his spirit, 
 
 I will take this lowly seat ? 
 Hope sings to him, and his eye 
 Looketh to a brighter sky, 
 
 A fairer garden for his feet. 
 
 In the pleasant light of morn, 
 Man riseth like a tender flower. 
 
 Perfuming some woodland spot; 
 
 The evening comes, and finds him not — 
 Blooming, dying in an hour! 
 
 Doth the young heart, chaunting gaily 
 
 In the Summer's orient light, 
 Think its song will ere grow old, 
 Or its sunny face be rolled 
 
 In the garment of the night! 
 
 Treasure these things in thy bosom, 
 
 Pilgrim-child of joy and tears; 
 Waiting for a home more blest. 
 Where thy weary feet shall rest 
 
 At the boundary-stone of years !
 
 124' SIDNEY WALKER 
 
 There is one circumstance in the history of 
 Simonides deserving particular notice ; he is said 
 to have been the first poet who received money for 
 his writings. The reason he assigned for his 
 conduct is at once satisfactory and conclusive. ' I 
 had rather,"* were his words, ' leave something to 
 my enemies after my death, than need any assist- 
 ance from my friends while living.' How well he 
 must have known the world ! 
 
 WALKEK. 
 
 The charms you admire in Simonides, flourish 
 with equal vigour in the poems of Homer. Pope, 
 was one day reading to an old lady a canto of 
 Spenser, and she remarked upon his concluding, 
 that he had been showing her a gallery of pictures. 
 There is something, added the poet, in Spenser, 
 that pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it 
 did in one's youth. I read the Fairy Queen when 
 I was about twelve, with infinite delight, and I 
 think it gave me as much when I read it over 
 about a year or two ago. This criticism is not less 
 true of the Homeric Poems ; you are delighted in 
 both with the same freshness and sincerity; the 
 same dignity and simplicity of character. Homer's 
 gallery of pictures differs, indeed, from Spenser's 
 in subject; but we continue to gaze upon them
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 125 
 
 with the same pleasure through every succeeding 
 year. Time, that destroys so many works of art, 
 only seems to mellow their colouring. Perhaps the 
 Odyssey is, on the whole, though far inferior to 
 the Iliad in fire of imagination, the more delightful 
 composition; its moral is of a more domestic and 
 touching character. The picture of a man tossed 
 about in numberless trials, and subjected to so 
 many and various temptations, yet in all preserving 
 undecayed and unblemished, the love of home and 
 of liis family, to which his heart unceasingly 
 yearns, is full of interest of the deepest order*. 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 Whoever was the author of the Iliad, his 
 imagination was imbued with the grandeur of 
 eastern song. His Impersonations often breathe 
 all the ardour of the Bible Poetry. How mag- 
 nificent is the advance of Apollo to the battle. 
 The shield, as Cowper happily renders it, is 
 tempestuous. By the Greeks and all the Oriental 
 nations, the brightness of the eyes and of the 
 features was regarded as a supernatural sign. The 
 emerald eyes of their gods shone with mysterious 
 splendour through the gloom of the Adytum. 
 Availing themselves of this prevalent belief, im- 
 
 * De Jove Homeri Dissertatio, by Dr. C. G. Eckenbx'echer,
 
 126 SIDXEY WALKEU. 
 
 postors have sought to deceive men by an assumed 
 lustre of countenance. 
 
 Dr. Levden tells us, that Ibn Makna, the founder 
 of the IVIaknayali sect, hid himself from the 
 public gaze, and covered his features with a veil ; 
 asserting that no eye could endure the glory of 
 his countenance. To support this deception, he 
 prepared some burning mirrors, placing them in 
 such a situation that the rays fell upon the faces 
 of those who approached him. Having taken 
 these precautions, he uncovered his face, and 
 directing his votaries to draw nigh, the foremost 
 were struck by the burning rays, and retired, 
 exclaiming, — ' We cannot look upon him, but he 
 gazes upon us.' 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 Manv tender and beautiful things have been 
 said of eyes ; yet how inferior to the sweet things 
 uttered by themselves ! A full eye seems to have 
 been esteemed the most expressive. Such was the 
 eye that enchained the soul of Pericles; Homer 
 celebrates the ' ox-eyed Juno.' Sir William Jones 
 thought the two words in Turkish signify ing/fl^^w- 
 like eyes, corresponded with the Greek £Air.w7rK. 
 In the first book of the Iliad, this epithet is applied 
 to the daughter of Calchas. Mahomet tempts the 
 Faithful with a promise of Houris, whose eyes are
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIE. 127 
 
 as large as eggs; and an Arabic poet compares 
 them to polished mirrors. The eyes of the beloved 
 one are likened in the Song of Solomon, as rendered 
 in the Vulgate, to the eyes of doves ; but in the 
 Septuagint, the eyes are the doves themselves. 
 The Indian poets have a very pretty comparison of 
 a girPs eyes changing with various feelings to a pair 
 of water-birds, with azure plumage. A singular 
 coincidence of fancy may be traced between the 
 eastern poetry and the conceits of Philostratus. 
 ' Thou declarest that her abode is in thine eye, and 
 when thou closest it in thy heart,'' says an Arabic 
 (xle. ' How often have I opened mine eyes, that 
 thou mayest depart,' says the Greek Euphuist. 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 In all great poets you perceive a facility and 
 versatility of manner. Milton's Eve is not less 
 perfect than his Satan ; nor Shakspeare's Titania 
 than Othello; nor Homer's Helen than Achilles. 
 He sketches a toilet with all the spriteliness of the 
 Rape of the Lock. How delicious is the picture 
 of Juno arraying herself in her charms, in order to 
 recover the affections of Jupiter. Might not the 
 charming epithet ^o^o^xktvXoi; — rosy-fincjered^ which 
 Homer applies to the morning, have been suggested 
 by the custom among the Grecian and Asiatic 
 women of colouring their nails. Chandler, alluding
 
 12M SIDNEY WATJvEU 
 
 to an Athenian girl, says, ' She has bracelets of 
 iTolcI on her wrists, and like Aurora, is rosy-fingered, 
 the tips being painted.' AVhat an interesting light 
 is thrown upon the ancient poetry, by researches 
 into the parallel customs of other nations. 
 
 It would sound a very poor compliment now if 
 an epic poet were to characterize his hero by the 
 appellation of ' swift-footed,"' which, in the Iliad, is 
 so constantly applied to Achilles. But in those 
 days swiftness of foot was a very honourable dis- 
 tinction. In many parts of the world it is so regarded 
 at this day. There is a class of men in South 
 America, who are known by a name signifying 
 Goers; and who sometimes accomplish a journey 
 of more than seventy miles in one day. In this 
 manner the Mexicans forwarded their despatches. 
 The speed of the Indian hircarrahs, and the Chinese 
 post-carriers is well knoAvn. 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 It would not be a disagreeable or an unfruitful 
 occupation, to enlarge these coincidences of thought 
 and manners. Such notes often clear up the mean- 
 ing of an old author, better than anything in the 
 Scholiast. When Ulysses visits the son of Tydeus, 
 in the tenth Iliad, he finds him asleep before his 
 tent, in the midst of his soldiers, with their shields 
 beneath their heads, and the spears planted in the
 
 AND JOHN MOULTRIK. 129 
 
 ground by their side. The traveller in Persia 
 meets with the same object at the present day. 
 Such also was the practice of the Jews. And, be- 
 hold, Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his 
 spear stuck in the ground at his bolster. — 1 Sam. 
 xxvi. 7- 
 
 MOULTRIE. 
 
 You may add that curious simile in the second 
 book of the Iliad, where the Grecian chiefs, sepa- 
 rating and reducing to order their followers scat- 
 tered over the country, are compared to goatherds, 
 who can distinguish their own flocks from others, 
 even when feeding together promiscuously. This 
 is done constantly by the Hottentots, who recognise 
 the cattle of their masters with unfailing readiness 
 and skill.
 
 130 
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY ; 
 WITH RECORDS OF THE UNION. 
 
 Eloquence is a great and diverse thing ; nor did she ever favour 
 any man so much as to become wholly his. He is happy 
 that can arrive to any degree of her grace. But, indeed, 
 I would no more choose a rhetorician for reigning in the 
 schools, than I would a pilot for rowing in a pond. — Ben 
 Jonson. 
 
 Quid enim dulcius libero et ingenio animo et ad voluptates 
 honestas nato, quam \'idere plenam semper et frequentera 
 domum concursu splendidissimorum hominum ? — De Cam. 
 Corrupt. Eloq. 
 
 How well I remember reading the admirable letter 
 
 which Lord Brougham, then member for , 
 
 addressed to Mr. Zachary Macaulay, upon the 
 dawning eloquence of his son, of whose success in 
 the political combats of the Union, he had heard 
 through Lord Ho wick, at that time a resident 
 member of the University. All who have read the 
 articles upon Demosthenes, in the Edinburgh Re- 
 view, are aware of Lord Brougham's devotion to 
 the Athenian orator. Never, he wrote to Mr. 
 iVIacaulay, even while addressing the most illiterate 
 audience, did he find himself making greater way,
 
 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 131 
 
 than when translating from the great Liberator of 
 Greece. So universal is the language of the heart 
 in all ages. Upon the works of Demosthenes, 
 therefore, he urged the youthful scholar to bestow 
 all his diligence ; to take him for his model; and, 
 neglecting the more refined sophistries and poetical 
 imagery of Cicero, to practise his genius in the 
 sterner exercises of simplicity and truth. Not that 
 this system of Rhetoric was to be elaborated with 
 greater ease than the flowery style of the Latin 
 School. He was never to speak without ample 
 preparation, nor, if possible, without committing 
 the whole harangue to memory. Lord Brougham, 
 must in this instance, be supposed to have given 
 advice which he did not always follow. No person, 
 who beheld him in the House of Commons durinjj 
 the morning of his strength, when his arrows 
 rattled against the golden shield of Canning, could 
 believe for a moment that those brilliant dashes of 
 fiery sarcasm and invective were sharpened under 
 the lamp. Yet it may, perliaps, be objected, that 
 this very fluency was the result of practice ; that 
 his memory, trained in many conflicts, was always 
 ready to supply him with new weapons. 
 
 From whatever cause the defect originates, Mr. 
 Macaulay, it is well known, hardly ever succeeded 
 in a reply. He seems to want what Mr. Moore 
 has so happily called the art of thinking upon his 
 
 a :
 
 132 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 
 
 legs. There are men, whose eloquence is far more 
 copious than their reading, and who never shine so 
 much as when they are surprised into a speech. 
 Among these, the late member for Leeds was cer- 
 tainly not found. With his literary and political 
 style, if I may so distinguish them, every reader of 
 the Debates, and the Edinhurgh Review^ is suffi- 
 ciently acquainted. His articles on Dryden, Milton, 
 and Macchiavelli, contain some splendid specimens 
 of declamatory rhetoric. But for grace and faci- 
 lity, for a touching truth and fervour of manner, 
 I prefer some of his early essays in Knight's Quar- 
 terly Magazine. His eloquence, after all, whispers 
 more of Tully, than of his Grecian Master; every 
 page declares the toil lavished upon its embellish- 
 ment. It glitters with barbaric pearl and gold ; 
 the diction is rich and varied, though too highly 
 wrought and artificial, and continually forcing a 
 conviction upon the mind, that the thoughts are 
 inferior to the setting; that the grapes would be 
 of a finer flavour, if the vine were boldly pruned. 
 These remarks are hazarded only in reference to 
 his later and more finished productions. The spe- 
 cimens of a student's oratory at Cambridge, are not 
 to be judged by so high a standard. The Union, — 
 a word requiring no explanation to any member of 
 the University — reached an elevation in those days, 
 which it is not likely soon to recover. Macaulay,
 
 WITH RECORDS OF THE UNION. 133 
 
 with his flashes of vigorous imagination ; Praed, 
 with his graceful irony and poetical fancy; and , 
 many others, whose names live in the memory of 
 their companions, imparted an unusual charm to 
 its meetings. It concerns not the reader to know 
 how far my political creed differs from Mr. Ma- 
 caulay's; yet I cannot refrain from observing, 
 that the character of Strafford is too severely 
 delineated; and that while rendering to Milton 
 the honour due to the purest intentions of pa- 
 triotism, we ought not to forget the injury which 
 his mistaken opinions have inflicted, or how many 
 designs of most hurtful tendency to the welfare of 
 the state, have been sheltered under the shield of 
 that lustrous name. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 
 
 " Of all the remarkable characters of English 
 history, Cromwell has, I think, met with the most 
 unmeasured judgments. He has been viewed only 
 through the glass of powerful prejudice, and his 
 mental aspect has darkened into terror, or relaxed 
 into beauty, according to the feelings of the be- 
 holder. He has been the delight and the scourge,
 
 134 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 the glory and the disgrace of the world. Voltaire 
 pronounced him an usurper worthy to reign; 
 Mazarine called him a fortunate fool; Clarendon 
 stigmatized him as a brave, bad man ; South saw 
 in him a lively copy of Jeroboam. By one party 
 he was regarded as the Champion of liberty, 
 making a passage for the people of God through 
 the armies of the enemy and the principalities of 
 darkness; by the other, as a master of hypocrisy, a 
 bigoted enthusiast, an evil angel of the Apostacy. 
 The voice of hatred has deepened over his ashes. 
 Calumny, Sir, possesses in an uncommon degree, 
 the property of adhesion; the longer it remains, 
 the harder it becomes; until, in the course of time, 
 the colour of the moral countenance, the very shape 
 and expression of the features, are incrusted and 
 defaced by this leprous pollution. I stand not 
 here, Sir, to night, as the advocate, or the 
 panegyrist of that melancholy domestic tragedy, 
 which was presented before this afflicted nation in 
 that tempestuous season. But, Sir, I would ask — 
 was there no provocation, no exaction ; no insult 
 to the dignity of man ; no invasion of the sanctity 
 of a Briton's fireside ! Sir, the grave of Hampden 
 has a voice; let it answer for me ! Tyranny had 
 dashed its mailed hand upon the mouth of every 
 freeman; the life-blood of the laws was drained 
 out by unnumbered wounds. Despotism had up-
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 135 
 
 lifted its standard; the hearts of men failed for 
 fear. At this dark and dreary period, all eyes 
 turned to the star of Cromwell, which then began 
 to show itself above the horizon. By many of the 
 most eminent men, of an age fruitful in the highest 
 qualities of the intellect, he was hailed as the 
 servant of Providence, chosen to conduct the 
 agitated kingdom into a happy and honourable 
 repose. 
 
 " Milton regarded him as the tutelar divinity of 
 the national freedom, as the incorruptible Priest of 
 a new Hierarchy ; a chieftain, who was to rule the 
 empire by his wisdom, to recall the popular mind 
 to a severer and purer discipline, to vanquish and 
 trample to death under his feet every pleasure and 
 temptation; to bear himself, in short, as one whose 
 meditations were sanctified and ennobled by a 
 peculiar intercourse with his Maker. His first ex- 
 ploits he declared had been against himself ; his first 
 victories over his own appetite. Thus had he from 
 his youth been knitting an armour for his soul; 
 and thus enthusiastically did one of the brightest 
 Intellects of the age welcome the dawn of what he 
 thought would shine into a glorious morning*. No 
 wonder that Cromwell disappointed such ardent 
 expectations. Never was the founder of a political 
 dynasty placed in a situation of more imminent 
 
 " See Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano.
 
 136 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 peril. The voice of disafFection resounded in the 
 camp. On one side were gathered the Anabaptists, 
 with Harrison, once the staunchest and most in- 
 trepid friend of the Protector ; on the other side 
 lay tiie Royalists, ever ready to spring upon the 
 usurper. The political Argus needed all his hun- 
 dred eyes. Even in his chamber the sword hung 
 over his head. But Cromwell possessed, in an emi- 
 nent degree, that crowning quality of a soldier and a 
 politician— decision of character. His sudden disso- 
 lution of the Parliament, in the January of 1655, 
 was a master-blow of policy. By that single stroke 
 he severed the head of the Opposition, and left it 
 only a paralyzed and powerless body. It was well 
 remarked by Warburton, that Cromwell is dis- 
 tinguished from other enslavers of their country; 
 they vanquished it when sunk in luxury and plea- 
 sure ; he, when every village swarmed with eager 
 and undaunted champions. They crept upon her 
 overcome with the weariness of voluptuous riot ; he 
 chained her awake and in perfect vigour. The 
 shadow of his name was not confined to England. 
 ' He had no sooner made himself sovereign,' said 
 one who spoke with authority, though with some- 
 thing of hyperbolical praise, ' than all the kings of 
 the earth prostrated themselves before him.' Ma- 
 zarine flattered his ambassador, while the,exiled 
 Charles was treated with contempt ; Spain congra-
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. 137 
 
 tulated him ; Holland struck a medal in his honour ; 
 Sweden stretched out her arms to him ; Italy, says 
 Burnet, trembled at his name ; the pride of the Os- 
 manlis'' bowed before him. For the sufferings of the 
 church during the period of puritanical domination 
 no heart bleeds more than mine. But let the saying 
 of Montesquieu be remembered, — every religion 
 which is persecuted, becomes itself persecuting ; for 
 the moment when by any accidental change of for- 
 tune it rises from the persecution, it attacks the 
 religion from which that persecution came; not as 
 a religion, but as a tyranny. It was not so much 
 against the church, as against the intemperate zeal 
 of her servants, that the fury of the people burst 
 forth. Of the real sentiments of the Protector, it 
 would be idle to attempt an examination in this place. 
 It was the opinion of Baxter, who had the best 
 means of forming a correct judgment, that at one 
 period of his life, at least, he was sincere. But, sir, 
 I believe that a thirst for personal aggrandizement 
 never yet accompanied true religion. The Christian 
 aims at power — if he aim at it at all — not for his 
 own sake but for others. Cromwell might, at some 
 seasons, have been influenced by religious feelings; 
 but the great Idol of his heart was Ambition ; this, 
 like the Ur of the Chaldeans, devoured all the rest. 
 The greatness of his character every one must 
 admit. The drama in which he played so terrible
 
 138 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 a part closed as it opened. Cromwell on his death- 
 bed was the Cromwell of Marston-Moor. The eyes 
 of the dying man rested with feverish anxiety 
 upon that Pillar of Renown, which he had erected 
 at such a fearful cost. His last dreams were of 
 glory ; his last thoughts upon the opinions of 
 Posterity.'' 
 
 LORD STRAFFORD. 
 
 *' Who ever dashed himself with a more reckless 
 madness from the golden pinnacles of a high and 
 noble fortune, than this Apostate from the Common- 
 wealth of England ? He appears to have been in 
 politics what his friend Laud Avas in religion ; 
 equally impetuous, equally haughty, equally care- 
 less of consequences. The Strafford Letters might 
 be called the Confessions of a Tyrant. There we 
 see the qualities of his mind depicted as clearly as 
 the dark pencil of Vandyke has written them upon 
 canvass. This overbearing arrogance was the cha- 
 racteristic of his associates; and they became its 
 first victims. They despised the lawyers, and the 
 Church fell by the Law. The phantastic appa- 
 ritions of Prynne and of Eliot*, from which they 
 
 • See the Strafford Letters.
 
 LOUU STRAFFORD. 139 
 
 thought it the meanest folly in the world to start 
 aside, were among the most terrible appearances 
 that glared upon them in their night of danger 
 and of death. 
 
 " Strafford was the victim of a pusillanimous 
 master. What a subject for an historical picture is 
 furnished by the visit of the Secretary Carleton to the 
 chamber of this unfortunate minister, for the purpose 
 of communicating to him the king's signature of the 
 bill. His incredulity, his confidence in the promise 
 of the monarch, and then his final conviction of 
 his Masters weakness ; his uplifted eyes, his hand 
 upon his heart, and that indignant exclamation of 
 scorn and sorrow, Put 7iot your trust in Princes, 
 nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no 
 salvation. Here are hints for a painter, if, indeed, 
 his trial do not offer a still more inspiring theme. 
 The power of his mind and the invincible strength 
 of his courage, supported him to the end. During 
 seventeen days, under all the depression of sickness, 
 and in the midst of relentless and triumphant ene- 
 mies, he continued to defend himself with undaunted 
 valour. 
 
 " Sir John Denham, in his noble verses, has 
 worthily recorded this heroic and affecting be- 
 haviour.
 
 140 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, 
 
 TNTiile single he stood forth, and seemed although 
 
 Each had an army, as an equal foe, 
 
 Such was his force of eloquence, to make 
 
 The hearers more concerned than he that spake: 
 
 Each seemed to act that part he came to see, 
 
 And none was more a looker-on than he; 
 
 So did he move our passions, some were known 
 
 To wish for the defence, the crime, their own. 
 
 Now private pity strove mth public hate, 
 
 Reason with rage, and eloquence with fate. 
 
 " Thus much I have felt myself bound to declare 
 respecting this extraordinary individual. Would 
 that I could love his character as I admire his 
 genius ! But I have done. Far from me, and 
 from this assembly, be the impious bigotry which 
 delights to dig up the skeletons of the departed, 
 only to mutilate and insult them. Never — never — 
 shall the rabid fierceness of polemical hatred cheer 
 me on to such a desecration of the grave ; never — 
 never — will I forget what I owe to the cause of 
 truth, and the sanctity of our Faith. I will strip 
 the dead of nothing but their arms.""
 
 141 
 
 THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF MILTON. 
 
 " No, Sir, Milton was not a democrat ; let not his 
 venerable name be uplifted like a banner before the 
 dissolute rush of revolutionary madness ; let not 
 that harp which 'discoursed of things beyond the 
 eye of sense, be woke to hymn the march of every 
 crowd of disaffected citizens. — If ever a man was 
 impelled by pure and disinterested patriotism to 
 advocate a particular course of policy, Milton was 
 that individual. He was not a ' displeaser, or mo- 
 lester "* of the world, from any personal or ambitious 
 motive. When God, he said, commands to take 
 up the trumpet, and blow a jarring or dolorous 
 blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or 
 what he shall conceal. This was the reason he 
 gave for his attacks upon the Episcopacy. It was 
 to appease the restless calls of Conscience, that 
 he armed himself for the combat with a mighty 
 hierarchy. In all his bitter outpourings of intem- 
 perate zeal, the yearning of his heart after purer and 
 better things is visible. He longs to return to the 
 calm and pleasing solitariness of gentle thoughts, to 
 the beauty of the Pierian Shade. The politics of 
 Milton were poetry put into action ; night and day, 
 the idea of a perfect and faultless state haunted his
 
 142 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 imagination. Hence his rapturous praise of every 
 attempt to ennoble the condition, or to exalt the 
 feelings and aspirations of his fellow men. Hence 
 the ardour with which he embraced the republican 
 cause. With tlieir leaders he maintained no inti- 
 macy ; he demanded from them no patronage. 
 When he saw them falling away from their high 
 professions, deceiving the hopes of a sorrowful 
 nation, — whose voice was uplifted louder against 
 them.'' who unmasked their treachery with a fiercer 
 hand.'' who inveighed with sterner indignation 
 against the plunderers, who, called from shops 
 and warehouses, fell to huckster the Common- 
 wealth ? He had emptied the quiver of his wrath 
 upon the Prelacy ; and the same bow was strung 
 against its enemies, when, instead of devoting them- 
 selves to a single cure, they set sail, as he com- 
 plained, to all winds that might blow gain into 
 their covetous bosoms. A Commonwealth, he 
 affirmed, ought to be but as one huge Christian 
 personage ; one mighty growth and stature of an 
 honest man, as vigorous and compact in virtue as 
 in body. Not to be tossed about by a multi- 
 plicity of interests ; but to be governed by one 
 heart; to be regulated by one pulse. The political 
 honesty and devotion of Milton, rest not alone 
 upon the weak flourishes of a rhetorician. His 
 Defence of the People of England was written, as
 
 POLITICAL CHARACTEE OF MILTON. 143 
 
 it were, under the shadow of that night which 
 afterwards fell upon him. He was the martyr of 
 his own enthusiasm. But he did not faint or mur- 
 mur ; and when, after a lapse of three years, we 
 find him mentioning the loss of sight to his friend 
 Cvriac Skinner, it is with no expression of sorrow 
 or despair at his lot ; no repining at the dispen- 
 sation of Heaven. He does not bate a jot of 
 heart or hope, but presses forward to the high goal 
 of the race which is before him. Hear the strain 
 of sublime philosophy as it flows from his own 
 lips : — 
 
 Cyriac, this three years day, these eyes tho' clear 
 To outAvard view of blemish or of spot, 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot, 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 
 Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year. 
 Or man, or woman ; yet, I argue not 
 Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 Of heart or hope ; but still bear up and steer 
 
 Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 The conscience. Friend, to have lost them overply'd 
 
 In liberty's defence, my noble task. 
 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me thro' the world's vain 
 mask, 
 Content tho' blind, had I no better guide ! 
 
 "It is. Sir, the fate of men to err, and even 
 Milton was not exempt from the failings of mor-
 
 144 THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 
 
 tality. But it becomes us while lamenting the 
 violence and fierceness of his indignation, to re- 
 member the disinterested purity and grandeur of 
 his motives ; to look back upon the tumult and 
 clamour of those stormy days; and, above all, to 
 judge with impartiality. If we have no other 
 offering for his tomb, let us, at least, sacrifice our 
 prejudices to the Manes of this immortal poet — 
 this sincere and dignified Behever!"
 
 145 
 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 AND 
 
 T. M. 
 
 A. When we were at Cambridge together, do you remember 
 how the young pedants of our time were wont to consider 
 that all intellect consisted in puzzling, or setting down 
 each other ? 
 
 L. Ay, they thought us very poor souls, I fancy, for being 
 early wise and ridiculing what they thought so fine. 
 
 The New Phcedo. 
 
 BULWER. 
 
 How insignificant modern literature becomes when 
 compared with the works of those illustrious men 
 who wrote only from an overruling impulse to in- 
 struct the world, and were content to live laborious 
 days for a future and immortal reward. Therefore 
 are their brows crowned with the undying ama^ 
 ranth, and their tombs visited by a thousand hearts. 
 The constant estimation of every pursuit, by the 
 emolument to be derived from it, is one of the most 
 marked features of this degraded age — one of those 
 hideous seams that mar the beauty of the time. — 
 Every day witnesses the desolating spread of an 
 Utilitarian spirit, which, not satisfied with banish- 
 ing poetry from our Commonwealth, would con- 
 
 L
 
 146 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 demn all the heroic desires of the soul to a like 
 ostracism. By these men life is regarded as a great 
 field to be ploughed and sown, rather than a garden 
 for the nurture of tender plants. They would 
 drive the share over Collins, and bury the Faery 
 Queen. Thus learning and intellect, like the Genii 
 of the Arabian Lamp, are only invoked to minister 
 to our luxury and extravagance. Those pilgrim- 
 ages which the memory was wont to make into 
 ancient lands, are degraded into journeys of barter 
 and commerce. And who can wonder, when we 
 think more of the equipment than of the knight; 
 more of the garment than of the heart that beats 
 under it. The leper. Poverty, is driven out of the 
 city. Our Paganism is more senseless than that of 
 old ; for they knelt before a serpent and a block of 
 wood, yet never bowed the knee to money. And 
 as we are told that the philosopher''s stone will not 
 be found by one who seeks it unworthily ; so we 
 may be certain that the fruits of learning will never 
 be gathered by a low and grovelling student. It 
 will be well for us to reflect how few works, " or 
 worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor 
 cradles." The Latin Inscription, carved by the 
 finger of the infant Selden, still remains on the 
 lintel of his paternal cottage at Salvington, to mark 
 the lowly home of the illustrious scholar. Well 
 might Livy call Poverty the mother of Virtue. It
 
 AND T. M. 147 
 
 was a toil-worn hand that rocked to sleep the little 
 cares of Latimer and Taylor. 
 
 T. M. 
 
 After all, how much more blest than the purple 
 Conqueror is that Innocence which can lay its 
 head upon a stojie and dream of angels ! The 
 world, alas! is too much with us; we are of our 
 age, not above it ! No literary Avenger returns 
 into his century, to purify and cleanse it from its 
 harlotries and corruptions. We go on, pitiable 
 victims of habit ! wooing mental debility with an 
 unblushing forehead ; the nerves of our literature 
 are relaxed and powerless, — our refinement has 
 drivelled into effeminacy. Poetry, which Milton 
 regarded as the final end of all study, the monu- 
 ment to be cast out of the collected treasures of a 
 life, has dwindled into a stream " of rolling tauto- 
 logies." Our intellect seems to have shrunk with 
 our books. 
 
 BULWER. 
 
 If we transport ourselves into the company of 
 those eminent men who adorn our earlier litera- 
 ture, how amazed we are at their various erudition, 
 their inexhaustible eloquence, their rare sagacity, 
 their invincible perseverance. What considerate 
 diligence, what midnight watchings, what expense 
 
 L 2
 
 .148 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 of Palladian oil *, are displayed in every page of 
 More, of Donne, and of Taylor ! Their divining 
 Wands discovered treasures amid forgotten ruins ; 
 from every choked up stream of human know- 
 ledge their industry recovered something precious. 
 While the Memory, by night and day, was thus 
 heaping the altar of the Beautiful with costly 
 offerings, — and the thoughts, ever busy in their 
 sacred work, brought in gold, and ivory, and cedar ; 
 how majestically the Intellectual Temple rose in 
 the religious silence of a serene and contented 
 spirit ! It is not one of the least evils attending 
 the diffusion of authorship amongst us, that we 
 read to zvrite, not to think. Our ancestors com- 
 posed books to fortify and ennoble the mind, — 
 with us, these are secondary motives ; our object is 
 answered, if they sell. How far is this from the 
 true spirit of learning, which ought to place its 
 best reward in the acquirement of wisdom, and the 
 instruction of man. But why should I attempt to 
 illustrate the ends of knowledge, when the words 
 of one of the greatest characters that ever shed a 
 lustre over science are in the remembrance of all ? 
 " Men have entered into a desire of learning and 
 knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and 
 inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their 
 minds with variety and delight; sometimes for 
 • Milton.
 
 AND T. M. 149 
 
 ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to enable 
 them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most 
 times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely 
 to give a true account of their gift of reason to the 
 benefit and use of man, as if there were sought in 
 knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching 
 and restless spirit, or a terrace for a wandering and 
 variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair 
 prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to 
 raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground 
 for strife or contention ; or a shop for profit or sale, 
 — and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the 
 Creator, and the relief of man's estate*." In the 
 same pure and noble strain, Milton spoke, not of the 
 mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but 
 the free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently 
 were born to study, and love learning for itself and 
 not for lucre, or any other end, but the service of 
 God and of truth. 
 
 T. M. 
 
 The spirit of the age is a great tyrant, and even 
 the proudest authors must be content to follow at 
 its chariot -wheels. Any attempt to divert the 
 current of the popular taste generally ends in the 
 defeat of the adventurer ; we must sail with the 
 tide, or not at all. I have heard that on the ap- 
 
 * Bacon.
 
 350 EDWARD LYTTON BULWEIi 
 
 pearance of Mr. Landor's Imaginary Conversa- 
 tions, only three copies found purchasers. The 
 early poems of Milton obtained no attention from 
 his contemporaries ; even Cowley ""s ear seems to 
 have been closed to their music. Collins sank vm- 
 known into a premature grave. A literary law- 
 giver will never be received vnth. open arms ; he 
 ought, therefore, to mail himself for the contest. 
 He who cannot resist detraction, is unfit to struggle 
 in the world. Men are ingenious and enthusiastic 
 in degrading; slow and unwilling to praise*. It 
 is only after repeated attempts to throw their oppo- 
 nent without success, that they submit to acknow- 
 ledge the conqueror. The goal will often be missed 
 by the fleetest runner, — in life, it is not swiftness, 
 but douhling, that wins the race. 
 
 BULWER. 
 
 But let not our own age bear all the obloquy. 
 History furnishes us with a striking instance in the 
 learned Cudworth. In that wonderful work, which 
 will carry his name into remotest time, he launched 
 out, said Warburton, into the immensity of the 
 Intellectual System, and at his first essay pene- 
 trated the darkest recesses of antiquity, to strip 
 Atheism of all its disguises, and drag the lurking 
 
 " Sir Egerton Biydges' Anti-Critic, (Seventy-five copies,) 
 p. 63.
 
 AND T. M. 151 
 
 monster to conviction. Yet calumny tried her 
 arrows even upon him; enemies found Atheism in 
 a book expressly devoted to its overthrow. A 
 report so grateful to the envious and the ignorant, 
 who comprise no inconsiderable portion of man- 
 kind, soon crept into wider circulation ; the author 
 felt himself deeply injured; the enthusiasm which 
 had supported h'im through so much of his painful 
 task rapidly declined, and the world lost the 
 remainder of The Intellectual System of the 
 Universe. 
 
 T. M. 
 
 Fuller proposed to apportion an hour's meditation 
 to an hour's reading; a practice which he justly 
 thought made a man master of his learning, and 
 dispirited the book into the scholar. Now this 
 habit of reflection is precisely the quality we are 
 most deficient in. Never was the appetite for 
 knowledge so strong, or so widely diffused, and 
 never did our literature wear a more sickly or 
 famished aspect. The symptoms of a confirmed 
 atrophy are seen in every feature. The mental 
 repose which promotes digestion, in the moral sys- 
 tem not less than the physical, and imparts a 
 peculiar efficacy to our nourishment, is enjoyed by 
 few in this feverish day of excitement. In vain we 
 seek to fly from the crowd ; in vain, like the wood-
 
 152 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 (love, we sail away upon the wings of contemplation, 
 to a more profound repose in bower or glen. The 
 steam-enoine — that mute Intelligence — which man 
 has created for liimself, reaches us with its mighty 
 arms, whether we wander with Buckhurst in the 
 glades of Knowle, or di'eam with Sidney under the 
 oaks of Penshurst. In former times, many circum- 
 stances combined to perfect that happy tranquillity 
 which is the atmosphere most congenial to thought- 
 ful and imaginative studies. The land, to employ 
 a phrase of Sir Philip Sidney, was strewed with a 
 faint quietness for poets. The population, divided 
 into a multitude of separate families, was united by 
 the bonds of mutual necessities. The politics of a 
 village were bounded by its hedges. Ministers 
 fell, favourites dropped off, parliaments were dis- 
 solved, without creating so much sensation as a 
 dance round the May-pole. I mention the fact as 
 propitious to meditation, without asserting its 
 advantage in a general sense. 
 
 How then would you distinguish the century in 
 which our lot has fallen, or has it no particular 
 physiognomy ^ 
 
 BULWER. 
 
 Oh, yes ! Every age has its own characteristics. 
 In the sixteenth century, imagination ; under James, 
 eloquence and learning; at the Restoration, wit.
 
 AND T. M. 153 
 
 festivity, and fancy ; during the reign of Anne, 
 polished and didactic harmony. Ours is smartness. 
 I am laying out of the argument all individual 
 exceptions, of which there are many. We are over- 
 run by cleverness; that ingenious faculty which 
 performs every little exploit easily. We are in- 
 imitable in dandling the kid ; nothing can exceed 
 our carvings upon cherry-stones — for their size ! 
 One shower of frivolous works follows another ; it 
 is the only Series to Avhich there is no Finis. But 
 whether it be that the soil is exhausted by its early 
 harvest, or that the ardent draughts of excitement, 
 frequently swallowed, stop our growth, I know not ; 
 but it is too evident that, like some of our literary 
 ancestors, as described by Ben Jonson, we make a 
 Wit-Stand at twenty. Many of us never rise another 
 inch. Something of this may be owing to our educa- 
 tion. Lord Herbert, of Cherbury,when only twelve 
 years old, challenged the students of Oxford to a 
 logical disputation ; and Sir Thomas More, hardly 
 past his youth, lectured a numerous audience upon 
 Augustine's celebrated treatise De Civitate Dei. 
 To be acquainted with the names of such composi- 
 tions is now a very scholarlike accomplishment. 
 But I weary you. 
 
 Far from it. I was only thinking of that delicious
 
 154 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 quiet of which we have been talking. From how 
 many lips has a prayer gone up for this delightful 
 peacefulness, and never more sincerely than from 
 Cowley^s. It makes me melancholy to reflect upon 
 so many of the best days of his too brief life con- 
 sumed in business, so touchingly called by himself, 
 the contradiction of his fate, — in decyphering cor- 
 respondence, and in political negotiations. We 
 should execrate Cromwell for driving him from 
 Trinity, but for those charming Essays which his 
 contempt of the world drew from him at Chertsey. 
 After being caressed by the learned, trusted by the 
 powerful, beloved by the virtuous, — on looking 
 back, in the autumn of his days, over all the various 
 scenes through which he had passed, what was his 
 opinion of man? Take it warm from his own 
 heart* ; " Man is to man all kinds of beasts, — a 
 fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a rob- 
 bing wolf, a dissembhng crocodile, a treacherous, 
 decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilist, me- 
 thinks, of all nations, are those whom we account 
 the most barbarous ; there is some moderation and 
 good-nature in the Toupinambaltians, who eat no 
 men but their enemies, whilst we learned and polite 
 Christian Europeans, like so many pikes and sharks, 
 prey upon every thing we can swallow." He con- 
 cludes his attack with an exhortation. If by any 
 
 * The Dangers of an honest Man in much Company.
 
 AND T. M. 155 
 
 lawful vocation, or just necessity, men happen to be 
 married to the world, he whispers in their ear the 
 advice of St. Paul, — Brethren, the time is short; 
 it remains that they that have wives, be as though 
 they had nofie. In all cases they must be sure to 
 retain the headship and authority over it. He does 
 not forbid us to salute the world, if she happen to 
 come in our way, — he only warns us from courting 
 her as a mistress. I think it may justly be objected 
 to Cowley, that he looked upon man only with the 
 eyes of the moralist, not of the Christian ; that he 
 forgot the probationary character of our sojourn. 
 Individual advantage can rarely be consulted with- 
 out endangering some higher claims. Nor let me 
 be thought to speak with a sectarian narrowness of 
 sentiment, for 
 
 True religion sprung from God above 
 Is, like her fountain, full of charity, 
 Embracing all things with a tender love, 
 Full of good-will and meek expectancy. 
 Full of true justice, and sure verity. 
 In heart and voice; free, large, even infinite, 
 Not wedg'd in strait particularity. 
 But grasping all in her vast active spright, 
 Bright lamp of God ! that men would joy in thy pure 
 light. 
 
 Henry More,
 
 156 
 
 EDWARD LYTTON BULWER 
 
 BULWER. 
 
 Cowley's plan of retirement is interesting and 
 poetic ; and such a mode of life may possibly be 
 less open to temptation than any other. But, alas, 
 few days glide by in which the best men have not 
 some idle words or vainer thoughts, to sully " the 
 fair whiteness of their souls."" Some new pleasure 
 is ever striving to win us to its arms, from which 
 we escape only to find ourselves shorn of our noblest 
 qualities. Various are the forms and disguises 
 under which the Destroyer creeps upon its victim. 
 Sometimes it crushes him in a sudden grasp ; but is 
 ordinarily contented to climb up, as it were, on the 
 shoulders of its fellow, whenever a seasonable oppor- 
 tunity may occur. For one sin is always ready to 
 hold out a helping hand to its brother. So in the 
 ancient warfare. Death crept along the stooped 
 shoulders of a legion, vmtil it sprang from that 
 ladder of shields into the affrighted citadel. 
 
 Every one, says a writer whom you are fond 
 of quoting, is planted in the world that he may 
 grow in the world ; and as venomous plants delight 
 in the shade, so a sullen retiring argues a sullen and 
 venomous disposition. Surely virtue, however ex- 
 cellent she be in the dangerless Academy of Plato, 
 shines still more nobly when she walketh with
 
 AND T. M. 157 
 
 intrepid heart through the battles of Marathon, 
 Pharsalia, Poictiers, and Agincourt*. 
 
 The arena where the race is to be run is, indeed, 
 hot and dusty, full of strife and contention ; for 
 envy and malice are always ready, with violence 
 and clamour, to molest the candidate for the Im- 
 mortal Garland. But it does not become us, on 
 that account, to slink out of it, as Milton indig- 
 nantly exclaims, without the wound of a single dart 
 upon our armour. For consider how the danger 
 enhances the reward. So he, whom a kindred 
 genius called our " sage serious Spenser," conducts 
 Guyon through the Cave of Mammon and the 
 Bower of Bliss, that Temperance might be ennobled 
 by the trials through which it passed, and come 
 pure and spotless out of every temptation. 
 
 T. M. 
 
 The great difficulty in our intercourse with the 
 world, is to know how far to go, and when to stop ; 
 what sacrifices to make, and what to decline. The 
 worshippers of Moloch commenced their adoration 
 with a cake of flour, and finished them with driving 
 a tender infant through the flames. Our practice 
 is not dissimilar. We too often begin with the 
 tribute of some unimportant habit or amusement, 
 and conclude by laying our soul upon the altar. 
 
 • Milton.
 
 158 
 
 EDWARD LYTTON BTJI.WP.R 
 
 Thus, it has been said*, wc sin by degrees, and 
 go down to ruin step by step ; until the atoms swell 
 into a heap, and we perish by trifling instances, 
 and, as the son of Sirach declared, by little and 
 little. For the wanderer may arrive at the gate of 
 everlasting death by a narrow and bye-path, as 
 well as by the broad and beaten road. 
 
 But, after all, little reliance is to be placed upon 
 any outward defences. Sin can leap over the loftiest 
 bulwark as lightly as over a hedge of roses. Our 
 great protection must be looked for in the grace of 
 God, and the careful culture of our time. A portion 
 of every day ought to be set apart for prayer and 
 meditation — a little spot of ground enclosed for a 
 garden of sweet flowers, to refresh and to heal. 
 Into this paradise, while a watchful purity keeps 
 the gate, the serpent will never glide. 
 
 The passage you have taken from Donne admits 
 of another interpretation. Every man, indeed, is 
 planted in the world, that he may grow in the 
 world ; but as in the vegetable world different trees 
 require different soils, so in the moral ; and the 
 tree which would have perished in the unhealthy 
 atmosphere of a town, may grow into beauty under 
 a purer sky. How often has the voice, whose 
 tones might have fallen unheeded in the senate, or 
 the courtly chamber, cheered the drooping spirits 
 • By Jeremy Taylor.
 
 AND T. M. 159 
 
 of a sequestered village, and caused the plough to 
 rest for an hour, while it explained, in simple and 
 affectionate language, the good tidings of the Gospel. 
 Such was the seclusion of the gentle Herbert, the 
 judicious Hooker, and the amiable poet of Weston. 
 Nor less beautiful is the spirit of religious philoso- 
 phy and meekness that breathes a sabbath-quiet 
 over those beloved abodes by the smooth Greta, 
 on Rydal Mount, and the sweet garden of Brem- 
 hill. Thrice happy Bards ! for whom Memory 
 weaves a posy, that no sharpness of the wintry air, 
 no blight of popular envy, can ever destroy, — and 
 to which every day adds another flower of fresher 
 hues, and richer perfume.
 
 160 
 
 GRAY AND MASON. 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 
 
 But hail, ye mighty masters of the lay ! 
 Nature's true sons, tlie friends of man and ti-uth ! 
 Whose song sublimely sweet, serenely gay, 
 Amused my childhood and inform'd my youth. 
 O let your spii'it still my bosom sooth, 
 Inspire my dreams and my wild wanderings guide ; 
 Your voice each rugged path of life can smooth, 
 For well I know wherever ye reside, 
 There harmony, and peace, and innocence abide ! 
 
 Beattie. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Then the bees did not settle round your cradle ? 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 No, — the first dawning of poetical feeling that I 
 can remember, was when I began to read Virgil, 
 at Eton, out of school-hours for my own amuse- 
 ment. I had previously studied him chiefly Avith a 
 view to his languaffe, for I was fond of writing 
 Latin verses. Jacob Bryant, who sat next to me, 
 and who was already esteemed a youthful prodigy, 
 always repeated with praise a couplet from one
 
 A SUMMEU DAY WITH THE MUSES. 161 
 
 of those compositions, suggested by a passage in 
 the Spectator — I think it ran thus: — 
 
 Pluyiceque loquaces 
 
 Descendere jugis, et garrulus ingruit imber. 
 
 VirgiFs ear must have had all the delicacy of 
 Spenser's; there are two verses in the fourth 
 Georgia unrivalled for sweetness, — 
 
 Te dulcis conjux, te solo in littore secum, 
 Te veniente die, te decedente cauebat. 
 
 Thus you see I was not half so precocious as 
 West, who, while at Eton, used to versify in his 
 sleep. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Alas, you seem now equally to have forsaken 
 poetry and poets. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 It is over with our History*, but I am rejoiced 
 to find the subject taken up by a scholar and a 
 man of taste. Hurd, sent to me the other day, 
 requesting me to furnish Mr. Warton with any 
 fragments or sketches of our abandoned design. I 
 fear my contribution will be a very insignificant 
 one. However, though we no longer intend to 
 write about poets, we can talk of them. 
 
 * Alluding to the History of Poetry which he at one period 
 proposed to write in conjunction with his friend Mason. 
 
 M
 
 162 
 
 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 We sliovild need many long Summer days, from 
 morn till dewy eve, to rescue these pearls from the 
 covetous sands. The Sea of Time is restless and 
 encroaching; the wave of each returning hour 
 washes away some fragments from the venerable 
 fabrics of departed genius. Certainly the reader 
 of modern song, knows little of those fragrant 
 flowers tliat blossom around the overgrown and 
 forgotten fountains of our early poetry. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 A very pretty flight of flowery extravagance, 
 only requiring to be translated into prose to become 
 perfect. It will, indeed, to pursue your own 
 image, be very agreeable to wander with curious 
 feet through the green and sequestered paths of 
 this unfrequented Garden ; and the more so, as we 
 shall not be obliged to stray from our sofa ; with 
 me, a very important consideration. The task will 
 be hardly less delightful than reading a new novel 
 of Crebillon ; particularly in this 
 
 Chamber deaf to noise and blind to light*. 
 
 Let us endeavour to pronounce correct, rather 
 than pretty criticisms. In the Grecian Games, 
 
 * Sir Philip Sidney.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 163 
 
 officers were appointed to examine the statues of 
 tlie victors, and to reduce or destroy all that 
 exceeded the proper elevation. The duty of a 
 true critic resembles theirs. In walking through 
 the Temple of Fame, he ought not only to replace 
 the statues which years have impaired or prejudice 
 removed ; but to throw down and break to pieces, 
 every one that owes its place to adventitious popu- 
 larity, or to any cause save natural merit. We 
 will admit none who have proclaimed themselves 
 poets by the sound of the trumpet. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 With Avhom shall we begin ? 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 With him who first led poetry from those rough 
 and thorny seats where she lay hid for so many 
 years, into the pure, open, and flowery light. Need 
 I add the name of Chaucer. I have taken the 
 liberty of applying Ben Jonson's account of philo- 
 sophy to the history of our poetry. Before Chaucer 
 there is nothing to reward the imagination; that 
 dark age belongs only to the student of our 
 language and antiquities. We will leave Mr. 
 Warton to luxuriate over the origin of rhyme 
 among the Franks, Saxons, and Proven9aux, — and 
 to compare and unravel, the verse-romances, the 
 
 M 2
 
 164 CRAY AND MASON. 
 
 madrigals, the sestines, &c. The scholar will ever 
 draw his first drauglit of pure English from the 
 well of Chaucer. Lydgate says with truth, that he 
 
 .... j\Iade first to distylle and rayne 
 
 The gold dew droppys of speche and eloquence 
 
 Into our tongue through his excellence. 
 
 You may find in his works the originals of the 
 hepta and octo-syllabic measures, afterwards re- 
 fined by Milton, in his lyric poems, into perfect 
 harmony ; and of that grander heroic, which 
 under the skilful toil of Dryden and of Pope, 
 assumed a dignity, combined with a variety and 
 sweetness not to be surpassed. Dante regarded it, 
 both from the gravity of the rhythm, and its 
 general capacity^ as the fit vehicle for the highest 
 themes *. The full merit of Chaucer's versification 
 is only now beginning to be felt. Yet I am not 
 inclined to admit Dryden's insensibility to its music. 
 There is the rude sweetness, he writes, of a Scotch 
 tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though 
 not perfect. In this little sentence he seems to 
 convey a very just idea of the matter. The occa- 
 sional ruggedness and negligence of the author are 
 not without charms; for the continuity even of 
 sweetness grows unpleasing. 
 
 " Tam temporis occupatione, quam capacitate sententize, 
 
 constructionis et vocabulorum, &c. De Vulgari Eloquentia, 
 
 Lib. ii., c. 5.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 165 
 
 But whatever doubts may be entertained regard- 
 ing his appreciation of Chaucer's metrical skill, his 
 admiration of the liveliness and truth of his man- 
 ner cannot be questioned. The Canterhui-y Tales 
 possess the twofold advantage of poems and stories; 
 they have the fancy and embellishments of the 
 first ; the graphic sketches of the second. He does 
 not, as Daniel unjustly objected to Spenser, paint 
 shadows, or even bodies, but minds. Each pilgrim 
 is distinguished by his peculiar physiognomy, 
 moral, as well as physical. Pope used to call him 
 the first tale-teller in the true enlivened natural 
 way ; and Dryden declared that he had them all 
 before him, with their humours, dresses, and faces, 
 as distinctly as if he had supped with them at the 
 Tabard. So have I, and I often behold the com- 
 pany of twenty-nine, winding out of the gate of 
 Pembroke, in long array, on their journey to the 
 shrine of St. Thomas a Recket. You may catch 
 a glimpse of them now from yonder window. — 
 There is the Prioress, perfectly conversant with 
 the French language, as taught at " the scole of 
 Stratford atte Bowe;" the Monk with his head 
 shining like glass, his sleeves embroidered with 
 costly fur, and his hood fastened with a golden 
 clasp ; the Friar lisping out of wantonness, 
 
 To make his English swete upon the tongue.
 
 166 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 the pleasant Oxford Clerk with more logic than 
 money, and more simplicity than either, full of 
 learning and " high sentence,"" — the good Wife of 
 Bath with her hosen 
 
 Of fine scarlet jede, 
 
 Ful streite yteyed, and shoon ful moist and new: 
 
 and the Poor Parson, a most delightful character, 
 " rich of holy thought and werk ;"" — DonH you see 
 them ? 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Perfectly well. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 If we would write well, that is naturally, we can- 
 not become too familiar with this English Homer. 
 Dryden says, that Spenser more than once insi- 
 nuates, that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into 
 his body ; a remark sufficiently characteristic to be 
 true, although I have not discovered such an ex- 
 pression in his works. No stronger proof of the 
 vitiated taste of Cowley can be offered, than his 
 dislike of Chaucer, whom he " read over," at the 
 request of the Earl of Leicester. Dryden suggests, 
 that the courtly poet, shocked at his rough and 
 antique style, never searched into his good sense. 
 He had not the curiosity to force his way into a 
 garden through a few brambles.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 167 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Chaucer's morning scenes are peculiarly sweet 
 and lively. You feel that the poet rose with the 
 lark, and made the lamb his curfew. He never 
 over-lays his descriptions with what Aristotle called 
 Aa/xTTpa ^eIk. They glow only with the light of 
 Nature. 
 
 GKAY. 
 
 Chaucer was to the fourteenth, what Spenser was 
 to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. No path 
 in the history of our poetry is so beaten as the one 
 to this Fountain. But these gleams of early sunshine 
 died with him; and the dreary gloom that succeeded, 
 was deepened by the remembrance of the vernal 
 promise so quickly faded. Nevertheless, the seeds 
 were in the ground to spring up and ripen after 
 many Summers. Chaucer bestowed upon Gower, 
 the title of " Moral Gower," and the most inquiring 
 critic could find no epithet more descriptive of his 
 mind. He appears to have been an amiable man, 
 imbued with the massive learning of his age, which 
 he pours out in an unceasing stream of sententious 
 gravity. Pope said rightly, that there was little 
 worth reading in him, though I much doubt his 
 acquaintance with the Confessio Amantis. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 You think him inferior to Lydgate .''
 
 168 GRAY AND MASOK. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Infinitely. — Lydgate had fancy and feeling, and 
 is not wanting in melody. He was born in Suffolk, 
 in a town of the same name, as he informs us in 
 the epilogue to the Fall of Princes *. 
 
 Bom in a village which is called Lydgate 
 
 By olde time, a famous castel tov^Ti, 
 
 In Danes' time it was heate down, 
 
 Time what St. Edmund's martyr, maid and king, 
 
 "Was slain at Oxford, recorde of -wiiting. 
 
 We know, also, that he was a monk of the 
 Benedictine Monastery at St. Edmund's Bury. 
 He must have been, at least, thirty years old when 
 Chaucer died. 
 
 In reading the works of Lydgate, you are 
 annoyed by that tedious and protracted form of 
 narrative, which is the characteristic of the early 
 poetry of every nation, as, indeed, it is of the un- 
 educated in all ages. A story, he said, could not 
 be plainly told, when "constrained under words 
 few." 
 
 These oakes great be not down yhewe 
 First at a stroke. 
 
 Certainly the thousand little touches with which 
 a lively gossip heightens her tale, impart an air of 
 
 • See Gray's remarks on Lydgate, in !Mathias' edition of 
 his works.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 169 
 
 familiar truth and sincerity ; and, indeed, circum- 
 stance, skilfully introduced, constitutes a principal 
 charm in the greatest poems. The Iliad and 
 Odyssey are full of it. Hector taking off his helmet 
 to allay the terror of his child, who turned away 
 its little face in alarm, is a beautiful example. 
 Virgil, by whom all the artifices of thought and 
 diction were exhausted, avails himself of this aid 
 continually. Take the following picture of Troilus 
 transfixed in his chariot by the spear of Achilles: — 
 
 Parte alia fugiens amissis Troilus armis, 
 Infelix puer, atque impar congressus Achilli, 
 Fertur equis, curruque hseret resupinus inani, 
 Lora tenens tamen; huic cervixque comoeque tra- 
 
 hxmtur. 
 Per terrain, et versa jmlvis inscribihir hastd. 
 
 The trailing of the spear along the sand, in the 
 last line, brings the whole scene before us. Lyd- 
 gate often carries his descriptions home to the 
 heart in this manner; so does Chaucer, as in 
 Cresseide weeping with dishevelled hair for the 
 departure of Troilus, — and in those vivid verses, 
 where we see the fire leap out from the helmets, 
 beneath the strokes of the combatants : — 
 
 Among the tuftes brode, bright and shene. 
 Of foyle of gold, of feathers white and grene.
 
 170 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Shakspeare, before whom the Muse never wore a 
 veil, understood the full power of circumstance ; 
 nor could a hundred pages of description have 
 brought the desolate husband and father on the 
 stage half so vividly as that single exclamation of 
 Rosse : — 
 
 What man ! ne'er pull your liat upon your brows. 
 
 A very pathetic scene of this kind occurs in 
 Warner's great poem, Albion'' s England, where 
 the mother, Conuvenna, attempts to reconcile two 
 angry brothers, by recalling to their remembrance 
 her early care and watchfulness over their infancy. 
 And again, in the story of Daphles, the daughter 
 of King Aganippus, who having vanquished a 
 nobleman in arms against her dominion, becomes 
 enamoured of the captive, wliom she visits in his 
 dungeon. 
 
 But entering, Avhen her eyes beheld the image of her 
 
 heart, 
 To her still peerless, tho' his bands had alter'd him in 
 
 part; 
 She, casting do^^Ti her bashful eyes, stood senseless then 
 
 a space, 
 Yet what her tongueless love adjourn'd, was extant in 
 
 her face.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. I7I 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 The two last verses are admirable. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Probably you will think the following account 
 of boys pursuing a squirrel inferior to Warner ; 
 but the minute circumstances of the detail are 
 excellently touched. It comes from the Pastorals 
 of William Browne. 
 
 Then, as a nimble squirrel from the wood, 
 Ranging the hedges for his filberd-food, 
 Sits partly on a hough, his brown nuts cracking, 
 And from the shell the sweet white kernel taking, 
 Till (with their crooks and bags,) a sort of boys 
 (To share with him) come with so great a noise, 
 That he is forced to leave a nut nigh broke. 
 And for his life, leap to a neighbour oak ; 
 Thence to a beech, thence to a row of ashes ; 
 Whilst thro' the quagmire and red-water plashes. 
 The boys run dabbling through thick and thin ; 
 One tears his hose, another breaks his shin; 
 This torn and tattered, hath with much ado 
 Got by the briers ; and that hath lost his shoe ; 
 This drops his band ; that headlong falls for haste ; 
 Another cries behind for being last : 
 With sticks and stones, and many a sounding hollow, 
 The little fool, with no small sport, they follow. 
 
 Britannia's Pastorals, Song 5. 
 
 There is not a school-boy within a hundred miles 
 of Trumpington-streetj who would not recognise
 
 172 CRAY AND MASOX. 
 
 this homely sketcli. You hear the hedges break 
 down beneatli the impetuous rout, and their echoing 
 shouts, and the sobs of that urchin who, — and this 
 is the most graphic touch of all — 
 
 Cries behind for being last. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Your learning has led you some distance from 
 the Benedictine monastery. Let us try to find our 
 way back to Lydgate. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 There is a beautiful passage in May's poem 
 upon Rosamond, of whose charms Daniel speaks 
 in that exquisite line — 
 
 Framing thine eye the star of thy ill-fate. 
 
 It deserves praise for its general merits ; but I only 
 mention it now to quote the pleasing lines in which, 
 by a very natural circumstance, he portrays the 
 melancholy of the rustic youth, who chanced to 
 behold the fair recluse of Woodstock — 
 
 What now, alas, can wake, or fair avail 
 His love-sick mind ? No Whitsun-ale can please, 
 No jingling Morris-dances give him ease; 
 The pipe and tabor have no sound at all, 
 Nor to the May-pole can his measures call ; 
 Although invited by the merriest lasses, 
 How little for these former joys he passes ? 
 But sits at home ivith folded arms.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 173 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 You ought to edit an anthology, — Mason's Gar- 
 land would sound prettily. But to return to 
 Lydgate. The following scene refers to Carnace, 
 who, having been condemned to death, sends this 
 testimony of her dying love to her guilty brother, 
 Macareus : — 
 
 Out of her swoone when she did abbraide, 
 Knowing no mean but death in her distresse, 
 To her brother full piteouslie she said : 
 " Cause of my sorrow, roote of my heavinesse, 
 That Avhilom were source of my gladnesse, 
 When both our joys by will were so disposed, 
 Under one key our hearts to be enclosed. 
 
 This is mine end, I may it not astart ; 
 
 O, brother mine, there is no more to say; 
 
 Lowly beseeching with all mine whole heart, 
 
 For to remember specially I pray, 
 
 If it befall my little son to die, 
 
 That thou may'st after some mind on us have, 
 
 Suifer us both be buried in one grave. 
 
 I hold him straitly tween my armes twain, 
 
 Thou and Nature laide on me this charge ; 
 
 He guiltless, muste with me suffer paine : 
 
 And sith thou art at freedom and at large. 
 
 Let kindness our love not so discharge. 
 
 But have a mind, wherever that thou be. 
 
 Once on a day upon my child and me.
 
 174 GKAY AXD MASON. 
 
 On tlioc and me depcndcth the trespkce 
 Touching our guilt and our great offence ; 
 But, welaway ! most angelik of face, 
 Our childe, young in his pure innocence, 
 Shall again right suffer death's violence, 
 Tender of limb, God wot, full guilteless. 
 The goodly fair that lieth here speechless. 
 A mouth he has, but wordis hath he none ; 
 Cannot complain, alas! for none outrage. 
 Nor grutcheth not, but lies here all alone. 
 Still as a lamb, most Aveak of his visage ; 
 What heart of steel could do to him damage. 
 Or suffer him die, beholding the manere 
 And look benigne of his twain eyen clere. 
 
 B. i., fol. 39. 
 
 Mark with what consummate art the pathos of 
 the concluding lines is worked up ; the look benigne 
 of his twain eyen clere, is deliciously descriptive of 
 infantine innocence and trustfulness. Here, too, 
 you trace a pen of great tenderness. She is writing 
 her letter. 
 
 Awhapped all in drede. 
 
 In her right hand her pen ygan to quake. 
 And a sharp sword to make her hearte bleed. 
 In her left hand her father hath her take, 
 And most her sorroAv was for her child's sake. 
 Upon whose face in her arm sleepyng 
 Full many a tear she wept in complayning. 
 
 It is in these soft touches of pensiveness and sim- 
 plicity that Lydgate excels; in sublimity, force, and
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 175 
 
 the distinctness of his bolder images, he follows 
 Chaucer at a great distance. He never glares 
 upon our eyes with those dashes of a tempestuous 
 pencil, that strike gleams of supernatural light over 
 the pictures of the poet of Woodstock. We see 
 no temple 
 
 Of Mars Armipotent, 
 
 Wrought all of burnished steel. 
 
 No statue of the God of War, while 
 
 A wolf there stood before him, at his feet, 
 With eyen red, and of a man he eat. 
 
 No banner, unspreading its " glistering folds." — 
 His greatness is the result of many separate touches; 
 of what we will call the cumulative art of poetry ; 
 as in the striking portrait of the Deity. 
 
 God hath a thousand handes to chastyse, 
 A thousand dartes of punicion, 
 A thousand bowes made in uncouth wyse, 
 A thousand arblastes bent in his doungeon*, 
 Ordeind each for castigacion. 
 
 Here the magnitude is composed of units, — indi- 
 vidually they are nothing; but the effect of the 
 whole is imposing. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Did Lydgate influence his age ? 
 * Castle or Palace.
 
 176 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 In a small degree. Every stream nourishes some 
 shallower brook — every writer, however humble his 
 talents, draws some one after him. At the com- 
 mencement of the sixteenth century, about 1517, 
 appeared the Pastime of Pleasure, by Stephen 
 Hawes, a friend, I think, of Lydgate, whom he 
 calls his Master, the original of all his learning, and 
 the model of his compositions. But we shall lose 
 nothing by hurrying along with our eyes closed 
 until we reach Sackville, — beyond all comparison 
 the truest poet between Chaucer and Spenser. Pope 
 thought his Gorhoduc written in a purer style than 
 some of the earlier plays of Shakspeare. He was 
 of the School of Dante, whom he resembles in the 
 severity and grandeur of his imagination. The 
 poet represents himself wandering into the fields, 
 when the wintry snow has beaten down the flowers, 
 and covered the earth with gloom. In his walk he 
 meets with Sorrow, who conducts him to the abode 
 of the unhappy dead. The figures with which he 
 peoples " The dark Averne,'"' are delineated with 
 surprising vigour. Who could fail to recognise 
 Care. 
 
 Greedy Care still brushing up the breres, 
 His knuckles knob'd, his flesh deep dented in, 
 With tawed hands, and hard y-tamied skin.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 177 
 
 The picture of Dread is the finest personification 
 in the language. There is something very bold in 
 the conception of Old Age, 
 
 His wither' d fist still knocking at Death's door. 
 
 And of Sleep : 
 
 By him lay .heavy Sleep, the cousin of Death, 
 Flat on the ground, and still as any stone*. 
 
 You have the original of a very familiar image in 
 these lines upon the fleeting nature of Wealth. 
 
 Which comes and goes more faster than we see 
 The flickering flame that with the fire is Avrought. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 I suppose you place the accomplished Earl of 
 Surrey in the second Italian School. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 His compositions are slight and few in number ; 
 but their influence upon our literature was deeply 
 felt. He was our earliest writer of blank-verse, 
 and to him we owe the introduction of the Sonnet 
 and the ternal rhyme of Dante; a measure employed 
 by Milton in the second Psalm, and from its 
 
 * Keats has transferred this description — whether with ac- 
 knowledgment or not, I cannot say, — to Saturn, who sits 
 xtill as any stone. 
 
 N
 
 I'JQ GRAY AMD MASON. 
 
 solemnity and dignity peculiarly appropriated to 
 sacred poetry. I fall in with the common error, in 
 attributing the invention of the Terza Rima to 
 Dante ; because there is extant, a composition by 
 his master, Brunetto Latini, in this very metre. 
 The fancy of Surrey was tinged with the romance 
 of his Italian models. He very gracefully de- 
 scribes the delights of the Tennis-Court, with the 
 surrounding seats thronged by high-born beauties, 
 whose bright eyes rained influence : — 
 
 With dazed eyes we oft by gleams of love 
 Have miss'd the ball. 
 
 This is natural and tender, and not unlike the 
 gallantry of Petrarch. 
 
 MA soy. 
 
 Your imagination kindles as the Fairy Queen 
 begins to dawn upon you. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 I cannot speak of Spenser without affection. I 
 revere Milton, but I love Spenser, and never sit 
 down to compose a verse, without first refreshing 
 my fancy with his works; they soothe my mind 
 into contemplation like a strain of soft music. I 
 will not try my pencil upon a face whose lineaments 
 have been so often drawn ; but I would say to
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THK MUSES. 179 
 
 every youthful student of poetry, in the words of 
 Shakspeare: — 
 
 Dost thou love pictures ? we will fetch thee strait 
 
 Adonis painted by a running brook, 
 
 And Cytherea all in sedges hid, 
 
 AVhich seem to move and wanton with her breath, 
 
 Even as the waving sedges play with wind. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew ; Act i., Sc. 4. 
 
 With what astonishment did my eye glance for the 
 first time over Addison's contemptuous criticism of 
 the Fairy Queen ; not knowing that he never 
 read Spenser until fifteen years afterwards. It 
 must have been in a similar spirit of adventurous 
 ignorance, that he blamed Chaucer for want of 
 humour. No poet ever imbued his country's 
 literature so deeply as Spenser: you catch the 
 echo of his lute in Drayton, Fairfax, Fletcher, 
 Browne, and many others, until it died away for a 
 season in the early poems of Milton. The mag- 
 netic power of Genius not only attracts other 
 minds, but imparts to those minds, in an inferior 
 degree, the power of attracting others in their 
 turn. But from that chief Stone at the head of 
 the series, comes the virtue operating through them 
 all*. Whatever of beauty you meet with in the 
 imitators of Spenser, is inspired by their Master. 
 
 • See Plato's curious and interesting dialogue, The lo. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 GKAY ANU MASON. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Many a heavy look 
 
 FoUow'd sweet Spenser. 
 
 Britannia's Pastorals. 
 
 He could not be mourned by a more congenial 
 spirit ; and if accident had not deprived us of 
 Browne^s Lives of the English Poets, we should 
 probably have possessed a more complete history of 
 your favourite bard than we are ever likely to obtain. 
 Browne did not sing in vain. His little stream of 
 pastoral sweetness may be seen running through 
 a considerable portion of the poetry of the seven- 
 teenth century. Milton disdained not to drink of 
 it. His fancy was picturesque and tender; and 
 his ear susceptible of the finest harmony. The 
 picture of Satyrs, reminds me of the learned pencil 
 of Poussin : — 
 
 .... One of those who by the mossy banks 
 Of rushing Helicon, in airy ranks 
 Tread roundelays upon the silver sands, 
 While shaggy Satyrs tripping o'er the strands 
 Stand still at gaze. 
 
 The flutter of the leaves is prettily described : — 
 
 And as the year hath first his jocund Spring, 
 Wherein the leaves to birds sweet carollinsr 
 Dance with the wind 
 
 His similes are lively and natural : —
 
 A SUMMER JDAY WITH THE MUSES. 181 
 
 As some way-faring man, passing a wood 
 (Whose waving top hath long a sea-mark stood,) 
 Goes jogging on, and in his mind nought hath 
 But how the primrose finely strews the path, 
 Or sweetest violets lay down their heads 
 At some tree's root. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Browne belongs to a class of writers whose 
 influence is felt rather than seen : village brooks, 
 whose course you trace by the greenness they dif- 
 fuse. Drayton and Daniel deserve similar praise ; 
 though their intellectual powers were of a higher 
 grade. In all Drayton"'s lighter poems you recognize 
 the scholar of Spenser, — his Quest of Cynthia for 
 the play of fancy, the mirthfulness of manner, and 
 the dance of the numbers, may be compared with 
 Cowley's Chronicle. Daniel's principal charm is 
 the wonderful purity of his diction ; he will always 
 be " well-languaged Daniel."" You cannot study 
 him too attentively; for a model more simple or 
 idiomatic it would be vain to inquire. The fol- 
 lowing sonnet is elegant and musical ; the ninth 
 line rises into beauty. 
 
 I must not grieve, my love, whose eyes would read 
 Lines of delight whereon her youth might smile ; 
 Flowers have time before they come to seed, 
 And she is young, and now must sport the while.
 
 182 CAIAY AND MASON. 
 
 And sport, SAvcct maid, in season of these years, 
 And learn to gather flowers before they wither ; 
 And where the sweetest blossom first appears. 
 Let loA'c and youth conduct thy pleasures thither. 
 
 Lighten forth smiles to clear the clouded air, 
 And calm the tempest which my sighs do raise, 
 Pity and smiles do best become the fair ; 
 Pity and smiles must only yield thee praise. 
 
 Make me to say, when all my griefs are gone, 
 
 Happy the heart that sigh'd for such an one. 
 
 And the next: — 
 
 TO SLEEP. 
 
 Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, 
 Brother to Death, in silent darkness bom. 
 Relieve my anguish and restore the light 
 AVith dark forgetting of my care, return — 
 And let the day be time enough to moum 
 The shipAATeck of my ill-advised youth; 
 Let Avaking eyes suffice to wail their scorn. 
 Without the torments of the night's untruth. 
 Cease dreams, the images of day-desires. 
 To model forth the passions of the morrow ; 
 Never let rising sun approve you liars, 
 To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. 
 Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, 
 And iiever Avake to feel the day's disdain. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Daniel justly prided himself upon his sonnets; 
 Drayton, although inferior to his friend in the con-
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 183 
 
 struction of this difficult poem, sometimes attained 
 to great excellence. The images of Faith and 
 Innocence in the following lines have a monu- 
 mental repose, — and the scene itself offers a beau- 
 tiful design to the sculptor: — 
 
 Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
 When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, 
 And Innocence is closing up his eyes*. 
 
 If this fine description had been applied to the 
 death-bed of a Christian, it would have been per- 
 fect : of how much graceful poetry has that pon- 
 derous Poly-Olbion deprived us ; notwithstanding 
 the gleams of fancy that play over its pages, they 
 are scarcely less difficult to penetrate than Storer's 
 Life of Wolsey. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Before you sneer at Storer, try and beat these 
 verses : — 
 
 I am that tomb where that affection lies 
 
 That was the closet where it living kept : 
 
 Yet wise men say affection never dies ; 
 
 No, but it turns, and when it long hath slept, 
 Looks heavy like the eye that long hath wept. 
 
 * How pretty and fanciful is the description of Queen 
 Isabella's hand: 
 
 So wliite, so soft, so delicate, so sleek, 
 As she had worn a lily for a glove.
 
 184 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 Depend upon it, Caractacus* contains nothing 
 
 so gOOfl. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Whom do you regard as the earliest English 
 writer of a philosophic poem ? 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Sir John Davies, in his Nosce Teipsum, the 
 most perfect specimen of didactic reasoning in 
 verse, before Pope. No one can read it without 
 l)eing struck by the rare economy of phrase, the 
 strong yet finely wrought texture of the thoughts, 
 and the extraordinary condensation of the lan- 
 guage. When I speak of economy, I mean the 
 economy of wealth. Davies had none of the indo- 
 lence of a dreamer ; all his imagery in intelligible. 
 See by what a novel comparison, accurately worked 
 out, he illustrates Sensitive Memory. 
 
 Here Sense's apprehension end doth take, 
 
 As when a stone is into water cast, 
 One circle doth another circle make, 
 
 Till the last circle touch the bank at last. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor, whose reading extended over 
 the circle of literature and the sciences, appears to 
 have had this stanza in his mind, while writing the 
 
 * Mason's well-known Tragedy.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 185 
 
 following passage in the Great Exemplar^ where 
 the image is applied with great ingenuity. He is 
 discoursing of the grace of God. " But as a 
 stone,"" he says, " thrown into a river first moves 
 the water, and disturbs its surface into a circle, and 
 then its own force wafts the neighbouring drops 
 into a larger figure by its proper weight ; so is the 
 grace of God the first principle of our spiritual 
 motion, and when it moves us into its own figure, 
 and hath actuated and ennobled our natural 
 powers by the influence of that first incentive, we 
 continue the motion and enlarge the progress. 
 But as the circle on the face of the water grows 
 weaker, till it hath smoothed itself into a natural 
 and even current, unless the force be renewed 
 or continued ; so do all our natural endeavours, 
 when first set on work by God's preventing grace, 
 decline to the imperfection of its own kind, unless 
 the same force be made energetical and operative, 
 by the continuation and renewing of the same 
 supernatural influence*." The description of 
 Feeling is equally admirable : — 
 
 Much like a subtle spider which doth sit 
 
 In middle of her web which spreadeth wide ; 
 
 If ought do touch the utmost thread of it, 
 She feels it instantly on every side. 
 
 • Considerations upon the Epiphany.
 
 186 
 
 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 These lines will remind you of a couplet, in 
 wliich Pope with wonderful skill lias improved and 
 condensed the metaphor. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Do you pass over Lord Brooke. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 I instanced Sir John Davies as the author of 
 our first philosophical poem, properly so called, 
 though I doubt whether in dignity of sentiment 
 and thoughtfulness of temper, he always equals 
 the friend of Sidney. But the merits of Brooke 
 are not poetical ; his grave wisdom, his penetrating 
 sagacity, his anatomy of the moral feelings, are too 
 stern to be moulded into the delicacies of metre ; 
 his versification, however, harmonizes with his 
 thoughts; deep, sounding, and not unmusical. 
 But you must read him for the truths he enun- 
 ciates; and not for their embellishments. His 
 account of Superstition accords with the history of 
 all ages : — 
 
 Which natural disease of mortal wit 
 Begets our magic and our star-divines, 
 
 Wizards, impostors, visions stand by it ; 
 For what fear comprehends not, it incUnes 
 
 To make a god whose nature it believes. 
 Much more inclined to punish than relieve.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 187 
 
 In another line, he speaks of fear looking into 
 the heart " with dim eyes." Lord Brooke possessed 
 the masculine common sense, and energy of intellect, 
 which form the happiest features of Dryden''s 
 poetical character. When he speaks of — 
 
 That manly discipline of doing well, 
 
 I seem to hear the poet of Absalom and Achi- 
 tophel. 
 
 MASON, 
 
 The reign of James the First would furnish a 
 delightful chapter to our literary history. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Jonson was its great poetical ornament. Often 
 while passing along Lincoln's-Inn Fields, has a 
 vision of the poet, with a trowel in one hand and a 
 Horace in the other, risen before me*. Let those 
 critics who accuse his genius of heaviness, read one 
 of his Masques. Many are acquainted with this 
 species of composition only in the Comus of 
 Milton ; but some of the sweetest strains in the 
 language, survive in the neglected verses of Decker 
 and Chapman, whom Jonson regarded as his only 
 rival. The melody of his versification is frequently 
 
 • Ben Jonson, said Pope, was found reading Horace by the 
 great Camden, and it was he who sent him to the University 
 of Cainbrido:e.
 
 188 
 
 GKAY AND MASON. 
 
 delicious; his Muse glides along, like her who led 
 " the Idalian brawls," 
 
 As if the wind, not she did walk, 
 Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk. 
 
 Next to Milton, Jonson is the most learned of 
 all our poets. He was ever recovering some pre- 
 cious relic from what Cowley called the drowned 
 lands of antiquity. His Catiline is a wonderful 
 specimen of classical acquirements. Every page is 
 inlaid with fragments from the ancient authors. 
 But his imitations are not servile or languid ; he 
 invaded authors, was the noble saying of Dryden, 
 like a conqueror, and what would have been theft 
 in another man, was victory in him. He gave a 
 more healthy tone to our literature. Clarendon, 
 who in his younger days, while studying for the 
 bar, frequently met Jonson, has recorded the 
 " severity of his nature and manners," and the 
 reformation which he introduced not only upon the 
 stage, but " into English poetry itself.*'"' 
 
 MASON. 
 
 How delightful to have passed an evening with 
 his friend, Lord Falkland, at his pleasant seat near 
 Oxford, where he rejoiced to gather around him 
 the most eminent men of the age. In that learned 
 retreat, Chillingworth composed his celebrated work
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 189 
 
 on Popery, and there too, frequently came the 
 poet Sandys, from the residence of his sister at 
 Caswell, near Witney, where he spent many of 
 those quiet days which gilded the evening of his 
 innocent life, according to his own touching 
 narrative. 
 
 Blest with, a healthful age, a quiet mind 
 Content with little. 
 
 full of gratitude to God, who had safely guided 
 him during a long and perilous pilgrimage, and 
 finally brought him back to that mother earth, on 
 which his eyes had first opened, and on whose bosom 
 he had always prayed to fall asleep. No contem- 
 porary name in English history has acquired an 
 interest equal to Falkland"'s. He was the Sidney 
 of his age, and will live for ever in the eloquent and 
 affectionate eulogy of his friend Clarendon. His 
 poetical merits were certainly small, though the 
 verses prefixed to the Divine Poems of Sandys, 
 contain some harmonious and spirited lines. But 
 he was the lover, as well as the loved, of Poets. 
 Ben Jonson, Waller, and Cowley, who formed an 
 acquaintance with him at Oxford, awoke their lyres 
 in his praise. And even the witty and licentious 
 Muse of Sir John Suckling, mentioned his name 
 with honour. His death crowned the romantic 
 beauty of his life, and taught us to blend our
 
 190 GIIAY AND MA SOX. 
 
 reverence of the patriot, with our admiration of the 
 scholar. Falkland was one of those choice spirits 
 whose festivities at the Mermaid, Herrick has cele- 
 brated with kindred enthusiasm. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 We are unjust to Herrick if we view him only in 
 the light of a mirthful lyrist. Sad and solemn 
 thoughts are continually creeping over his fancy, 
 and seem to have led him almost involuntarily to 
 moralize his song. In his brightest landscape you 
 see a tomb in the distance. He introduces the 
 thought of death even into a love-song. 
 
 You are the Queen, all flowers among, 
 And die, you must fair maid, ere long, 
 As he, the Maker of this song. 
 
 The lines to Primroses wet with morning dew, are 
 inexpressibly sweet and tender, — so is the address 
 to the Daffodils. 
 
 Fair Daffodils, we weep to see 
 
 You haste away so soon; 
 
 As yet the early rising sun 
 
 Has not attained his noon. 
 
 Stay, stay, 
 
 Until the setting day 
 
 Has run 
 But to the Even Song; 
 And having prayed together, we 
 Will go with you along.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 191 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Bishop Taylor has an allusion, somewhat similar, 
 to the decline of day: " And if a man were but of 
 a day's life, it is well if he lasts till Even-Song, 
 and then, says his Compline, an hour before the 
 time*." 
 
 One of the best lines in ray Hymn to Adversity, 
 
 And leave us leisure to be good, 
 
 is imitated from Oldham, whose early death — for 
 he was taken away in his thirtieth year — is to be 
 deeply deplored. He possessed a liveliness of in- 
 vention, a vigour of expression, and a nervous free- 
 dom of versification, that maturer years would have 
 ripened into a very high order of satire. Pope 
 complained with propriety that his strong rage was 
 too much like Billingsgate; but by what obliquity 
 of critical vision he could prefer the feeble rhymes 
 of Rochester and the Earl of Dorset, I am unable 
 to understand. Point out to me, in the writings 
 of those witty noblemen, such verses as the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 Age just crawling on the verge of life. 
 • Of Contentedness. Holy Liv'mg and Dying, cap. 2, sect. 6.
 
 192 GRAY AXD MASON. 
 
 Or the process of composition in a poetic mind : 
 
 When at first search I traverse o'er my mind, 
 None hut a dark and empty void I find: 
 Some little hints at length, like sparks break thence, 
 And glimmering thoughts just dawning into sense. 
 
 Is not the last admirable? There is something 
 pretty in the sketch of a relenting beauty. 
 
 Her looks, Avith anger rough erewhile, 
 Sunk in the dimples of a calmer smile. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Yes, but very far behind the lines you quoted 
 the other day from Aulus Gellius : — " Sigilla in 
 Mento impressa Amoris digitulo vestigio demon- 
 strant moUitudinem." 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 He calls the deliglits of common life, 
 
 Pleasures which enter at the waking eyes. 
 Speaking of a person near death, he says with great 
 ingenuity, 
 
 The slackened string of life run down. 
 His description of eloquent music, that 
 
 Can call the listening soul into the ear, 
 
 was not unworthy of his friend Dryden's noble ode 
 ujx)n a similar subject*. 
 
 * For St. Cecilia's Day.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 193 
 
 You will not, after these few specimens of Old- 
 ham's talents*, wonder at Dryden's eloquent eulogy ; 
 an eulogy, so warm with the heart of true friend- 
 ship and admiration, and so glowing with the 
 brightest poetry, that I never read it without de- 
 light. It sweeps over the mind like the solemn 
 dirge of an organ. 
 
 Farewell, too little and too lately known, 
 Whom I began to think and call my own ; 
 For sure our souls were near allied ; and thine 
 Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. 
 One common note on either lyre did strike, 
 And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike. 
 
 O early ripe ! to thy abundant store 
 AVTiat could advancing age have added more ! 
 It might (what nature never gives the young) 
 Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. 
 
 * Some of Oldham's concetti are very pretty. Mr. Moore has 
 rhpned a worse compliment than the following, addressed to 
 iladame L. E. 
 
 In that white snow which overspreads your skin 
 We trace the whiter soul that dwells within. 
 
 He beseeches Destiny, 
 
 To twine 
 
 All her smooth fortunes in a silken line. 
 
 In his verses to the memory of Charles Worwent, he says, 
 So gentle was thy pilgrimage beneath, 
 
 Time's unheard feet scarce make less noise, 
 Or the soft journey which a planet goes.
 
 194 GRAY AXD JIASOX. 
 
 But satire needs not those, and wit will shine 
 
 Tlirough tlie harsh cadence of a rugged line. 
 
 A no1)le error, and but seldom made. 
 
 When poets are by too much strength betrayed. 
 
 Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime. 
 
 Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time 
 
 But mellows what we ^vTite to the dull sweets of 
 
 rhyme. 
 Once more, hail and farewell ! farewell you young. 
 But ah, too short, Marcellus of our tongue ; 
 Thy brows with ivy and with laurels bound ; 
 But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around. 
 
 That felicitous phrase — a noble error — is a transla- 
 tion of the scixotfrviJi-a. ivyivs<; of Longinus. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 A noble tribute. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Admire Dry den, and be blind to all his faults. 
 This was my advice to Beattie. His Absalom and 
 Achifophel, and Theodore and Honoria, are alone 
 sufficient to elevate him above a host. The soul of 
 the writer glows through his verses, and lives along 
 every line. Those who affirm him to be a giant 
 only upon earth, pronounce an erroneous judgment. 
 The Flower and the Leaf is one of the most lively, 
 beautiful, and romantic poems in the language. He 
 has beaten Chaucer at his own weapons. But this 
 remark ought to go into a parenthesis.
 
 A SUMMEll DAY WITH THE MUSES. 195 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Satire is a painful study, — 
 
 The skill 
 To strike the vice, but spare the person still — 
 
 is a very rare gift. Cartwright claims it for his 
 poetical father, Jonson. But in Oldham, Cleve- 
 land, and others- of that school, the arrow hits the 
 person oftener than the vice. 
 
 Cleveland was justly censured for obtruding new 
 words upon his readers. To express a thought in 
 the harshest form, constituted the charm of his 
 elocution. Dryden drew this distinction between 
 his Satires and Donne's; that the one gives us 
 deep thoughts in common language, though in 
 rough cadence ; the other, common thoughts in 
 abstruse words. Some of his conceits must have 
 astonished even his contemporaries. Wishing to 
 describe the various acquirements of Milton"'s early 
 friend, Edward King, he says, that in him — 
 
 Neptune hath got an University. 
 
 But a writer of lively fancy, and enriched by con- 
 siderable learning, must occasionally produce a 
 striking thought; probably you will think the 
 couplet, in which he alludes to the unequalled 
 
 o 2
 
 196 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 charms of a lady, to be of this number. IJut even 
 this is a conceit, — 
 
 She that can strike the best invention dead, 
 Till baffled Poetry hangs down her head. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Was not Davenant 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Do not couple the author of Gondibert with 
 Cleveland. You will find more beautiful imagery, 
 more materials for poetical thought in the works of 
 Davenant, than in a hundred volumes of modern 
 rhymes. He abounds in picturesque phrases, the 
 curiosa felicitas of a true poet. Faction is called 
 " the hectic fever of a court ;" Wrath, the " un- 
 quiet child of Pride ;" Echo is " the Sentinel of 
 Nature ;" Fame " the eternal Chorus,"" to declare to 
 posterity illustrious deeds ; Sunset, " the faint de- 
 cays of light." Sleep is a very unpromising theme 
 for originality, but see how Davenant raises his 
 description : 
 
 It loves the cottage, and from court abstains, 
 It stills the seaman though the storm be high ; 
 
 Frees the griev'd captive in his closest chains, 
 Stops Want's loud mouth, and blinds the treacherous 
 spy. 
 
 Any small adventurer in song might have written
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 197 
 
 the first part ; the beginning of the last line stamps 
 the poet. The second book opens with an ani- 
 mated sketch of Verona at daybreak. How solemn 
 and impressive is the flow of the verse ! 
 
 An amphitheatre which has controU'd 
 Unheeded conquests of advancing Age, 
 
 Winds whicli have made the trembhng world look old, 
 And the fierce tempest of the Gothic rage. 
 
 This great Flaminius did in youth erect, 
 
 Where cities sat to see whole armies play 
 Death's serious part 
 
 What delights me above all in Gondibert, is the 
 thoughtful wisdom, the reflective manner of the 
 writer. His thoughts awaken thoughts. 
 
 Well by his precepts may we punish strife, 
 
 Whose pity knew that Famine, Plague, and Time, 
 
 Are enemies enough to human life, 
 
 None need dercharge Death's quiver with a crime. 
 
 How much philosophy is compressed into this brief 
 sentence, 
 
 Truth which slowly follows Fame. 
 
 These beauties may not please every taste ; some 
 readers do not value gold if they are obliged to dig 
 for it : but Gondibert presents other charms. Take 
 a picture of an unfrequented library: 
 
 For a deep dust, which Time does softly shed, 
 Where only Time does come, their covers bear.
 
 198 GRAY AKl) MASOX. 
 
 Or this most lovely comparison of the difference 
 between the pure harmony of the sacred Scriptures, 
 and the Commentaries written on them — 
 
 In these Heaven's holj' fire does vainly burn, 
 Nor warms, nor lights, but is in sparkles spent ; 
 
 Where froward Authors with disputes have torn 
 The Garment^ seamless as thejirmamevt. 
 
 ]\Iy own opinion of Gondihert was strengthened 
 the other day by a remark of Pope*. He regarded 
 it as an imperfect poem, if viewed as a whole, but 
 admired the uncommon beauty and originality of 
 parts. He seems, however, not to have done justice 
 to the versification of Davenant; who, while bor- 
 rowing conceits from Donne, adapted them to a far 
 
 * Gray would have been pleased with the sentiments of two 
 other kindred spu'its. " Davenant," says Mr. Mitford in his 
 excellent Life of Gray, " is a poet who approaches nearer to 
 Shakspeare in the beauty of his descriptions, the tenderness of 
 his thoughts, the seriousness of his feeling, and the wUdness 
 of his fancy." " The stanzas in the Gnomica, (%\Tites Dr. 
 Southey to Sir E. Bridges,) might pass for a fragment of 
 Gondihert; tliey have just that tone of thoughtful feelmg which 
 distinguishes that poem above all others, and owing to which 
 (faulty as in many respects it is) I never take it up without 
 deriving fresh pleasure from it, and being always unwilling to 
 lay it aside. A httle, I think, he learned from Sir John 
 Davies, — more from Lord Brooke, who is the most thoughtful 
 of all poets. Davenant had less strength of mind or morals 
 (as his conversion to popery proves), but more feeling; with 
 him the vein ended. You trace a httle of it in Dryden** 
 earlier poems, but not later."
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 199 
 
 sweeter strain of music. Donne had no qualifica- 
 tions for a poet, except strong sense, great erudi- 
 tion, and a lively ingenuity, which Dryden has 
 taught us to call wit, 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Our poetical fathers showed us how to write 
 sweetly, as well 'as powerfully. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Yet critics persist in regarding Waller as one of 
 the earliest improvers of our language. Mr. Wal- 
 ler, says Atterbury, bound up his thoughts better, 
 and in a cadence more agreeable to the verse he 
 wrote in ; so that wherever the natural stops of that 
 were, he continued the little breakings of the sense 
 so as to fall in with them. But this eulogy claims 
 for him more than his due. His highest praise 
 consists in having reduced our versification to a 
 more perfect uniformity of melody. Like Den- 
 ham, he polished a little ; but he invented nothing. 
 You will find in these verses no charm, either of 
 rhythm or of diction, unknown to their predecessors. 
 The full beauty and majesty of the hexameter had 
 been already drawn out by numerous writers, who 
 flourished at the early part of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury. I could show you the very pauses, after- 
 wards introduced by Pope with such success into
 
 200 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 his compositions. Indeed, I might support my 
 assertion from a httle volume, hy Dr. Henry King, 
 which appeared ahout the middle of that century. 
 His allusion to the happiness of the blest is quite 
 perfect : 
 
 Wliere true joys reign, which like their day shall last ; 
 Those never clouded, nor that overcast. 
 
 I confess there is a natural and unaffected harmony 
 in the poetry of that age, an artlessness of art — 
 often inimitable. King, better known as a divine, 
 enjoyed a picturesque taste. The portrait of youth 
 is very pretty — 
 
 When he goes proudly laiden ynth. the fruit, 
 Which health, or strength, or beauty contribute. 
 
 So is the thought upon Pygmalion : 
 
 ^\Tiilst he to gaze and court it was content, 
 He served as Priest at Beauty's Monument. 
 
 The following couplet has the prettiness of 
 Bion : — 
 
 And as the Paphian Queen, by her griefs power, 
 Brought up her dead love's spirit in a flower* 
 
 * Let me add in a note the affecting Elegy 
 
 ON TWO CHILDREN DYING OF ONE DISEASE, 
 AND BURIED IN ONE GRAVE. 
 
 Brought forth in sorrow, and bred up in care, 
 Two tender children here entombed are : 
 One place, one sire, one womb their being gave ; 
 They had one mortal sickness, and one grave.
 
 A SIIMMKR DAY WITH THE MUSES. 201 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Quite Grecian. 
 
 GRAY 
 
 Waller and Denhani did not give us better 
 couplets than Cartwright, — rarely so good ; their 
 parts were not so striking*; their wholes more har- 
 monious. Pope erred in naming Carew the model 
 of Waller, who had wooed the Muse before the 
 appearance of any composition by his supposed 
 original. From Sandys, whose merits were very 
 great, he borrowed something *. 
 
 And tho' they cannot number many years 
 
 In their account, yet with their parents' tears 
 
 Tliis comfort mingles : tho' their days were few, 
 
 They scarcely sin, but never sorrow knew. 
 
 So that they well might boast they carried hence 
 
 What riper ages lose, their innocence. 
 
 You pretty losses, that revive the fate 
 
 Wliich in your mother Death did antedate, 
 
 O let my higli-swoU'n grief distil on you 
 
 The saddest drops of a parental dew : 
 
 You ask no other dower than what my eyes 
 
 Lay out on your untimely exequies : 
 
 When once I have discharged that mournful score, 
 
 Heaven hath decreed you ne'er shall cost me more. 
 
 Since you release and quit my borrow'd trust. 
 
 By taking this inheritance of dust. 
 
 * Many poets have acknowledged their obligations to 
 Sandys ; none with more generosity than Pope. " I began 
 writing verses of my own invention further back tlian I can
 
 202 GRAY AND MASOX. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 I admit that with all my admiration of the heroic- 
 measure, its stateliness, its music, and its compre- 
 hension, I am not insensible of what Daniel* calls 
 those continual cadences, runnin^^ on with a sound 
 of one nature, and a kind of certainty that satiates 
 and fatigues the ear. You miss the sweet sur- 
 prises of the various lyric. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Waller seems to have preserved his courtliness 
 to the end of his days. St. Evremond said, that 
 he experienced none of the infirmities of old age, 
 and retained at fourscore, the gallantry and ten- 
 -deraess of his youth. But I look upon his cha- 
 racter with no affection. He resembled Prior some- 
 what in disposition, though not in genius; they 
 were both poets of society, deriving much of their 
 popularity from the liveliness of their conversation, 
 and the fashion and power of their associates. Of 
 such persons, wlio bustle their way into notice, 
 Petrarch has left a very caustic account in his 
 
 well remember. Ogilby's translation of Homer, was one of the 
 first large poems that I read — and it was that great edition 
 with pictures ; I was then about eight years old. This led me 
 to Sandys' Ovid, which I liked extremely." — These fragments 
 of autobiography are very delightful. 
 * Defence of Rhyme, 1603.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 203 
 
 Senilia. PJut a reputation of this kind is of a 
 perishable character ; the flame dies with the fan. 
 
 There is a story current at Cambridge, ilhis- 
 trative of Prior's extempore talents. On his 
 return from France, whither he had gone upon the 
 Queen's business, he paid a visit to the master of 
 his College — St. John's — who retained his seat 
 while the Queen's Envoy was permitted to stand. 
 During his walk to the inn, where he was staying 
 with a friend, he struck off the following epigram : — 
 
 I stood, Sir, patient at your feet, 
 
 Before your elbow chair, 
 But make a Bishop's throne your seat, 
 
 I'll hieel before you there. 
 
 One only thing can keep you down, 
 
 For your great soul too mean, 
 You'd not, to mount a Bishop's throne, 
 
 Pay ho7nage to the Queen. 
 
 The sting, you see, is not very acute. Prior's 
 forte was humour; and his Alma, with all its 
 defects, is the only poem we have to compare with 
 Hudihras, whose author he has praised with great 
 propriety and taste : — 
 
 He, consummate Master, knew 
 When to recede, and where pursue; 
 His noble negligences teach, 
 What others toils despair to reach.
 
 204 GRAY AXD MASOX. 
 
 lie, perfect dancer, climbs the rope, 
 And balances your fear and hope : 
 If after some distinguished leap, 
 He drops his pole, and seems to slip, 
 Straight gathering all his active strength, 
 He rises higher half his length. 
 
 His description of infant instruction is very 
 amusing: it is quite a juvenile reminiscence: — 
 
 I mentioned different ways of breeding ; 
 
 Begin we in our children's reading. 
 
 To master John, the English maid 
 
 A hornbook gives of ginger-bread. 
 
 And that the child may learn the better, 
 
 As he can name, he eats the letter. 
 
 Proceeding thus mth vast delight. 
 
 He spells and gnaws, from left to right : 
 
 But shoAV a Hebrew's hopeful son 
 
 Where we suppose the book begun, 
 
 The child would thank you for your kindness, 
 
 And read quite backward from onrjinis; 
 
 Devour he learning ne'er so fast. 
 
 Great A would be reserved the last. 
 
 Canto 2. 
 
 Pope only returned the compliment offered to 
 him in Alma by plundering it*. 
 
 * " Pope," remarks Slienstone, " I think never once men- 
 tions Prior ; though Prior speaks so handsomely of Pope in 
 his Alma. One might imagine, that the latter, indebted as he 
 was to the former for such numberless beauties, -should have
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 205 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Is it superior to the Spleen ? 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 It shows, perhaps, a stronger and richer mind, 
 though neither so playful, nor brightened by so 
 many happy flashes of thought; such as. News 
 " the manna of a day," — Ambition, " the active 
 lunacy of pride." Critics, — 
 
 Those tayl'ring artists for oiir lays, 
 Invent cramp'd rules, and with short stays, 
 Striving fair Nature's shape to hit, 
 Emaciate sense, before they fit. 
 
 These are touches of a very free and vigorous 
 pencil ; Greene seems to have learned from Nature, 
 what Prior, with infinite labour, acquired from 
 Art. But some of his smaller poems are perfect ; 
 they are written upon a plan, and realize the 
 remark of Dryden, that the sweetest essences 
 should be contained in the smallest glasses. Poems 
 comprising a few stanzas, require peculiar attention. 
 
 readily repaid tliis poetical obligation. This can only be im- 
 puted to pride or party cunning. In other words, to some 
 modification of selfishness." But though Pope was silent 
 respecting Prior, in his verses, he freely admitted liis merits, 
 declared his willingness to have been the author of Alma, and 
 numbered liim with the authorities for poetical language.
 
 206 GRAY AND MA SOX. 
 
 They are miniatures, wliose beauty is to be brought 
 out by repeated strokes. A rapid hand often de- 
 stroys the features. I can conceive a comedy or 
 tragedy to be written in less time than an ode. For 
 in the drama, the characters, like the scene, are 
 drawn somewhat out of nature; and the exaggera- 
 tion heightens the effect. Wycherley wrote the 
 Plain Dealer in three weeks, and Ben Jonson his 
 admirable Alchemist in six. Boileau took more 
 time to point a couplet. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Prior failed lamentably in his serious poetry. 
 Solomon, the fruit of so much toil and anxiety, has 
 ])roved a frail memorial of his genius*. No poem 
 within my memory bears such traces of the artist ; 
 the versification is elaborated to a degree that 
 l)ecomes painful even in the description of Abra : 
 
 And from the golden quiver at her side 
 Rustles the ebon arrow's feathered pride. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Every man is a parasite to himself; Prior loved 
 what it cost him so many days to accomplish. But 
 I can forgive all its defects for that passage in 
 
 * Yet in our day Solomon has found a very warm admirer 
 in Hannah More.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 207 
 
 which he portrays with equal beauty and truth, the 
 watchful tenderness of Abra : 
 
 But oh, how short ray interval of woe I 
 
 Our griefs hoAV swift ! our remedies how slow ! 
 
 Another nymph, for so did heaven ordain, 
 
 To change the manner, hut renew the pain; 
 
 Another nymph, among the many fair 
 
 That made my softer hours their solemn care, 
 
 Before the rest affected still to stand, 
 
 And watched my eye, preventing my command. 
 
 Abra was rcadi/^ ere I called her name^ 
 
 And iho I called another, Abra came ! 
 
 How could the companion of Chloe arrive at such 
 a sentiment .'' 
 
 MASON. 
 
 And I would except from my censure of his 
 serious poetry, the paraphrase of St. PauFs exhor- 
 tation to Charity. Some of the lines are exquisite 
 in their religious tenderness. 
 
 Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind. 
 Softens the high, and rears the abject mind ; 
 Knows with just reins and gentle hand to guide 
 Betwixt vile shame, and arbitrary pride; 
 Not soon provoked, she easily forgives. 
 And much she suffers, as she much believes. 
 Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives, 
 She builds our quiet, as she forms our lives;
 
 208 GRAY AND MASOX. 
 
 Lays the rough paths of peevish nature even, 
 And openx in each heart a Utile Heaven. 
 
 * * x- * x- 
 
 Then constant Faith and holy Hope shall die, 
 One lost in certainty, and one in joy; 
 Whilst thou, more happy power, fair Charity, 
 Triumphant sister, greatest of the three ; 
 Tliy office and thy nature still the same, 
 Lasting thy lamp, and unconsumed thy flame, 
 Shall still survive. 
 
 Shalt stand before the Host of Heaven confest. 
 For ever blessing, and for ever blest! 
 
 These affecting strains of Christian hope must 
 have come from a softened heart. Have you read 
 the new poem of Shenstone .'' 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 Shenstone was a gentle Elegiac person, inoffen- 
 sive in poetry and manners. It was said of Voiture 
 that he wrote only to divert parties over their tea ; 
 the Bard of the Leasowes seems to have been 
 actuated by a similar motive ; with one or two ex- 
 ceptions, his poems might have been scrawled while 
 a Summer shower drove him into his library. But 
 he was amiable, and not destitute of refinement and 
 sensibility ; though somewhat of a petit-maitre. 
 He loved showy colours in dress, delighted in
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 209 
 
 trinkets and perfumes*; designed the patterns for 
 snuff-boxes; played, sung, and painted flowers. 
 His chief antipathies were to cards and dancing. 
 The origin of that well-known verse, 
 
 Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round, 
 Where'er his stages may have been, 
 
 May sigh to think he still has found, 
 The warmest welcome at an imi, 
 
 is amusing. Shenstone happened, I think in 1750, 
 to visit his old Oxford friend Mr. Whistler. But 
 Friendship like Love flows rarely in a smooth cur- 
 rent. Various little occasions of disquiet arose ; 
 but the crowning indignity consisted in a ball, upon 
 which his host lavished much trouble and expense. 
 When the ominous hour approached, Shenstone, 
 regardless of many polite hints from Mr. Whistler, 
 continued lolling at his ease, taking snuff", and 
 indulging at intervals in a sharp allusion to the 
 folly of such trifles t. The observation awoke a 
 reply, the dispute waxed warmer every minute, and 
 
 * Why, he said, are perfumes so much decried; when a 
 person on his approach diiFuses them, does he not revive the 
 idea, which the ancients ever entertained, concerning the 
 descent of superior beings, " veiled in a cloud of fragrance ?" 
 This is the most ingenious apology ever offered for the Sir 
 Fopling Flutters of the age. 
 
 f Dancing in the rough, he said, is one of the most natural 
 expressions of joy, and coincides with jumping; when it is 
 regulated it is merely, cum ratione insanire, 
 
 P
 
 210 GRAY AND MASOK. 
 
 tlie poet bade adieu to liis friend"'s residence on the 
 following morning. On his arrival at Edgehill, he 
 wrote those lines in a summer-house in the garden ; 
 or, according to another account, on the window of 
 a tavern at Henley *. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Probably Shenstone''s love of gardening prejudices 
 me in his favour ; I certainly think more favourably 
 of histalentst; and read with pleasure of his 
 nursing — 
 
 * Gray's written opinion of Shenstone may be seen in his 
 Correspondence. " Poor Shenstone ! why does he not do bet- 
 ter ; he hops round his walks, (Mke a bird in a string, I suppose,) 
 and is afraid to venture beyond his hne. And again, with 
 greater severity, " His whole philosophy consisted in living 
 against his will, in a retu'ement wliich his taste had adorned ; 
 but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see 
 and commend it." With this it may not be uninteresting to 
 compare Shenstone's far more flattering character of Gray. 
 " What shall we say then of i\Ir. Gray, of manners very deli- 
 cate, yet possessed of a poetical vein, fraught with the noblest 
 and sublimest images, and of a mind remarkably well stored 
 with the more masculine parts of learning." 
 
 ■j- Mason mentions him with kindness in The English 
 
 Garden. 
 
 Nor, Shenstone, thou 
 
 Shalt pass without thy meed, thou sou of peace, 
 Who knew'st perchance to harmonize thy shades. 
 Still softer than thy song ; yet was that song 
 Nor rude nor inharmonious, when attuned 
 To pastoral plaint, or tale of slighted love. 
 Although Shenstone's reputation as a poet almost entirely
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 211 
 
 The flame 
 
 On listening Cherwell's osier banks reclined; 
 
 or playing in " Alma's guardian arms." His verses, 
 indeed, want strength and animation ; and, what is 
 most surprising of all, are destitute of any pic- 
 turesque sketches of scenery. 
 
 GRAY. , 
 
 If he ever walked out of his own grounds, it must 
 have been with his eyes shut. 
 
 depends upon his imitation of Spenser, he does not speak of 
 him with much regard. " The plan of the Fairy Queen,''^ he 
 says, " appears to me very imperfect. His imagination very 
 extensive, though somewhat less so, perhaps, than is generally 
 allowed ; if one considers the faciUty of realizing and equip- 
 ping forth the, virtues and vices. His metre has some advan- 
 tages, though in many respects objectionable. His good-nature 
 is visible tlu-ough every part of the poem. His conjunction of 
 the Pagan and Christian scheme (as he introduces both acting 
 simultaneously) wholly inexcusable Much art and judgment 
 are discovered in parts, and but little in the whole. One may 
 entertain some doubt whether the perusal of his monstrous 
 descriptions be not as prejudicial to true taste, as it is advan- 
 tageous to the extent of imagination. Spenser to be sure ex- 
 pands the last ; but then he expands it beyond its due limits. 
 After aU there are many favourite passages in his Fairy Queen, 
 which will be instances of a great and cultivated genius mis- 
 applied." Some of these remarks are accurate, but the tone is 
 cold and disagreeable. He, of whose pictures we may say, as 
 Reynolds, I think, remarked of Rubens, tliat one is sufficient 
 to illuminate a room, demands a different style of criticism. 
 
 P 2
 
 212 GRAY AND MASON, 
 
 MASON. 
 
 He has, however, written two poems which ought 
 to preserve his name — The Elegy on Jessy, and 
 the School-mistress. For purity of language, me- 
 lody of versification, and simplicity of style, the 
 elegy deserves high praise. The following stanza 
 always affected me by its nature and tenderness. 
 
 If through the garden's flowery tribes I stray, 
 
 Where blooms the Jasmine that could once allure, 
 
 Hope not to find delight in us they say, 
 For we are spotless, Jessy, we are pure! 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 The " flowery tribes" is pedantic. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 In the School-mistress he was painting from his 
 own remembrance of that village dame under whom 
 he received his first instruction; he might have taken 
 for his motto, Qiiceque ipse miser rima vidi. The 
 sister beholding the perilous situation of her brother, 
 is a very natural picture. 
 
 O ruthful scene ! when from a nook obscure. 
 His little sister doth his peril see: 
 
 All playful as she sat, she grows demure ; 
 She finds full soon her wonted spirits flee;
 
 A SUMMEll DAY WITH THE MUSES. 213 
 
 She meditates a prayer to set him free : 
 Nor gentle pardon could this dame deny, 
 
 (If gentle pardon could mth dames agree) 
 To her sad grief that swells in either eye, 
 And wrings her so, that all for pity she could die. 
 
 So is that of the urchin sullenly brooding upon his 
 chastisement : — 
 
 Behind some door, in melancholy thought, 
 
 Mindless of food, he, dreary caitiff! pines; 
 Ne for his fellows' joyaunce careth ought, 
 
 But to the wind all merriment resigns; 
 
 And deems it shame if he to peace inclines ; 
 And many a sullen look askance is sent. 
 
 Which for his dame's annoyance he designs; 
 And still the more to pleasure him she's bent, 
 The more doth he, perverse, her 'haviour past resent. 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 I like the School-mistress exceedingly; but he 
 should have written prose ; one or two fragments 
 have impressed me with a higher opinion of his 
 talent, penetration, and good sense, than any of his 
 rhymes*. However, if he has not deeply enriched 
 
 * This remark seems to be well-founded. His prose re- 
 mains, imperfect and desultory as they are, frequently strike 
 us by their point and truth. How full of sound thought and 
 reflection are these observations. " Let us be careful to dis- 
 tingmsh modesty, which is ever amiable, from reserve, which 
 is only prudent. * * What is often tenned shyness, is nothing 
 more than refined sense, and an indifference to common ob-
 
 214 GKAY AND MASON. 
 
 our literature by his invention, we owe perlia})s to 
 his suggestion the publication of those admirable 
 Reliques of English Poetry, which have infused 
 into the modern Muse healthier and purer blood. 
 Having well-nigh talked down the sun, we may 
 bid farewell to the Lyre. 
 
 MASON. 
 
 Without a word for our contemporaries ? 
 
 GltAY. 
 
 Dulness is a sacred power; but there is one 
 name to be mentioned with pleasure — Oliver Gold- 
 smith. I happened to be with Mr. Nichols, in the 
 Summer, at Malvern, when he received a copy of 
 
 serrations." This is the true reason why men of highly cul- 
 tivated minds and imaginative feelings rarely shine in ordinary 
 society. Their remarks are not understood : the coin is of a 
 foreign covmtry. Spenser woidd have been eclipsed by Mr. 
 Wakley at a meeting of the Tail. Again, " I cannot see why 
 people are ashamed to acknowledge their passion for popu- 
 larity. The love of populaiity is the love of being beloved :" 
 this, too, shows an acquaintance with the heart. " The term 
 Indecision in a man's character, implies an idea very nicely 
 different from that of Irresolution ; yet it has a tendency to 
 produce it ; and, like that, has often its original in excessive 
 delicacy and refinement." In fine, if he had remembered his 
 own saj-ing, that love-verses, wi-itten without real passion, are 
 often the most nauseous of all conceits, he would have given 
 us less of Philhs and Daphne, and more of nature and common 
 sense. Goldsmith admired Shenstone ; but what he meant by 
 his "warm imagination," I cannot teU.
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 215 
 
 the Deserted Village, and being struck by the 
 beauty of a line, I requested him to read the poem 
 aloud. That man, said I, when he had ended, is 
 a poet. The clearness and felicity of his diction, 
 the homeliness of his theme, and the familiar pathos 
 of his illustrations, delighted me. Let me predict 
 for the author a wide and lasting reputation. He 
 will please the roany and the few ; the reader and 
 the critic ; the heart and the fancy 
 
 MASON. 
 
 I think you admire some of Mr. Johnson's verses 
 in London, 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 It is one of the few imitations possessing the fire 
 and completeness of an original. But the very 
 intensity of its English feeling destroys the air of 
 resemblance. Its rage has none of the sportiveness 
 of Juvenal, who makes even 
 
 His desperate passes with a smile. 
 
 Satire, as the name imports, implies a richness, a 
 variety, and a combination of materials: London 
 has all these; and the Moralist might anticipate 
 some reformation of the times, if the history of 
 every age did not teach us how difficult it is to 
 scourge a nation into virtue.
 
 216 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 Labeo is whipt, and laughs me in tlie face ; 
 Why? for I smite and hide the galled place. 
 Gird hut the Cynic's helmet on his head, 
 Cares he for Talus or his flail of lead. 
 
 Bishop Hall. 
 
 There is always a succession of Labeos. A satirist 
 must be a man of the world : familiar with the 
 motives and the passions of men ; for the anatomy 
 of sin requires not only an untrembling, but a 
 practised hand. London is a fine specimen of 
 rhetoric in rhyme. Walpole, however, differs 
 from me : yet I am certainly not prejudiced in the 
 writer's favour. The occasional brutality of his 
 invective, the abruptness of his manner, and the 
 want of all refinement in his poetical tastes, are not 
 recommendations to me. 
 
 I happened one day to be w alking through the 
 city with a friend, when we beheld a large uncouth 
 figure rolling before us, in whom I at once recog- 
 nised the cumbrous person of Johnson ; and touch- 
 ing my companion on the arm, I said, perhaps 
 loud enough to be heard. Look! look! Bonstetten! 
 the Great Bear! There goes Ursa Major. After 
 all. Sir Henry Wotton's maxim is the best: — The 
 winds are tale-bearers. 
 
 MASOX. 
 
 Indignation is an admirable Muse. How hap-
 
 A SUMMER DAY WITH THE MUSES. 217 
 
 pily JuvenaFs character of Lucilius applies to 
 himself : — 
 
 Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens 
 Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est 
 Criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa. 
 
 Juvenars prose declamations — the preparatory exer- 
 cises of his poetical genius — are a loss to literature. 
 He had the nerve, the rapidity, the condensation 
 of a great orator — a Latin Demosthenes. How 
 little is to be gleaned of his history ; unlike the 
 lively friend of Maecenas, who has left us an 
 autobiography in his works*! 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 The incidental allusions to the writer's feelings 
 and family are delightful features in a true poem ; 
 they even interest you in an inferior work. Statins, 
 as you know, is ridiculed by Juvenal for his love 
 of public readings ; but j^ou feel inclined to pardon 
 his vanity for that touching allusion to the pre- 
 sence of his father, and his joy at the success and 
 popularity of his son : — 
 
 Qualis eras, Latios quoties ego carmine patres 
 
 Mulcerem, felixque tui spectator adesses 
 
 Muneris: heu quali confusus gaudia fletu 
 
 Vota, jwosque metus inter, leetumque pudorem! 
 
 Quum tuus ille dies, qua non mihi gloria major. 
 
 Sylv. V. 215. 
 * Horace.
 
 218 GRAY AND MASON. 
 
 The longing eye cast about the room, to discover 
 his friend, Crispinus, among the audience, is hardly 
 less interesting, Statius had a sweet voice and an 
 elegant manner — qualities that fall to the lot of 
 few poets.
 
 219 
 THE DESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 
 
 Even such the contrast that, where'er we move, 
 
 To the mind's eye Rehgion doth present; 
 
 Now with her own deep quietness content; 
 
 Then like the nwjuntain, thundering from above, 
 
 Against the ancient Pine-trees of the gi'ove. 
 
 And the Land's humblest comforts. Now her mood 
 
 Recalls the transformation of the flood. 
 
 Whose rage the gentle skies in vain reprove, 
 
 Earth cannot check. terrible excess 
 
 Of headstrong will ! Can this be Piety ? 
 
 No — some fierce INIaniac hath usurped her name ; 
 
 And scourges England struggling to be free ; 
 
 Her peace destroyed ! her hopes a wilderness ! 
 
 Her blessings cursed — her glory tm'ned to shame ! 
 
 Troubles of Charles the First *. 
 
 The Destructives in 1643 were only more mis- 
 chievous than the Destructives of 1836, because 
 they possessed a wider influence, and a more care- 
 fully organized plan of sedition. The Monster 
 had a Head as well as a Tail. In adjusting the 
 balance of the comparison, the larger share of sin- 
 cerity and independent honesty is due to the revo- 
 lutionists of 43. Their patriotism, however pain- 
 fully misdirected, was not altogether a fiction ; the 
 
 " Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sketches.
 
 220 THE DESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 political features of the Confederacy, though swollen 
 with evil passions, and burning with the intoxication 
 of ambitious intemperance, were redeemed and 
 humanized by traces of gentler expression. Agi- 
 tation was not reduced into a profession ; even 
 Ireland did not array her Mendicants in purple. 
 Amid all the ferocity of invective, all the malignity 
 of hatred, all the intolerance of legislation, indica- 
 tions of better and wiser feehngs were to be dis- 
 covered. I speak now of the more eminent leaders 
 of the Party. The Destructives of 1643 found an 
 advocate in — Milton ; the Destructives of 1836 in 
 — Roebuck ! 
 
 Into that afflicting portion of our history it is 
 unnecessary to return. Its annals are a household 
 story, in the memory of every one. The storm had 
 long been gathering ; the lightning tarried only for 
 a conductor. It found one in Cromwell, a man 
 whose character has defied the acutest observers, 
 and in whom hypocrisy wears the aspect of truth. 
 His connexion with Cambridge is not the least 
 singular passage of his biography. He was entered 
 of Sidney, according to a memorandum in the Col- 
 lege Register, on the 23rd of April, 1616 ; and some 
 memorials of him yet remain. 
 
 His bust, executed by Bernini, from a plaster- 
 cast taken after death, is in the Master*'s Lodge, 
 having been brought from Italy by Professor
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 221 
 
 Marty n ; and the celebrated portrait drawn in 
 crayons by Cooper, hangs in the Library, displaying 
 in every feature the deep penetration, undaunted 
 vigour, and self-confidence of its original. In the 
 garden formerly stood a pear-tree, said to have been 
 planted by Cromwell. It was cut down in March, 
 1833. His illustrious Latin Secretary has been 
 more fortunate. The mulberry-tree, planted by the 
 youthful student of Christ's, still flourishes in the 
 pleasant garden of the college. Some years ago it 
 suffered considerably from a violent gale of wind, 
 which sadly shattered it ; but its aged boughs are 
 now carefully propped up, and its trunk protected 
 by a partial covering of lead. With these aids it 
 promises to look green for many years to come ; its 
 fertility appears to have undergone no change ; in 
 the Summer it is laden with fruit, of which more 
 than two bushels of the finest flavour were gathered 
 in the last season. Many interesting anecdotes are 
 told of the homage paid to this venerable tree. I 
 was amused by the ardour of a visiter from America, 
 who, as he approached it, raised his hat from his 
 head wjth expressions of unfeigned admiration. 
 Enthusiasm only becomes ridiculous when excited 
 by an unworthy object. In America, indeed, the 
 author of Paradise Lost is regarded with even 
 deeper veneration than by ourselves. The smallest 
 fragments from his mulberry-tree are religiously
 
 222 THE DESTRUCTIVKS IN 1643. 
 
 cherished ; and, within the last few weeks, a shp 
 lias been sent to one of the most remote situations 
 of that miglity continent. May it take root and 
 flourish, until the goodly boughs thereof stretch out 
 unto the river; thus shall it become more sacred 
 than the Grecian Oak ; more sublime in its oracles ; 
 more pure in its wisdom ; more lasting in its fame! 
 
 For the idle affectation that delights to collect 
 relics merely for their scarcity, no contempt can be 
 too severe ; but I confess myself to have derived a 
 peculiar pleasure, while lately reading the poems of 
 Milton, from marking the various resting-places 
 with his own mulberry-leaves ; for I could not look 
 upon those inanimate memorials without bringing 
 before my eyes the flowing locks, the clear blue 
 eyes, the delicate complexion of the Lady of his 
 College ; ere the violence of political animosity, 
 or the austerity of religious sectarianism, had cast a 
 shadow upon the beauty of his youth. 
 
 Nor let these feelings be idly passed by. How 
 often, while wandering along the rural lanes of 
 Weston, or the pleasant fields of Bemerton, or 
 musing in the lonely churchyard of Welwyn, or 
 among those groves once haunted by Francis Beau- 
 mont — that " eager child," — have the lines of 
 Wordsworth arisen to my lips : 
 
 More sweet than odours caught by liim who sails 
 Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 223 
 
 A thousand times more exquisitely sweet, 
 The freight of holy feeling which we meet 
 In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales, 
 From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein 
 they rest. 
 
 Cowley has been dearer to my heart after sitting 
 in the little chamber at Chertsey. 
 
 In looking back at the sufferings of the Uni- 
 versity, we are reminded of the prophetic declaration 
 of Cleveland, who, after a strenuous but ineffectual 
 opposition to the election of Cromwell for the town 
 of Cambridge, which he gained by a majority of 
 one, is reported to have exclaimed, " That single 
 vote has ruined both Church and State ! " Cleve- 
 land was of St. John's; and his pupil. Bishop Lake, 
 has called him the delight and ornament of that 
 Society; he enriched the library, improved the 
 chapel, and elevated the character of the college. 
 The protection obtained for the University by its 
 chancellor, the Earl of Holland, was only nominal. 
 The occupation of the town by Cromwell with the 
 forces of the Parliament, was not likely to be very 
 propitious to piety or to learning. 
 
 Of the insults to which the members of the 
 University were exposed during this Reign of 
 Terror, accounts have been preserved by eye- 
 witnesses. The tyranny of the soldiers was not 
 confined to the destruction of painted glass ; while
 
 224f THE UESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 the senate, says Dr. Bastwick, was solemnly as- 
 sembled in the Regent House, it was surrounded 
 by armed bands, " who wanted nothing but the 
 word to despatch us," because they refused to 
 confer a degree upon some individual, whose only 
 merit consisted in his republicanism. The fanati- 
 cism of the Sectaries broke out in various excesses. 
 The Lady Margaret's public preacher, Mr Power, 
 of Christ's, on his road to church, was pursued 
 across the market-place by the infuriate soldiers, 
 shouting, " a Pope — a Pope.'''' Even the Scriptures 
 did not escape the general sacrilege*. The Prayer- 
 Book was torn at St. Mary's in the presence of 
 Cromwell, who rebuked the clerk for complaining 
 of the desecration. The plate was taken away 
 from the Communion-Table of St. John's. The 
 college gardens were everywhere broken up ; the 
 orchards cut down ; the Grove of Jesus, albeit, 
 says Fuller, no idolatrous one, was levelled with 
 the ground. 
 
 Fuller closes his history of the University with 
 the following characteristic notice of his own 
 college. In Queen's " there was made a thorougli 
 reformation ; neither master, fellow, nor scholar, 
 being left of the foundation ; so that, according to 
 the laws of the Admiralty, it might seem a true 
 wreck, and forfeited in this Land-Tempest for lack 
 
 • See tlie Querela Cantabrigiensls for other circumstances.
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 225 
 
 of a live thing therein, to preserve the propriety 
 thereof. However, some conceived this a great 
 severity, contrary to the eternal moral of the Jewish 
 Law, provided against the depopulation of birds' 
 nests, that the old and young ones should not 
 be destroyed together. But to prevent a vacuity, 
 (that detestation of Nature,) a new plantation was 
 soon substituted in their room, who, short of the 
 former in their learning and abilities, went beyond 
 them in good affections to the Parliament." The 
 only names to which the apologists of this violent 
 ejection can point with any propriety, are Cud- 
 worth and Lightfoot, scholars of wliom any 
 nation or age might be proud. 
 
 The Reformation, as it was called, of the Uni- 
 versity, was intrusted to the Earl of Manchester, 
 of whom Clarendon has left a very honourable 
 character. But he was the minister of men, in 
 whose breasts his own gentleness could have found 
 no echo, and the nature of his mission precluded 
 the indulgence of any lenient feeling towards a 
 |:)ersecuted scholar. It was during this period that 
 we may suppose the following brief conversation 
 to have occurred. Few readers of English litera- 
 ture, and no lovers of pure and ennobling religion, 
 are unacquainted with Henry More, the early friend 
 of Milton, whose silence respecting him is not more 
 unfortunate than surprising. That he appreciated 
 
 Q.
 
 226 THE DESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 his glowing- eloquence, his simple manners, his 
 extended learning, his almost primitive piety, can- 
 not be questioned. More was a poet in mind ; not 
 in ear. He kindled his torch at the shrine of 
 Spenser, whose enthusiasm he imbibed without his 
 music. His verses never beam with any of his 
 master's lustre. What Warburton said of a spirit 
 equally tender and amiable, is also applicable to 
 More. " Poetry made Milton an enthusiast ; 
 enthusiasm made Norris a poet." Indeed, his own 
 definition of a true poet, is an enthusiast in good 
 earnest. His ideas of the art were lofty and 
 dignified : — 
 
 Whatever man he be that dares to deem 
 True poets' skill to spring of earthly race, 
 I must him tell that he doth misesteem 
 Their strange estate, and eke himself disgrace 
 By his rude ignorance. For there's no place 
 For forced labour, or slow industry 
 Of flagging wits, in that high fiery chase ; 
 So soon as of the Muse they quicken'd be, 
 At once they rise, and lively sing like lark in skie. 
 
 Like to a meteor, whose material 
 
 Is low unwieldly earth, base imctuous slime, 
 
 Whose inward hidden parts ethereal. 
 
 Lie close up-\ATapt in that dull sluggish ^we, 
 
 Lie fast asleep, till at some fatal time 
 
 Great Phoebus' lamp has fired its inward spright. 
 
 And then even of itself on high doth climb ;
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 227 
 
 That erst was dark becomes all eye, all sight, 
 Bright star that to the wise of future things gives 
 light. 
 
 Whoever is conversant with the prose writings of 
 More, and they are mines of precious thought and 
 originahty of argument, will probably recognise in 
 the following conversation, a reflection, though a 
 faint one, of his- beautiful and enthusiastic mind. 
 Of Beaumont a brief notice will be sufficient. He 
 was a descendant of the family that gave us the 
 author of Bosworth Field, and the friend and 
 companion of Fletcher. During his absence from 
 Cambridge, he composed his elaborate poem Psyche 
 — which Southey, who usually finds something to 
 admire in our elder writers, has condemned to 
 ])erpetual oblivion. It requires, indeed, a bold 
 heart to travel over its endless cantos; yet the path 
 is not uncheered by flowers, nor the scenes destitute 
 of interest. The principal defects arise out of the 
 interminable allegories with which he swells the 
 work ; the portraits want vigour and decision ; and 
 even in the poem retain a dim and shadowy appear- 
 ance. The picture of Drowsiness, however, is not 
 without merit : — 
 
 Up from the water crept a heavy cloud 
 Of dusky vapours, on whose shoulders rid 
 Fat Drowsiness, who ruhb'd her eyes, and how'd 
 Down to her bosom her unwieldly head. 
 
 'i2
 
 228 THE DESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 The life of More was one continued abstraction 
 from the business and occupations of the world, and 
 we may easily paint to our fancy his dismay and 
 affliction when a hasty step was heard at his door, 
 and Beaumont rushed into the chamber with the 
 melancholy intelligence. We hear him exclaiming 
 in the sorrow of his heart : — " Then the cloud hath 
 liroken upon us at last. And are they all to depart ?" 
 
 BEAUAIOXT. 
 
 The spoilers spare none. 
 
 MORE. 
 
 And Cow-ley.-* 
 
 BEAUMONT. 
 
 Yes! 
 
 MORE. 
 
 And Crashaw.^ 
 
 BEAUMONT. 
 
 All!— all! 
 
 IMORE. 
 
 Then let me arise and depart. Some sequestered 
 valley will open before my feet; some humble 
 cottage wall welcome the poor pilgrim. Yet ere I 
 go hence, I will tread again that quiet garden 
 where the sun hath so often gone down upon me 
 with dear John Milton, and that beloved youth*, 
 
 * Edward Kincr,
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 229 
 
 over whose head the billows of the sea have swept. 
 I would carry away with me a leaf of the nud- 
 berry-tree. And then let me cheer my heart with 
 the chamber of Spenser, and wander once more 
 along tlie green orchard of Pembroke, where the 
 Martyr Ridley so often walked, learning by heart 
 the Epistles of the New Testament. O blessed 
 name! a virtue and a strength goeth of thee into 
 the heart; enlivening faith, kindling hope, sanc- 
 tifying sorrow. What an unyielding soul ! what 
 an invincible courage; what a rejoicing in the 
 sharpest pangs; what a triumph in the depth of 
 degradation ! Oh, my friend, when tossed about 
 by the storm and waves, — hated and scorned for 
 conscience sake, let us remember how Ridley stared 
 in the face of Death. If we believe like him, we 
 shall conquer like him ; the same Hand can make 
 us mighty, even in our weakness ; victorious even 
 in our death. Then shall we exclaim with a joyful 
 heart — " I am now ready to be offered ; I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course ; I 
 have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for 
 me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
 righteous Judge, shall give me at that day*.^' 
 
 BEAUMONT- 
 
 It is the high privilege of the Christian not only 
 * Second Epistle to Timothy, iv, T, 8.
 
 230 THE DESTRUCTIVES IX 1643. 
 
 to believe on his Divine Master, but to suffer for 
 him * . 
 
 MORE. 
 
 Ay, truly. Peace can sit and sing by a dim 
 hearth, and refresh herself with a crust of bread, 
 and make her spirits dance with a cup of water, 
 more merrily than the warmest worshipper of that 
 sparkling deity enthroned in his crystalline heaven -f-. 
 Religion, too, ever follows her sister Peace; they 
 will both go with the scholar to his hermitage. 
 Sunday shall guide me through the darkest week 
 with its sacred torch ; and I can still bathe my 
 heart in the fragrancy of the Gospel, and lighten 
 my eyes with the dawn of a better day; and hang 
 upon the neck of David, and sit down by the foun- 
 tain of Siloe. Though they put me in bonds, yet 
 shall I be free ; for I can still wander through the 
 corn-fields to Emmaus ; and listen to the Precepts 
 of everlasting truth on the Mount of Olives : walk 
 wliere He walked, dwell where He dwelt. This 
 peace the world can neither give, nor take away. 
 
 BEAUMOXT. 
 
 I, too, have some pleasant dreams to carry with 
 
 * St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, i. 29. 
 ■f Tliis description of Bacchus is given almost in the words 
 of More.
 
 HENRY MORE AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 231 
 
 me to my native village; some snatches of song, 
 though rude and unlearned, yet sweet to my ear, 
 and hereafter, perchance, to be linked into softer 
 harmony. But this darkness may flee away; mercy 
 may even now be shining behind the cloud : the 
 times of refreshment from the countenance of the 
 Lord may be at hand*. 
 
 MORE. 
 
 Nay, I do not despair: the holy Prophet tells 
 us, that when the enemy cometh in like a flood, 
 then shall the Spirit of the Lord uplift a standard 
 against it. And do not all Histories, those Con- 
 fessions of Time, confirm the declaration ? How 
 often have the fiery Thrones and Principalities of 
 Darkness grown pale before the Army of Martyrs ! 
 In the blackest night of the Church this Banner 
 hath been uplifted. Even in those dreadful days 
 of persecution, when the gloom was illuminated 
 only by the torches of maddening zeal, and the 
 glare of hungry flames preying upon the innocent ; 
 when Superstition, and Hate, and Revenge roamed 
 through the land ; even then, while the Enemy 
 did, indeed, rush in like a flood, the Spirit of the 
 Lord uplifted a Standard against it! And so shall 
 it be again. This fury of the Philistines shall be 
 
 • Acts iii. 16.
 
 232 THK DESTRUCTIVES IN 1643. 
 
 beaten down ; these overflowings of ungodliness 
 driven back. Of a truth, the Enemy doth come in 
 like a flood, and with the roar of many waters ; but 
 the Spirit of the Lord shall open the glittering 
 folds of its Standard, and make the proud waves 
 thereof to be stayed. God chasteneth his ungrate- 
 ful children in divers manners. This heavy scourge 
 may be a Father's visitation upon the crimes of his 
 people ; and of a truth, the savour of them hath 
 long gone up on high from a thousand altars to 
 Belial. We are too like the barren fig-tree ; year 
 after year the Lord calleth for fruit, but none is 
 found ; the rain and the dew from heaven distil 
 upon us, yet we put forth nothing but leaves; 
 Summer and Winter — still we only cumber the 
 ground. We shelter none, we refresh none. At 
 length the curse goeth forth — Never fruit grow 
 on thee more! Is it not so ? 
 
 BEAUMONT. 
 
 Alas ! I fear ! 
 
 MORE. 
 
 The sins of every one of us call sternly for 
 repentance ; the scholar hath made an Idol of his 
 learning, the poet of his fancy, the statesman of his 
 eloquence. Prosperity hath inebriated our hearts 
 with new wine ; we. have soiled our Garments at
 
 HENRY MORF. AND JOSEPH BEAUMONT. 233 
 
 her Festival*. Yet not all — Piety and Learning 
 have some true and devout disciples. God in his 
 provident mercy hath never suffered these Stars of 
 the moral world to be wanting. They shine upon 
 us by night and day, cheering and guiding our 
 course over the most tempestuous and dreary sea. 
 Nor do we make the perilous voyage alone. Shall 
 we then — creatures of little faith ! — cry aloud at 
 the dashing of the waves, and the tumult of the 
 storm, We perish ! we perish ! as if He who is with 
 us either slumbered or slept .'' 
 
 BEAUMONT. 
 
 Let us rather arm ourselves for the combat. 
 
 MORE. 
 
 But ah, how vain a poor scholar "'s armoury 
 against this onset ; how weak his sling against such 
 a Goliah ! Eloquence, mighty though it be, over- 
 throws not the Giant ; words of themselves, however 
 
 * The following remark occurs in More's Discoxtrse on 
 James i., 27, True religion and undefiled before God and the 
 Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affiiction, 
 and to keep himself unspotted from the world. " The word 
 a.aTTtX'iv signifies proj^erly such kind of spots as are in clothes, 
 by spilling some liquid or oily tiling on them. An liard task 
 certainly to be religious at this height. Is it to be thought 
 possible that we should wear the Garment of Mortality every 
 day, nay every hour and moment, for thirty, forty, fifty, sixty 
 years together, and soil it by no mischance or miscarriage, 
 either of careless youth, violent manhood, or palsied old age ?"
 
 234 THE DESTRUCTIVES IN J 643. 
 
 noble, are harmless as the shadow of Hercules' Club 
 in the sunshine*. With such a blow the brain of 
 the Nemean Lion was never shaken -f-. Neither 
 have my studies or habits of thought led me to 
 these thorny paths of controversy. Here have I 
 dwelt for so many years, that every old stone has 
 become dear to me. I have slept the sleep of life 
 in yonder chamber; I would sleep the pleasant 
 sleep of death in yonder chapel."" 
 
 The poet"'s prayer was granted ; he was unharmed 
 amid the general rapine ; they left him to dream 
 with Plato in his academic bower:|:. 
 
 * See Semion on Peter xxii. 23. 
 
 f See the twenty-fifth Idyll of Theocritus. 
 
 ^ Campbell.
 
 235 
 
 THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 
 
 £Ti wpo; ocvrov i^Xeirov ui<; ipavvra. ti, titi^viji.uv ay.oveni. 
 
 Plato, Protag. 
 
 AVhat a rabble has persecuted my friend, in these 
 latter times, the glory of his country. An ele- 
 phant is born to be consumed by ants in his un-. 
 approachable solitude. Wordsworth is the prey 
 of Jeffrey. Such was the indignant wail of the 
 Voice from Italy*; but the dream has undergone 
 a change. 
 
 That mild Apostate from poetic rule t, 
 
 has lived to realize his own noble declaration, that 
 there are select Spirits for whom it is ordained that 
 their fame shall be in the world an existence like 
 that of Virtue, which owes its being to the struggles 
 it makes, and to the enemies it provokes ; a viva- 
 cious quality, ever doomed to meet with opposition, 
 
 • Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 •j- English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
 
 236 THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 and still triumphing over it. The temples they 
 have erected may, indeed, be neglected for a season, 
 but this disregard endures not long ; the heart will 
 at length vindicate itself, and weary of the pursuit 
 after false idols, return with renewed delight to the 
 shrine of a simpler and purer worship. Those glit- 
 tering productions of fancy, which are thrown forth 
 wath such rapidity and ease from many minds, 
 dissolve with the faintest handling; the sunny 
 bubbles vanish with the touch. But the structures 
 piled up by the hands of Genius know not decay ; 
 no storm of the popular elements can deface or 
 shatter them ; like vast columns of cloudless jasper 
 they continue to illuminate the intellectual universe. 
 So it is with Shakspeare, with Milton, and with 
 Spenser. And if we do not elevate the author of 
 the E.vcursion to an equal rank, it is not from in- 
 sensibility to his rare and admirable faculties. But 
 that Triumvirate admits of no addition ; they are, 
 and must continue, the Immortal Three, — unap- 
 proached and unapproachable. 
 
 To all who adequately estimate the influence of 
 true poetry upon the moral feelings, the widening 
 fame of ]\Ir. Wordsworth must be a source of deep 
 satisfaction ; and reflecting upon its beneficial dif- 
 fusion, our thanks are due to those Interpreters by 
 whom its hidden beauty and wisdom have been 
 unfolded to the common eye, and among them is
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 237 
 
 one name not to be pronounced without sentiments 
 of earnest enthusiasm by every admirer of fervid 
 eloquence, and generous and animating- criticism. 
 Need I mention Professor Wilson, whose kindred 
 illustrations of kindred genius always seem to em- 
 body the lines of Marlow — 
 
 "Where Beauty, mother of the Muses, sits, 
 And comments volumes with her ivory Pen. 
 
 St. John's has added a charm to its venerable Com- 
 bination Room in the portrait of Mr. Wordsworth 
 by Pickersgill, which is not inappropriately hung 
 opposite to that of Sir John Herschell ; at a cer- 
 tain point, says De Stael, Poetry and Science meet. 
 Its resemblance to the Poet is happy and striking; 
 though glowing, perhaps, with a ruddier health. 
 
 Of Professor Smythe, the worthy occupier of the 
 Chair of Gray, all parties have spoken, and con- 
 tinue to speak, in terms of equal regard ; even 
 Byron, while training a Bear to sit for a Trinity 
 Fellowship, and pleasantly commemorating the 
 Vandals of Cambridgeshire, excepted him from the 
 catalogue. One fault, however, may justly be 
 objected to him ; like his greatest predecessor, he 
 has written too little. I can still remember, after 
 the lapse of many years, a small volume of Poems, 
 said by the Edinburgh Reviewer, to be finished 
 with all the delicacy of a moonhght landscape.
 
 238 THE ]'OET WOIIDSWORTH 
 
 He has inherited the taste with the fastidiousness 
 of Gray; and amid all the revolutions of literary 
 opinions, remains faithful, among the faithless, to 
 the school of Dryden and of Pope. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 Yet he fought every inch of ground with the 
 Pubhc. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 True, but perseverance is not always an indica- 
 tion of great abilities; an indifferent poet is in- 
 vulnerable by a repulse, the want of sensibility 
 being in him what a noble self-confidence was in 
 Milton. These excluded Suitors continue, never- 
 theless, to hang their garlands at the gate, to anoint 
 the door-post, and even kiss the very threshold of 
 her home, though the Muse beckons them not in. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 I perceive that you have not read Lucretius in 
 vain. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The mantle of Darwin is not worn out; it 
 still covers many shoulders. His rouged and tin- 
 selly Muse rejoices in numerous admirers. The 
 same Taste seems to preside over our poetry and 
 our drama ; in both. Pageants are supreme ; in 
 both, the gilded cymbals are equally important.
 
 AND PROFESSOll SMYTHE. 239 
 
 Nothing can be more vicious than the profusion of 
 similes — those spangles of the poetical apparel — 
 which abound in our rhymes. Fuller, indeed, 
 said truly that Similes are the windows that give 
 the best light ; but windows suppose the existence 
 of a corresponding structure. The rhymers to 
 whom I refer have nothing to light ; and in those 
 who advance some pretensions to architectural skill, 
 we may notice a lamentable deficiency in what Pope 
 so happily called, in reference to a sister art, the 
 reasoning of the eye. They seem to possess no 
 idea of harmony in their colours, — of proportion in 
 their parts. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 A very fatal delusion among modern writers of 
 verse, is the humble opinion they entertain of its 
 difficulties; a subject upon which your friend, 
 Mr. Coleridge, has been very eloquent. I have 
 seen the assertion of one who, through a long life, 
 has been thirsting after fame, that Genius is all, 
 art and toil nothing. How erroneous in philo- 
 sophy; how unfounded in fact. On what produc- 
 tion, kept alive by the love of ages, shall we found 
 such an axiom ; on the elaborate tenderness of 
 Euripides ; the chastened beauty of Sophocles ; 
 the costly weavings of Ben Jonson; the diligent 
 purity of Virgil ; the Gerusalemme of Tasso : the
 
 24<0 THE POET WORDSWORTH "^ 
 
 Commedia of Dante ; the patiently-wrought en- 
 chantments of Ariosto : or to contract the illustra- 
 tion, shall we support it upon that immortal poem, 
 into which, after " long choosing and beginning 
 late," Milton poured the wealth of fifty years ? 
 The aphorism ought to run thus: " Genius with- 
 out art and toil is nothing." Its brightness only 
 breaks out in flashes ; it will have no clear orb of 
 splendour. The absence of art assumes the want 
 of a plan ; Avithout which no long poem will sur- 
 vive. Even Spenser, who was too often seduced 
 by the caresses of his Fancy, saw the necessity of 
 artistical skill ; as Prior has ingeniously remarked, 
 all his flowery paths seem to conduct him into one 
 great road*. You have rightly explained Genius 
 to be the art of doing well what is worthy to be 
 done, and what was nevei- done before. A defini- 
 tion from which flow two inferences : the first im- 
 plying, diligence ; the second, originality. These 
 qualities are self-dependent: you find both in 
 Gray. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 I confess my inability to keep pace with your 
 admiration of Gray. He appears to me chiefly 
 remarkable as a consummate master of poetic dic- 
 tion ; his poems shine not so much with the splen- 
 dour of the thoughts, as the light of the words. I 
 * Preface to Solomon.
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 241 
 
 have attempted to prove this in an analysis of his 
 sonnet. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 Say rather that the thoughts glow through the 
 words, kindling them into colours and lustre. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 I draw also an unfavourable conclusion from his 
 depreciatory opinion of Thomson and Collins ; to 
 the exquisite beauty of the Castle of Indolence he 
 was avowedly insensible, and of the sweetest, the 
 most poetic odes of their kind in the language, he 
 could only say, that they deserved to last for some 
 years, but would not. Mr. Jeffrey could hardly 
 have produced a more unfortunate prophecy. In 
 condemning the ornamental character of Gray's 
 diction, I omit the Elegy from my censure ; it is 
 almost the only instance where he deviated into 
 nature. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 Yet in truth, Gray did not differ so very widely from 
 your own theory. We think in words, he said, but 
 poetry consists in expression ; and beside this, your 
 criticism is unfair in suppressing all those instances of 
 moral wisdom, and what you, on a different occasion, 
 have styled a meditative pathos, a reflective sadness,
 
 242 THE POKT WORDSWORTH 
 
 into whicli you say the mind cannot sink of itself, 
 but must descend by treading the steps of 
 thought*. Now, in this pathos Gray is inimi- 
 table. He reminds us of the »iS»xa» a.(fA.onxi — the 
 Ethic Harmonies of ancient days. You cannot 
 read a stanza without being struck, as with a 
 Divine rod, by the wise truth of one of his sen- 
 tences. There is no writer whose works occupy so 
 small a space, from whom so many moral lessons 
 might be gathered ; and let me add, that no writer, 
 except Shakspeare, is likely to live so long in the 
 hearts of the people. When no green tomb swells 
 up in our village burial-grounds, no rustic moralist 
 exists to spell the decayed epitaphs, no busy house- 
 wife to " ply her evening care," no children to 
 climb the knees of their returning father, then shall 
 the memory of Gray die and be forgotten. It has 
 been urged that his beauties are not original ; but 
 the accusation holds not of all his most excellent 
 passages, nor of the greater number, nor of many. 
 In him you perceive the full meaning of imitative 
 fancy, in opposition to direct imitation ; that is, 
 the art of elevating and improving what he bor- 
 rows ; of melting the gold into a more striking 
 image; of detaching a thought and blending it 
 with a new combination. Into a similar explana- 
 tion all the parallel passages that crowd the new 
 • Supplement to the Preface.
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 243 
 
 editions of Milton may be resolved. But as Cri- 
 ticism, like History, teaches best by example, let 
 me illustrate my remark by the lines in the Pro- 
 gress of Poetry, where, describing the early years 
 of Shakspeare, he says, 
 
 The dauntless child 
 
 Stretched forth its little arms, and smiled. 
 
 The passage itself comes from Sandys : 
 
 The child 
 
 Stretched forth its little arms and smiled*. 
 
 But Gray, by the insertion of the epithet daunt- 
 less, so expressive of the ardent childhood of the 
 great poet, has given a life and a spirit to the pic- 
 ture ; he has adorned his imitation by his fancy ; he 
 has converted a theft into a victory. Of his adapta- 
 tions from the ancient authors I must admit, for 
 my own part, that I find in them a source of un- 
 common delight; we come unexpectedly upon them, 
 as upon objects that recall the happiest days of our 
 life. He awakens at every line remembrances of 
 Grecian and Latin Song, so that the poet, as one of 
 his biographers has elegantly observed, seems to 
 accompany us into the regions of his beautiful 
 creations, while the activity of our imagination 
 multiplies into a thousand forms the image it has 
 
 * See Mitford's Remarks upon the Poetry of Gray. 
 
 R 2
 
 24:4) THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 received ; and the memory, gathering up the most 
 distant associations, surrounds the poet with a lustre 
 not his own. There is not less truth than beauty 
 in Davenant's remark, that all the streams of our 
 heroic song flow from one Grecian Spring. 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 The objection I have ventured to hint against 
 Gray, is more unmitigated towards his friend Mason, 
 of whose Caractacus I remember to have heard Mr. 
 Coleridge say that it was one continued falsetto*. 
 His English Garden possesses high merit as a 
 didactic poem ; but the playful criticism of a con- 
 temporary writer is just, who says that he begins by 
 invoking Simplicity, but she never comes. How he 
 would have stared at such a passage as this from 
 the Pharonnida of Chamberlain, a poem of which 
 my friend, Mr. Southey, speaks in high commenda- 
 tion ! 
 
 Before the birth 
 
 O' th' sluggish morning from his bed had drawn 
 The early villager, the sober dawn 
 Lending our eyes the slow salutes of light, 
 We are encountered vdih. the welcome sight 
 Of some poor scattered cottages that stood 
 In the dark shadow of a spacious wood 
 That fringed an humble valley. Towards those, 
 Whilst the still morn knew nought to discompose 
 
 * This remark is also recorded in the Table Talk,
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 245 
 
 Her sleeping infancy, we went, and noAv 
 
 Being come so near, we might discover how 
 
 The unstirred smoke streamed from the cottage tops, 
 
 A glimmering light from a low window stops 
 
 Our further course*. 
 
 It was with a view of aiding in the purification 
 of our poetical style, that my Lyrical Ballads were 
 composed ; in which, as I have stated in the Pre- 
 face, humble and rustic life was generally chosen, 
 because in that condition the feelings exist in a 
 simpler form, and may, therefore, he contemplated 
 with clearer accuracy, and communicated with 
 greater force; because also from those feelings 
 spring the manners of rural life, which, from their 
 very nature, are more easy of comprehension, and 
 more enduring in themselves ; and, finally, because 
 in that condition the passions of men are incorpo- 
 rated with the beautiful and permanent forms of 
 Nature, from whom there is continually going out 
 a healing virtue. Nor is the language of such men 
 of itself unsusceptible of imaginative adornment. 
 He who has Nature for his companion during the 
 day, must, in some measure, be ennobled by the 
 intercourse. The language of the heart changes 
 
 * This neglected poem deserves a better fate ; how pretty 
 is the picture of 
 
 Glad Fame that brings 
 
 Truth's messages upon her silver wings.
 
 216 THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 not with fashion, nor requires an academy to pro- 
 tect its purity. The passages in Chaucer most 
 affecting, and addressing themselves most directly 
 to the sympathies, are as intelligible to us, as tliey 
 would have been to the company at the Tabard. 
 Truth takes no account of centuries. How men 
 undervalue the power of Simplicity ! but it is the 
 real key to the heart. There is a stanza in Logan's 
 Ballad, which always brings the tears to my eyes ; 
 its melancholy is so intense and indescribable. 
 
 His motlier from the windoAV looked, 
 
 With all the longing of a mother ; 
 Hand in hand his sisters walked 
 
 The green-wood path to meet their brother. 
 They sought him East, they sought him West, 
 
 They sought him all the forest thoro'; 
 They only saw the cloud of night, 
 
 They only heard the roar of Yarrow * ! 
 
 I reckon it among my chief temporal blessings, 
 to have been born and bred in a mountainous 
 country, and to have had my intellectual infancy, 
 as it were, nourished at the breast of Nature. A 
 passion thus early awakened, grew with my growth, 
 and strengthened with my years : 
 
 The sounding cataract 
 
 Haunted me like a passion; the tail rock, 
 
 * Those who have heard Mr. Wordsworth recite these lines 
 iu liis own peculiar and musical maimer, will recollect the eflfect 
 they produced.
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 247 
 
 The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 
 Their colours and their forms were then to me 
 An appetite, a feeling, and a love, 
 That had no need of a remoter charm, 
 By thought supplied, or any interest 
 Unborrowed from the eye. 
 
 I can still remember the delight of my heart, when 
 I first looked into the nest of the golden-wren, deep 
 in the twilight foliage of the Elder-tree ; or watched 
 upon the hazel-copse the green-linnet drinking in 
 the sunshine and sweetness of a Summer day, 
 
 while — 
 
 ..... The flutter of his wings 
 Upon his hack and body flings 
 Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 
 That cover him all over. 
 We all laugh at pursuing a shadow ; although the 
 lives of the multitude are devoted to the chase ; but 
 it is a delightful thing to follow one's own shadow 
 along a green lane, when the sun, through the over- 
 arching boughs, chequers the path ; and the leaves, 
 while the light breath of air plays among them, 
 dance on the ground as upon a river; and you 
 hear, meanwhile, only the stirring of a linnet in the 
 hedge, or the struggling of a bee in the warm grass. 
 Oh, it is in such walks as these that Nature leads 
 her children up to God ; for poetry is only the 
 eloquence and enthusiasm of religion. Even the 
 familiar face of a wild daisy, or a drop of dew on
 
 248 
 
 THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 a road-side flower, have, in my heart, ofttimes 
 awoke thouglits more tender than tears covdd 
 express. 
 
 O, nursed at happy distance from the cares 
 Of a too anxious world, mild Pastoral Muse ! 
 That to the sparkling crown Urania wears, 
 And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath, 
 Preferr'st a garland culled from purple heath, 
 Or hlooming thicket moist ^vith morning dews ; 
 Was such hright spectacle vouchsafed to me? 
 And was it gi^anted to the simple ear 
 Of thy contented Votary, 
 Such melody to hear ! 
 
 Him rather suits it, side by side with thee, 
 Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence, 
 While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthom-tree, 
 To lie and listen, till o'er drowsed sense 
 Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence, 
 To the soft murmur of the vagrant bee. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 Beautiful, indeed ! 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Such feelings find no response in the bosoms of 
 worldly men ; Johnson would have preferred Mr. 
 Thrale's coach with the windows up, to the loveliest 
 pastoral vale in Westmorland. I think of Beattie's 
 beautiful stanza, and wonder how such a despiser 
 of Nature " can hope to be forgiven.""
 
 AND PROFESSOR SMYTHE. 249 
 
 Great God! I'd rather be 
 
 A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
 
 So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
 
 Catch glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
 
 See Proteus rising from the sea, 
 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn ! 
 
 How few know what it is to behold God in his 
 works ; to feel that He is all in all ; that his Pre- 
 sence imparts a glory to the flower ; a beauty to the 
 atmosphere ; that a paradise still lives for the Poet : 
 
 To every form of being is assigned 
 An active principle, howe'er removed 
 From sense and observation, it subsists 
 In all things, in all natures, in the stars 
 Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds. 
 In flower and tree, and every pebbly stone 
 That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, 
 The moving waters, and the invisible air. 
 Whate'er exists hath properties that spread 
 Beyond itself communicating good, 
 A simple blessing, or with evil mixed : 
 Spirit that knows no insulated spot. 
 No chasm, no solitude, from link to link 
 It circulates, the soul of all the worlds. 
 
 SMYTHE. 
 
 You have here embodied, perhaps unconsciously, 
 one of the most thoughtful passages in the Novum 
 Organum. All tangible bodies, says Bacon, con- 
 tain a spirit, covered over, enveloped with the
 
 250 THE POET WORDSWORTH 
 
 grosser body. There is no known body in the 
 upper parts of the earth, wdthout its spirit, whether 
 it be generated by the attenuating and concocting 
 power of the celestial warmth, or otherwise; for 
 the pores of tangible bodies are not a vacuum ; 
 but either contain air, or the peculiar spirit of the 
 substance; and this not a vis, an energy, a soul, 
 or a fiction, but a real, subtile, and invisible body, 
 circumscribed by place and dimension. 
 
 WORDSAVORTH. 
 
 The Greeks had a beautiful superstition, that if 
 a rainbow rested upon a tree, it immediately became 
 fragrant ; in like manner, by the over-shadowing 
 light of a poetic fancy, would I waken perfume even 
 in the bramble. For, wherefore should poetry be 
 limited to themes of stately and regal argument, or 
 be thought incapable of striking its root, or flou- 
 rishing, except in earth gathered from Italy and 
 Greece ! Rather let us endeavour to rear it beside 
 the cottage door, that it may hang its golden fruit 
 — not more pure to the eye than to the taste — into 
 every cottage window. Every sequestered hamlet, 
 every lovely homestead, has its tale of, — 
 Natural sorrow, joy, or pain, 
 That has been, and may be again. 
 
 Such subjects, full as they are of wisdom and 
 pathos, will not be selected by the numerous band 
 who strive only to startle the world, not to instruct
 
 AND PROFESSOE SMYTHE. 25l 
 
 it. There is a class of poets — and a large one — 
 who, like the Novelists, belong to the Circulating 
 Libraries, and flutter into ephemeral notice upon 
 the wings of a paragraph. By nature the com- 
 monest insects, they owe their coloured pkmiage to 
 the forcing action of artificial warmth. Equally 
 feeble in their minds and their verses, the shadow of 
 your hand will " mar their murmurings*." Let no 
 founder of a Commonwealth think of banishing 
 poetry ; he will find in it a powerful helper in the 
 amelioration of the destiny of man. I confine my 
 remarks, of course, to those nobler spirits enriched 
 by learning, elevated by wisdom, sanctified by 
 religion ; unto whom Poetry is as a ladder, whereby 
 to climb into the invisible world : men who return 
 from their celestial Colloquies with a brightened 
 countenance, and an exalted heart. The true 
 Bard ascends to receive knowledge, he descends to 
 impart it; and regarding his art as the most 
 dignified of all — since it is learning illuminated by 
 fancy ; fancy kindled by a fire from the Altar ; 
 looking, I say, at his high calling, he devotes his 
 whole energies to the task, and his entire life shapes 
 itself into one great and beautiful Poem. Thus 
 the Creations of his mind become his companions ; 
 they talk to him ; minister to him ; watch over 
 him. So Chaucer, in his dungeon, was cheered by 
 * Spenser.
 
 252 WORDSWOUTH AND SMVTHE. 
 
 the Lady of Love* \ and who knows not of the 
 radiant face that beamed upon Tasso, in his vault 
 at Ferrara — and such a vault ! — pining in hunger, 
 nakedness, and despair. So, too, was the night of 
 Milton brightened by — 
 
 Forms that glitter in the Muses' ray — 
 
 and the beauty of angelic wings shone upon the 
 darkness. His sojourn at Cambridge had, at least, 
 familiarized him with the dim religious lisht; and 
 often while lingering with solemn awe through the 
 chapel of King's College, — 
 
 "VVTiile from our sight 
 
 With gradual stealth the lateral mndows hide 
 Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed 
 In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light, 
 Martyr or King, or sainted Eremite. — 
 
 Often during these hallowed seasons, when the 
 soul was lifted into heaven, have I thought upon 
 the rapture with which his youthful heart must 
 have acknowledged the enchantment of the place : — 
 
 They dreamt not of a perishable home 
 Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear, 
 Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here ; 
 Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam ; 
 Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam 
 Melts if it cross the threshold. 
 
 * Alluding to the Testament of Love, supposed to have been 
 composed during his imprisonment.
 
 253 
 
 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN, 
 
 AND A GLANCE AT 
 
 THE PRESENT STATE OF RELIGIOUS FEELING 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Paley, in commenting upon the propagation of 
 Christianity, dwells with much earnestness upon the 
 success of the Apostolic Ministry, as a strong proof 
 of the divine origin of the religion. For what had 
 the apostles, he says, to assist them in their preach- 
 ing: which the modern missionaries have not. If 
 piety and ardent zeal had been sufficient, they 
 possess them in a high degree ; for piety and zeal 
 could alone excite them to the undertaking. If 
 simplicity of life, or purity of manners, were the 
 allurement, the conduct of these men is irreproach- 
 able. If the influence of education and learning be 
 required, which of the modern missionaries is not 
 superior to all the apostles, both absolutely and 
 relatively *. The internal power and beauty of the 
 religion remain the same; in its precepts equally 
 holy, in its morality equally chaste, in its exhorta- 
 tions equally eloquent. 
 
 In one respect, indeed, the modern missionary 
 
 * Evidences of Christianity, part 2, sect. 2.
 
 254t ONE HOUR WITH HEXRY MARTYN. 
 
 possesses a peculiar advantage. Prophecy, was the 
 beautiful remark of Bishop Newton, is a growing 
 evidence ; and so it has proved itself. Every year 
 has added something to its strength ; the accom- 
 plishment of the local prophecies, as related and 
 demonstrated in the works of Burckhardt, and 
 other eastern travellers, is decisive and incontro- 
 vertible. Their fulfilment furnishes another power- 
 ful argument to the Christian missionary; yet how 
 ineifectual, how discouraging the labours even of 
 the most active, and the most successful. Look, 
 for instance, at India, the scene of Henry INIartyn's 
 unwearied exertions. How little has a highly edu- 
 cated and intelligent church been able to perform 
 during the whole period of its establishment. How 
 few names have been added to the Book of Life ! 
 In that rich and luxurious climate the Tree of 
 Divine Knowledge seems alone to pine. Yet its 
 root has been nourished by the ashes of Christian 
 brethren. Mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and 
 brothers, have been forsaken for the cause, — not 
 even the domestic hearth has been preferred 
 before it. 
 
 The dearest associations, the most delightful 
 studies, have been joyfully abandoned. " This is 
 the day," says Mr. Martyn in his Indian Diary, 
 " that I left Cambridge. My thoughts frequently 
 recurred with many tender recollections to that seat
 
 ONE HOUR. WITH HENRY MARTYN. 255 
 
 of my beloved brethren ; and I again wandered in 
 spirit among the trees on the banks of the Cam." 
 
 Nor has the self-sacrificing temper which animated 
 the original Preachers of Christianity been dead in 
 their successors. What savage sea, or what inhos- 
 pitable shore has not witnessed their exertions. 
 They, too, have been in perils by land, in perils in 
 the sea, in perils from false brethren ; in fastings 
 often, in prison often ; in cold and nakedness. 
 They, too, have willingly become poor that they 
 might make many rich, — yet has all this enthusiasm, 
 all this self-consecration of the soul and body to one 
 great pursuit reaped only a barren harvest. We 
 have reason to believe that the apostles converted 
 more in a single week than the united efforts of 
 European missionaries during fifty years. Are we 
 not, therefore, driven upon the conclusion that they 
 possessed means of conviction which we have not ; 
 that they had proofs to appeal to which we want * .'' 
 
 But while, if viewed only in reference to the 
 avowed object of his mission, Mr. Marty n's success 
 was trifling, relatively he performed the most valu- 
 able and deeply important services to the cause of 
 religion. His translation of the Scriptures into the 
 Eastern tongue laid a foundation for the gradual 
 subjection of the popular mind to the precepts of 
 the Bible. In accomplishing this great task, he 
 * Paley.
 
 256 ONE HOOK WITH HEXRY MARTYN. 
 
 planted, as it were, a root of the true Vine, which 
 future ages may behold overshadowing the land. 
 Nor did the benefits of his labours stop here ; they 
 gave a stimulus to Christian scholars and Christian 
 communities; the work has been continually ad- 
 vancing; version upon version of the Word of 
 God has been sent forth into the uttermost re- 
 cesses of the earth ; so that by the power of the 
 Almighty acting upon his servants, a new miracle 
 may be said to have been wrought. The voice of 
 thanksgiving and praise ascends from a thousand 
 piovinces; and the sun shines upon no corner of 
 the habitable globe in which men do not hear in 
 their " own tongues the wonderful works of God."" 
 But there is another circumstance in the life of 
 Mr. Martyn, more intimately connected with the 
 objects of this volume. We are indebted to his 
 example for much of the good feeling that now 
 pervades the junior portion of the University. All 
 who were acquainted with Cambridge society as it 
 existed among the undergraduates fifteen or twenty 
 years ago, will recognise in the present state of 
 things a very marked and singular improvement. 
 lu the earlier days of Mr. Simeon's ministry, he was 
 exposed, together with his followers, to many and 
 distressing ebullitions of dislike; and instances 
 sometimes occurred when the college authorities 
 judged it expedient to forbid their pupils attend-
 
 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN. 257 
 
 ance upon his discourses. The character of Mr. 
 Martyn did much towards overcoming this opposi- 
 tion ; his high attainments, his simphcity of man- 
 ners, his academical distinction, imparted a dignity 
 and weight to his name ; and Piety herself became 
 more lovely and of better report when she appeared 
 in the person of a Senior Wrangler. No person, I 
 believe, of similar opinions, had attracted by his 
 talents so much notice. When, therefore, it was 
 discovered that the strictest attention to religious 
 duties, instead of weakening the intellect, only 
 strengthened and concentrated its powers, others 
 were quickly found to adopt the same manners. 
 
 I am not called upon to declare how far I coin- 
 cide with, or in what particulars I dissent from, the 
 principles distinguishing the School of Theology of 
 which Mr. Simeon is the founder. I believe that 
 its devotedness to the cause of piety, though not 
 always well informed, nor always flowing in the 
 best channels, has, nevertheless, aided in the 
 general promotion of those serious feelings, now so 
 apparent among our younger members. Nor need 
 we limit its influence to the immediate calls of 
 religious worship ; it may be traced in the common 
 intercourse of society, and the check it imposes, 
 under the shape of public opinion, upon that class 
 of persons Avho, in a greater or less degree, embarrass 
 the domestic economy of every college.
 
 258 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 No question of academic discipline has been more 
 agitated of late, than the propriety of compulsory 
 attendance in the chapel of the college. "If 
 attendance, it has been observed, were not com- 
 pulsory, we all know it would soon cease ; as it has 
 ceased in all parish-churches where prayers were 
 once daily. Young men, and old men too, need 
 urging to the discharge of duties, the obligation of 
 which is fully acknowledged nevertheless. What- 
 ever may be the motives, and they are probably of 
 a mixed kind (as they are upon most occasions), by 
 which youths in a college-chapel are gathered 
 together, this we must say, that we do not observe 
 more reverential behaviour in any place of worship 
 than there. God only can search the heart ; but 
 as far as man can judge, the undergraduates are as 
 much under the impression that they are met in 
 God's house to render him an offering of prayer 
 and praise, as any congregation elsewhere ; and a 
 more interesting spectacle we do not know, which 
 it would not be, if there was in it any tincture of 
 irreverence, than that presented to the eye of a 
 casual visiter of our Universities, in the chapel of a 
 great college — the flower of the land before him — 
 the hope of England — coupled with the reflection 
 which the place where they are assembled suggests, 
 that the generation to whom the chief interests of 
 the country in every department are to be soon
 
 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN. 259 
 
 confided, are thus taught betimes to have the fear 
 of God before their eyes." 
 
 Every one who has joined in this beautiful cere- 
 monial, or contemplated its appearance, will admit 
 the force of the preceding observations. Even to 
 the eye of the common spectator, the scene is full 
 of peculiar interest ; but to the individuals them- 
 selves, sensations must often arise of far deeper 
 intensity. While the pealing organ, and the shout 
 of many voices, raise their hearts to heaven, 
 memory, it may be supposed, will not be inactive ; 
 and the thought that Newton, or Ray *, or Milton, 
 or Taylor, once pressed the stones on which they 
 are kneeling : and still, if we may so speak, sanctify 
 the walls with their presence ; — such a thought as 
 this may blend with the enthusiasm of the spirit, 
 and elevate its intellectual wishes in proportion to 
 the exaltation of its spiritual desires. These sen- 
 timents cannot, of course, be universal; it is suffi- 
 cient for the argument if they prevail to a moderate 
 extent, and by the ennobling a few minds, invisibly 
 and gradually communicate a higher tone to the 
 many. Undoubtedly, if the restrictive regulations 
 were removed to-morrow, a numerous body of 
 
 * " Because I could no longer" said this admirable Cliristian, 
 (when ejected from his fellowship for nonconformity, and 
 prevented from exercising his clerical duties,) " serve God in 
 the churcli, I thought myself bound to do it by my Avritings." 
 
 S 2
 
 260 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN. 
 
 students would be found sufficiently impressed with 
 a sense of their dependence upon God, and of their 
 duty to return daily thanks to him for his mercies, 
 to assemble in those temples consecrated to his 
 service. And this supposition is countenanced by 
 the crowds that throng the galleries of St. IMary's, 
 when such men as Mr. Rose, or Mr. Dale, or Mr. 
 Melvil occupy the pulpit ; each differing from the 
 other in manner and in style, yet each commanding 
 the attention and the respect of an overflowing 
 congregation. The same remark will apply to the 
 other churches in the town, where the academic 
 dress is conspicuous; and particularly to the 
 evening lecture of Mr. Carus. These are most 
 valuable and interesting indications of religious 
 feeling; and the more so, as they flow entirely 
 from unconstrained inclination, and are to be deemed 
 sincere, inasmuch as no inducement to hypocrisy 
 can be assigned. 
 
 Yet admitting to its fullest extent the efficacy of 
 the voluntary principle, no reflecting mind will 
 consent to intrust the observances of religion 
 entirely to its influence. Nor, indeed, is there any 
 occasion ; for those who would attend of their own 
 accord, will not experience any hardship from a 
 regulation, which their good feeling virtually 
 repeals; while those, on the other hand, whose 
 associations lead them to different occupations, and
 
 ONE HOUR WITH HENRY MARTYN. 261 
 
 who would gladly escape from the payment of a 
 morning or evening tribute to their heavenly 
 Father, may hereafter rejoice, that once in every 
 day, at least, they were obliged to listen to the 
 word of God. Seed thus imperceptibly dropped, 
 though choked for a season, may, at a future time, 
 spring up, under the dew of His blessing, and bear 
 fruit a hundred fold. Nor let it be deemed 
 matter of reproach, that our piety requires such 
 constant fanning to keep the flame alive. One of 
 our most thoughtful moralists has told us, that 
 religion, of which the rewards are distant, and 
 which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will 
 glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be 
 invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, 
 by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influ- 
 ence of example. And if such an observation 
 could hold in any degree of Milton, how much 
 more powerfully must it apply to us. Let us 
 therefore, cheerfully and gladly, follow the foot- 
 steps " of those who having fought the good fight 
 in this life, have received a crown of glory in that 
 which is to come — who speak to us from their 
 tombs, but with no earthly voice, encouraging us 
 by their example — telling us to be firm and of good 
 cheer in this our pilgrimage— that beyond the dark 
 portal to which we all are hurrying, there is a land 
 of promise — and that treading in the steps where
 
 262 ONE HOUR WITH HEXRY MARTYN. 
 
 they have trodden, and guided by the heavenly 
 Hand which guided them, we ourselves may reach 
 that land, and dwell with them in everlasting 
 glory *." 
 
 • Professor Sedgwick's Discourse on the Studies of the Uni- 
 versity, 4th ed., p. 5.
 
 263 
 PRAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 
 
 Vir perelegantis ingenii, et mollissima dulcedine caiininum 
 memorabilis. — Velleius Paterculus. 
 
 The conclusion of the eulogy bestowed upon the 
 old Grecian, Hesiod, quietis otiique ctipidissimus, 
 must, I fear, he omitted from the motto. The 
 Carlton Club is dearer to the Member for Yar- 
 mouth than the Muses' Bower. Those days when 
 it was pleasant with Spenser to play with 
 
 The flowers of a golden tress, 
 
 are faded and past. He cons an estimate instead 
 of a sonnet, and prefers a gaUop with Sir Francis 
 Head through a Poor Law Commission to a Mid- 
 summer Night's Dream on Parnassus. Political 
 life must have its charms, as it has its uses, — call it 
 advancement if you will ; but to me it seems, as it 
 did to Shenstone while tying up his flowers at the 
 Leasowes, only an advancement from the pit to the 
 gallery, — a very noisy elevation! But Mr. Praed 
 has made his choice: yet he ought to remember 
 that one poet of rare sensibility and genius, after 
 serving fourteen years for Rachel, found himself 
 deprived even of Leah *. 
 
 * See Cowley's Complaint.
 
 264 PKAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 
 
 His name is to me associated with many deli- 
 cious recollections. I have followed him from 
 Eton to Trinity ; from the Union to St. Stephen's; 
 from his first onset in the Etonian, to his more 
 finished efforts in Knighfs Quarterly. I have 
 laughed at his hits, truly " to the point," in the 
 London, with the " Best Bat in the School ;" and 
 traced his retrograde movement through the Greek 
 alphabet, from ip to | ; as the author of Lillian, 
 or as Peregrine Courtney, as the Lyrist of the 
 Gem, or the New Monthly; as the Wit of Cam- 
 bridge, or of the 3Iorning Post, — he has been 
 equally lively and equally agreeable. But he is 
 now mingling in the busy turmoil of political 
 agitation ; and I expect every day to lose him in 
 the crowd. It is, indeed, too late to hope for a 
 conversion; but he may at least console us by 
 collecting his rhymes. Having taken leave of the 
 Muses, he may present us with his lyre; and though 
 it does not rejoice in many strings, its tone is sweet 
 and tender. Leaving to other bards to stir the 
 soul, as with the sound of the trumpet, he satisfies 
 his ambition with soothing and delighting his 
 hearers. He combines the mirth, the grace, and 
 the fancy of Marot. He is a natural Moore. The 
 following poems, the remembrances of happier 
 years, may not support this commendation ; but 
 that will be the fault of my memory, not of Mr. 
 Praed's genius.
 
 PRAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 265 
 
 MADELINE. 
 
 Viens! on dirait, Madeleine, 
 
 Que le printenips, dout Thaleine 
 
 Donne aux roses leurs couleui's, 
 
 A cette nuit, pour te plaire, 
 
 Secoue sur la bruyere 
 
 Sa robe pleine de fleurs. — Victor Hugo. 
 
 Come forth, pretty Madeline, 
 
 Lo ! the pleasant breath of May 
 
 Sweetens every field to day; 
 
 Never hath a fairer Night 
 
 Closed the dewy eyes of Light; 
 
 Come forth while the moon-beams shine 
 
 On the pale grass, Madeline. 
 
 Oh! that I were, sweet Madeline, 
 The happy Monk of Tombeline, 
 AVhen half in hope, and half in fear, 
 Thy red lips breathe into his ear 
 Little trespasses that twine 
 Round thy meek heart, Madeline. 
 
 If I had, fair Madeline, 
 The soft eye of the evening star, 
 How quickly from my home afar, 
 Into thy chamber would I shine ; 
 While from that snowy breast of thine 
 Rustles the white lawn, Madeline!
 
 266 PRAED AKD HIS CHANSONS. 
 
 Listen, gentle Madeline! 
 
 Listen, listen, unto me; 
 
 And thy happy home shall be 
 
 Throng'd with many a vassal hold, 
 
 Sir Hubert and Sir Leoline, 
 
 And beauteous page in vest of gold, 
 
 To watch thy sweet eyes, Madeline! 
 
 And we wdll pitcb our pleasant tent 
 Beneath an over-hanging tree, 
 Where hunter's bow was never bent, 
 In haunted glades of Faery; 
 And I will sit by thee, and twine 
 Odorous garlands for the shrine 
 Of thy white hand, Madeline ! 
 
 Or if thou lovest to recline 
 
 In darken'd chamber, faint with flowers- 
 
 What care I for sunny hours. 
 
 Or Summer light, when thou art mine. 
 
 Glowing, blushing, Madeline! 
 
 And if thou wilt, young Madeline, 
 For woodland chaplet thou shalt wear 
 A glittering cro^vn upon thy hair, 
 And pearls about thy brow divine ! 
 Sweetest, dearest, Madeline!
 
 PRAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 267 
 
 AN EXTEMPORE WISH. 
 
 Si j'etais la feuille que roule 
 
 L'aile tournoyante du vent, 
 Qui flotte sur I'eau qui s'ecoule, 
 
 Et qu'on suit de I'ceil en revant : 
 J'irais chez la fille du pretre, 
 
 Chez la -blanche fille a Toeil noir, 
 Qui le jour chante a sa fenetre, 
 
 Et joue a sa porta le soir. 
 
 Les Orientales. 
 
 I wish I were the balmy breeze 
 
 That playeth with yon Summer rose, 
 And whispers love to all the trees, 
 
 And kisses every flower that blows. 
 Oh, could I borrow those light feet, 
 
 Farewell to bower and myrtle tree; 
 I know a garden far more sweet, 
 
 A red rose dearer far to me. 
 
 WITCHES. 
 
 A KEW FACT IN NATURAL MAGIC. WRITTEN AFTER A 
 BALL AT HUNTINGDON. 
 
 A witch ! the fancy turns me pale 
 As that white rose on Lady Bagot; 
 
 I thought that good Sir Matthew Hale 
 Had sent the last witch to the fagot.
 
 268 PRAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 
 
 And yet they flourisli still it seems! 
 
 (Oh, pray Lord Brougham prove the error !)| 
 And vision shining through my dreams 
 
 Foretell another reign of terror; 
 Black tresses, like the dark locks flowing 
 
 O'er poor Sir Walter's handsome Jewess*; 
 And lips, like those that look so gloA^^ng, 
 
 In that sad book — The Monk of Lewis! 
 
 And eyes so full, and blue, and sunny, 
 
 Are gazing kindly into mine; 
 Bright as those of ]\Irs. Honey — 
 
 (A simile, mind, Madeline.) 
 And whispers in my ears are creeping, 
 
 Coral lips I'm sure between; 
 Not Spenser in his garden sleeping, 
 
 Heard sweeter from the Fairy Queen. 
 And footsteps drop upon the ground, 
 
 Like pleasant noise of Summer rain; 
 Or from a t^alight bower the sound — 
 
 "Good night! but come again!" 
 
 They walk for ever by my side, 
 
 Fair witches! with their merry glances; 
 And just the cheeks to bloom in rhyme. 
 
 Or meet by moonlight in Romances. 
 They walk with me where'er I go, 
 
 On Summer mornings, Summer eves; 
 I open Chitty's page, and — lo ! 
 
 A spirit in the leaves! 
 
 • Rebecca in Ivanhoe.
 
 PRAED AND HIS CHANSONS. 269 
 
 Oh, wondrous change! oh, magic power! 
 
 What glory on the earth hath broke? 
 The King's-Bench blooms into a bower. 
 
 And Beauty rises out of Coke. 
 
 In vain I turn each learned page; 
 
 And ponder Sugden o'er and o'er; 
 Or muse upon this Avicked age. 
 
 Or sport my double oaken door*. 
 In vain I flee from them, and shut 
 
 Myself up in some bowery vale ; 
 You might as well attempt to cut 
 
 O'Connell from his Tail ! 
 Oh, lay them with some magic line! 
 
 Some spell by Bishop or Clementi. 
 Alas! a witch at seventy-nine, 
 
 Is nothing to a wdtch at twenty! 
 
 • Every Cambridge man knows the luxury of a sported (i. e, 
 closed) door. There is, indeed, a particular knock, not to be 
 mistaken by a practised ear, against wliich it is peculiarly 
 efficacious.
 
 270 
 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 ON THE 
 
 STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 " Why, sir, a gentleman from the University stays below to 
 speak with you." — Yorkshire Tragedy, 1619. 
 
 All who are acquainted with Professor Sedgwick 
 were prepared to expect from his pen an eloquent 
 account of the studies of this University, and of the 
 spirit in which they ought to be pursued : and all 
 who have read his Discourse^ know how fully these 
 anticipations have been realized. It is hoped that 
 the following remarks, suggested by its perusal, 
 will be received in a spirit similar to that which has 
 dictated them. The writer has no private interest 
 to promote ; he would gain nothing from any change, 
 except, indeed, a sensation of pleasure at beholding 
 the removal of what appear to him imperfections 
 and impediments. 
 
 In the Discourse, the studies of the University 
 are divided into three branches. 
 
 1st. The study of the laws of nature, compre- 
 hending all parts of inductive philosophy. 
 
 2ndly. The study of ancient literature.
 
 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK. 271 
 
 3rdly. The study of ourselves, considered as in- 
 dividuals, and as social beings. Under this head 
 are included ethics and metaphysics, moral and po- 
 litical philosophy, and some other kindred subjects 
 of great complexity, hardly touched on in our 
 academic system, and to be followed out in the more 
 mature labours of after-life. 
 
 The object of .a liberal education, says Mr. Whe- 
 well, is to develop the whole mental system of man, 
 and thus to bring it into consistency with itself; to 
 make his speculative inferences coincide with his 
 practical convictions; to enable him to render a 
 reason for the belief that is in him ; and not to 
 leave him in the condition of Solomon's Sluggard, 
 who is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who 
 can render a reason. This complete mental culture 
 must, no doubt, consist of many elements ; but it 
 is certain than an indispensable portion is such a 
 discipline of the reasoning power, as will enable 
 ]3ersons to proceed with certainty and facility from 
 fundamental principles to their consequences*. No 
 person has a higher claim to define a liberal edu- 
 cation than he whose vigour and capacity of under- 
 standing have so easily attained it. But that mus- 
 cular energy and flexibility of mind which encircle, 
 so to speak, every study, crushing its difficulties, 
 
 • Thoughts on the Study of the Mathematics as a Part of a 
 Liberal Education.
 
 272 A WOKD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 and reducing the whole into a state suited to the 
 mental digestion, fall to the lot of few. 
 
 A liberal education is composed of many ele- 
 ments, and can only be properly styled liberal, 
 according as these elements are fully combined. 
 Perhaps the most exalted idea of such an education 
 is contained in Milton's celebrated Tractate. It 
 would furnish a very excellent corrective to many 
 a scholar of the present day, whose only memorial 
 is in the column of a Calendar, wei*e he to read the 
 list of acquirements set down by this great man 
 merely as embellishments of severer studies; and 
 all to be learnt between the ages of twelve and 
 twenty-one. Milton seems to agree with Cole- 
 ridge in requiring " a certain measure of logic, of 
 which so much as is useful is to be employed with 
 all her well-concluded heads and topics, until it is 
 time to open her contracted palm into a graceful 
 and ornate rhetoric,**"' taught out of Plato, Aris- 
 totle, Longinus, and, let us add, Quintilian. INIil- 
 ton's whole argument is directed to the general 
 cultivation of the mind, and, in a minor sense, of 
 the body also. A similar spirit pervades Cowley's 
 plan of a Philosophical College ; the object of both 
 being so to rear and train the mind at the same 
 time, as to lead it up to manhood in that state of 
 healthful fulness and symmetry which constitute 
 moral, as well as physical, beauty.
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 273 
 
 There you see Imagination hand in hand with 
 Reason, mutually assisting and illustrating each 
 other, — Imagination lighting the feet of Reason, 
 and Reason restraining the riot of Imagination ; 
 an under-current of poetical feeling runs through 
 the remarks of Milton and Cowley. Davenant 
 called poetry the only liberal science, and in 
 such men, nourished as it was by every stream 
 of knowledge, it certainly deserved the name. 
 But abandoning the wider field of inquiry, 
 opened to us in the speculations of Milton and 
 Cowley, let us conduct our argument into a nar- 
 rower path, and examine how far the system 
 adopted in this University fulfils our idea of a 
 liberal education. 
 
 The number of those who pursue mathematics 
 with a view to distinction in after-life, we appre- 
 hend to be very inconsiderable. As taught at 
 Cambridge, the study resolves itself into a corrector 
 and strengthener of the reasoning faculties ; and 
 the question to be discussed is, whether it be bene- 
 ficial to the developement of the intellectual powers, 
 that so large a segment of time should be devoted 
 to the attainment of this mental discipline; whether 
 the end corresponds with the toil ; whether the fruit 
 repays the tillage. Reading Men at the Univer- 
 sity, to employ a proverbial phrase, may be divided 
 into two classes, — those w ho j-gad for mathematical
 
 274 A WORD AVITir TROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 honours, and those who read for classical ; although 
 the latter study implies a certain acquaintance with 
 the former. Now, in looking at the study of ma- 
 thematics, pursued with reference to honours, the 
 first thing that strikes us is its complete exclu- 
 siveness ; the irresistible dominion it exercises 
 over the mind throughout the entire period given 
 to its cultivation. Thus are nearly four years 
 swallowed up in the endeavour to attain a con- 
 stituent part of a liberal education. And let not 
 the uninitiated reader suppose that hard mathema- 
 tical readino; — and such reading can alone answer 
 the object proposed — admits of application to other 
 acquirements. This intellectual Despotism suffers 
 no brother near its throne. 
 
 The art of reasoning we take to consist in 
 the clear enunciation and arrangement of our 
 thoughts ; in which every link attaches to the pre- 
 ceding, and so attaches, that no alteration in its 
 position could improve the strength or beauty of 
 the chain. None will deny this accuracy of the 
 mental eye in adapting and fitting all the com- 
 ponent parts of an argument, so that it may become 
 equally elegant to the sight, and equally firm in 
 the grasp, to be a very valuable accomplishment. 
 But it must be apparent to all, that a discipline 
 professing to act in this manner upon the mind, 
 ought to be continually supplied with matter to
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 275 
 
 work upon ; that this plastic power, which is to 
 give coherency and symmetry to our thoughts, 
 should have elements susceptible of its moulding 
 influence. And in this light was the study re- 
 garded by our elder scholars ; we have seen 
 Fuller calling it the ballast of the vessel, carefully 
 distinguishing it from the freight. But under the 
 exclusive and all-engrossing system of mathematical 
 reading, this machinery only works in theory; no 
 complicated questions in philosophy are submitted 
 to its operation ; no entangled train of metaphysical 
 subtilties are unravelled by it ; for these solutions 
 would gain no marks in the Senate-House, and we 
 are assuming these studies to be followed, as they 
 usually are, with a view to the Tripos List. How 
 then stands the case with the mere mathematician .? 
 Why, that with reference to knowledge, as com- 
 prised in a liberal education, he has the power of 
 combining, with nothing to combine ; the plan of a 
 building, without the materials ; or, to wind up the 
 whole in a saying previously quoted from Butler, 
 he can reckon up any sum of money, but has 
 none. 
 
 He leaves the Unversity, therefore, with only one 
 branch of a liberal education ; it may be urged in 
 extenuation, that the foundation for knowledge is 
 firmly laid, that his mind is familiar with habits of 
 analysis, that he carries with him a very beautiful 
 
 T 2
 
 276 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 apparatus to assist his efforts in every other pur- 
 suit. But how few, after they leave these walls, 
 can command their own time sufficiently to fol- 
 low any new course of study, except in connexion 
 with their future profession. Those hours in which 
 Truth dawns upon us in the clear air of delightful 
 studies glide away, very rarely to return. The 
 little comforts of many a lowly home have been 
 abridged, many an hour stolen from slumber, many 
 a heavy eye and aching head turned upon the 
 pillow, to furnish a child with the funds for his 
 academic education. In proportion, then, to the 
 severity of these privations will be the desire of the 
 individual to lighten the burden the moment he is 
 able. He is glad to employ what he has acquired 
 without attempting to increase the store. In 
 numerous instances, indeed, the power and the 
 inclination are w^ting ; for the exhaustion always 
 keeps pace with the stimulant ; and the very nerves 
 of the understanding lose the tone and force of 
 health, by the over-exertion and straining of this 
 early race. These cases are too common to be par- 
 ticularized. But there is another ill-consequence 
 to be mentioned, not so much floAving from the 
 Science itself, as from the temper in which it is 
 cultivated ; we mean a disregard, often deepening 
 into contempt, towards other pursuits. This asser- 
 tion admits of ample proof.
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 277 
 
 The celebrated Barrow, who in one place calls 
 poetry ingenious nonsense, in a letter to Skinner, 
 presumed to speak of the author of Paradise Lost 
 as " one Milton." Sir Isaac Newton is related to 
 have said of the same work : " This is a fine poem, 
 but what does it prove .'*''"' A question so marvel- 
 lously weak that it seems almost to refute the 
 anecdote. We have read of a lawyer who threw 
 away a celebrated novel, because the first chapter 
 contained a bad will ; and of a Geometrician, whose 
 sole pleasure in the ^neid consisted in tracing the 
 voyage of iEneas. Sir Edward Coke, in the copy 
 of the Novum Organum now in the library at 
 Holkham, has written with his own hand the 
 following : — 
 
 Auctori consilium, 
 
 Instaurare paras veterum documenta sophisraa, 
 
 Instaura leges, justitiamque prius. 
 
 Locke affords another specimen of a mind con- 
 tracted by its prevailing occupation ; this partial 
 blindness of the perception may be the inevitable 
 result of the absorption of the faculties in one great 
 object: yet, while we pardon it in such men as 
 Barrow and Newton, we cannot but observe some- 
 thing of a maimed appearance in their intellect. 
 Giants though they be, they are giants with a 
 single eye. But this grace cannot be extended to
 
 278 A AVORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 that large company of technical mathematicians, 
 who are conversant with the letter but not with the 
 spirit. 
 
 Hitherto our remarks have been confined to the 
 study of mathematics, viewed only in relation to 
 intellectual discipline. We are now to speak of it 
 in the wider signification of a moral regulator, not 
 only " as favourable to self-control," but giving to 
 the mind a power of concentration, " that saves it 
 from the languor and misery arising from vacuity of 
 thought." Undoubtedly to a mind, like Professor 
 Sedgwick's, stored with knowledge and enriched by 
 reflection, such studies, tending to harmonize the 
 materials of thought, must be very advantageous ; 
 but all these arguments seem to assume the exist- 
 ence of other acquirements, the collection of other 
 treasures ; in the great majority of instances, these 
 acquirements do not exist ; these treasures are not 
 collected. 
 
 If, on the other hand, it be asserted that mathe- 
 matics, whether in higher or lower subjects, suffices 
 of itself, by employing the mind, to protect it from 
 vacuity of thought, then we apprehend such an 
 ascription of power to be most perfectly erroneous. 
 An astronomer, or an engineer, engaged during the 
 day in practical applications of the sciences, will, of 
 course, come within the limits of the proposition ; 
 for they escape from vacuity of thought by their
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 279 
 
 plans and calculations, as a lawyer does by his 
 briefs. Yet even in such practised heads as these 
 weariness will arise, and the mind, fatigued by its 
 tension, will long to be unbent. For of all the pur- 
 suits of human ingenuity, that of mathematics de- 
 mands the intensest application. It is related of 
 one well known in the records of science, that after 
 the exhaustion of some minute astronomical experi- 
 ments, he has been driven to count the drops of 
 rain at the window, or watch the race of two flies 
 along the glass, in order that by an utter repose 
 of thought the intellect might recover its elasticity. 
 These remarks bear chiefly on those in whom 
 mathematics may be regarded as a profession ; 
 Professor Sedgwick, however, makes no such re- 
 striction ; but gives to it an universal application. 
 But the most ardent admirer of mechanical problems 
 will tire at last ; he cannot always be calculating 
 the resistance of our feet to the ground, or the 
 rapidity of descent down an inclined plane, or the 
 momentum of a bullet passing through a sheet of 
 paper. Every one knows, who knows anything of 
 the human mind, that as the subject, on which it 
 leans, declines in interest, vacuity and restlessness 
 of thought supervene ; and these enemies of intel- 
 lectual dignity are only to be repelled by a variety 
 of resources. These evil spirits are not to be laid 
 by a single tune.
 
 280 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDCiWICK 
 
 Having endeavoured to show that in this exclu- 
 sive application to mathematical learning, the end 
 is inadequate to the labour ; that a single element 
 of knowledge is erected into a system ; that its 
 influence upon the understanding depends upon 
 general cultivation, to which, by its very exclusive- 
 ness, this study is most unfavourable ; that, conse- 
 quently, in a large majority of cases, the intellectual 
 education, properly so called, remains to begin 
 after the termination of academical residence, — we 
 shall now make one or two very brief remarks upon 
 the influence of mathematics upon the health and 
 energies of the student ; and we shaU take for our 
 authority one whom the most ardent supporters of 
 the present system will not refuse to accept,— -one 
 who not only obtained the highest scientific honours 
 of the University, but who was throughout his life 
 remarkable for the masculine vigour, and the logical 
 acuteness of his faculties. We shall take Arch- 
 deacon Paley. " You may do anything with young 
 men," were his words to a friend at Carlisle, " by 
 encouragements, by prizes, by honours, and dis- 
 tinctions. See what is done at Cambridge. But 
 there the stimulus is too strong, two or three heads 
 are cracked by it every year. Some of them go 
 mad ; others are reduced to such a state of debility, 
 both of mind and body, that they are unfit for any- 
 thing during the rest of their lives. I always coun-
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 281 
 
 selled the admixture of the study of natural philo- 
 sophy, of classics and literature, and that University 
 honours should be accorded to all."" 
 
 We entreat the reader to pause upon this testi- 
 mony ; to weigh deliberately the terrible truths it 
 announces. For it relates not to a particular 
 period, nor arises out of a rare combination of 
 unfortunate circumstances ; it is more true of Cam- 
 bridge now, than it was then ; because the increase 
 of the University, by adding to the number of com- 
 petitors, has proportionably heightened the diffi- 
 culties of competition. If heads were cracked in 
 Paley's time, heads are cracked now ; if men were 
 reduced, in that day, to such a state of bodily and 
 mental debility as to unfit them for anything during 
 the remainder of their lives ; they are reduced so 
 still. For there is no axiom more infallibly certain 
 in geometry than that from like causes like results 
 will flow. Our object is not to indulge in decla- 
 mation, but temperately and respectfully to point 
 out the magnitude of the evil. It rests with those 
 who have the power to mitigate or remove it. 
 
 We pass on, in the next place, to notice two 
 instances of what may be called omission, namely, 
 the institution of a Classical and a Theological 
 Tripos, distinct from, and entirely unconnected 
 with, any other examination. It does appear a 
 hardship, and as such we have frequently heard it
 
 282 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 complained of, that while the path to mathematical 
 honours lies perfectly open and uninterrupted, the 
 candidate for classical distinction has to force his 
 way to the classical Tripos through the mathemati- 
 cal; and this seems an unfair restriction, both 
 directly and relatively : directly — because every 
 study, worthy of diligent cultivation, ought to rest 
 upon its own merits, and possess its own independent 
 rewards ; relatively — because the mathematical 
 student has no claim to so partial an exemption. 
 If the one is to be driven into this mental discipline 
 of his thoughts; the acquisition of thoughts to 
 discipline ought to be required Avith no less perti- 
 nacity from the other. Nor will it invalidate the 
 argument to adduce the very rare examples of men 
 who have carried off' the highest prizes in classics 
 and mathematics simultaneously. No rule is to be 
 overthrown by its exceptions. 
 
 The institution of a Theological Tripos may be 
 advocated upon higher grounds. A very great 
 proportion of the younger members of the University 
 are destined for the service of the Church, and to 
 this object of supreme importance it strikes the 
 reflecting mind that their studies should be princi- 
 pally directed. But strictly speaking, there is no 
 provision whatever for the peculiar instruction of 
 theological students; the College Lectures upon 
 the New Testament being addressed to the members
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 283 
 
 generally. We are aware that a certificate from the 
 Norrisian Professor, of an attendance upon twenty 
 lectures in one term, is required of every Divinity 
 Student; but the circumstance of there being no 
 preparatory examination destroys any beneficial 
 result from this regulation. It may be asked, how 
 is the future minister of the Gospel meanwhile em- 
 ploying himself ?, The answer is plain, — supposing 
 him to be a candidate for honours, he is necessarily 
 engaged in the prosecution of those studies which 
 promise to lead him to the goal. His energies are 
 therefore diverted into an entirely different channel. 
 It is emphatically true of mathematics, pursued 
 with reference to the Senate House, that they do not 
 admit of service to two masters. There may be 
 minds and constitutions of sufficient strength to 
 allow of other acquirements, but the union is very 
 seldom seen. Let it then be granted that the student 
 gains the object of his ambition, and establishes a 
 high character for scientific or classical talent ; for 
 they are both obnoxious, though in unequal degrees, 
 to the same objection. We say in unequal degrees, 
 because an intimacy with the models of Greek and 
 Roman eloquence and poetry, by familiarizing the 
 taste with elegance and beauty, may afford great as- 
 sistance to a clergyman in his office of instructor. 
 Granting then, we repeat, that so far his course has 
 been triumphant and honourable, — how does he
 
 284 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 stand witli reference to the sacred functions he is 
 about to take vipon him. 
 
 The average age at which a degree is ordinarily 
 obtained, varies from twenty-two or three to twenty- 
 four or five. In many cases ordination is applied for 
 within a year after the degree has been conferred ; 
 within which period none but an intellect of very 
 rare perseverance and power can possibly penetrate 
 many steps into theology ; of all studies demanding 
 the most patient and unwearied attention, if 
 approached in a becoming spirit. 
 
 The evils of this state of things are not hypo- 
 thetical. Many years have not elapsed, since an 
 indi\adual, distinguished in this University for his 
 extensive proficiency in mathematical knowledge, 
 was refused ordination, upon the ground of im- 
 perfect acquaintance with the great truths of his 
 religion. He referred, with pardonable confidence, 
 to his character at the University, and the degree 
 that had rewarded his exertions. " I do not doubt 
 your talents or your learning,'" was the reply of the 
 excellent Prelate to whom we allude ; " but your 
 duty in the church will be to preach Christ cruci- 
 fied, and with Him you appear to be very im- 
 perfectly acquainted."" We give the purport of 
 the observation without professing literal accuracy. 
 Now, it is morally impossible that such a circum- 
 stance as this could have occurred, had a Theo-
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 285 
 
 logical Tripos existed ; for the industry and 
 talent which reaped distinction from one study, 
 would have reaped it from another. This subject 
 has been urged upon the attention of the senate in 
 a recent pamphlet, and seems to call for earnest 
 and early attention ; that its effect upon the rising 
 ministry would be highly beneficial, cannot admit 
 of a question. .Every step taken in this study 
 would be a step to positive and future usefulness. 
 Every honour attained here would be permanent ; 
 the fame of a distinguished place in a Theolo- 
 gical Tripos, as testifying the extent of his re- 
 searches into sacred literature, would follow the 
 student to his parish. His academical residence 
 would then be only a season devoted to arming 
 himself for the battle; and the Soldier of the 
 Cross would issue forth, not having to forge his 
 weapons and construct his armoury, but prepared 
 for the combat, and furnished with the means of 
 victory. In such a course of study the energies 
 Avould be called into action ; for he would feel that 
 he was not cramming up a subject for a particular 
 occasion ; but fitting himself for a profession, at 
 once the noblest, and the most important into which 
 a candidate can be received. He would feel, in 
 short, while exploring the works of a hundred 
 illustrious Divines, that where his treasure is, there 
 his heart should be also.
 
 286 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDOWICK 
 
 In taking leave of the subject, we may express 
 our regret tliat Professor Seclgwick*'s excellent re- 
 marks upon Paley's Moral Philosophy, were not 
 extended to his Evidences. It has often struck 
 us very forcibly, that a new edition of that work, 
 prepared under the superintendence of the Uni- 
 versity, and embodying in a condensed form, other 
 facts, adduced by later writers, would be highly 
 advantageous to the cause of sound religion. No 
 person can entertain a higher admiration of what 
 has been justly called, his homely strength and 
 clearness of style, and his unrivalled skill in stating 
 and following out his argument. In these qualities 
 he is unsurpassed by any modern theologians. 
 With so many rare recommendations, some imper- 
 fections are bound up. The chief of these, is the 
 absence of any chapter upon the divinity of our 
 Saviour ; the very corner-stone of the whole struc- 
 ture. When this omission was mentioned to 
 Paley, he is reported to have said, that it did not 
 fall within his plan to enter upon contested doc- 
 trines. Rut the answer, if genuine, is very illo- 
 gical ; for the entire book must be regarded as a 
 triumphant refutation of controverted doctrines — • 
 the miracles of our Saviour, his resurrection, his 
 prophetic declarations — are not these all disputed 
 points — and disputed too with all the bitterness of 
 polemical and deistical animosity. Yet Paley has
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 287 
 
 encountered them all. However, this portion of 
 the Evidences is wanting ; and I suppose no rea- 
 sonable doubt can be entertained respecting the 
 propriety of its addition. For, let it be remem- 
 bered, that upon this fact hangs the whole history 
 of our religion ; and in direct proportion to the 
 overwhelming importance of the argument, is the 
 necessity of its lucid statement. It will also have 
 occurred to every careful reader of the Evidences, 
 that in some places, the arguments are not so for- 
 cible as they might have been; contented with 
 driving the enemy upon his knee, he does not 
 always wrench the sword out of his hand. An 
 instance of this kind, though not the strongest that 
 might be selected, is met with in the examination 
 of Vespasian's cures of two men at Alexandria, as 
 narrated by Tacitus. What he does say, is said 
 admirably; but he might have said more. At this 
 time, Vespasian was watching at Alexandria for 
 the overthrow of the power of Vitellius, to seize at 
 once upon the empire. At such a juncture, there- 
 fore, it was particularly desirable to increase in 
 every way his reputation and influence ; and there 
 was no method by which the favour and a certain 
 inclination of the gods towards him *, could be so 
 
 * Per eos menses, quibus Vespasianus Alexandria3 states 
 sestivis flatibus dies, et certa maris opperiebatur, multa mira- 
 cula evenere, qiiis coeli favor, et quaedam in Vespasianum 
 inclinatio numinum ostenderetur. — Hisioriarum, lib. iv., c. 81.
 
 288 A WORD WITH PROFESSOR SEDGWICK 
 
 signally displayed, as by the working of miracles, 
 among a people whom the historian describes as 
 given before all others to superstition. 
 
 And in the following chapter, Tacitus confirms 
 the deception by the subsecjuent conduct of Vespa- 
 sian. Hence, he says, referring to his alleged 
 cures, Vespasian was actuated by a stronger desire 
 to enter the sacred place, (the temple of Serapis,) 
 that he might consult the Deity upon the affairs 
 of the empire. Having ordered all persons to be 
 driven away from the temple, he entered alone, 
 and after paying his devotions to the God, on 
 looking behind him, he saw one of the chief men 
 among the Egyptians, by name Basilides, who was 
 known to be confined by sickness, at a place many 
 days' journey from Alexandria. He inquires of 
 the priests whether they had seen this person enter 
 the temple ; and of others, if they had met him 
 in the streets. At length, he discovers, that at the 
 moment of his appearance, he was eighty miles off. 
 Then he interpreted it to be a divine vision, and 
 from the name of the man, (Basilides, from Sac-iXsy?,) 
 drew an augury of the success of his enterprise*. 
 
 • Altior inde Vespasiano cupido adeundi sacram sedem, ut 
 super rebus imperii cons\ileret. "Arceri templo cunctos" jubet : 
 atque ingressus intentusque numini, respexit pone tergum 
 e primoribus jEgyptiorum nomine Basilidem : quern proeul 
 Alexandria plurium dierum itinere, et segro corpore detineri
 
 ON THE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 289 
 
 liaud ignorabat. Percunctatur Sacerdotes; num illo die 
 Basilides templuni inisset. Percunctatxir obvios mim in iiibe 
 visus sit ? Denique missis equitibus, explorat, illo temporis 
 momento octoginta millibus passuum abfuisse. Tunc divinam 
 speciein, et vim responsi ex nomine Basilidis interpretatus est. 
 — Historiarum, lib. iv., c. 82. See also Keith on the Pro- 
 phecies, and Qxiarterly Review, No. CV.
 
 290 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 19. — The character of Bolinghroke is, it will 
 be seen, somewhat exaggerated. 
 
 Page 35. — Dr. Southey, whose admiration of Sydney 
 is well known, thus writes concerning him to Sir 
 Egerton Brydges : — 
 
 " From very early boyhood, when I first read the 
 Arcadia in ]\lrs. Stanley's modernization of it, Sydney 
 took possession of my imagination. Not that I liked 
 the book the better just in proportion as she had 
 worsened it ; for his own language would have pre- 
 sented nothing strange or difficult to me, who had read 
 Shakspeare, and Beaumont and Fletcher, as soon as I 
 could understand enough of them to follow the story 
 of their plays : but she had thro%vn away the pastoral 
 parts and the miserable pieces of metre with which 
 those parts are encumbered, and therefore I had 
 nothing to interrupt my enjoyment of the romance. 
 Spenser afterwards increased my veneration for Sydney ; 
 and Penshurst, when I first saAV it (in 1791), was the 
 holiest ground I had ever visited. 
 
 " Forty years have not abated my love and veneration 
 for Sydney. I do not remember any character more 
 nearly without reproach. His prose is full of poetry,
 
 NOTES. 291 
 
 and there are very fine passages among his poems — 
 distinguishing them from his metres in which there is 
 scarcely a redeeming line, thought, or expression." 
 
 Has the Laureate given up his intended memoir of 
 Sydney ? 
 
 Page 57. — The words of Erasmus are: — Extruxit 
 ad Flumen Thamysin haud procul ab urbe Londino, 
 praetorium nee sordidum, nee ad invidiam usque mag- 
 nificum, commodum tamen ; illic agit cum intimo 
 sodalitio, uxore filio et nuru, tribus filiabus, et totidem 
 generis, una cum nepotibus jam undecim, &c. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey, whose penetration, at least, has 
 never been questioned, is reported to have declared 
 that there was no person so fit to succeed him as Sir 
 Thomas More. 
 
 Page 126. — See some articles on the Orientalisms of 
 the Greek writers in the Asiatic Journal. 
 
 Page 164. — " In the days of Chaucer and Gower," 
 says Coleridge, " our language might be compared to a 
 wilderness of vocal reeds, from which the favourites 
 only of Pan or Apollo could construct even the rude 
 Syrinx ; and from this the constructors alone could 
 elicit strains of music." See also a passage upon 
 Chaucer's versification in the Table-Talk.
 
 292 xoTEs. 
 
 Pairc 198. — Let me add here three stanzas from this 
 delightful poem. Tlie first relates to the sanguine 
 hopes of youthful love. 
 
 Slie thinks of Eden-life, and no rougli wind, 
 In their pacific sea shall wi'inkles make : 
 
 That still her lowliness shall keej) him kind, 
 Her cares keep him asleep, her voice awake. 
 
 SHAME. 
 
 He taught them shame, the sudden sense of ill ^ 
 Shame, Nature's hasty Conscience, which forbids 
 
 Weak inclination ere it grow to will, 
 
 And stays rash will, before it grow to deeds. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Toss'd cymbals (which the sullen Jews admir'd) 
 Were figured here, with all of ancient choice 
 
 That joy did ere invent, or breath inspir'd, 
 Or flying fingers touch'd into a voice. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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